FIGARODIGITAL.CO.UK
Integrating With The Customer Ecosystem
User experience has evolved beyond individual touchpoints, and the future holds streamlined
T
o the younger generation, the digital age has been the only age. Yet it has been less than a decade
since the release of the iPhone. In June 2007, Apple changed the landscape of marketing, introducing a way for brands to sit in the pockets of their target market anytime, anywhere. industry terms, instantaneous. However, time is relative – and in marketing – particularly 21st century marketing – its own. When we look to the future of campaigns, we look mere months down the line.
Consumer Mentality
In the early noughties, the average consumer attention span sat at 11 seconds. Today, that’s nearly halved, sitting at just seven seconds. Matt Preschern, CMO, HCL Technologies, explains that “what has happened in the last 15 years is [that] our attention span has gone down – but on average, people go to their smart device 150 times a day, and they spend up to 177 minutes on it.” Google describes these consumer
experiences as ‘micromoments’ – fracturing the consumer journey into “hundreds of real-time, intent-driven, micro-moments” according to their Think With Google collections. “Each is a critical opportunity for brands to shape our decisions and preferences.” According to Preschern, 50 per cent of Americans state that it would be a personal catastrophe if they lost their phones, showing just how much people have come to rely on their mobile devices. What that does mean, however, is that the relationship between consumer and brand has evolved. Customers are engaging with your
across all touch points is kind of the holy grail of marketing” he says. “There’s no customer experience, whether using a search engine, receiving an invoice, speaking on the phone, or simply going to a social network, [shows a customer] wanting to have a social interaction. All of those are vehicles for [that] interaction.”
As such, marketing needs to be
brand on their own terms, how and when they choose. “They don’t think of multi-channel, or omni-channel,” Preschern says, alluding to the way in which marketers consider engagements. “They think of their device as their vehicle to engage with your brand, learn about your brand, get entertained by or speak to your brand.” And so they will increasingly expect responses in a similar way – that brands will respond in real-time. “There’s a notion of agility,” says Preschern. “And then what they expect is an unprecedented level of personalisation.”
The Ongoing Touchpoint
Don’t think of the device as a physical
object, think of what it enables you to do.”
According to Preschern, it’s a matter of being “always on.” Particularly in B2B, it’s a matter of remembering that your customers are human beings. “You have to invest in some sort of marketing technology that’s directly linked to your CRM systems, while at the same time using data to your advantage.” Thinking about your customers’
buying cycles, the emerging innovation is one that maximises attention to customer experience, to experiential touchpoints. “Customer experience
experience centric and outcome driven. The APIs with the most initiative go into the notion of the customer ecosystem. If you go into Google Maps, there’s an integrated Uber button. In some hotels, order pizza. We’re so far past standalone websites and even apps – the crux of the matter comes down to experience, and mobile brings customers closer to this streamlined UX. The more integrated this interaction becomes, the easier their experience – and in order to marketing will feed into UX. These micromoments can be brief and lurk in a consumer’s subconscious, but every interaction is a micromoment and every micromoment is an opportunity. “Don’t think of the device as a physical object,” Preschern sums up “think of what it enables you to do.” Consumers are sharing photos on social media whilst actually in shops, for purchase advice and recommendations. It’s crowdsourcing in real time, for things mobile device is the hub. Moving forward, marketers must be
integrating themselves into the with the right platforms – just like Uber and Google Maps.
hcltech.com
45 issue 29 winter 2016
Words: Georgia Sanders
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