This year’s Client Symposium highlighting Customer Experience produced numerous insights we had to share. Some snapshots:
Jon Masland, LRW’s Customer Experience practice leader kicked off the event by redefining Customer Experience Management (CEM) as a management discipline, rather than a mere survey program or technical system. “Intentional experiences,” he said are key to the most successful CEM programs.
Jon’s advice that you can use: focus on a short list of micro-behaviors to attract and retain customers, leverage data to diagnose issues, and envision a future state to rally and align the organization.
Analytics and modeling dominated the morning sessions with presentations by four senior members of LRW’s marketing science team. Hilary DeCamp introduced a paradigm of interactions, events and relationships, then built a leverage-analysis framework atop it to identify high-leverage satisfiers in customer experience. Mick McWilliams brought this paradigm to life with case studies illustrating Bayesian Network Modeling’s powerful ability to overcome multicolinearity. DJ Jefferson explained why satisfaction and experience measures must link to specific, actual financial results, and shared how to create such a financial linkage model. Closing out the morning, Steve Karlin demonstrated that adding social media ratings to models add ~10% more predictive power.
Whew! Lunch & toes in the sand time.
Our afternoon hit a high note with a special performance by our company acapella group, the GLEEbermans. Their rendition of Goyte’s “Somebody that I Used to Know” truly dramatized the angsty turmoil of customer churn.
Our focus then shifted to a holistic view of customers’ interactions with brands. Jeremy Sack set the stage, explaining how brand stereotypes impact customer experiences. Miriam Alexander, leader of LRW’s Qualitative Division, advocated for an inclusive approach to Customer Journey Mapping to more effectively help organizations walk in their customers’ shoes. Collette Eccleston’s discussion about remembered experiences revealed that memories may be clouded and showed how experience designers can use this to create more compelling customer interactions. Jason Brooks, with a little help from Lara Berman, helped us view experience testing through a different lens. They immersed us in the possibilities of using Virtual Reality to get consumer reactions to new experience concepts, while triggering an unstoppable case of the giggles. Weeeeeeee!
Day two started with Mike Clarke who shared LRW’s proprietary Shopper Mindset Segmentation as a framework for understanding the evolution of omni-channel shopping behavior. CTO Shaun Collett next helped us to wisely choose the right CEM platform, a process which surprisingly mirrors dating. #geeklove #nojoke.
Guest speaker Blair McHaney of Medallia wrapped up our event with inspiring insights about CEM’s ability to transform employees and customers alike into true brand evangelists.
On a lighter note, we tried to delight our customers with a few special experiences designed specifically for them. CEM on the sea shore, need we say more? We didn’t employ a survey, but the German Reisling paired with the Point Reyes Blue Cheese made a great showing at our Opening Night Reception. No one complained about our Ice Cream Lab experiment, and for dinner the crowd got to take in the setting sun over Malibu and then the sparkling lights of the LA skyline. Some say the crab cake appetizers stole the show, others handed the blue ribbon to the spicy blue margarita, but make no mistake, the mac and cheese was not to be ignored.
To close, we felt so proud and excited by the range of clients from different industries that prioritized customer experience as a part of their growth strategy. If you were able to join us, thank you for coming. If you weren’t, you’re invited to join us next year.
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