Focus on Experience: Edition 8

Welcome to Focus on Experience newsletter and its eighth issue! On the second Wednesday of every month, while we try to bring you the latest developments and highlights from the field of experience management, don't forget to follow us closely and experience us in order not to miss the content we will create special for that newsletter or to see and read it first hand!

In this newsletter, we will examine some of the most important resources, reports, studies and best practices in the world of CX and EX, as well as some of the most prominent topics and developments in the world of CX and EX, primarily customer and employee experience. It is a time-consuming effort to find what makes sense in all this cacophony and what is important for your business. That's why Focus on Experience aims to bring together the latest developments in the field of experience and to provide concise, straightforward information

In the August newsletter includes topics such as how marketing has evolved from the buy our products approach to the we get you perspective, to what extent artificial intelligence increases customer experience by acting like a human, why happy employees are much more important than happy customers, how to strike a balance between artificial intelligence, automation and human touch in the customer experience journey, the importance of providing value beyond the product for brands and customers, and what is the formula for delivering a near-perfect experience in customer experience. In addition to these topics, the word of this month's newsletter is "Employee Centricity". There is also a section consisting of suggestions from our team that we have compiled for you in many areas. Don't forget to check them out and dive into the articles that interest you!

So let's dive into the world of experience.

Experience Express

Marketing Transformation From “Buy Our Stuff” To “We Get You”

Can traditional marketing strategies meet today's changes in customer attitudes and behaviors and the needs of the evolving customer experience? It seems that marketing needs to be reconsidered and looked at in a holistic way precisely in the conditions we are in. So what kind of transformation needs to be realized in the marketing experience with the lessons and teachings from the past?

This transformation is described by Kareem Monem , CEO of Digitas Dubai, as marketing transformation experience - MTx. The purpose of MTx is not to provide a fragmented and disconnected experience, but rather a long-term and lasting transformation. Therefore, in the MTx approach, the customer is not just the person who buys the product or service, but is placed at the center of everything.

The adoption of the MTx approach includes tools such as digital integration, customer-centric approach, personalization, multi-layered marketing, content strategies, agility, performance measurement and change management. According to a study by Sprout Social, 64% of consumers want brands to connect with them and 57% spend more with a brand they feel connected to.

Customers don't just want to know they are being listened to, they want to feel listened to, and when customers know they are understood, they don't just buy, they believe in the brand itself. For more information on the MTx approach and the new era of marketing, take a look at this article by Anup Oommen in Campaign Middle East .

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AI Enhances Customer Experience By Behaving Like Humans

People and businesses today seem to have embraced AI rather than dramatically addressing its present and future. In addition, businesses are trying to integrate AI-empowered solutions into their business operations and processes and to differentiate themselves from their competitors more than ever before. But how aware are businesses of how AI tools can help them with customer experience solutions and how they can integrate them with the human touch?

According to the findings of a study, 56% of businesses are pursuing AI to improve and perfect their existing operations, and 63% of retailers say they are using AI for customer service. But are businesses correctly perceiving the benefits of AI in the customer experience, or have they yet to discover how it is adept at addressing broadly focused problems?

First of all, AI should not only be understood as automating business operations. This is both too limited a point of view and likely to increase customer churn rates in the long run. Customers or consumers continue to want to meet with a human being and solve their problems in this way, not with an artificial intelligence virtual assistant or chatbot. Therefore, the empathy step, which is a critical step in customer experience and design thinking, is still important.

For more detailed information on how to implement a proactive CX management to make customer experience more seamless in business operations, how to approach customer experience more proactively with sentiment detection and analysis, and how to create a balance between artificial intelligence tools and human touch, you can take a look at the article published by Joe Andrews on TechRadar.

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10 Reasons Why a Happy Employee Is Even More Important Than a Happy Customer

Does your business put its customers or employees at the center of its business culture, or which one does it prioritize? Does the path to happy and loyal customers go through focusing directly on customers or taking employees as a reference point? One of the issues that business leaders, businesses and many other institutions and organizations have been thinking about for a long time is whether employees or customers come first.

According to the results obtained from the studies conducted and the practices of the enterprises, the impact of adopting an employee-centered business culture on providing a remarkable customer experience is much greater than a customer-centered business culture. Employees' adoption of the brand they have worked with and its products or services has a much greater impact on the customer than thought.

There is a positive relationship between the way department managers, C-level leaders and many higher-level personnel treat their employees and how employees treat customers in the face of this behavior. The way to create brand loyalty and to make each customer a brand ambassador is to make your employees a brand ambassador. As the level of importance given to the internal structure of the enterprise increases and the quality of the work carried out there increases, this is reflected to the outside, that is, to the touch points where interaction is established with the customer.

For more detailed information about the relationship between employee and customer experience, how to adopt the employee experience company culture, and the importance of adopting an employee experience culture for businesses, you can take a look at Ron Johnson (Branding Solutions For HR) 's article published in Fast Company .

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Balancing AI, Automation And Human Touch In Customer Journeys

Automation and artificial intelligence tools continue to develop day by day, to be used in different fields and to change the way businesses do business. Today, those who do not integrate generative artificial intelligence and automation tools into their operational processes and the work of other departments of the business continue to lose their share of the pie day by day. So where exactly does this integration process end? Is a process where everything is automated or a fully personalized journey attractive to customers? How can AI, automation and the human touch be used together and how can they be balanced?

The automation of all processes of the business is not entirely positive for the customer. Customers want their behaviors and expectations to be understood by the brand and to do this with the person or people they can find as an interlocutor. Therefore, when human intervention or touch is carried out in the right place and at the right time, automation processes and artificial intelligence-based personalization suggestions will be more welcomed.

What customers want to change in the customer experience process is as important as what they don't want to change. At some point, real-time human touch is one of the experiences they don't want to change after low price, wide product range and fast delivery. A typical customer journey consists of awareness, consideration, intent, purchase, onboarding and loyalty. Balancing AI, automation and the human touch at customer touchpoints throughout this journey is important for customer lifetime value. In addition, data-driven and predictive insights and ways to understand customer behavior signals should be developed and human-human interaction should be provided at the right point.

For more detailed information on designing the customer experience journey, how to embed AI tools, automation processes and the human touch into business processes, how to achieve a balance between the three, and other related topics, take a look at Selva Pandian 's article in Forbes.

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Providing Value Beyond Products

Do consumers buy a product in its pure form, just as it is on the shelf, or do they prefer a service based on the features it offers, or are there different factors and expectations behind this? Among brands that produce more or less the same products, why does the consumer prefer one over the others, while excluding the rest? Can businesses differentiate themselves from their competitors by emphasizing the value and purpose aspects of the product or service in the red ocean, where there is almost no blue, non-competitive market space?

Consumer expectations, trends and preferences have been changing from past to present. Today, beyond preferring a product or service in its pure form, consumers look at what kind of value that product or service has and what kind of purpose it has behind it, and accordingly prefer brands that are close to them. Therefore, they expect brands to connect with their expectations and values and prefer brands that do so.

In today's value-oriented world, people buy why you do, not what you do. Customers therefore ask brands why they do what they do, not what they do. Lovesac, an American furniture company, has integrated this changing consumer mindset into its products with its "Designed for Life" philosophy. Lovesac, like other furniture companies, offers/sells not only the product itself but also values such as sustainability, adaptability, longevity and durability and uses various ways to create emotional connections with its customers.

To learn more about how you can adopt a value-oriented strategy beyond the product, how Lovesac, an American furniture company, is doing it, as well as subtopics such as changing consumer preferences, take a look at the article by Shawn D. Nelson in Retail Customer Experience .

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A Winning Formula for Customer Experience

Is there a simple one-size-fits-all formula for businesses to deliver a near-perfect customer experience and the associated employee experience? Could customer experience be one of the most important aspects of sustainable long-term growth? How should businesses design the customer experience journey, from the first touch with existing or potential customers to the support after the sale of products or services?

It is not possible to find a formula that is suitable for every business and field in customer experience, but there are common points that businesses should focus on in order to provide a near-perfect experience. First of all, the path to a good customer experience passes through a good employee experience. The sum of a good customer and employee experience is the path to long-term sustainable growth for businesses. In other words, the way to business growth is through customer and employee experience.

The present and future of CX will belong to businesses that embrace CX and EX and integrate them into customer journey processes and every step of business operations. In a business where the employee experience is kept at a high level, the customer experience will develop in parallel. You can neither consider customer experience as separate from employee experience, nor vice versa, customer experience as separate from employee experience. Proactively approaching the issue by spending the right time with the right customer/guest will bring your business to the forefront.

For more detailed information on how the employee experience formula can be used, how Disney World and Southwest Airlines are positioning EX and CX in their business operations, the findings of the Future of AI-powered CX report, and many more, take a look at Joe O'Halloran's article on computerweekly.com.

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Quote of the Newsletter

The way your employees feel is the way your customers will feel. And if your employees don’t feel valued, neither will your customers.

Sybil Stershic

Word of the Newsletter

Employee Centricity

Employee centricity or employee focused approach is a business philosophy approach that adopts the design and implementation of the activities of the business by taking into account the needs of its employees. In contrast to the customer-centered approach, in the employee-centered approach, the center of the company is not the revenue to be obtained from the customer and his/her satisfaction, but on the contrary, the employees who will increase this satisfaction and revenues.

Suggestions from Wiseback team?

?? Book

• What Your Customer Wants and Can’t Tell You | Melina Palmer

• Why do people prefer one product or service and not another? What are the reasons behind consumer buying behavior?? Can the science of behavioral economics help you and your brand understand what customers really want but can't tell you? This book goes beyond the theoretical background of behavioral economics to real? and best practices. It also explains how businesses/business people can use science to help their brands move from where they are to a better place. From how the consumer brain works to what triggers and influences decision-making processes, from nudge theory to irrational marketing and many more sub-topics, you can find them in this book.

??? Documentary

• Objectified

• Objectified, directed by Gary Hustwit, is a documentary film about everyday objects and the role of the people involved in their design. Objectified is the second part of the Design Trilogy, a three-part series, the first part of which is Helvetica and the last part is Urbanized.?

?? Video

• In his TED talk "How AI Could Empower Any Business", Andrew Ng , founder of DeepLearning.AI I, talks about how businesses are embracing the rising trend of artificial intelligence, which businesses can use it now, which ones can't integrate it into their way of doing business due to both human and financial resources, and many other reasons.? He also talks about the importance of using AI for local businesses and how they can use it in demand forecasting, product placement, supply chain, quality control and many other areas to increase their sales. He discusses the long tail problem, where AI is currently struggling to be applied and some of the projects that need to be worked on. In the video Andrew concludes with "The coming era of AI is to democratize access", referring to a future where access to AI will be democratized.

???Podcast

• The CX Tipping Point | Dorris Consulting International

• The CX Tipping Point podcast, hosted by Dorris Consulting International, delves into the intricacies of customer experience in a multifaceted way, taking an in-depth look at the latest trends, challenges and solutions in CX. The podcast is packed with expert insights, practical strategies and applicable advice that seek to address what businesses need to embrace in order to deliver an exceptional experience. Unlike other customer experience podcasts, CX Tipping Point seeks to raise awareness of how the discipline of customer experience can be integrated into public organizations and their services, and how the experience can be improved.

Are you ready to create a customer and employee experience success story for your business??

Then meet Wiseback?

Do you want to comprehensively review your business' customer and employee experience processes, leverage technology effectively and elevate your customer experience for the future??

If you want to learn more about Wiseback solutions, feel free to contact us.

Also, don't forget to subscribe to Focus on Experience monthly newsletter to stay up to date in the field of experience!?