Smart Marketing. Customer Experience Insights Are Golden

Christine Olson MLS, MAS Chris Olson & Associates

October 9-10, 2011 Association of Library Communications & Outreach Professionals Inaugural Conference at Arcadia University, Glenside, PA

Explore

2

•  Relationship between brand experience and customer experience

•  Brand promise •  Brand touchpoints •  Customer experience, journeys, hassles •  Service industry brand snapshot & experience

Customer Experience

Response customers have to any direct or indirect contact with an organization

Direct contact: purchase, use, and service

–  usually initiated by the customer –  virtual, on-site interactions

Customer Experience

Indirect contact: unplanned encounters with representations of an organization’s products, services, or brands

–  word-of-mouth recommendations or criticisms, advertising, news reports, reviews

–  social media, networks, communities

Critical Brand Components

Brand Promise –  what a brand promises to do every day

for every customer

Brand Touchpoints –  every encounter and interaction

5

Brand Components in the Experience

Brand Promise

•  Builds expectations in the customer’s mind and begins to formulate the mental brand perception –  the promise is delivered and expectations are met –  the promise is not delivered and expectations

become something that is not the promise •  Promise needs to be unique, compelling and believable

6

Brand Promise: Some thoughts by Medical Librarians in 2006

•  Incredible customer service •  Fulfillment and satisfaction •  “...a nice bunch of people who

help me all the time” •  Proactive and value-added •  Highly personalized service •  The ability for our clients to do

their jobs, better •  For them to look good •  Problem solving

•  Great technology •  Deliver info when you need it, where

you need it, and in the format you want it

•  Helping clinicians make better decisions...

•  Really? These are not unique promises and miss the mark. Refine by asking “So what!?” Ask that question from the perspective of the customer until the essence of the promise is uncovered.

7

Only medical libraries and librarians Promise to Deliver:

Brand Components in the Experience

Brand Touchpoints

•  People, places, things... every interaction every encounter

•  Brand communication channels •  Brand promise “lives” •  Factors that help define the customer experience •  Opportunities for expectations to be recognized,

met & exceeded

8

9 http://touchpoint-management.com/brandtouchpoint.html

Touchpoint Examples

reference service & chat database interfaces professional meetings vendor interactions displays business cards/letterheads signage (internal & external) front desk/circulation electronic catalog web site(s) Google Maps/directional signs a/v & machinery rental/usage podcasts facilities

e-mail signature blocks phone answer training materials & sessions orientations & tours staff & professional meetings meeting rooms flyers/brochures/posters

Your library will have different and more touchpoints than listed here. Each touchpoint gives you the opportunity to establish your brand and reinforce your brand message. Don’t forget staff members. You are a touchpoint right this very minute.

10

Customer Insight Tools

11

•  customer journey maps

•  customer experience maps

•  customer hassle mapping

Customer Journey Map

•  Diagram that illustrates the steps customers take while engaging with an organization

•  All the touchpoints- single and combinations

•  Step into the customer’s shoes •  Start with awareness and go to the end •  Who, what, when, how every step of the way •  Insights not processes

http://servantselling.blogspot.com/2008/01/creating-your-own-customer-journey-map.html

Customer Experience Maps

Tracing the experience cycle –  steps people go through while building a

relationship with a product or service •  connecting (first impression) •  becoming oriented (understand what’s possible) •  interacting with the product (direct experience) •  extending perception or skill and use •  telling others (teaching or spreading ) customers

become advocates and introduce others to the product, beginning the cycle anew.

http://desonance.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/customer-experience-mapping/

http://www.highpointpubliclibrary.com/index.php?page=customersurvey

Gathering insights into the customer experience starts on the home page at this library.

@#*#! argh! Customer Hassle Maps

Identifies and defines all the actual steps that characterize the negative experience of a customer. –  hot spots (emotional and economic) –  irritations –  frustrations –  time wasted –  delays

•  fix and innovation opportunities

Hassles

•  Add up to outweigh the positives •  Plant negative brand perceptions and memories

1.  Collect feedback interviews: record the session (GotoMeeting)

2.  Build the hassle map (mind mapping software: Mindjet MindManager)

5.  Analyze and eleminate the hassle Don’t stop! Don’t let processes get in the way.

18

No need to be fancy, if you don’t want to be. A good white board and a pile of sticky notes works too! It’s best if the white board is electronic so you can capture your scribbles/notes in a computer file.

Insights •  Stepping into the customer’s shoes helps you to:

–  Align with needs and preferences of target audiences –  Define functional requirements and fix possible gaps –  Strengthen the brand for all stakeholders –  Establish accountability standards –  Move from library-centric to customer-centric –  Competitively position a library/LIS in its market –  Create what people love before they know they want it –  Boost ROI on marcom strategies and initiatives –  Understand customer loyalty drivers (and you want repeat customers!)

20

Hospitality Industry Example DESIGNESSENCE

I believe in looking at other service industries for ideas and examples of good marcom techniques and tools. The hospitality industry offers many examples for branding a service. It’s a highly competitive industry requiring all brands to differenciate themselves down to the smallest detail and to make a guest’s stay memorable so they will become loyal to the brand. Tracking the customer experience is taken very seriously and insights are key to keeping the brand relevant.

This document for the Hawthorn hotel brand by Wyndham provides insights into the Hawthorn brand and how Wyndham aims to convey the essence of the brand to customers. This document would be used to help introduce Hawthorn franchise owners, staff members, vendors, stakeholders and others to the brand and how to nurture the brand so that it successfully achieves its business goals. Notice how the customer experience is woven into the fabric of the brand story and the roles different brand touchpoints play in the customer journey.

I have excerpted pages from the document into this presentation. The complete file is available as a PDF in my Slideshare list. The file is called “WyndhamHawthorn BrandDesign Essence Jan 2011.pdf”

This is quite a promise! They aim to have their guests perceive and remember that staying at their hotel is more comfortable than their own bed and home.

A great example to apply to your library brand. Think it through.

This is an example of a useful visualization for libraries to adopt after performing a SWOT. Show your competitors and your position relative to them and the marketplace. And yes, Google, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon are competitors. Any library/information service/reading room etc. within a 30 mile radius is also a competitor if you’re basing your marketplace on geographic boundaries.

They’ve segmented the customer experience and the journey so brand touchpoints can be managed to contribute to the brand promise: The hotel is better than home.

Brand Experience: What Is It? How Is It Measured? Does It Affect Loyalty?

J. Josko Brakus, Bernd H. Schmitt, & Lia Zarantonello Journal of Marketing Vol. 73 (May 2009), 52–68

If you’re looking for serious reading on the topic, this article is very good.

Find it at: http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/whoswho/more.cfm?&uni=bhs1&pub=4243

52Journal of MarketingVol. 73 (May 2009), 52–68

© 2009, American Marketing AssociationISSN: 0022-2429 (print), 1547-7185 (electronic)

J. Jos̆ko Brakus, Bernd H. Schmitt, & Lia Zarantonello

Brand Experience:What Is It? How IsIt Measured? Does It Affect Loyalty?

Brand experience is conceptualized as sensations, feelings, cognitions, and behavioral responses evoked bybrand-related stimuli that are part of a brand’s design and identity, packaging, communications, and environments.The authors distinguish several experience dimensions and construct a brand experience scale that includes fourdimensions: sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral. In six studies, the authors show that the scale is reliable,valid, and distinct from other brand measures, including brand evaluations, brand involvement, brand attachment,customer delight, and brand personality. Moreover, brand experience affects consumer satisfaction and loyaltydirectly and indirectly through brand personality associations.

Keywords: experience marketing, brand experience, customer experience management, scale development,marketing communications

J. Jos̆ko Brakus is Assistant Professor of Marketing, William E. SimonGraduate School of Business Administration, University of Rochester(e-mail: brakus@simon.rochester.edu). Bernd H. Schmitt is Robert D.Calkins Professor of International Business, Columbia Business School,Columbia University (e-mail: bhs1@columbia.edu). Lia Zarantonello is apostdoctoral research fellow, Department of Management, Institute ofMarketing, Bocconi University (e-mail: lia.zarantonello@unibocconi.it).The authors contributed equally to the article and are listed in alphabeti-cal order.They thank Professor Kamel Jedidi for his help in data analyses.

How do consumers experience a brand? How is brandexperience measured? Does brand experience affectconsumer behavior? Many useful constructs and

measurements have been developed recently in the brandingliterature, including brand personality, brand community,brand trust, brand attachment, and brand love (Aaker 1997;Carroll and Ahuvia 2006; Delgado-Ballester, Munuera-Alemán, and Yagüe-Guillén 2003; McAlexander, Schouten,and Koenig 2002; Thomson, MacInnis, and Park 2005).However, a conceptualization and scale for measuringbrand experiences has not yet been developed. In addition,research has studied contexts in which specific product andservice experiences arise (Arnould, Price, and Zinkhan2002). However, research has largely ignored the exactnature and dimensional structure of brand experiences.

Notably, brand experience has attracted a lot of atten-tion in marketing practice. Marketing practitioners havecome to realize that understanding how consumers experi-ence brands is critical for developing marketing strategiesfor goods and services. Many trade writings have appearedthat present useful concepts as well as some ad hoc experi-ence measurements (Chattopadhyay and Laborie 2005; Pineand Gilmore 1999; Schmitt 1999, 2003; Shaw and Ivens2002; Smith and Wheeler 2002).

In this article, we present both a conceptual analysis ofbrand experience and a brand experience scale. As withother brand research, the development of a brand experi-ence scale must go hand-in-hand with conceptual develop-ment of the construct itself. We need to identify the under-lying dimensions of brand experience (analogous to the“Big Five” dimensions of brand personality or the dimen-sions of affection, connection, and passion that make up

brand attachment) and develop a scale that can measure thestrength with which a brand evokes each experience dimen-sion. However, the experience construct is not as clearlyassociated with one particular basic discipline (e.g., psy-chology) as other brand constructs are. For example, brandpersonality and brand attachment have been defined on thebasis of equivalent concepts in personality and develop-mental psychology; as a result, the development of scale items was relatively straightforward. In contrast, writ-ing on experience can be found in a wide range of fields,including marketing, philosophy, cognitive science, andmanagement practice. Therefore, we must clearly conceptu-alize our construct and develop scale items based on thisconceptualization.

To define and conceptualize the brand experience con-struct, we begin with a review of consumer and marketingresearch, which examines when experiences occur and howthey affect judgments, attitudes, and other aspects of con-sumer behavior. Next, we review the literature in philoso-phy, cognitive science, and applied management to distin-guish brand experience dimensions and develop a brandexperience scale. We then examine the psychometric prop-erties of the scale using standard scale validation proce-dures. Finally, we test whether brand experience affectsconsumer satisfaction and loyalty.

The Experience Concept inConsumer and Marketing ResearchConsumer and marketing research has shown that experi-ences occur when consumers search for products, whenthey shop for them and receive service, and when they con-sume them (Arnould, Price, and Zinkhan 2002; Brakus,Schmitt, and Zhang 2008; Holbrook 2000). We discuss eachin turn.

Product ExperienceProduct experiences occur when consumers interact withproducts—for example, when consumers search for prod-ucts and examine and evaluate them (Hoch 2002). Theproduct experience can be direct when there is physical

Chris Olson

237 Prospect Bay Drive West Grasonville, MD 21638

410.827.5642 chris@chrisolson.com

MARKETING

BRAND MANAGEMENT

COMMUNICATIONS

Exclusively for Information Services and Knowledge Professionals

If you need any help with your branding efforts or want a tailored workshop for your staff, give me a call... ;-)