Scott Brinker, the MarTech advisory board, and thousands of community members created another meaningful forum hosted in San Francisco. One could describe the MarTech Conference in early April as a mashup of marketing and technology professionals. More than 1,100 attendees came together to reimagine what’s possible, get real with one another, and share how to put skin in the customer experience (CX) game to win hearts, minds, and sustainable transactions.
While at the event, I kept seeing the connection between MarTech strategies and search and digital marketing agency Acronym’s intent-based solutions point of view. Why? Because the customer is in control of virtually the entire buyer’s journey and they are searching for information and insights across a variety of devices, 24/7. Digital-savvy customers now expect meaningful experiences across all touch points.
Customer Experience: Not a Collection of Silo Activities
I think many marketers and technologists focus too much on their respective activities and not enough on transformative, customer experience strategies that are unique to their brand, business goals, and organizational structure. We need to reach across the aisle and ask one another, “what is customer experience success that truly matters?”
To further illustrate customer experience opportunities and urgency, Econsultancy and IBM released on April 1st the results of a new study called “The Consumer Conversation” with more than 1,200 responses from consumer and brand surveys. Jay Henderson, Director of Strategy at IBM, and I discussed some of the findings on camera:
[x_video_embed type=”16:9″][/x_video_embed]Study insights include: personalization disconnect between how well brands think they know customers vs. reality according to customers’ experiences with brands; poor experiences drives more customer churn; customers are more willing to provide information when they trust brands:
- Over 90% of marketers agree that personalizing the customer experience is critical to their success
- Despite this agreement, consumers are not getting the personalized experience they seek—only 21% said the communications from the average company are “usually relevant” while only 35% said those from their preferred retailers are “usually relevant”
- 49% of consumers changed service providers in the last 12 months, with experience-related factors playing a prominent role
- Of those who changed providers, 30% switched due to provider failure, with 51% citing customer experience as the number one factor
- 72% of consumers said they would share their geographic data with a brand they trust, an increase of 89% over the average brand
- 61% of consumers would be willing to share their personally identifiable information with a brand they trust, an increase of 65% over the average company
Organize for Exceptional Customer Experiences
“For organizations serious about making themselves customer-centric the most difficult challenge is structure, not technology. Most are making shallow changes in usability or merchandising, but they’re not prepared to reorganize their teams around the customer,” said Stefan Tornquist, VP Research at Econsultancy and principal author of the study.
Stefan added, “A customer-centric strategy is inherently long-term. It insists on investments that increase customer value in exchange for gains in retention and lifetime value. That’s in sharp contrast to the quarter-to-quarter rabbit wheel that so many companies are caught in.”
Download ‘The Consumer Conversation’ report from Econsultancy: https://econsultancy.com/reports/the-consumer-conversation
Commit to Customer Experience Success
Customer experience achievement requires a team approach including interdisciplinary skills and perspectives. Game-changing collaboration and innovation will help us win and keep winning in the fast-moving, MarTech environment – to keep meeting and exceeding customer experience expectations. Read my CMSWire article to gain more insights from 19 presenters at #MarTech Conference.
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Many years of value creation as a consultant, team leader, individual contributor, and entrepreneur at companies including creatorbase, Selectica, Oracle, Ektron, Sitecore, Lyris, Return Path, Nokia, Creator Connection, Mark Monitor, Cisco Systems, GlobalFluency, Sun Microsystems, Philips N.V., Pandiscio Design, Elm Products and CBS television. A patent holder with agency, Fortune 500, media, and startup successes; degree in Business Administration from Notre Dame de Namur University. Enjoy collaborating with other creators, open conversations, family/friends time, and tennis. Follow @creatorbase.
