I probably am not the typical arts and crafts customer but I do rely on this store for a great selection of picture frames and a knowledgeable custom frame shop with competitive prices. My most recent visit involved purchasing a frame for a picture my three year old daughter had painted for my birthday. Always the proud father, I wanted to be sure that I found something that showcased her wonderful work. After spending several minutes in the stock frames area I was greeted by an associate who proceeded to help me with my search. After looking at several different selections we realized the painting was much better suited to a custom frame. The associate then put her artistic hat on and guided me through suggestions about frame material, double matting etc. I have to say I was very impressed to see someone so passionate about helping a customer create their ideal purchase. It’s refreshing to visit a large format, multi-unit chain treat their customers with the care that you would more likely expect from a local custom frame shop.

With the pleasure of the experience still in my head I left the frame counter and proceeded to front of the store to checkout. It was here that I had an “Ah ha” moment that provided a clue to their engaged workforce. Behind the checkout stands were several tag boards with hand written comments from store management and customers with positive feedback for associates. This caught my eye as I exited the store as I am sure it has other customers. I was left with the impression that the store’s management understands not only the importance of fostering an environment where associates have the freedom to utilize their creativity to assist customers, but the need to show their associates the impact they are having on customers.

I am happy to see that some retailers are ahead of the curve when it comes to employee engagement and here’s hoping that 2012 has more retailers following suit. Employees set the tone for your company and your brand. Your associates are the ones on the front lines, interacting with customers on a daily basis. When they’re fully engaged in their jobs, they become passionate advocates who have a positive effect on the customer experience. When they’re not engaged, they can become liabilities to your brand. If you give your organization a voice, you might be surprised at how loyal and engaged your employees can become.

Still don’t remember? Let me hum a few bars:

“Give me the beat boys, and free my soul, I want to get lost in your rock & roll, and drift away…”

Funny thing, that memorable melody stuck in my head as I recently came across a very interesting research report from Novantus on changing consumer behavior in financial services. According to this research, roughly one third of US retail banking customers have “drifted away” from their day-to-day banking activities. The number of these “virtually-domiciled” customers will grow as the banking center of gravity shifts to alternative channels such as online, automated teller machines, call centers and mobile devices.

Is this trend exclusive to retail banking? Absolutely not! While traditional wealth management, investment and insurance firms have been largely insulated from the disruptive forces of mobile and social technologies, that free pass is about to expire soon (if it hasn’t already!), because:

• Older generations have become more active with alternate channels: Forrester Research confirms that as experience with digital channels increases, so does a user’s willingness to conduct more complex interactions through that channel.
• Younger generations won’t abandon their (digital) channel preferences as they accumulate assets.

In the past, all of this activity was seen as just a supplement to the experiences at the local bank branch or with an in-person financial adviser. But now, due to changing consumer behavior and preferences, more high-value financial transactions are entering into alternate channel transaction mix, such as checking and savings origination, application for credit cards, installment and mortgage loans, even financial and investment advice.

In response, all financial services marketers need to deploy distribution and sales strategies that are guided by consumers’ multi-channel usage patterns and preferences.

Of critical importance is to develop and deploy a consistent, high quality brand experience across all of these delivery channels as well (remember, consumers do not think in channels!). Customers focus on end benefits, what they need, and then subconsciously choose the most relevant and convenient channel to get this end benefit. They expect the brand to behave the same way across all channels. Therefore, brands must understand their experience from this holistic viewpoint and reflect that as much as possible.

In the world of customer experience management the question we hear regularly is:

“Our customers see us as one Brand but all of our departments and channels have separate measurements. How do we build an integrated approach that mirrors the customer experience across all of our relevant channels and touch-points?”

A well thought out CEM program can help to:

1. Identify the salient emotional factors that drive the overall brand;
2. Determine how they are being delivered across your channels;
3. Determine where are the problems and opportunities to ensure that your brand experience is being delivered consistently across all of your relevant touch-points (including digital).

Even though your customers may be “drifting away” from traditional options, with the right approach, and a tangible commitment to managing an integrated cross-channel brand experience, you won’t need to worry about drift, but can follow a “straight path” to success.

By the way, anyone remember the other mega hit by Dobie Gray back in the day? Shoot me an email at (with the right answer) for a special surprise!

There is a major contradiction between the UK hospitality and leisure industry’s attitude towards the baby boomer generation, and the actions of the sector, with the majority of operators neglecting this growing market, according to a new study. The report by Barclays Corporate found that 88% of the 160 senior executives surveyed claimed to be engaged with the over-65s market, but that almost two thirds (62%) admitted that they did not have any services or products specifically tailored to this age group. The majority of those who did not have tailored offers (82%) said that they had no plans to introduce any, either, and admitted that they had never considered the idea. 18% said this was because their products and services were suitable for all ages.

It so happens that like many others, I spent Christmas and New Year with my extended family. Along with some holiday fun this experience also gave me an opportunity to experience life from the point of view of my baby boomer relatives.

My observation was that it’s quite true that their expectations of restaurants and pubs (and stores) can be markedly different from others’. As I reflect however, even with their specialised concerns, businesses that patronise this segment do so at their own peril.  Boomers don’t always need a wholly differentiated product or service offering – sometimes just a tweak is all that is required, or a little more care and attention.

What exactly to tweak can often be a mystery. The truth is that to delight your customers you need to have a deep understanding of what they want – and then consistently deliver it. And this isn’t just true for baby boomers, but for any customer segment. The good news is that if you want to understand your customers, it can be as simple as asking them what they think of what you’re doing.

Customer Experience Management programmes help brands to understand what customers want: these programs ask customers to review their experiences, providing robust levels of feedback which can then be used to tease out real insights (as well as coach location managers on how to drive real changes in the locations based on what customers are saying).

A word of caution however: if you want to get feedback from all of your customer segments, it’s important to design your CEM program with each of them in mind. For example…

• You may need to consider a choice of incentives to drive response rates– are they all equally interested in the latest gadget you’re giving away?
• Not all customer segments are internet-savvy, and it can sometimes help to have a range of ways to feedback – for example IVR telephone surveys for the technophobic, smartphone optimised surveys or SMS surveys for Generation Y.
• Different customer groups have different expectations of your reaction to their feedback – how do you reach back out to customers to say “thanks”, tell them what you’ve done as a result of their feedback, or enable them to share their views? (I’m pleased to say that many organisations already use our GoRecommend product to help turn their customers’ positive experiences into true advocacy through social media.)

The list goes on…

And so it was that as I walked into the office after the seasonal break, I found myself truly energised about the opportunity ahead: to find many more innovative ways to help our clients better understand their customers.

The central theme of this year’s show was focused around bringing the human element back to the retail experience. This echoes the sentiment that is our raison d’etre here at Empathica – retailers and consumers need to reconnect at a human level. The engine of the global economy depends on it.

Retail truly is the engine of the global economy when you take a moment to study some staggering statistics:

• Retail supports 1 in 4 jobs in the US economy
• Retail in the US is forecast to grow 3.4% in 2012 (compared to estimates of US GDP growth of 2.1% to 2.4%)
• Retail contributes over $2.5 trillion to America’s GDP each year

From the opening keynote by former president Bill Clinton, through the educational sessions I attended, and the conversations I had with other delegates, it’s clear that retail provides a pathway out of the recession. A back to basics approach is needed to running a business. Most people have a favorite retailer where employers and customers’ have elevated their relationship to that of a friendship. If not, then you have heard stories from parents and grandparents of a time when the locally focused small businesses were able to deliver a very personal experience to their loyal customers. As time went on, successful businesses began to grow, and sadly achieved much of this scale by focusing on growth and increasing their points of distribution often to the detriment of those necessary friendships and relationships.

Today’s innovations in technology have created a turning point in the world of business.  Technology is now becoming a tool allowing business owners to rebuild these relationships and maintain them on a global scale.

The challenge that now emerges is how to convert this capability to an actionable model.

1. Retailers need to actively solicit feedback from their customers and then engage with them at a deeper level. This can be done in three ways. Use marketing science to understand what drives loyalty. Dig deeper… knowing for example that friendly service outranks other loyalty drivers isn’t enough. The real question is, what are the elements of the experience that build a belief that this brand is friendlier than all others?
2. Deliver a consistent brand experience at the ground level. I argue that its more important for most retailers to become more consistent than it is for actual improvement in their overall service quality scores. Reduce the anxiety and make the choice simple for customers by letting them know ahead of time exactly what they’ll get.
3. Finally, use technology to help personalize the shopping experience. Social media, mobile phones and the new consumer behaviors they foster have created tremendous innovation opportunities. It’s interesting that one of the competitive advantages online retailers have developed over the last few years is a much deeper personal relationship with many consumers. Recommendations, complimentary products, remembering history and preferences… in many ways technology has effectively allowed online retailers to personalize a highly impersonal experience.

I leave you with an interesting exercise that I was challenged with by one of the speakers at the conference. Each day when we all prepare for work, we should challenge ourselves to complete this phrase “What the world needs now…” (yes I know I can Google the remainder of the Burt Bacharach lyrics). Such a simple yet profound phrase can help put the value of what we all do each and every day in a new context.

See the full set of Infographics from the Grocery Consumer Insights Panel study.

To kick off the new year I want to reflect on some of the emerging trends I expect to see in the grocery industry.

As was shown in the Grocery Consumer Insights research we did here at Empathica last year, one area where shoppers, particularly younger ones, are seeing improvement in the overall experience is in increasing store adoption of new technologies. There exists a technology fault line; that often divides those under 35 years of age and those over 35 years of age. The adoption of in-store technology (and the degree to which in-store technology impacts a better customer experience), is much higher amongst those under 35 years of age. As this age group evolves, technology will become an increasing part of how a grocer can deliver an improved customer experience while creating competitive differentiation.

While the most popular technology (according to Empathica’s 16,000 consumer study) was self check-out, it should be noted that it is not delivering. Shoppers are widely unhappy with the self check-out experience, resulting in some retailers removing or debating whether they should remove it from their stores altogether. Other “consumer welcomed” technology includes store kiosks. Kiosks can enable grocers to collect information on their customers while simultaneously enabling the customer to define their own experience. This can especially be the case if loyalty cards interact with the kiosks as this merger integrates customer purchasing history with recipes and coupons. Younger consumers are clearly welcoming technology advances that improve the in-store experience with open arms.

Having spent years working with grocers and retailers, something that’s become part of my gut instinct is that more and more customers are looking for the “gift of time”. As each year passes it seems our lives become busier and busier. The best technologies can help ease this strain by saving people time by making their shop more efficient, while enabling them to create their own customized experiences. With that in mind, I expect this penetration of technology into the local grocer to continue to evolve over time.

I’m on the lookout for increased usage of QR code technology which can be less about “marketing” and more about “information” but is ultimately about providing consumers an opportunity to create their own experience. Apps for scanning QR codes are readily available for smartphones, and enable grocers through their displays to prompt for reviews through scanning a QR code, helping to record a customer experience, right there and then, at the moment of truth.

Smartphones are fast becoming a “must-have” gadget for everyone and consumers have an increasing desire for more information about what’s in their food and where it comes from, therefore this is a perfect match. With most people not having the time to research their food choices in advance why not do it in store?

QR codes are quite simple in that they are simply a quick way to access a website URL on the go. The information that can be delivered though that URL can be tremendous, from in depth product information, to reviews, customer experience surveys and even coupons and incentives. I think QR codes and grocers are a perfect fit. Helping consumers save time and make better choices can be a great way to improve their overall experience.

So as we begin the new year technology will continue to improve the way grocers do business, and if implemented correctly, we as consumers can reap the rewards.

When I reached out to restaurant #1 I had the following experience:

The manager spoke to his “boss” and then had to speak to his “boss’s boss”. Once the correct person was tracked down the message he relayed was that “It is company policy to charge a $400 minimum for such a group”. That minimum cost seemed odd to me as having been there I know that eating “a la carte” at this restaurant should not have exceeded $200 as the kid’s menu is priced at $6.50.

So off I went to track down a second restaurant chain.

Once I reached restaurant #2 I had a different experience:

Although the manager referred to a similar company policy, he immediately admitted to me “Who else would come to my restaurant on a Sunday morning at 10.30am anyway?  My staff will be here as they need to prep for the lunch and since you’ll be gone by 12.30pm, I can still turn these tables around by lunch time”. This personal touch made by an empowered local manager left me which a much better experience, and ultimately a party booked for my child.

This simple experience left me with 3 key learnings:

1. Restaurant #2 got my business and will end up making $250-$300 before its competitor across the road will have seated their first diner.
2. The same reasoning can apply to a retail store. For example, empowered managers can often rescue a sale by matching pricing or accepting an expired coupon.
3. While robust company policies and tight legal agreements help in protecting your business, your client-facing people should be able to rely on common sense to help evolve these policies.

At the end of the day running a successful business needs to be a human experience.  People buy from store associates, not lawyers.