Believers, not consumers: the power of shared commitment
Brands are beginning to understand that the customer experience is not what they say, it’s what they do.
Brands begin to assume that they will never have a price advantage, the product can be easily replicated, astrong customer service culturecannot be copied.
Differentiating the customer offering, from your teams, with a focus on experience will provide a considerable increase in ROI.
Brands live in times when everything has changed on the surface, but the essence remains the same. The shortest distance between a brand and a person is a smile.
Brand experience is not a science, it’s a culture.
Steve Jobs said: “Our DNA is that of a consumer company, we are built for a customer who knows right from wrong. I think it’s our job tobe responsible for the totality of the user experience. And if it doesn’t meet their expectations, it’s entirely our fault, simple as that.”
Designing an experience is not easy, but a good start is that it conveys the essence of the brand. Design is not just about what it looks like or how it works Design is how it makes you feel.
One of our objectives as a brand is not only to offer the best customer experience, but to make it unforgettable, in the best sense of the word.
Positive experience will become more and more relevant and strategic. The customer will forget almost everything except how you have made them feel. That is why the Customer Experience (CX) is becoming increasingly important.
The Customer Experience is the sum of all the experiences a customer has with a brand, over the duration of the relationship.
The customer should be placed at the centre of business initiatives and decisions (hence it can be taken as a synonym for Customer Centric).
Rationally emotional.
There is a lot of research showing that human beings are not as logical as we would like to think.
We see ourselves as rational decision-makers, but that is only because we are not even aware of how emotion drives our behaviour.
Consumers need to receive stimuli that are capable of eluding that drawer of oblivion and irrelevance that many brands generate, and for this the concept of brand experience acquires capital importance inthis increasingly digital and virtual life.
The need to reinvent the experience, to recapture the great potential of improving customer interaction, is key.
The brands that will thrive in the next decade will be those that reimagine and redefine their spaces and experiences for the Digital Age.
Retailers have a huge opportunity to take advantage of the manydiscover, know, understand, connect, build loyalty, and sell benefits of this new era.
The winning brands of the future will be those that are able to transport the digital world into their shops in a way that gives customers the ability to continue to enjoy what is intangible through screens. And vice versa.
We are six senses, the sixth is technology.
The shopping experience at Apple or Lego or Lush is extraordinary. So is staying at a Four Seasons, flying on Emirates or visiting a Smithsonian Museum.
The senses affect us throughout our lives, our memory stores each of our experiences.
The shopping experience is even more: it is a smile, it is excellence in service, it is relationship and empathy, it is helping the customer to easily find what they are looking for, it is connecting emotionally, it is being remembered, it is generating the desire for the customer to want to come back…
This builds loyalty and generates brand value. This is how large, successful brands have understood it, and the results confirm their commitment to differentiation and excellence.
Sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell and our smartphone are powerful receptors of stimuli capable of turning the relationship between brand and customer, in all its dimensions, into a memorable experience.
The senses are once again being taken into consideration. The brands that have made the greatest commitment to connecting with the senses are those that are making the most of the Digital Age.
Everything is digitised or automated. Except for one thing.
The world has changed, but human senses have not. Emotion: the only human ability that cannot be automated or digitised.
When with the TOTEM Branding team we help to design, integrate and implement the “customer experience” of a unified vision of the clients’ own initiatives we always recommend to start from the inside out.
Before creating and communicating the brand to the outside world, it is recommended that the brand be assimilated from the inside to live it at all points of contact with other people and thus bring the values to life.< /b>Whether your company is large or small, it is impossible to offer good customer service if your employees do not feel and live the experience and are not motivated and excited to go to work.
Customer centrism.
Customer-focused brands reduce their abandonment rate by 45%.
Consistency between the promise and the actual experience can double brand preference, according to data provided by Kantar’s Insights division in “Emotions, the (secret) multiplier of Brand Engagement”, shared by Mercados Magazine.
We still see a big gap between expectations and the reality that consumers experience in their interactions with brands.
Emotions have been shown to have a major impact on variables such as Brand Preference and Recommendation, key drivers of business growth.
Low levels of enchantment are caused by the gap between what consumers expect from brands and the experiences they actually have.
Adding value, strengthening the relationship with consumers, competing in the marketplace by addressing their needs, pays off; above average performance in brand experience and customer delight reduces churn even in the face of negative experiences.
On average, a loyal customer is worth 10 times what they spend on their first purchase.
And one happy customer with the experience at least references 9 more potential customers.
Across all sectors, the costs of acquiring new customers are high, much higher than the costs of retaining existing ones, so the lack of customer care and the absence of positive experiences continue to have a very negative impact on businesses.
Businesses need to rely on both people and technology, democratising information and empowering consumers and employees, to drive change towards a Customer Centric culture.
A customer is the most important visitor to your commercial, cultural, leisure or entertainment space. The customer does not depend on your brand, except on very specific occasions. Brands depend on them.
It is the reason for the existence of your shop. It is an essential part of your life. You are not doing him a favour by serving him and serving him. He is doing you a favour by giving you the opportunity to do so.
There are more and more proposals, more offers and more brands. That the customer offers you his time, his attention, his affection and his money is more valuable than you imagine.
The customer is not always fair. Just as he rewards, he punishes, just as he recognises, he forgets. Just as it loves you, it can hate you, or even ignore you.
Listen, understand, act.
What difference does it make to have the coolest space and location if it lacks content and experience? The 21st century customer knows what they don’t want before they know what they want.
The best sources of leads are your existing customers, the people who have experienced your brand.
Naturally, the work you do with your clients should involve two-way trust, understanding, mutual understanding. And then transforming all this into action.
Of course, the work of discovery and knowledge involves a lot of rational analysis, numerical work and understanding of processes. But trust and loyalty come from that personal emotional stuff.
Most trust is built up in staggered functions, in important moments, in our instantaneous reactions to what someone says or how they behave.
Time-based trust has been built through many small and large actions, discussions and promises kept.
Customer satisfaction leads to trust and loyalty.
The online revolution shook up the offline world.
The e-commerce revolution and the rise of new digital technologies are radically transforming consumer expectations and changing the role of shops towards more useful, sensory and entertaining experiences.
Using new technologies to plan, coordinate and measure our marketing actions, replacing manual tasks with automated processes that self-adjust based on learning from users’ use of our communications or digital assets is a good thing.
Welcome to digital tools.
The fact is that approximately 90% of retail sales are still made through physical shops and around 10% through e-commerce. And while the latter will continue to grow, the physical will remain key.
But let’s not forget that brands that are on without off, or are off without in, are out. It’s online plus offline.
It is the technology that adds to the relationship with the customer, to getting to know them, pampering them, embracing them, smiling at them, making them feel important, relevant.
Taking care of your time, valuing it, thanking you, is as human as saying good morning.
Let’s go back to the beginning, to the origin, to the human.
All customers are people. All employees are people. If you can’t understand people, you can’t do business.
Brands have the best-case scenario in their favour – customers expect better and better service, but few brands are willing to give it. This is the opportunity to stand out for those that understand the opportunities that lie ahead of them.
Although technology is a blessing to optimise and improve processes, the quality of the experience depends to a large extent on the quality of your staff. On your team, on the human.
The quality of the experience customers have with employees is what invites them to choose you again and again.
The formula is simple: if your employees love your brand, they will love your customers. And vice versa.
Humanising the experience.
The concept of shopping experience does not only affect the “traditional” retail system, the one with a physical space where the consumer goes. It applies to the entire omnichannel ecosystem.
From shopping centres to city centre shops, from airports to train stations, from museums to galleries, from cafés to trendy restaurants and bars, from the supermarket to the traditional market.
Several studies corroborate that emotions are an essential element of the consumer experience that brands must address in order to establish meaningful connections.
Consumer emotions have a significant impact on consumer behaviour.
Most consumers may still think that their decisions are made on the basis of reason, but very often these are powerfully influenced by subconscious emotional factors that they ignore.
Emotions have a big impact on how consumers perceive their interactions with brands.
Brands can establish lasting connections with consumers by using experiences to create positive emotions.
Everything affects our experience and vice versa.
But to forget that the physical space is still king would be a mistake of disastrous proportions. The majority of retail sales still take place within the four walls of a shop, as new channels emerge and the user experience evolves to multi-channel and omnichannel.
Web3, which in a couple of decades will become the channel par excellence for commercial relations, is rapidly assimilating this concept.
The customer feels more and more comfortable making a purchase. They are attracted not only by the price, convenience, speed, wide choice…
You will also enjoy the visual spectacle of the website or app you are using, you will be increasingly satisfied with the level of information you receive in the process, and the possibilities for interaction and sharing of experiences with other shoppers will also increase.
The challenge is clear: does your brand dare to connect authentically and honestly with the customer’s emotions? Offering excellent customer service, seeking 100% customer satisfaction, interacting in a way that is consistent with the brand’s values and principles must be essential pillars.
The majority of customers say that excellent customer service influenced their purchase decision.
It is about rethinking the experience within the space, about converting into positive feelings what until now has been routine. To give the customer those little moments of happiness.
In the consumer’s life everything passes, experiences remain. How you make the customer feel is your brand. . And a great brand is a great promise kept.
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