By Brian Solis

Humans are emotional creatures and they want experiences that engage them as humans. They’re not eyeballs, impressions, views, likes, shares, clickthroughs, or conversions.

A few weeks ago, I visited New York on a beautiful summer day to participate in an event that I would love to repeat everywhere around the world.

Prophet, a global brand strategy firm that recently acquired Altimeter Group, hosted an intimate event to explore the new horizons of digital customer experience (DCX). I was invited to share my thoughts alongside a very enchanting and sage MaryKay Kopf, CMO at Electrolux.

While informal, it was illuminating. MaryKay shared the story of how her team helped change a company founded in 1919 to compete in a digital economy.

Attendees ranging from some of the biggest brands to the hottest startups also shared the challenges and equally solutions. I left inspired and I wanted to share with you highlights from the event so that you may feel the same.

DCX + CX = The Experience: You either add value to it or you take away from it. It’s a choice.

TL;DR: 5 Takeaways to Make Customer Experience a Competitive Advantage

1. Find your “Undercover Boss” moment

Leaders need to reconnect with what it’s like to be a customer. Empathy is key to creating rewarding customer experiences, and it has been lost in today’s corporate culture. When you are empathetic toward your customers they become more than demographics – you understand their full lives, what makes them tick, where they want to be reached and how – and therefore designing a rewarding experience for them is simple. With this level of understanding, you’ll become so in tune with your audience that you’ll be able to provide them experiences they don’t even know they want yet. A true hallmark of a relentlessly relevant brand.

2. Innovation isn’t about technology, it’s about disruption

Use the TV remote control as an example of what innovation should mean. Instead of adding new features to it or making it more powerful, try to completely re-imagine a better way to control the TV. (Hint: it’s wouldn’t be a plastic brick with 100 buttons). To create experiences that matter to your customers, first think about what the experience should be and then use technology to bring it to life.

3. The new “Kodak moment” is a cautionary tale

The rate of disruption has increased exponentially, and many Fortune 500 companies have met their demise because of it. All companies need to embrace change, both in customer behaviors and expectations and in how you think about your business. Are you an automaker or a company that provides personal transportation? If Kodak had recognized new customer behaviors and had a broader sense of their purpose as a company, they could have been the leader of the new world of photography instead of standing still – ultimately losing relevance and share.

4. Swipe right to connect with millennials

Members of this digitally native generation want to shop, work and interact with your brand the same way they date – easily and intuitively. This doesn’t mean your company (necessarily) needs to go out and build a trendy mobile app, but you do need to create an experience that is intuitive, valuable and fun for your audience. Many decision-makers in companies today are from an older generation, so it’s easy to overlook how differently millennial consumers want to interact with your brand. The good news is they aren’t shy about telling you. This generation will provide a constant stream of feedback via social media – you just have to be willing to listen.

5. Love = value creation = shareholder value

Doing the right thing by the customer might not be the most profitable decision in the short term, but it does make good business sense. If your customers love your brand, they will buy your products, recommend them to others and become a customer for life. Foster your customer’s love by delivering excellent customer experiences throughout their journey and across channels. Brand lovers are crucial to a successful company and a healthy bottom line.

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Unabridged: Customer (and Employee) Experience Happens With or Without You; So, Design It

My Opening Remarks

By and large, companies want to do the right thing by their customers. The problem is they simply don’t know how. Companies are not designed around customers. Instead they have processes, budget pressures, silos and systems that reward short-term value for shareholders. When you consider this structure, it’s no wonder that customer experiences have suffered.

Remember customers are going to have an experience with your brand – good or bad – and in today’s social, digital world, they are going to share that experience. It is up to your company to ensure that experience is a good one.

More companies need to find their “Undercover Boss moment.” Leaders need to reconnect with what it’s like to be a customer. Empathy is key to creating a rewarding customer experiences. Companies have gotten good at dealing with the problem without dealing with the problem. They’ve created customer care centers, call centers, but they need to improve the actual customer experience.

Once social media empowered customers and gave weight to their voice, companies started trying to fix the experience. But they came at it the wrong way. They just wanted to shut people up, instead of trying to design/articulate a good experience that you want people to share.

Companies need to ask themselves what are the experiences people have with my brand? And what are my products? There is always a gap between the two. The question is how big is that gap and how do you fill it?

Digital customer experience is different. It can be mind-blowing for those in older generations because it’s not how we grow up. The TV remote control is a metaphor for customer experience. We don’t question it every day, but since the 50’s it’s gotten worse. It’s changed iteratively, but there has been no thought of innovation. If you were to invent the remote control today from scratch, it would look completely different.

Today’s leaders (the older generation) are making decisions by based on their experiences, but digital customers think differently. And it is almost always counter-intuitive to the older generation. Example: Millennials don’t want to buy houses. The idea of the car and car ownership will completely change in our lifetime.

This type of change is happening because companies have screwed it up. Disruption is letting customers demand a different experience.

I recently worked with Google to study micro moments – “I want to …” moments, including “I want to go to dinner, get a cab, etc.” What we found is brands are not investing in what the actual customer experience is. The customer journey is so fragmented. New, “disruptive” companies cater to customers that believe the world literally revolves around them. Think of an app – it usually brings something to you. Millennials don’t like the way most companies work. They want to work like they date – swipe right. Easy, intuitive.

How can companies create experiences that matter to their customers? Think about it should be, design it, build it and use technology to help bring it to life.

Is the rate of disruption accelerating? The book looks at how many companies that were Fortune 500, on the Nasdaq, etc. are now gone. It’s scary. The book takes a look at how many were because of bad management or digital disruption. Digital disruption companies had one thing in common. All of their boards had the opportunity to do something to stop their demise and they didn’t. Kodak had the patents for the digital camera. Now a Kodak moment means to fail to recognize a consumer change. Today companies are built around quarterly value and they make decisions based on that short-sighted view.

People at companies don’t make new/innovative decisions because of a lot of human reasons – fear, self-preservation, etc. To be innovative, people need to be safe and empowered. And most people aren’t, companies are actually very risk averse. In an effort to change this many companies are opening innovation centers to get people out of the normal work environment and to think differently.

Sephora just opened an innovation center because they discovered the way the digital generation buys make-up is totally different than their parents. At Birchbox, they try to lead the customer and design experiences that they don’t know they want yet.

MaryKay Kopf, Global CMO of Electrolux

Electrolux has built a customer-centric approach. They are a living case study of digital transformation. $

They are a $16B global company that make home appliances and professional appliances (Michelin chefs). Less 5% of business is floor care business.

It is a 100 year-old company that makes stuff. MaryKay can always get budget for a new product, but the focus on customer experience wasn’t always there.

It starts with an emotion like love. Love = value creation = shareholder value. It’s not OK for consumers to think “it wasn’t that bad.” They need to love us. Electrolux’s vision = Love our brand, recommend us to others and become customers for life.

First, they conducted extensive consumer/shopping research in the category and about their consumers. Results were ugly but that meant there was a huge opportunity.

Secondly, they were honest with the Board. They made the research visual to bring it to life.

Third, they put the brand first. They answered questions: who are we? How do we deliver that? You have to know your customer (Example: Frigidaire customer is a timing saving Mom). You have to be her and tailor your brand experience to meet her needs.

Customer experience is not linear. You need to understand the different experiences and identify the gaps. Digital technology can be used to enhance experience, to surprise and delight.

A problem for Electrolux’s experience was customers couldn’t figure out which products are right for them. So they stopped talking about product specs, and centered shopping experience around customer’s needs (Where is the WD in the house? How many kids do you have? Do you have pets? Does your family have allergies?) This improved conversion by 60% in test stores.

The purchase decision for a home appliance can be an hour, but you live with it for 10 years. Does your company focus mostly on the hour and not the next 10 years? First, you have to know how customers make decisions (there different situations – broken WD means accelerated decision-making). Then empower consumers with info to help them make the decision. Afterwards, help her feel good about her purchase and provide a great onboarding experience – make sure she loves it in first 30 days of use.

How can the customer experience mindset infiltrate/affect the people who are actually making and designing the product? Involve them in the research and show them the results, so they can’t deny it. Let them clearly see the problem and motivates them to innovate.

How does the marketing department work with other technology groups– CIO vs. CTO vs. CMO? It’s not about technology, it’s about the customer experience and delivering what the customer wants whether that’s digital or physical or both. Help the other department explore other categories and bring back those learnings to your company. See how other brands are innovating. Create a marketing technology department that reports into marketing.

What were the leadership challenges as you began Electrolux’s transformation journey? You need to interview internal stakeholders and get important internal sponsors to help drive change. Embrace a test-and-learn mentality.

Thoughts from Attendees

Citi – Need to (re)define who we are as a company. Need to put the brand first. Differentiation is key to disruption. Have to take a stand and make your differentiator. Can’t be everything to everybody. Don’t need all the shiny objects. It’s not about big data, app strategy. It’s about he customer.

You can’t just do what people think they want, you have to anticipate it. It’s not just about the customer experience, it’s about the customer, and wanting the customer to succeed. It goes back to the Undercover Boss moment of having empathy.

Amex – What are things companies are doing to give them the extra insight into the customers? Social listening has the bluntness and speed to have an impact. But don’t turn it into a report, l the let customers’ voice shine through. Social listening is a lot about brand mentions, instead listen to your customers’ needs, sentiment, gaps in service. It can help you understand your audience and then tailor your brand/customer experience to match.

AT&T – A move that might be the right thing for the customer, could cost you a $1B in revenue. Is it worth it? Hopefully you will make it back but it’s a big risk. Patience is a virtue. Have to be able to show the return on the marketing investment. If you know the customer, when you shift the product/spend the money, it will open up new opportunities that will make new revenue.

Birchbox – Social listening. You have to know if your social customers are your true target market. Most of your consumers are 5,6,7 on the customer satisfaction scale. They’re not happy or unhappy enough to talk to you, so it’s dangerous to react based on just those who are talking about it you. Advice: “Listen to what they need, but almost never what they say.”

Notes via Katie Lamkin

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