ON STRATEGIC MARKETING

I’d been asked to write an article on the impact of customer experience on strategic marketing. That was the working title anyway. I paused, and thought about the wave of human centred design practises, wielding their dark art on unsuspecting yet eager disciples, looking for the next big thing, the nirvana.

Have we reached the horizon of marketing products and services to people? Should we now focus on what’s left of the ever stripped marketing budget on building a brand promise or should we stick to the knitting and acquiring the customers to meet next quarter’s targets? Or is there something missing?

I decided to do some research, not the desktop kind, the people kind. So several bleary-eyed mornings of coffee and chatter later the nuggets of something potentially useful emerged.

Is CX simply the latest idea du jour?

My coffee collaborators and I pondered - is customer experience another topic of the moment, a label to define the next restructure as you relentlessly reposition your products or services in the market, attempting to remain relevant? Or is it a philosophy that underpins ‘the what’ and ‘the how’ of your core purpose? Perhaps a corner of your office might be dedicated to the discipline of customer experience. Or, is it just a marketing function, a repackaged 7 C’s (not 7 P’s) with a new name, infused with the ‘not so new’ principles of human centred design?

Whatever it was or is, it got us thinking about the relevance of both customer experience and strategic marketing disciplines and how, if we used them together we might just have the secret sauce (or source) of success. Encouraged, we kept asking questions.

Can Strategic Marketers learn from design thinking?

Marketers could well be missing the design aspect when it comes to customer experience. Whether the start point is an established organisation or a start up with a blank sheet of paper, methodologies like Human Centred Design, Blue Ocean Thinking and Business Model Canvas can be used to uncover breakthroughs. These moments can bring together both left and right brain thinking around customer, marketing, operations and finance.

Human-centred design is a design and management framework. It brings creativity into developing solutions by involving the people affected by the challenge. This approach has been wielded by global powerhouses like Airbnb, Amazon and Google to differentiate their services, eroding the competitive position of many product and service organisations. Much of their gains have been through cost advantages afforded by the adoption of e-commerce and digitization of inefficient business processes. The real point of difference however lies in the user experience.

So is the three way trade-off between fast, cheap and quality still relevant – and why can’t we have it all?

Price, quality and speed of service can influence the importance consumers place on customer experience. Typically, we get two choices of the three: “I am getting a bargain on something I want so I’ll put up with needing to pick that up”, or “it’s fast service and good quality so I’ll pay what they ask”, or “it’s good quality and inexpensive – but I’ll have to wait a while”. Once upon a time the low cost ‘stack em high and watch em fly’ retailers could trade off price benefits – but the threat from online business models that are slick, anticipate customer needs and deliver next day has altered that landscape forever.

So what else could hold the key?

We all live with the impact of technology on our business models and the need for competitive advantage, so what else could potentially hold the key to revolutionising your customer experience and being more strategic in your approach to marketing?

Let’s assume that our people (staff, suppliers, stakeholders) have some role in actually delivering our marketing strategy (I’ll row the boat out here and assume you have a marketing strategy, but that’s another article).

The essence of that marketing strategy might even include a ‘WHY’ – and we’re not talking a ’let’s increase turnover by 20% this quarter and bottom line by five percent’ kind of why. What I am talking about is a compelling articulation of purpose that excites and energises your people to make a positive difference, even just a small one, FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS.

According to Coca Cola Chairman, Muhtar Kent:

No longer is it enough to make a good product. You have to make a product that fulfils more than just one expectation from you as a company. You need to be in line with what (your customers) expect your character to be. So when we can actually say ‘we are now returning all the water we use globally, and ahead of our goal' – as we did in Stockholm – that plays into your consumers' expectations. That is critically important as a brand business. We say, "A brand is a promise, and a great brand is a promise kept." We have to work every single day to keep those promises for our brands.”

So where do you start?

Perhaps you’ve segmented your current and future customers and figured out the size of that market, what your share is, which customers are left to chase and even the channels to reach them. But how well does your product or service meet their needs? Have you defined what a good customer experience looks like, feels like, sounds like, and maybe even tastes like for your customers? Do each of your people understand how their work makes a difference in delivering that experience?

What’s most important?

He aha te mea nui o te ao. What is the most important thing in the world? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata. It is the people, it is the people, it is the people. Not the product. Not the service. It’s the people.

Be brave and ask your customers what’s stopping you from delivering an amazing customer experience.

They’ll tell you.

Your choice is whether you listen.

Ian Robertshaw is the Chair of the NZ Marketing Association’s Strategic Marketing Advisory Group, and in his day job leads Business Development and Value Creation at Auckland Transport. This article is the opinion of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of the Marketing Association of NZ or Auckland Transport.