Personalisation is about delivering the exception, not the rule
Laurent Christen
Repeat Entrepreneur, Investor, Advisor & Board Member. Founder of Dark Venture, Dark Studio, Embley, Active Rock, Maison du Vélo & Rebel Skin.
The rule is about getting the basics right. The exception is about creating delightful experiences.
The 2020 Customer Experience Benchmarking Report published by NTT (https://hello.global.ntt/en-us/insights/2020-global-cx-benchmarking-report/lead-with-strategy) highlights a key element of being successful with Customer Experience, which is "Personalisation is about delivering the Exception, not the Rule". To show that companies value their customers, they have to present personalised offers based on what they value.
Stephen Wardle (Dimension Data MEA) and myself (CEO e2y, an NTT company) joined NTT host Manny Naykene for a wonderful chat on the TechConnect podcast of NTT Limited. This article provides some insights on the conversation and help to increase customer experience.
It's really hard to drive intelligent personalisation. Connecting operational data (O-Data) with experience data (X-Data) is the way to deliver the exception!
For decades, businesses have depended on Operational Data (O-data) — hard numbers like costs, accounting and sales — to design their personalisation. But Operational data only tells you what has happened — it doesn’t tell you why.?So delivering the exception is to understand why things happen. And to understand this, you need to understand the thoughts and emotions of the people involved. This is what we call Experience Data.
Delivering the exception is when a company combines operational data with experience data. It’s making the corners of a square round.
An example? During a pandemic, we want orders delivered with no physical contact. Welcome to contactless delivery! We’re talking about doorstep delivery, dealing with proof of delivery and signing for restricted items like wine or champagne, and so on and so forth. The exception is to provide a contactless delivery option at checkout, understanding the emotions of customers and giving them the confidence to order online.
Marketplaces may be the silver bullet to create the perfect customer experience
In 2020, consumers are challenged to buy products given the state of retail. A key element to deliver the exception is to work on the product diversity. First of all, retailers and manufacturers are not able to sell some products in their own stores anymore. Second of all, they may not have enough parts or row material to produce all of their products (for B2B companies). Their product diversity is reduced, which has a big impact on their sales and of course their customer experience.
The silver bullet here is to sell using a marketplace concept. A marketplace allows retailers to sell products online or through in-store pick-up (or curbside delivery) without having to hold stock. They sell through so-called third-party sellers.?
It is also a powerful way to go for what we call a product range extension which is about increasing the product assortment and even adding new product categories that a retailer does not want to stock – and have the burden of the cost of goods.
Companies who will win the customer experience battle these days are the ones with a marketplace.
领英推荐
How to deliver great customer experience? Story-driven, journey-based and agile
Story-driven means that companies try to understand the emotions and the rationale for customers to buy your products and solutions. You need to understand the motivations and anxieties of the buyers. In the podcast we took the example of the typical LEGO buyer, which is the uncle (who has a certain buying power and a low affinity to costs as he wants to please his god children).
Journey-based is about painting a picture of the customer landscape. You need to drive the processes but also identifying opportunities for your customers. Fix what is blocking your customer from buying your products. I talked about what?board members should do in relation to customer experience in a previous post.
Companies have to be agile. It's a big buzzword but it has its importance to deliver the basics of a great customer experience. As a company, you cannot wait to wait weeks or months to fix a broken customer experience. You need to be able to apply a "patch" on a issue. Fix the root cause as well so that the problem does not occur again and again. Apply the 2020 technologies to your development efforts like headless, micro-services, AI (artifical intelligence), mobile-first. Acquire these skills and techniques as a company. In 2020, companies have to be able to improve their customer experience within hours and not days.
Needless to say that skills and techniques are not enough. Companies must rely on great technologies like?SAP Customer Experience?solutions and?Mirakl?marketplace solution (and great companies to implement them). A little bit of advertisement :-)?
Listen to the podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher or Listen Notes:
What do you thing on this comment? Feel free to comment.
Stay well, stay safe and work hard to improve your Customer Experience!
PS: Download the 2020 Customer Experience Benchmarking report here:?https://hello.global.ntt/en-us/insights/2020-global-cx-benchmarking-report
PS2: Post also published on my website https://laurentchristen.com/blog/personalisation-is-about-delivering-the-exception-not-the-rule/
Principal, Business Development Strategy Planner & Client Partner at Rockstar CMO
4 年like this POV - every customer a snowflake to serve
Solution Architect - Customer Experience
4 年Laurent Christen was great working with you on podcast and the e2y team on projects to delight the customer. Thanks for the help Jonathan Booysen (MCIM)UK