Customer Experience Should Never Be Out of Context

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1 Customer Experience Should Never Be Out of Context Part Four in a Four-part Series on Content Reuse Customer experience is a main driver for competitive advantage. But only if it matches the context of your customers needs, preferences and situations. Achieving intentional engagement is made possible by reusing content, assembling it in different ways to create adaptive experiences by using customer memory as your guide. This Business Solutions Guide shows why it s critical to serve your customers rather than sell to them. Making the shift from one-to-many communications to one-to-one dialogues doesn t need to be intimidating. In fact, a Web content management (WCM) platform can provide an iterated toolset to help with this orchestration. Likewise, a content reuse strategy can help to take the pressure down a notch while enabling online marketers to make sure that a customer s experience is never out of context.

2 Customer Experiences Rely on Meaningful Content According to Gleanster research, 95 percent of top performing retail companies indicate that the customer experience is a main source of competitive advantage. However, 62 percent of retail marketers indicated that keeping pace with changing customer preferences and channel proliferation were their top two challenges. 1 Another study of B2C marketers by Gleanster finds strong commitment to optimizing and improving the customer lifecycle through relevance and personalization, but finds that the data most often being used to do so is based on past history, rather than current context. 2 The difference between top performing retailers and all others will be based on their ability to launch online dialogues, rather than transactional campaigns. And dialogues are established more readily when context is at the heart of the customers experience. Context can include location, time of day, device in use, needs and preferences, as well as demographic attributes and purchase history. Personalization must reach beyond the surface level of simple identity recognition and past purchases to achieve the intimacy upon which relationships are built. Context streamlines interactions by reducing time and effort to engage because relevance is instantly recognizable by your customer. Customer experiences are comprised of a series of actions a dialogue that contributes meaning and value with each interaction. It s in knowing the next-positive action (NPA) to support the often unspoken needs and preferences of a customer that puts context at the heart of customer experience design. And this is also what makes it difficult to achieve and sustain over the course of the customer lifecycle let alone to scale. But it is possible. Customers are smarter and more technology savvy than ever before. They want to be served, not sold to. Unfortunately, many marketers are overwhelmed with the shift from one-to-many to a more intimate one-to-one communication style. A Web content management (WCM) platform can provide a consolidated toolset to help with this orchestration. Likewise, a content reuse strategy can help to take the pressure down a notch while enabling online marketers to make sure that a customer s experience is never out of context. This business solution guide will help you to understand: J JWhy context is becoming table stakes and what to do about it JJHow to use existing content to create adaptive experiences JJHow to elevate customer engagement with customer memory 2

3 Context is Table Stakes Customers no longer think in terms of being loyal to brands. They evaluate brands based on their perception of the brand s loyalty to them. Yes, it s a customer-driven marketplace. Not that this hasn t always been true, but customers are now being more vocal and assertive about the relationships they choose to have with brands. It may surprise you, but a recent survey by Havas Media revealed that over 100,000 people across 23 countries wouldn t care if more than 73 percent of consumer brands disappeared tomorrow. 3 This should serve as a pretty stark awakening. It should also propel online marketers to pay rapt attention to designing better customer experiences. And, this doesn t necessarily require a Herculean effort. Retail companies have the customer data to base customer experiences on context. Technology is obviously needed, but the right functionality provided by a WCM platform can ease the execution even automating it to help brands achieve relevance at scale. Examples of contextual content presentation could include: J JDelivering content based on time of day, location, purchasing history and stated preferences J JMaking personalized recommendations based on the likes and recommendations of Facebook friends J JPresenting special offers based on whether the customer is at home, in your store or in a competitor s store As consumers expectations grow, impatience comes quickly when their experience is disappointing. Attention spans have become notoriously short, allowing for only seconds to decide if a website engages them before clicking the back button to select another option from the search results. But context is also about reducing effort. By presenting a customer with something meaningful from the start, the need to continue to search is eliminated. And that s just what you want to happen. Context can also remove the friction caused by confusion that introduces doubt and often results in indecision. By matching the customer s needs and preferences, clarity occurs and their confidence in your brand is confirmed. When presented with the information that aligns with their intentions the purchase decision is made easier. It s also important to note that 82 percent of consumers like reading relevant brand content and 60 percent of them are on the lookout for products while reading it. 4 3

4 BUSINESS SOLUTIONS GUIDE: CONTENT REUSE 4 Using Existing Content to Create Adaptive Experiences While context has become table stakes, it can lead many marketers to wish for a crystal ball. But what s important to understand is that context should be considered a starting point. For even though some real-time details can be addressed such as location, time of day and device in use needs and preferences have nuance that may not be fully ascertained until the dialogue is underway. Let s say that you know your customer has recently purchased a sofa from a specific brand. You know what color they selected, the fabric, what length the sofa is and the style. Based on their website search for tables in the living room category, your website could respond by featuring tables that would match nicely with the sofa they purchased; or even show the sofa with a table to establish relevance and then also provide additional table selections in an array below the main graphic. With CoreMedia Studio, marketers can use existing content to create adaptive experiences based on the customer s context, dialogue and purchasing history. 4

5 This type of orientation can help to get the dialogue with your customer off on the right foot more so than presenting her with a rolling display of lots of tables that she would need to wade through without the context of seeing her sofa and how the table would look in front of it, or at each end. If she clicks on the side table, a picture of it with a lamp that s available and complimentary to the ensemble can further adapt the experience to encourage additional purchases. Likewise, should she select a coffee table, depicting it with a pretty basket and vase arranged on top could also entice her to buy the accessories to complete the look. And an offer to buy the set if she s looked at both is a relevant opportunity. The point with adaptive experiences is that they anticipate what might come next based on a starting point of knowledge about the customer. Building adaptive experiences is dependent on putting customer data to work, but it s also anticipating how to help your customer visualize the emotional impact of their choice by presenting it in different ways the table with the sofa and then the lamp, for example. The combination of your expertise with your product line and customer buying patterns can be used to anticipate the opportunity to adapt the experience accordingly. Customers come to you for direction, as well as easy access to relevant products and information. You already have this content representing your products. Adding context just means assembling it for presentations in a more personalized manner which can be automated by your WCM platform and based on past and real-time data. 5

6 Customer Memory as Crystal Ball Memory stems from listening and retaining information. Your customers share a lot of information during their interactions with you. Using that information to present the right content at the right time is dependent upon your company s customer memory. Just as the waiter at your favorite restaurant remembers you and makes recommendations for an entrée he thinks you ll enjoy based on your past meals, the way your website welcomes your customers back is critical to retention and loyalty. The benefit of customer memory in today s digital environment is that the information you use to engage your customers doesn t necessarily require their direct input, such as creating a profile or filling out a form or survey. Mining their social data, such as the likes and recommendations of their Facebook friends or the products they share about or review, can help to frame their context. This external data combined with historical page views and purchases and real-time information can all be used to engage customers by presenting them with meaningful content upon their arrival at your website. A WCM platform with contextual publishing tools can help you to put customer memory to work. The options are many, including matching visitor profiles with predefined segment rules to dynamically display relevant content. You can also set personalization rules that select content based on predefined conditions. Automating this process helps to ensure the right content is delivered to the right person at the right time based on customer memory. Not to mention that it makes your life much simpler. It s also important for retail marketers to be able to respond to offline interactions that drive online experiences. One example is a specific link from a print magazine or catalog. By recognizing the source of the referrer, context is more easily diagnosed in relation to other data and can be responded to with a customized display. Just remember to orient them based on the expectations set by the source. Additionally, if location information indicates the customer is in-store at a competitor, the ability to automatically display a special offer based on the customer s value to your company can help to redirect their intention to purchase from you. 6

7 Responsiveness is the Way Forward Applying context to personalize Web experiences is not as much about the need to create more content as it is the ability to reuse the content you already have in new, more engaging ways to involve your customers in the experience of your products. Given your customers buying patterns and interests and the crossovers available across product lines, the potential to build adaptive experiences is nearly unlimited. It s the ability to harness the insights from customer data and then react or predict in real time what to show them that can result in compelling customer experiences that bring competitive advantage. About CoreMedia CoreMedia is a leading provider of Web Content Management (WCM) software to organizations demanding engaging, context-driven online experiences for their customers regardless of channel or touchpoint. The company s WCM suite offers unique business value by seamlessly integrating digital and social media assets, increasing editorial productivity and accelerating time to market in complex environments. As a result, businesses can more effectively execute their online strategies to engage users, build customer loyalty and ultimately drive greater revenue and profitability. Established in 1996, CoreMedia is headquartered in Hamburg, Germany, with offices in San Francisco, London, and Singapore. CoreMedia s clients include global brands, such as the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Bertelsmann, BILD, CLAAS, Continental, EPCOS, Deutsche Telekom, Internet Broadcasting, JD Group, Tchibo, Telefónica Germany and ZDF. 1 How Top Performing Retail Organizations Embrace Web Content Management & Ecommerce Integration. Gleanster. 2 The State of Customer Lifecycle Engagement in Mid-to-Large B2C Companies. Gleanster. gleanster.com/reports/the-state-of-customer-lifecycle-engagement-in-mid-to-large-b2c-companies. 3 Meaningful Brands Study. Havas Media Content Marketing Association. 7

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