Experience Manifesto

reportonbusiness.com: Build your brand - but don't forget to deliver an experience

While readers of this blog will know that the ideas in this article are at the core of why the Brand Experience Lab exists, but it's always good to see other people thinking the same way. Especially when the author is with the Boston Consulting Group and yo know that this is coming from a business POV. I have excerpts here, but click on the link for the full article.

For most companies, branding is about positioning, advertising, packaging, and catchy logos and slogans. That is not enough. Branding in today's marketplace is about the total experience a customer has with your products or services. It is about enticing customers, gaining their trust, and making the experience so pleasant that they are proud of their choice and will tell others about it.

The challenge of managing a customer's experience comes from the fact that it happens out on the front lines of the company. In many cases, few employees know firsthand what is happening to customers. More frequently, managers who are making major decisions on new investments or process redesign have little idea of the end-to-end impact those decisions will have on the customer experience.

Brand relationships are not confined to consumer products. They exist with hospitals, taxi companies, cleaners, garages, airlines, restaurants, and more. The strength of a brand experience is inextricably linked to every aspect of buying and using a product, not just to the inherent performance of the product itself.

Before launching that next advertising campaign or promotion, ask yourself how your investment decisions affect the customer experience, and if everyone - from senior executives to counter clerks - is aware of how much the brand's value hinges on the quality of experience you deliver.

Link: reportonbusiness.com: Build your brand - but don't forget to deliver an experience.

Immersive Retailing Defined -- An IBM White Paper

IBM just released a white paper entitled How immersive technology can revitalize the shopping experience and since we participated in the paper, we're able to post it here. Here's the intro and you can download the full white paper below.

Why do shoppers choose to come to your store on any given day? Do they search for products online first and then come in—or do they start their decision-making process inside the store? How do they feel when they leave? Did you offer unique, empowering experiences and services that leave them excited to come back—again and again? Do individuals feel like your brand is relevant to their lifestyle? Do they understand the value of your brand experience over the commoditized products that you are selling? Or, as they wander from store to store, do your potential customers forget your brand as it blurs in their minds with those of competitors?

These are all important questions, given the tough reality of our commoditized retail marketplace, where it’s harder and harder to stand out from competitors. Especially since fickle customers seemingly can choose from ever more channels and providers. Sure, factors like price and service help attract customers, but to truly stand out from the competition, retailers need to create customer advocates who, when they’re ready to make a purchase, think first about the retailer’s store brand rather than a list of product brands.

Download immersive_retailing_defined.pdf

I Need a Whole Foods Genius Bar!

I made a new year's resolution to lose some weight, something that's way overdue. After years of eating whole cakes or bags of cookies and washing it down with a half gallon of milk, the calories caught up with me. I thought I could keep avoiding them for a couple of more years, but I couldn't hide any longer. So, I went to Dr. Rodriguez, a nutritionist that my wife & mother-in-law have used in the past with great results.

I took a battery of tests & blood work which let me know where I stand. I wasn't surprised with some of the results. Almost 28% body fat, no surprise there. Cholesterol was high. For many years it hovered around 150, despite the 1,000 or so calories of cookies I ate daily. Last year, it went up to 195 but now it's 257 and time to get it down a lot. Triglycerides were also way up this time. But, I was surprised by my blood sugar. As it was explained to me, anything above 6 is considered diabetic and mine came in at 5.7. Cutting sugar out of my diet has been one of the hardest things for me to do this week, especially when you look around and see ho much sugar is in everything we eat.

So I went to the Whole food near my house and started to look at things I could eat, what could I use for snacks and things like that. The problem is that it could be pretty confusing without a lot of work. Lower sugar usually means higher sodium. Where do you make the trade? Is 10g of sugar OK in a meal or is that too much? And that’s when it hit me: Whole Foods needed their version of a “genius bar.”

It would’ve been really helpful to schedule a time to meet with a Whole Food nutritional specialist, go through my dietary needs and then walk me through the store helping me find what I need. Take me through each of the areas of the store and help me devise a menu that will help me meet my nutritional needs. I could walk around with a barcode scanner and build my grocery list and have it downloaded to a personal web site that I can use to track my progress. If it were really well done, it might even be something that my doctor could review to make sure I was making the right choices! OK, maybe that’s pushing it a little bit, but you get the idea.

The point is, that as consumers become continue to grow even more sophisticated in their expectations, retailers need to change their approach. I can shop online if all I need is shopping. I go to the store to receive service and I’m expecting more & more. Make my shopping experience my enjoyable. More helpful. More convenient. More of an experience. Give me more value then the other guy and I’ll keep coming back.

In the meantime, I’m still trying to figure out what will replace my Chips Ahoy fix and lose the 25 pounds that I need to lose. So far, I’m only really enjoying yogurt covered pretzels and that’s not really as much fun as cookies!

Does Your Retail Have a Soul?

I know, you're thinking that it's a dumb question relating to a whole bunch of mumbo jumbo, new age stuff, but let me explain. On the Friday after Christmas, Sarah DaVanzo & I spent the day walking through all of the shops along Madison Avenue, starting at about 59th Street. We visited all of the high-end, luxury stores for about 20 blocks and what we found were stores without a soul. Stores that had no energy, no life to them and were, in many cases didn't have many people in them either.

They were what we'd call 'web stores.' Physical stores with merchandise, staff and everything you'd expect at a store, but operating as if they were little more then a web site -- and sometimes a snooty one at that! Point at something to get more information and maybe touch it. Otherwise, it's a store that does little more then a web site does. In fact, at some stores, we got less info. We stopped in at one cool looking shop from a perfume brand from the 1700's but the sales person there seemed pretty uninterested in sharing their heritage and story with us.

In contrast, stores that we would say had a soul, were crowded and have a definite life to them. There were expected lines to the Apple store & FAO Schwatz stores on 5th Avenue, but the Abercrombie store on 5th had a line as well. Crate & Barrel was humming with activity and people touching and enjoying the merchandise.

And some of our new favorite stores along Madison:

The DKNY store that was letting guests take pictures of themselves and adding their pictures to the photo montage playing on all of the digital monitors around the store. Plus they had a cafe for either shoppers to take a break or to entertain the non-shoppers so those shopping could actually enjoy themselves.

The Juicy Couture store, that continued their brand experience throughout the store, including the dressing rooms. And it was about the only store we saw with teenagers once we left FAO & Apple.

We LOVED the two Ralph Lauren stores! They were so alive in every way. Merchandise, store design, merchandise and staff. And you know what all of that energy generated? Judging by the transactions we saw going on, sales.

We're putting together a more detailed review and some trends now and you look for them to be released during the Retail Advertising Conference next month. But, if you're investing in physical space and paying all of those costs just to create a 'web store,' you're wasting a lot of good money and some great business opportunities.

Brand New Day When It Comes To Service, Definitely Think Local - BusinessWeek

David Kiley has some great examples of just bad custimer service experiences on his blog today. Some excellent examples of how larger companies just don't get it.

If you don't give great service, poeple will find someone who will.

If you give crappy service, people will talk about it. But not just talk about it. Write about it, blog about it and generally share your bad story with anyone they can find.

Your rules need to be set-up for my benefit, not yours. Otherwise, I'll find someone who's there to service me.

So take a look at his stories heed the warnings!

Link: Brand New Day When It Comes To Service, Definitely Think Local - BusinessWeek.

Welcome to Bathroom Blogfest

Now in its second year, the Bathroom Blogfest was a big hit last year. I've talked about it in many of my presentations and bathrooms are a frequently overlooked part of people's brand experience. Now that I have a daughter, public bathrooms have become an increasingly important thing for me to find these days. This year, they set up a special blog that aggregates posts from all of the participating blogs, so take a look and ad your thoughts. And take a look at the bathrooms that you expect your clients to use. Would you use them? Would you let your children?

Welcome to Bathroom Blogfest

During the annual Bathroom Blogfest, bloggers from around the globe write about the importance of bathrooms in the customer experience with photographs of great and terrible bathrooms. Their posts come from a wide range of perspectives that include sociology, marketing, research, psychology, environmental, customer experience, and user-experience design. Initiated in 2006 with nine bloggers, this year's event runs from October 28 to November 2, during National Kitchen and Bath Month.

Link: Welcome to Bathroom Blogfest.

Idea Store - Created and Managed by Tower Hamlets Council - Home

You know, I wish I could remember where I first read about this, but what a cool idea. Totally changing the idea of what a library is and does. I love the idea of the library as an "idea store" too. Not a repository of information that is sometimes hard to navigate, but a place for you to get ideas. Read ore about their big idea by clicking on the link below.

What's the big idea? Idea Stores combine the best of traditional library and information services with first class lifelong learning opportunities in comfortable and friendly surroundings.

Library - a wide range of stock including best-selling books, CDs and DVDs

Learning - day, evening and weekend courses for a range of interests and abilities

Information - access to extensive reference and information sources including online resources and a local studies and archives collection.

Our objectives are to bring the community together and to empower individuals to help themselves, whether it is learning to read, pursuing hobbies, expanding their knowledge or seeking a job.

An Idea Store is an ideal place to browse and borrow books, read a newspaper or magazine, learn new skills, surf the net or to relax and meet friends over a coffee in a fun and stimulating environment.

The Idea
Through the new Idea Stores, Tower Hamlets Council will be investing millions of pounds to create a network of adult education, library and information services, in 7 state-of-the-art buildings, all in local shopping centres.

These buildings are more than just a library or a place of learning. As well as the traditional library service, much valued by residents, they offer a wide range of adult education classes, along with career support, training, a creche, meeting areas, cafes and arts and leisure pursuits.

Link: Idea Store - Created and Managed by Tower Hamlets Council - Home.

Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough Blog Book Tour Wrap Up

The Blog Book Tour with Jonathan Tisch has wrapped up and there's a lot of great information up on all of the blogs. I've put all of the links below, so if you didn't have a chance to catch Mr. Tisch at any of his stops, they're all here. We'll try to keep the dialogue open, so if you come up with any new questions as you read through all of these posts and listen to podcasts, just drop them to any of us and we'll try to get them over to Mr. Tisch. Thanks to all of the bloggers who participated and a BIG thanks to Rachelle Lacroix at Fleishman-Hillard for all of her hard work to get the tour together.

Experience Manifesto

Link: Experience Manifesto: Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough Blog Book Tour Kicks-Off.

Link: Experience Manifesto: Chocolates on the Pillow....

Customers Rock!

Link: Blog book tour with Jonathan Tisch is here! Customers Rock!.

Grokdotcom

Link: Grokcast: Loews Hotels' Jonathan Tisch on Maximizing Customer Value

Link: Grokcast: Loews CEO Jonathan Tisch - Part II.

Vacant Ready

Link: Vacant Ready Hosts Q&A with Loews Hotels CEO Jonathan Tisch Vacant Ready - A hotel industry blog for hospitality insiders.

Lipsticking

Link: Lip-Sticking: Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough by Jonathan M. Tisch.

Experience the Message

Link: Experience the Message: Q&A w/Jonathan Tisch, CEO of Loews Hotels.

Customer Crossroads

Link: Customer Experience Crossroads: Interview with Jonathan Tisch about Reinventing the Customer Experience.

Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough Blog Book Tour, Day Two

Remember, tomorrow Mr. Tisch and the Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough tour visit The Engaging Brand . They will be doing both a Q&A and podcast. You can see Monday's interviews at:

Experience Manifesto: Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough Blog Book Tour Kicks-Off

Blog book tour with Jonathan Tisch is here! Customers Rock!

Blog book tour with Jonathan Tisch is here! Customers Rock!

Becky Carroll has her interview with Jonathan Tisch up online now and she covered lots of great ground. Can't wait to see what the rest of the week looks like! BTW, a HUGE shout out to Rachelle Lacroix at Fleishman-Hillard for all of her really hard work putting together this blog book tour. She's had to wrangle people like me to get their questions in to Mr. Tisch and coordinate all of the blogging and podcasts! Kudos to you Rachelle!

Link: Blog book tour with Jonathan Tisch is here! Customers Rock!.