CRAFTING A BETTER CUSTOMER CONNECTION
January 19th 2025 / Dublin
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Speech Summary
The world is getting deeper digitally immersive. Only this month, Nvidia launched their new 92 billion transistor CPU at CES, a chip that again shifts gears in terms of the visual interface and processor capability. We already have robot vacuums in our homes, mowing our lawns and Elon Musk intends to manufacture 1000s of humanoid robots in 2025, alongside the rollout at his autonomous taxi fleet.
Change in all forms presses down on us. Technological, Economic, Social, Regulatory and most critically from our customers themselves. To survive and ensure our businesses are future focused, we need to have the courage to embrace new directions and to keep an eye on what the modern consumer values.
It would be arrogant of us to assume that we can continue to run our business or brands the same way over the next 10 years as we have over the past 10, as arrogant as Kodak thinking digital photography would be a fad, or Nokia feeling their scale would protect them against the iPhone. Arrogance kills entire brands and industries, and it could kill your business faster than you think. As retail customer and shopper expectations change, alongside our business landscape, so must we.
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 can build a business for future success. It is only in understanding these values can we craft this better connection with customers.
What customers value has always changed over time. Today we find ourselves facing values that are inherently positive for the Design and Craft industry.
At the beginning of the keynote, we discussed 4 values that have a direct effect on the industry
01/Convenience
We live in a one-click, one-swipe world, a world where the customer expects everything easy, everything now. We have gone from 2-day delivery to same day, to same-hour. I want it and I want it now. Fast fashion roars, but yet this fundamentally clashes with the customers desire for Sustainability. We have a customer who wants easy and cheap, but we also have a customer who wants real and sustainable.
02/Sustainability
03/Authenticity
This is the big one for the Design and Craft sector. While globalisation and commoditisation roll on, there is a significant swing back to local, community and more importantly to authentic, genuine consumption. Customers want to buy from brands they feel are ‘real not fake’. Bigger brands like McDonalds and Starbucks see their sales fall as local food trucks and independent coffee shops succeed. It is about the brand story, the personal touch, the realness of it all.
04/Quality
Lastly, we briefly discussed quality. Originally emerging as a key consumer value in the 1980s around luxury goods and everyday branding (Nike, Gucci, Dior), today quality is more about bespoke, genuine materials, and quality production. Quality is about later not now, time spent not rushed.
We then spent some time discussing 4 key values that affect every buyer and brand owner in the room. Bringing these values to life in any business helps us to lay down the foundations of customer lifetime value and win the race for relevance
Blue Dot Centricity
We need to place our customer at the centre, not the brand, product, or our own ways of working. The customer is not some inconvenient truth at the end of a customer journey. They are the BLUE DOT – the pulsing centre point around which everything must revolve.
Everything comes to the customer today. Why go to a restaurant when Deliveroo will deliver to your home? Why go out on the streets to flag a cab when Uber will deliver on to your door? Why use an expensive orthodontist when you can straighten your teeth with mail-order clear braces? Traditionally craft and designers have been all about the product itself, or indeed the crafting of the same. While this remains a key part of the product proposition, we need to become more consumer led.
The Blue Dot Customer is about the philosophy. Place the customer at the centre in everything we do. Invite them in.
Carrying the Blue Dot metaphor farther, no one would open Google maps and follow someone else’s blue dot on the map – you are only shown your own. The modern customer expects to be treated personally; made feel special, have heavily customised product and service at every touch point. This is the core advantage of smaller scale business.
Make them feel special by connecting personally with them. Move away from commodity retail experiences. Think about how your business can better connect your product or retail experience with your customer in a way that makes them feel like they are at the centre.
Expectant
Customers expect it to be right, first time, every time. There is no room for inconsistencies in how a customer is treated today. Ultimately Customer Experience has become the battle ground for success.
No longer is a customer delighted with expected levels of product or service. You must push past satisfaction and expectations into the ‘excite & delight’ space if you are to cut through with today’s customer. They rightfully demand more from every brand they invite into their lives.
Recall that diving board analogy – your customer is at the very top in terms of their expectations of you. They want it, and they want it NOW, and they want it about them, particularly relevant in a business that is premium and related to gifting (for self or others).
Think about how to delight your customer in unexpected ways. The brand needs to connect beyond mere product design or functionality. It is only through going beyond expectations that we build brand advocacy and tribal belonging, an empowered customer. You need to be different from the many others in your industry.
Remember those Harley Davidson and Red Bull tattoos – that is what we all want. An empowered consumer who will go out and sell your business for you. We all need that Swiftie army.
In a highly competitive market, what truly differentiates your brand or business? The brands that invest in CX and strive to go beyond any and every customer expectation lay down the foundations for true Customer Lifetime Value and invoke strong peer-to-peer brand storytelling.
Phygital
We now live in a ‘Digital First World’ – a world where we all reach for our digital devices first to answer any question or solve any problem. The digital Immersion is only going to increase with the coming Metaverse reality and as AI and Robotics converge alongside customer expectations. How and where we buy continues to evolve.
Every brand proposition has to be part Physical, part Digital. Customers now expect digital to drive their experiences. If you are not leveraging your assets on digital, you are 50% invisible as a business today.
AI is set to change every industry. Most importantly, it will unleash a new set of customer expectations around hyper personalisation and relevance for customers. Be ready for that fourth-dimension connectivity.
Return to your business and ask yourself how you can better engage across digital in your local market. How can you build and leverage digital assets to win this race for relevance.
Digital is not about new channels or AI (although it is those things too). Digital is simply our societal reality today, and your customer of today and tomorrow expects that reality of your brand and business too. Just because you are a unique small craft brand does not mean that your digital game should be weak. In fact, you have an inherent advantage through that smaller scale to leverage a depth of connection through digital.
Relational
Ultimately, building Customer Lifetime Value and Customer Intimacy is about building Relationships. It is about moving away from the ‘transaction’ and moving towards a model that is based around putting the relationship at the centre. This is CX has become such an inherent part of most brands’ strategy.
It is only when emotions are engaged do we build relationship, when the customer ‘feels’ something. We need our brands to become a trusted partner in life for our customers, not just another product proposition.
The more we embed emotional response and authentic, compassionate customer interactions in the customer experience, the more we build that bond with a customer. We achieve both scale and depth of connection. This again is true of both retailer connections and customer ones.
Look for ways to build significant relationships, with depth, authenticity and purpose. Recall the Taylor Swift fan enraptured with experiencing the product at her concert. This type of engagement only comes when there is a significant relationship related to the brand.
You have done the hard work in creating magnificent brands, you now simply need to foster the connection.
In our future deep-fake, AI-fuelled world, authentic relationship and connection will be everything.
8 Key Questions to Help You Strengthen your Customer Connection
- How strong do you bring the values of Authenticity, Quality and Sustainability through in your brand communications (beyond what others are saying also)?
- Your brand story is everything. How do you bring that brand story to life in-store and digitally to give the customer a genuine sense of connection to the brand (beyond the product itself)?
- How can you make your own business more ‘BLUE DOT’ and customer centric (both consumer and retail customer). How can you make it more about them and less about you?
- How can you dial up the personalisation experience for customers along the entire customer journey? How can you make them feel special?
- How and where can you go beyond customer expectation in product, service and delivery? Where are the moments of brand delight in your business?
- Evaluate your current digital marketing and business and invest in better digital presence in this ‘digital first world’ we now live in. What could you do to increase your digital reach?
- Where can you foster a sense of intimacy and closeness with your retail buyers and consumers? How can you build significant relationships with your customer beyond product and price?
- How can you build in emotive engagement and response in everything you do? Emotion builds loyalty and peer-to-peer storytelling.
More content from Ken
To get a more detailed feel for Ken Hughes content, check out his Blog – The Blue Dot Consumer. Widely read by those in the marketing, customer experience and retail worlds, it is full of in-depth discussion and content relating to all things consumer.
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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.
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