CONNECTION IS EVERYTHING
MAY 27TH, Belfast
speech
summary.
With the birth of the Beta generation, we now have seven different consumer generations to serve, all of which are relevant to retail and how our customers now live their lives.
From Traditionalists (born after WWII) and Baby Boomers, all the way through to Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, Gen Alpha and on to the Beta babies of today, meeting customer needs has become a much more complex task.
It would be arrogant of us to assume that we can continue to run our business the same way over the next 10 years as we have over the past 10. Arrogance kills entire brands and industries, and it could kill your business faster than you think.
The old business models of the early 2000s are not serving the modern consumer of today. The nature of ‘search’ and retail has shifted. In fact, as we prepare for AI Agents to take over the search/evaluate/purchase elements of the consumer decision making process, it is the Experience and Advocacy elements that become the differentiator and core competitive advantage.
Convenience, frictionless and efficient have all become table stakes. We need to do better.
As customer and employee expectations change, alongside our business and service landscape, so must every brand offering. Staying relevant is key to survival and so we aim to focus on what our customers value. It is in exploring and understanding the values of the modern customer connection, we build a brand for future success.
Take your eye off what your customers value and you run the risk of becoming irrelevant.
We discussed the following key values during the keynote.
01/CONNECTION.
The keynote was entitled ‘Connection is Everything’ for a reason.
Relationships and belonging are the driving forces of human happiness.
The need to move away from a transactional model to one that puts the customer and relationship at the centre is key.
This is particularly true as AI agents prepare to commoditise CX. When every brand has access to the same technology, where is our differentiation? It is in the connection you create with your community, the experience you offer.
02/CUSTOMER
CENTRICITY.
For too long, retail has been an operational business, focused on stock, assets, staffing, hygiene, and promotional cycles.
We need to place our customer at the centre, not the brand, property assets, operation, or our own ways of working. The customer is not some inconvenient truth at the end of a customer journey. They are the fulcrum, the roots of the SPAR tree, the pulsing centre point around which everything must revolve.
Everything comes to the customer today. Why go to a restaurant when Uber Eats will deliver to your home? Why go out on the streets to flag a cab when Uber will deliver it to your door? Why use an expensive orthodontist when you can straighten your teeth with mail-order clear braces?
Customer service and talent management expectations have changed. We need to shift from a transactional to a CX focus and philosophy. The experience needs to be wholly customer and employee centric, and community driven.
It also needs to be experienced ‘personally’. The modern customer expects to be treated personally; made feel special, have heavily customised service at every touch point.
Make them feel special by connecting personally with them. Move away from a commodity experience. Use data to better leverage that connection. Brand is everything when it comes to differentiation.
Think about how your brand can better connect with your customers in a way that makes them feel like they are at the centre. Ultimately our product is all about community connection.
03/DEPTH v SCALE
OF CONNECTION.
We discussed many examples of successful brands losing their community-traction with scale. Shake Shack, Pret, Starbucks. Still globally successful but they have sacrificed scale for community. To quote Pink Floyd, they have “exchanged their walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage”.
To win this war for connection and relevance, we have to look to authentic connection.
Connection with heart (Jumbo in the Netherlands with their ‘Chat Checkout’) and with passion (the red carpet rolled out to customers in that coffee shop)
We need to bring the community aspect to the SPAR brand to the forefront of everything we do. But we need to bring it to life as a lived-daily value, not as a concept on a PowerPoint slide.
04/BEYOND
EXPECTATIONS.
In examining the brand ladder of engagement, it is clear that we need to delight our shoppers and stakeholders, to go beyond their expectations if we are to truly build brand advocacy.
Recall Swiftmas and the look on the customers faces as they opened their personalised gift boxes. Remember the emotion of connection, the power of being ‘seen’ as a customer.
Octopus Energy took the simplest data point (a date of birth) and used it to creatively connect with their customers.
Are you doing enough with all the data and systems you have to make a difference in your customers lives, daily?
If they do not have any stories to tell about the SPAR brand, then your brand does not exist. Brands come to life through the stories customers tell of them.
At the top of that brand ladder was Brand Advocacy, the moment your customers sell your product for you. This is the target. To have people tattoo the SPAR logo on their skin. To build our own Swiftie army.
05/CUSTOMER
INTIMACY.
We then introduced the Intimacy Ladder – the need to climb up and out of Customer Service (getting the basics right) and even from Customer Experience (a commodity space) to true Customer Intimacy, a place where the focus is on ‘fostering a sense of closeness with the customer’.
Recall the United Airlines story. Intimacy is born in moments of empathy, support and delight. Of care and trust. Of community and shared values.
06/EMPLOYEE
EXPERIENCE.
Delivering this level of CX and Customer Intimacy requires employees who are passionate about connection and who are aligned on CX philosophy.
The Ritz-Carlton laptop story illustrates this perfectly. Or Raymond in the parking lot of the hospital. Everyone in SPAR, no matter who they are, has the power to make a difference, to build better connections, to bring the community competitive advantage to life.
07/THE IMPORTANCE
OF RELATIONSHIP.
Ultimately, building Customer Lifetime Value and Customer Intimacy is about building Relationships. It is about moving away from that old ‘transaction model’ and moving towards a model that is based around putting the Relationship at the centre. This is why Experience Management has become such an inherent part of most companies’ strategy.
It is only when emotions are engaged do we build relationship, when the customer ‘feels’ something. We need to become a trusted partner in life for our customers, not just another brand.
The more we embed emotional response and authentic, compassionate customer interactions in the customer experience, the more we build that bond with that customer. We achieve scale and depth of connection.
Look for ways to build significant relationships, with depth, authenticity and purpose. Taylor Swift is a mastermind of customer connection and her success is based on a 20-year investment in CX.
In our future deep-fake, AI-fuelled world, authentic relationship will be everything. The experience a customer or employee has should also build that relationship depth.
Customer Intimacy is the endgame.
Your Strategy Audit
10 Questions to Answer
01
If you were to make SPAR more BLUE DOT tomorrow, what would that look like? Where in the customer journey could you do a better job at making it about THE CUSTOMER and not about YOU?
02
Where could you implement PROACTIVE service rather than waiting for a customer to ask? How could we build loyalty and brand respect by moving towards a proactive service model?
03
Where do we routinely go beyond customer expectations into the delight space? What 5 ideas could we bring to life in a customer journey that would make a customer smile in delight?
04
What AI and digital elements add value to the emotive customer experience? Are most of our digital tools about efficiency and process? Where are the delight moments using technology?
05
What moments have we created in the last 3 months that would be your United Airline, Swiftmas and Raymond stories? Who is telling your Brand Story today?
06
How do you share the moments of delight and above customer expectation internally? How does the organisation hear, routinely, that we are delighting our customers?
07
Who is your Excite & Delight Director within your team, responsible for delivering moments that go beyond customer expectation in-store. Who are they in HR?
08
What are you doing in the Employee Experience space that motivates your employees to want to deliver 5-star CX service? All of the values discussed apply to employees also.
09
If a customer left your business tomorrow, where is that failure most likely to have come from in your customer journey? Audit your CX processes, identify pain points and look to dissolve the friction.
10
Where is the evidence you are building relationships, climbing the Customer Intimacy ladder and building Customer Lifetime Value in your customer experience? Where are you authentic and pushing past transaction into relationship?
More content
from Ken.
THE CUSTOMER INTIMACY LADDER: FROM SERVICE TO SOUL
QUANTUM PHYSICS & THE ILLUSION OF SEPARATION: WHY ENTANGLEMENT MIGHT BE THE MOST POWERFUL METAPHOR IN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE (CX)
DECODE, DELIGHT, DEVOTE: TURNING CUSTOMERS INTO TRIBES THROUGH GAMIFICATION
For those too lazy to read blogs, and to view further visual content and past performances from Ken Hughes, check out the YouTube channel where he discusses all things consumer and customer experience related.
If you want to develop a true understanding of Customer Intimacy and Brand Advocacy and understand the power of the EX/CX relationship, get yourself a copy of my latest book. Packed with inspiring stories around CX, it is your backstage pass to brand brilliance.
