experience matters

Chris Wells | Critical Mass Chicago

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Consumers have a myriad of choices in today’s rapidly changing digital environment.  As a result, digital marketers have to work harder to deliver extraordinary experiences that resonate with customers.  Why is this important?  Because it’s the extraordinary experiences we create for customers that allow us to build lasting and meaningful relationships with them.

In order to meet this challenge, it can be a worthwhile exercise to take stock of the terrific brand experiences we’ve recently encountered. To gain some outside perspective on capturing customer loyalty in the new digital social age, I asked a few friends to share their recent experiences with brands.

One friend recounted a recent direct mail piece he received from Southwest airlines and how it produced a significant and lasting positive brand effect for him.   He explained that after coming home from a long workday, he opened his mailbox to find a birthday card from Southwest.  It was personalized with his name and arrived a few days before his actual birthday.  It was a simple birthday card that included a discount on an upcoming flight and a drink coupon.  The message was also very simple and direct and included a statement to the effect of “Happy Birthday!  Have a drink on us!” According to my friend, this simple gesture went a long way towards building a lasting relationship between he and the airline.  Now he always checks for flights on Southwest before any other carrier.

Upon asking another friend, she recalled a recent experience with ProFlowers, an online flower delivery company.  She received an email reminder about 2-weeks before her mother’s birthday.  The subject line of the email was personalized with her mother’s name, saying, “Remember, Evelyn’s birthday is coming up soon!”  Again, not a very complicated message, but a valuable one that made an impact with my friend and helped to ensure she’ll always think of ProFlowers each time she orders flowers for her mom’s—or anyone else’s–birthday.

Both of these are examples of simple but great customer experiences.  The mere fact that my friends were able to remember the messaging, timing and impact of these interactions suggests they are the kind of brand experiences most marketers strive to achieve with their customers.

What do these two customer experiences have in common?

• They delivered VALUE and/or convenience.
• They were RELEVANT.
• They were PERSONAL.

We could all take these insights as lessons learned and call it a day.  However, as digital marketers we are continuously challenged with how to take these kinds of customer experiences from “great” to “extraordinary” in order to build deeper customer relationships and brand loyalty. Forrester Research wholeheartedly supports this notion.  Their 2010 Customer Experience Index indicated that favorable customer experience correlates highly to loyalty — especially when it comes to consumers’ plans for making additional purchases.

How do we do this?  The answer requires us to take full advantage of the power of digital in an ever-changing multichannel environment.   We now have more opportunities than ever to make these customer touch points even stronger. Here are a few ideas for the aforementioned examples.

Southwest has built its brand on being a friendly airline that strives to surprise and delight customers both on and off the aircraft.   Visitors to the Southwest website are invited to join the Southwest community, read the Southwest blog, view a video of an actual Southwest aircraft being prepped for a flight, and of course, book a flight.   With extraordinary customer experience such a big part of Southwest’s brand proposition, website visitors are invited to read about great customer experiences like the one below:

Pulling this mentality into my friend’s Southwest birthday card experience, how could digital have made his experience even more impactful and extraordinary?  What if his birthday card also included a simple call to action inviting him to login at the Southwest website on his actual birthday to claim a special one-day only offer–just for him?  The offer could be based on his most frequent routes and include a hotel or car rental discount for his next trip.  Perhaps the card could have also included an invite to join a social conversation with other customers who share the same birthday to share where and how they spent their special day?  Could these simple digital extensions have created an even more profound impact on my friend? Chances are, the heightened personalization and augmented value proposition would make an impression.

In the ProFlowers example, my friend received value in the form of an important reminder and time savings.   The reminder service available on the ProFlowers website affords customers the convenience of never missing an important floral occasion, and goes a step further by offering a free vase with each order.  But what if additional digital channels were used to enhance her ProFlowers brand experience to really make it extraordinary?  Would a mobile alert sent to my friend’s phone to confirm that her mom received the flowers make her experience even better?  How about if she had an opportunity to pay an extra fee to receive a picture taken by the flower delivery person showing her mom’s delight at receiving the flowers and have it sent directly to her email inbox? This takes advantage of the emotional connection tied to the occasions for which we send flowers and provides the distinct advantage the sender never has: the equally emotional reaction of their loved one.

Each friend’s experience is just a simple brand interaction.  Each story provides an example of fostering customer loyalty by providing relevant and useful messages to the right person at just the right time. While creating extraordinary customer experiences can require some additional effort for marketers, they not only meet, but exceeded expectations, leading to relationships with their customers. They made it relevant.  They made it personal. They made it valuable.  Now it’s up to us to use our digital expertise to make the extraordinary customer experience even better!

Chris Wells is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Specialist in our Chicago office working on a myriad of accounts.