More debt leads to lower customer satisfaction
It is well known that firms in the US use mainly external financing (debt) to finance growth. It actually is believed to account for 80% of financing. Yet, this external financing puts pressure on the firms and studies have revealed the adverse consequences it represents : less investment in advertising and R&D less full-time employees, lower wages, more part-time employees inferior product and service quality With so many negative outcomes, how can customer satisfaction evolve when...
Measuring emotions for a better customer experience management
Can we measure customer experience ? This is a topic we already discussed here and the answer was no. Let me come with a new proposal that was addressed by Sensum during the CPDP 2017 conference : can our body reactions be a reliable measure of customer experience (or at least part of it). Please read further to discover more about this very exciting insights into how measuring reliably emotions can help us better understand customer...
What are the latest conclusions of academics on customer satisfaction and customer experience ?
In the Journal of Marketing special issue ” Mapping the Boundaries of Marketing: What Needs to Be Known”, Lemon & Verhoef (2016) deliver 5 very useful conclusions on the state of customer experience and satisfaction research. These 5 conclusions, taken from the very latest top research in the field of marketing, are useful for practitioners and lead us to formulate 5 sets of recommendations. Start with service quality to measure customer experience Since there is no...
The role of Big Data on society : EBU conference
With fellow colleagues of EBU, I organized last week a conference entitled “Big Data and Society“at RTBF, the French-speaking public broadcasting organization of Belgium. As I wrote on EBU website, this event aimed at gathering together professionals from the broadcasting industry to reflect on the impact of Big Data, recommendation algorithms and filter bubbles on society in general, and on users’ behaviors in particular. We assembled an amazing panel of 8 speakers from 5 countries who shared...
Amazon Go : this disruptive retail model hides a secret
Amazon Go is a 100% connected store where checkout are automated. Amazon Go is the convergence of at least 3 important trends : the first one is the diversification of Amazon into brick-and-mortar store the second one is a trend to decrease costs in the retail sector to increase margins the third one is the dream to put all behaviors into data to better predict what consumers will buy next Trend #1 : Amazon’s diversification into...
How novelty and serendipity improve customer satisfaction
Product recommendations have enabled E-commerce websites to become a place where mass marketing converges with niche marketing. Recommendations are pivotal in enabling less popular products to be discovered by people who are the most likely to like them : this is a long-tail strategy. There is however a dilemma to be adressed : how much of novel and unexpected products should be recommended to online visitors to enhance their satisfaction? This is the purpose of today’s...
Will Amazon revolutionize supply-chain management?
Two years ago we were analyzing on this blog the rise of a new logistics giant : Amazon. Amazon was successfully testing new delivery experiences with DHL and Audi. We also predicted Amazon was ready to compete directly with the DHL, Fedex and UPS of this world. The announcement made by Amazon to open parcel locker network across Europe, is a logical first step before entering the battle. As you may remember from our market research...
Will banks sell your data to retailers?
Your bank knows a lot about you and, as a matter of fact, the banking sector has been investing huge amount in Big Data for years. Similarly retailers know also a lot about you through the purchases you make. Is the next step a merger of data from both world to enhance behavior predictability ? This is the subject of an article on Visionary Marketing. However, unlike you may think, the idea of using banking data...
Techstartupday 2016 : virtual reality on the rise
At the techstartup day 2016 that took place in Brussels last week, one of the buzzwords was virtual reality (VR). Juan Bossicard, Cluster manager at Impulse and President of the Microsoft Innovation Center, held a very interesting speech on the opportunities offered by VR in various industries. What I loved about Juan’s speech was the perspective it gave to Virtual Reality and its link with digitalization. Juan’s argument was that despite digitalization a frontier still remains...
10 Parisian stores with a 3D-printed interactive window
In an earlier post we reported about an initiative launched in Paris to create interactive windows 3D printed elements made by Le FabShop. This initiative got launched by SEMAEST, a public organization which aims at promoting local retail in Paris. In December 2015 they gathered 10 retailers who rent spaces owned by SEMAEST : a flower shop, three book stores, a cheese shop, … Before the installations got dismantled on 10 Jan 2016, I wanted to...
Clever store window : innovative, interactive and surprising
Shoppers are desperately in need of new, innovative and refreshing ideas in the retail sphere. Retailers have come up with tons of digital innovations inside the store, all aiming at selling more. But they forgot the enchantment part of the story. Where is the magic of the stores you visited during your childhood? Shoppers are desperate because there is no more magic; there are only strategies to sell more, to tie you up and increase your...
Customer experience : wine estate “La Grange des Pères” uses sensory marketing
How to create bonds with your customers, how to increase their loyalty ? Those questions are essential for firms. Independent winemakers need to have loyal customers to survive. Here’s what one of them did to foster customer satisfaction and loyalty. Independent winemakers under price pressure It shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that many winemakers are having difficulties to sell their product. Most of them use indirect sale channels and sell their wine to intermediaries...
Retail: 4 mistakes that will make your customers leave your store
In those days of showrooming (browsing shoppers) it has never been so important to ensure your customer is satisfied and stays in the stores. Those 4 mistakes will certainly make your customers leave your store right away. Make sure you avoid them ! 1. Waiting time too long People hate queues; be it for check out of to try clothes, you should avoid at all means that your customers must wait. Did you know that in...
Big Data: TAM Airlines creates unique customer experience
Let’s stick with our new habit of having a shorter Friday post. Thanks to our good friends at Creapills, we learned about the initiative of TAM Airlines leveraging Big Data and Data Analytics to increase passengers’ satisfaction. TAM Airlines used a Facebook Connect to get personal information on its passengers. For those of you who don’t know what a Facebook Connect is, it’s a popup that enables a website to capture data from your Facebook account...
DHL, Amazon and Audi partner to revolution the supply chain
If you are in e-commerce, you know that delivery is a crucial part of the customer experience. If you want your clients to be satisfied and to repurchase from your site, you’ll have to make sure the delivery runs flawless. Yet, flawless delivery (on time) is not enough anymore : it needs to be free-of-charge and the trend is towards quicker and same-day deliveries. Customers’ expectations are more and more to get their order the same...
Brand image : Hublot store bets on new technologies
Innovation is the nexus of retail marketing, especially when it comes to the differentiation of points of sales (POS). Innovation often comes first from the top, i.e. from premium brands which have the money to invest in new technologies. Today we’d like to present you an innovation we spotted in the Hublot store of Place Vendôme, in Paris. Hublot is a watch brand that belongs to the LVMH group and is currently headed by Jean-Clauve Biver,...
Naked Wines: great service and amazing customer experience
We are always looking for the greatest customer experience on earth, service quality that will move you to the highest levels of loyalty. We found a new amazing example in the UK in the e-commerce industry : Naked Wines. Read below what those guys did. It’s just amazing. Dissatisfied customer ? Make him happy to regain trust You know we are very much following complaint handling practices in Europe and are especially receptive to companies showing...
Retailing: fighting browsing shoppers is wrong. Here’s what you should do.
Browser consumers are not new. Academic papers dating back to the 80’s are mentioning this behavior and called for researching it. posing what retailers consider being a great threat to their business. Today however they actually pose also the question of the survival of the brick-and-mortar retail sector vs. online retailing; browser consumers are visiting stores and then buying online, an option which didn’t obviously exist 30 years ago. Retailers feel threatened by what may appear...
How to transform a negative moment in a positive customer experience
Today we wanted to finish the week on a positive and joyful note. Today’s post is inspired by KLM, the Dutch airline. There are many frustrating experiences that can happen when you travel by plane, and insatisfaction can arise for many different reasons. Loosing something in the airport, forgetting something on the plane (think about your keys, your smartphone) can lead to intense negative emotions. Fixing what one may see as a complaint-like situation is a...
How 5-star hotels enhance the customer experience
Customers of 5-star hotels are more and more demanding and hard to satisfy. Top-tier hotels have to undergo costly renovations (in Paris alone several palaces like the Ritz and the Lutetia have closed for long periods of time to enable building works) and must be highly innovative to improve the satisfaction of the visitors and provide an unforgettable customer experience. The latter has become a grail for top-tier hotel which strive for differentiation to keep loyal...
O2 and Deutsche Telekom create an innovative customer experience
Choosing a new smartphone, tablet or accessories can really be difficult for most customers. Not only does technology constantly evolve, but you won’t be allowed to actually touch, feel and try real devices in cell phone stores. The risk to get unsatisfied customers is high. Very high. This situation is just unbelievable. Customers about to buy a 500€ device must rely on not trustworthy sales guys and will discover when they are home whether what they...
A call for a revolution in customers – firms relationships
You may remember the post published two ago about managing expectations to increase customer satisfaction. In that post I also mentioned a recent negative experience with Coolblue. The guys at Coolblue proved once again their professionalism by handling the complaint perfectly and actually increasing my loyalty even more. Here is how. The complaint handling paradox It’s probably been mentioned already here but I can’t repeat it enough. Handling complaints well will lead to even higher satisfaction...
Western Union blue ocean strategy to increase loyalty
At the International Marketing Trends conference in Venice, Maureen Sigliano presented Western Union’s global loyalty strategy. Maureen is Vice President Global Loyalty Development & Customer Experience at Western Union and her speech, besides being highly inspiring, also shook up some established rules about customer satisfaction and loyalty. A Blue Ocean of untapped opportunities Maureen’s speech was preceded by a presentation by Michael Hänhlein on current state of customer relationship management (CRM). Michael insisted that firms’ efforts...
These business cards are amazing
Over the years I’ve met with hundreds (if not thousands) of people and have collected an impressive collection of business cards. While most of them are very classical and do not trigger any particular emotion, some of them have remained in my collection as my all-time favorites. Let’s have a look at them …. For privacy reasons I blurred the contact details. However to respect copyrights you’ll find the hyperlinks to the companies. OneBite Consulting OneBite...
L’imprimerie, a new kind of customer experience
I was fortunate to meet an atypical entrepreneur, Nicolas Guthart, who started several businesses that are highly complementary and propose an innovative value proposition for brands. How a new marketing concept was born To make a 10-year story short(er), Nicolas launched with two partners a magazine dedicated to footware that ended up dealing with cultures and subcultures revolving around trendy shoes like sneakers and the like. I like this concept of culture and sub-cultures because...
How design can help increase your revenues
The Paris Chamber of Commerce organized this year a contest dedicated to the best design initiatives in retail environments. As we explained in an earlier post we started taking appointments and visiting as many stores as possible that applied (even if they didn’t win a prize). We started our tour with one of the winners, a dry cleaner called “H20”. We met with Bruno Benizri, the founder of the company who, in the meantime, opened another...
When the consumer interacts actively with the store window
To follow up on our latest post on future store windows, we publish today this example we found in Portugal in an ICT store. Located at the bottom of an office building in Lisbon, this store proposes a window with an integrated touch screen. It’s more than a tablet; it’s actually a technology that has been used extensively in the industry and in automation for years. This technology is now made available, thanks to increased customer...
The most beautiful ways to display products. Part 6: Patrick Roger
Patrick Roger is a chocolate maker who has become pretty famous in France. He won the France Best Craftsman (“Meilleur Ouvrier de France”) contest in chocolate making. Unlike most winners Patrick Roger opened several shops with a vision. What I mean with vision is that the Patrick Roger’s shops have an underlying concept and visual identity which is stronger than that of other brands. Take for instance Marcolini, which I visited a few days before. It’s...
1855.com : how long can they survive?
Life is sometimes hard, especially for losers. Within a few days I read two different articles about 1855.com. The first one was published in the magazine “la Revue du Vin de France” which is a magazine specialized in wine and wine making. The other one was published in Le Figaro, a few years ago. I must admit 1855.com did very well in getting outstanding press coverage. They went to the stock market, and purchased two other...
Dandoy, a Belgian “Love Brand”
Saatchi & Saatchi has a word for brands they want to be turn into successful stories. They call them “love brands”. I have also my love brand, and it’s a Belgian one. Its name is Dandoy. The famous Brussels-based family-owned company, which will in 2012 open a store in Japan, opened us its door for a visit of its workshop located in the trendy Dansaert area. The street smells after speculoos, the century-long specialty of Dandoy....
Guerlain: customer experience in the historic store on Paris’ Champs Elysées
Guerlain just opened a pop-up store on the Champs-Elysées avenue (number 68), next to its historic store. I’ll deal with the pop-up store in a separate post but for the time being let’s see what’s up in the “old” store. The store was re-designed completely by Andrée Putman a few years ago and offers a unique customer experience that deserves a detailed marketing analysis. The ground floor is very classical and cannot be considered very special....
An outstanding customer experience in an incredible store in Brussels
Sometimes it’s not necessary to travel thousands of miles to find unique stores and enjoy incredible customer experiences.Although I’ve been living in Brussels for 10 years, I must admit I seldom go downtown and actually never shopped in the Rue Danseart. I therefore missed many vintage stores and among them Idiz Bogam (76 rue Antoine Dansaert). What a pity … when I first came in I was just amazed. You don’t get into a store. You...
The example of a well-managed customer experience by Blancpain
When Jean-Claude Biver took over Blancpain to revamp it, one of the first things he did was to launch the 6 masterpieces, a range of 6 watches (from the most simple to the most complicated) housed in the same case. One of those watches was the moonphase, which combines an annual calendar with the display of the phase of the moon. This is a pretty classical complication which still exists (in a larger case) today in...
Customer experience in Paris : « stratégie clients » trade show
I spent two days in Paris to observe the latest trends as far as distribution is concerned and also to attend the “stratégie clients” show which was dedicated to customer relationship, loyalty, CRM and the like. This show was reserved for marketing professionals and exhibitors were actually mainly suppliers in the IT and call-centre fields. As far as I’m concerned I found that it had therefore not much to do with the relationship itself but more...
McCafé … Starbucks’ bane
Starbucks’ success has attracted the attention of many potential competitors and McDonald’s attempt to “retaliate” with the McCafés is certainly one of the most serious threats for Starbucks. I visited a McCafé in Paris last week and wanted to benchmark the customer experience provided. Keeping in mind that Starbucks’ customer experience in Europe is a watered down version of what it is in the US (Starbucks actually took cultural differences into account when it exported its...
Decrypting Abercrombie & Fitch stores
Abercrombie & Fitch is trendy and each store opening generates a lot of buzz. Look for instance on YouTube the videos that we taken when the brand opened its store in Milan. A&F flagship store on 5th Avenue in NY is an interesting concept and deserves to be decrypted. There is actually an intention behind the store and every single detail of the store is aligned with this intention. I won’t tell you yet what it...
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