Touchpoint Insights, November 2010: Improving Brand, Customer Influence

Insights and Influence in 140 Characters or Less...

Though in the heat of holiday revelry, it looks like we’re in for a game-changing 2011 – and our Twitter followers have been thinking (and reading) about it for most of November. From new lessons on customer experience to game-changing technological breakthroughs, it’s time for companies interested in shifting their customer experience to get moving – and do so quickly.

We’re willing to bet that a combination of disruptive innovation and renewed focus on employees and business impact will be dominating the customer experience conversation in the months ahead.

In the meantime, we wish the happiest of holidays to you. Read your fill, and may your cup of wisdom, health, happiness and prosperity spill over...

1.) Bad things happen when you assume people don’t matter. http://ow.ly/3c1sv
Or rather, great things can happen if you can perform as if every person matters. If you do nothing else with today’s newsletter, read this post. It rolls the conversation of customer influence, customer care and tiered service levels into a comprehensive package with the “dirty, operationally intense work” that holds it all together in the real world. (Tweet Score: 172)

2.) Reading: "The 6th Law of Customer Experience" http://ow.ly/35gqh
At MCorp Consulting, we like to replace “Customer” with “Audience” to ensure employees (and others) don’t get short shrift when it comes to brand outreach, brand education, and frankly, marketing. A great segue from post #1, this continues the message that you can’t tout customer centricity without your internal teams on board and fully supported. (Tweet Score: 78)

3.) "Kinect is the starting gun in a race to transform customer experience across all industries." http://ow.ly/3bqfc
Is big brother watching? Well he’s certainly got the means, and we’re the ones installing him right in our living-rooms. I’ve been wondering how the new Kinect Xbox 360 worked…you know the one they’ve been pimping on pre-Christmas TV (Wii is so 2009), where the kids dance and sing without any sensors or controls? It would just be creepy if it wasn’t so damn cool. That’s game-changing technology for ya. (Tweet Score: 63)

4.) Activia does more than regulate your digestive health. It also demonstrates some effective #branding lessons. http://ow.ly/3c1FO
If you thought bifidus was a disease, then you haven’t read enough yogurt labels. (Don’t ask.) It’s in pretty much every natural, live culture brand of yogurt out there, and yet only one company has managed to parlay that into millions…of customers, dollars and little green tubs sold. Danon built a brand based on a single message, and supports it with every fiber (heh) of its being. Not something every product and service can do, but I guarantee their laser focus could be a lesson to us all. (Tweet Score: 61)

5.) Do your business goals accurately reflect your desire to provide a remarkable customer experience? http://ow.ly/37zzk
Hey guess what? Change really does start on the inside. Love this list of Customer Experience leaders and laggards…notice culture, work environment and delight, in particular. I know; we’re beginning to sound like a broken record. (Tweet Score: 52)

6.) If you want your employees to take care of your customers, you have to let them. http://ow.ly/34o9a
Tina Turner may have sung “We don’t need another hero” back in the day when Mel Gibson was Mad Max rather than just…well, mad…but in today’s social-communication-driven world, HEROs (Highly Empowered and Resourceful Operatives, as coined by Josh Bernoff) are once again welcomed. And who might these brave folks who have the ability to help and influence your valued customers be? Why the lowly unsung employee, of course. (Tweet Score: 50)

7.) You do have a customer experience (even if you don't know it or refuse to acknowledge it). http://ow.ly/37zH5
A lead-in article to what should be a good primer series on Customer Experience, for all you fence sitters who think: A) you need a Zappos-level commitment to customer services or why bother; B) CEX is just a flash-in-the-pan trend of the moment that will soon pass; C). your product / low pricepoint / other makes you immune. Sure, some companies engage and support customers more strategically / daringly / with bigger budgets than others. But believe me when I say that even 100-year-old Cracker Jacks cares about the customer experience. (Oh wait, the originators of the in-package prize were CEX trailblazers! I wonder what Sailor Jack’s Twitter handle is…) (Tweet Score: 45)

8.) Do your employees know less about your products than your customers do? http://ow.ly/36Sm0
A line in this posting could sum up our whole year's worth of newsletters: "The rules of engagement have changed." Customer access to product information (prices, ratings, opinions) have blown the old ways of commerce off its hinges. So if you think the discussions around customer experience and employee empowerment are a trend, this piece may have you thinking again. I'm picturing "the funnel versus the internet" along the lines of "Bambi versus Godzilla." Rawhr. (Tweet Score: 43)

9.) Reading: "Herding Cats: Building customer partnerships, not customer loyalty." http://ow.ly/37zci
Reading an article on Customer Loyalty is how most people feel unwrapping a luscious chocolate bar. Even when they slam my use of “Customer Loyalty” in the first paragraph…I can take it. The point, the goal and the net-net are still the same: Build trust, build relationships, be human even as you’re harnessing technology, be fair, be precise. I may disagree on their dissection of IKEA’s mix of fright and delight (not that they do both well, just which part of the experience is which), but otherwise? Yeah. What he says. (Tweet Score: 42)

10.) Forrester's Harley Manning: The Business Impact of Customer Experience http://ow.ly/3ht2o
If money talks, then how might your CFO feel about a Forrester report that attaches improvements in customer experience to annual revenue projections? And better yet, to projections that are in the tens of Billions? If your marketing department isn’t getting heard, maybe this is the sort of ammunition you need. (Tweet Score: 29)