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The Little Things About Customer Experience

Fred · March 20, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Yesterday I flew to Las Vegas to attend the Adobe Summit conference. The last two years I’ve flown out early so I could go golfing with my Father-in-Law who lives out there before the conference starts and I’m heads down in work related activities. This year, my FIL wanted to take me to a place that required me to bring my clubs. Like all flights with oversized luggage, you hope nothing gets lost. Unfortunately, for me, my clubs didn’t make with me on my Southwest flight. I was leaving straight from the airport in Vegas to go play golf so you can imagine I was a little upset that my clubs were nowhere to be found, only to think about all the things I’d need to pay extra now (club rentals, balls, glove, shoes, etc). After confirming there was no more luggage coming out of the carousel I headed to file a claim. Here is where Southwest exceeded my expectations.

First, they said, we apologize for the inconvenience. Likely TSA held up the clubs as they open all of them for security purposes. OK, I can understand that. Then they told me they would pay for my rentals, two sleeves of balls, and $50 toward shoe rental/purchase. Just bring the receipts back on my way home and they would take care of it. Friendly, courteous and made what I thought was going to be a disappointing day. I came out early just to play golf. Additionally, if/when my clubs did arrive, they were going to deliver them to my hotel. While I was on the golf course, sure enough I got a phone call and email that my clubs arrived and they were taking them to my hotel.

Overall, Southwest made the experience better than it could have and exceeded my expectations. And I shared a little #LUV on Twitter.

Hey @SouthwestAir thanks for the help today with my lost clubs. Appreciate all you did for me. I got them at my hotel as promised. #luv

— Fred Faulkner IV (@FredFaulknerIV) March 20, 2017

Here is a shot of where I played just outside Vegas. @SouthwestAir pic.twitter.com/K7qFCWqdCc

— Fred Faulkner IV (@FredFaulknerIV) March 20, 2017

@FredFaulknerIV Phew! Glad we could reunite you with your clubs. Thanks for hanging with us and hope your trip is a hole-in-one. ^SL

— Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) March 20, 2017

We all have choices to make when it comes to customer experience. How do we react to a situation? What can your team members do to fix a problem on their own? Southwest has set another example of not only rectifying a situation, which wasn’t even in their control, and made right by the lost clubs. I’m sure this happens all the time and the allowances given me are standard for them. But, it just made me feel like I could enjoy my day after being annoyed my clubs didn’t arrive with em. Additionally, even though I’m sure whoever was manning the Twitter account didn’t look up my incident report, still took the time to respond. Just adding to the continuity of the experience.

The Future of Marketing Isn’t the Next Shiny Object

Fred · March 14, 2017 · Leave a Comment

The iPhone and iPad. Facebook. Twitter. SnapChat. Artificial Intelligence. Machine Learning. Chatbots. What all of these devices, sites and technologies have in common is that they were all dubbed “the next big thing.” They were going to revolutionize how we communicate, engage, interact, learn, personalize, etc. And to be frank, they have all done that and more. Each with their own successes in their own ways. For marketers, we continue to get a plethora of tools in our tool belt to connect with existing and potential customers. It seems like every year we start to hear about “the next big thing” that is going to give marketers an edge, revenue to go higher, and champagne to be popped. The reality is that the future of marketing isn’t the next shiny object or technology.

Technology is a Tool, Not a Means to an End

Marketing has advanced more in the last 5 years than the last 50. It’s a simple statement, but true. What used to be the yellow pages and 3 main television networks has become the Internet, mobile phones, streaming TV (yeah, cable is dead) and digital signage. Technology advancements have given marketers the ability to understand, connect, and communicate with customers in more ways than ever before.

Yet, technology will still advance and we are going to see a crazy future of augmented reality, virtual reality, bio-technology, 3D printing and more that is going to allow us to create amazing experiences. Personal experiences. Utilitarian experiences. It will be here faster than we think. And in some ways, it already is. It will be exciting and also really scary.

Reminding Ourselves of the Basics

Which leads me to one of my points about the marketings future. I still argue that we get caught up in the tech and forget about the fundamentals. Where marketing used to be about push, blast and bombard people with advertising and messaging, today we have to be smarter. We have to build relationships. We have to be ready to engage when the customer and prospect wants to engage with us. Everyone says it, but it is worth repeating. We are not in control anymore.

So we have to be smarter. Smarter about:

the data we collect and how we use it
the profiles and personas we build
the relationships we need to establish, build, and nurture
the messages we send and the content we create

We need to constantly remind ourselves that without a solid foundation of trust a consumer or customer will go somewhere else. If we don’t deliver messaging that is rooted in empathy, personalized with informed data, and not “creepy” to overstate what you know, it will not resonate. If we don’t deliver value in the time and place of need, they will get it from someone else.

Building Great Experiences

We need to use technology, data, and the power of messaging, empathy, and value to drive the next generation of marketing. It’s not ads. It’s not apps. It’s not video. It will be a brand who can put together a value proposition that communicates and demonstratesthat they understand their customer through the use of technology. It will be multi-channel, omni-channel, and in realtime. It will be non-invasive. It will be not one singular shiny object, but the right mix based on how individuals want to connect with that brand. It will combine digital and physical experiences that are in sync. We are closer than we think. Companies like Marriott and MGM Resorts, where experience is fundamental to their business.

There Will Be Another Shiny Object

Undoubtedly, there will be another shiny object. It will be the next version of Google Glass which is sexier built into glasses. Or a super-powered contact that gives us Heads Up Display in an always on mode. We will find the next technology that will distract us and every marketer will want to find the way to monetize it. And we will. We will find a way. We always do. We need to experiment. Fail fast. Find what works and blend it into our strategies. We just need to remember that we should be adding it to our tool belt, not using it independently because it is “the next big thing.” The future of marketing will be rooted in the basics: Trust, Relationships, Empathy, and Value. Not technology for the sake of technology.

Google Should Have Put Assistant into Messenger, Not Allo

Fred · February 8, 2017 · Leave a Comment

Last year Google released a pair of apps called Allo and Duo to address the messaging and video calling market. Many bemoaned yet another set of apps from Google instead of updating existing ones. With competition from Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp (also owned by Facebook), and iMessage by Apple, why did Google need yet another app. History of Google Hangouts and even their own Messenger app were not great. The special sauce in Allo that wasn’t in any of their other apps was their new digital assistant called Google Assistant.

Challenges with Conversion from Other Apps

Even with over 10M downloads of Allo as of December 2016, adoption has been a challenge. The first 5M of those was in the first five days. The second 5M was in the following months. The biggest issue is that if you want to really take advantage of it you need to have both parties using it. Even if it is on iOS and Android. When Allo first came out, I wondered how I would adopt it from using Google Hangouts for work and just plain Messenger for my phone. Because even if I used Allo as my primary messaging app, my recipients of messages would see my phone as some odd combination of letters and numbers as my “identity” to them. Let’s also just consider that older generations were not going to install a new app on their phone. Younger generation was and is still into WhatsApp and SnapChat. So we had non-starters right from the get go.

Missed Opportunity – Should Have Updated Messenger

So why didn’t Google just update Messenger, their default messaging app, to include Google Assistant? I don’t know. Maybe they needed/wanted a clean slate from a new codebase. Maybe there was some shared infrastructure between Allo and Duo. Regardless of the reason, it is a missed opportunity to update an existing app that had a large install base vs. requiring a new install. While Facebook had some success with this by pulling Facebook Messenger out of the native Facebook App, they had wide adoption of using the feature already. I know I held out downloading FB Messenger as a separate app. Now that I have it, I only use it occasionally. However, on a recent log in to communicate with a friend, a new Chatbot feature, “M” showed up and introduced itself to me. And here is where things get interesting.

ChatBots in Messaging Apps

So I’m a fan of Google Assistant which is essentially a chatbot. Especially since I have a Google Home already and I interact with Google Assistant every day at home. It is not a native application yet on my MotoX Pure Edition. You can only get Google Assistant on Pixel phones (soon to be others). Regardless of how Google is going about rolling out Google Assistant, Facebook just updated an existing app that is installed on millions of devices. Siri is already in all iPhones. Cortana…well yeah, it’s around. But Samsung is now introducing a digital assistant into their Galaxy phones with the Galaxy S8. The point is this, whether you call it a digital assistant or a chatbot, they are coming and they are going to be the “new” thing for consumers.

Google, you’ve missed an opportunity. I hope you can get it figured out. Maybe you need the premium hardware of the newer phones to get Google Assistant more widely adopted. Allo was a nice try, but it was dead out of the water by limiting its features. You would have been better off updating an existing installed app to bring new features than making users download yet another app. Here’s to hoping that the best part of Allo, Google Assistant, makes a bigger impact soon.

The Foundation of any Relationship Starts with Trust

Fred · February 5, 2017 · Leave a Comment

It starts with your first encounter and within the first few seconds you begin to assess whether you can trust one another. If a level of trust can’t be established early on in a relationship, the relationship falls apart. Or maybe it never gets started. This is true with brands to consumers, people to people, and organizations to employees.

As a marketer today in our digitally connected world, trust has taken on new meaning. The ways I can collect, obtain, or purchase information about an individual and use that information to build a profile is pretty staggering. Take that further and that’s how marketers are determining what messages you see, how you are communicated to, and how we personalize content. It is pretty astonishing and only getting more powerful every day as technologies are connecting together, and as organizations get more savvy. As Uncle Ben from Spider-Man said to Peter Parker, with great power comes great responsibility.

It is with that responsibility where I think some marketers, and organizations, have started to fall down. We’ve had trust issues with keeping data secure. Take any day of the week and you will see some report about a security breach and data about customers is stolen. Hello Yahoo!, Centene, and even the Dept of Homeland Security. We’ve had trust issues with just the blatant marketing messaging in email such as “we noticed you haven’t completed XXX process.” While one might construe as a “convenience” message, we can do better with context. There is even the ridiculous retargeting happening. I’d even go as far as the creepiest when I am viewing something on the web and now I’m seeing ads in my apps on my phone. As a marketer, I know exactly how this happens. For the everyday consumer…it can be frightening. I can’t tell you how many times when I’m in social settings and someone will ask me how some of this works because it freaks them out.

Let’s Go Back to the Basics & Stop Being Creepy

So what are we to do. Well, first I think we all need a reminder in permission based marketing. Almost two decades old, in my opinion, every marketer needs to read, or re-read Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers. It all starts with trust and what permission do we have to communicate, act, and engage with customers. So going back to my opening statements, in today’s digitally connected world, you are seconds away from a great (or horrible) first impression and when a consumer feels like a brand, marketer, or organization is messing with their data to go into “creepy” mode, they can delete an app, never visit a site again, and give you a bad review instantly online. Digital customers are now the most fickle customers and they are not afraid to switch.

We Marketers Need to Be Better

Now, there are challenges for us marketers as well. We have pressures to convert prospects to leads to customers. And fast. That timeline varies depending on the industry you are in. However, for many of us, we live quarter to quarter with Wall Street driving expectations. However, relationships aren’t built on a specific timeline. Some take longer than others. If you push the relationship too fast, trust becomes a center point of contention. So as marketers, we have to be smart, understand our customers, and nurture our relationships wisely. With the power of machine learning and artificial intelligence, we can be more savvy about how we do this. So there is promise. Certainly there are brands who are doing this well. There are a whole bunch who aren’t though. So let’s go back to the basics. Remember that the customer is in control and we need to build the trust, the permission to talk and engage with them. Not the other way around. If it’s been a while, pick up a copy and re-read it. It won’t take you long. Otherwise, you might end up misusing the power that you have and lose that customer forever.