Creating a Customer Centric Experience

Brilliant Episodes • April 29, 2019
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E-commerce has changed how we shop and carry out most aspects of our daily lives. These day’s consumers find themselves shopping online, eBay or Amazon, all in the name of convenience. The need for retailers to become customer centric is no longer a debate.

National grocery supermarket retailers Coles and Woolworths are investing heavily in developing both online and in-store innovations. Serving a broad range of customers – from young urban families through to the needs budget conscious shoppers. Essentially, both brands have set out to understand their core customers – building an experience that delivers, from store layout to pricing to private label products and reliable home delivery.

One doesn’t need to be a great visionary to look at the future models with drone delivery and smart kitchen appliances (refrigerators) to understand the need for grocery stores to refining their online shopping and delivery. So what does the future grocery store look like?

Can grocery stores future proof their business?

1. Do you understand the needs of your core customer?

Becoming customer centric begins with understanding, and experiencing your own brand in the same way your customers do.

Let’s begin with understanding who our customer’s are in terms of demographics, and their shopping habits – what are their real needs, are they shopping for convenience, purely for price or are they truly interest in quality and prepared to pay a premium.

For years The Athlete’s Foot stores have provided technical expertise, in-store staff patiently fitting shoes/runners, their core customers willing to pay a price premium for this service. And, then there are consumers who may know the size and fit of their running shoe, who prefer shopping for both convenience and price – buying their Nike’s online at Amazon.

Investing time and resources in research is the best way to get an understanding of your customers needs. Consumer research does lend itself to extensive quantitative research projects. However, customer insights can often be generated from the conversations your in-store employees are having with customers. If this is the case, you need to record the key insights and act on them.

2. Will you commit to building a truly unique customer experience?

Now that we have a good understanding of our customers needs – time to deliver on the experience. This means addressing issues such as store layout, sourcing products – all of these decisions should be based on catering for the needs of your customer. From the positioning of the brand, your story to signage and staff training, even the service delivery method – which is extremely important but often over looked.

Designing and planning should be iterative, with customers and employees providing feedback throughout the process – the finest of detail fine-tuned.

Leo’s Fine Food & Wine Supermarket, a Melbourne based family run store with a difference – offering a great range of locally sourced foods, including premium deli fare and ready to eat meals – matched with local produced wines from the Yarra Valley. While many of their customer’s enjoy cooking meals from scratch, some prefer to walk the aisles and select from a range of fresh ingredients – with in-store staff keen to help providing valuable advice.

Other neighboring independent supermarkets have over the years followed suit – redefining their shopping experience.

Boccaccio Cellars in Balwyn – also a family run store, prides itself on continuous improvement. A recent store refurbishment taking gourmet to the next level - broadening its gourmet deli range including small goods, and more than a thousand locally and imported cheeses. And for wine lovers a fantastic cellar with 3000 premium Australian, French and Italian wines offered in-store.

Today both stores have become respected Italian Specialty Grocers delighting some of most discerning customers.

"Melbournians simply spoiled for choice"

Leo’s and Boccaccio, once modest supermarkets operations, have over the years embraced their Mediterranean influences, creating a cohesive food journey enjoyed by local customers. These changes were achieved without heavily investing in the latest technology or online presence of the big supermarket brands – and not having to competing on price with the likes of Aldi makes it extremely attractive.

No one can dispute that online food delivery is convenient and makes life easier, and occasionally we all use it.

Ultimately how a grocery store/brand provides convenience means identifying the specific needs of their customers. In the context of a grocery store it means stretching your imagination to build a great in-store customer experience – that is both relevant and enjoyable, in a way no online retailer can match.

Brand guardians: addressing on-going needs

By Brilliant Episodes • December 8, 2020
Traditionally organisations have formal processes in place as a way of reviewing opportunities in terms of their viability and overall strategic direction. This often means keeping on top of brand changes and updates - which can be difficult to keep up with from the inside, particularly when staff are dealing in the internal day-to-day running of the business. Having access to external brand guardian/agency helps to ease this issue, as they can actively address the brands ongoing needs. There’s a perception, that brand agencies work closely with clients to define the right brand strategy and visual identity that will help achieve the grand ambition. Once the branding project is complete – the job doesn’t stop there though. Brand guardians/agency can play an important role in nourishing client’s internal culture - proactively provide fresh ideas, skills, and perspectives. Here are a few ways in which clients can benefits from investing in an on-going brand guardian: Independent assessment of ongoing priorities and direction as new opportunities or challenges surface; Provide a monthly or quarterly evaluation report to ensure your brand remains relevant in an every change landscape; Ongoing support, regarding effective internal communication to help reinforce the brand vision- this could be distributed via the website/intranet or newsletter; Help to maintain high standard and consistency of visual communication and brand assets - this may involve regular creative reviews, creation of design templates or briefs; Evolve the client’s storytelling overtime - respond to the changing customer needs, and reinforce content for all stakeholders; Ensure the brand experience evolves – touchpoints are aligned with brand values and principles; It also means clients can stay on top of both internal and customer needs and are continually raising the quality of output and ensuring rapid response to any external factors. The brand guardian’s role really depends on the clients needs, whether it’s a fast-growth business scaling up, a family firm experiencing generational change, or a global company trying to unite culture – it’s not a matter of one-size fits all. Today many organisations are rapidly transforming their businesses – adopting new approaches based on traditional principles. Strong customer service, focused on values and mission statements, employees fully engaged in your brand mission are all tied together with engaging and effective storytelling. At BE, it feels natural to us and our client’s to continue the relationship beyond the initial strategy and identity project; the job simply isn’t complete. Businesses need to constantly adapt and evolve their brand, attracting new audiences, create new experiences, expanding into new areas, and staying one step ahead of the competition. We are here to help guide our clients on this journey, and ensure they are ready to adapt and continue to thrive. Time to dig a little deeper. How can you get your customers to build a relationship with your brand?

Brilliant Episodes: Why are we here?

By Brilliant Episodes • December 11, 2018
Brilliant Episodes: brings together brand strategy and design to deliver meaningful customer experiences. Mind you, building experiences is not just a creative exercise. We work collaboratively with clients – an energetic team with a bold vision and purpose, working across multiple channels to engage with even the most hard-to-reach audiences. BE’s purpose: delivering desirable outcomes that reflect client’s genuine and authentic core values.

Can brands stay emotionally connected?

By Brilliant Episodes • October 30, 2018
The majority of brands adopt personality traits as a way of attracting like-minded consumers. Read how brands set out to influence both employees and consumers with the clever use of personality traits. Research shows competitive brands with a clear independent brand identity and personality- provide encouraging internal engagement needed for growth, and consistently delivery of customer expectations. Essentially, branding is the creation of a clear, distinct and ‘own-able’ personality that encourages people inside the business to believe and people outside the business to buy. A personality is an accessible shortcut to understanding a brand - what it stands for and helping employees understand how to preform their role. Brands can use adjectives to describe their brand, they can be fun, kind, reliable, cool or even cheerful – for example Timberlands are rugged, Cartier is elegant and Mini Coopers are quirky. The creation of a brand personality requires a range of skills, from developing a compelling brand narrative and set of values to creating the ideal brand experience. In fact brand personality can be based on real or fictional characters. Today many brands are adopting to use real people to personify their brand, clearly wanting to benefit from the favorable brand associations. For example, Emirates and Etihad hiring Jennifer Aniston and Nicole Kidman respectively as brand ambassadors. The use fictional characters, including mascots have also been extremely popular over the years. Mascots can be used to carry the emotional elements of the brand personality as a meaningful point of differences. Most us would recall the popular mascots, the Michelin Man and the Duracell Bunny, both representing the brand value of durability – these two fictional characters provided enduring connections and valuable brand assets. A brand experience can be emotionally relevant at the retail level. The Spanish footwear brand Camper provides a great brand experience, creating a uniquely engaging space for the customers to trial their product. The store experience inspires a stronger sense of engagement than a regular shoe store. Creating a brand personality requires infusing it with human characteristic’s related to lifestyle, interest, values, story and more. Brand personality helps customers connect with a brand on an emotional level, this is particularly relevant as emotion is considered as the primary driver of choice. Note even brands the likes of Twitter and Facebook capitalise on the individuals’ emotions - mainly, social needs. Irrespective of the approach used, time forces brands to evolve. Brands with clear values that are flexible and compelling will find it easier to adapt and change.

Do sitcoms and brands face the same challenges?

By Brilliant Episodes • October 30, 2018
Welcome to BE’s first blog post, we’ve been a little indulgent and have related the subject matter of customer experience to sitcoms/episodes at the beginning of the article. In the digital age, most episodes of our favourite sitcom or drama can be found streaming on Stan or Netflix. In the third or forth season, our favourite sitcom might be experiencing a slight dip in quality. Writers and actors may need to recharge their batteries or perhaps inject some new talent – inspiring the team, and regain momentum. This is no different to an existing brand requiring a brand refresh or perhaps an organisation’s customer service requiring a little attention. Consumers can become emotionally connected with their favourite brand. Each consumer interaction contributing to their overall perception of a brand, either a positive, negative or in some cases a neutral experience. Too many negative customers experience or bad episodes and we tend to move on. Brands like Apple and Virgin Australia make a real effort in creating emotional connections, by differentiate customer service experience. These brands have been successful dramatising their customer experience. This means looking for moments; customer touch-points along the customer journey where you can demonstrate what your brand stands for in a compelling way. The majority customer service activities full into two categories: Brilliant basics: these are things we need to do well to satisfy customers as a minimum requirement. Brilliant basics may include staff being courteous to customers, on-time delivery and so on. Magic moments: this is what a brand might do occasionally in creating powerful ‘wow’ moments which customers tell others about. For example, an Insurance provider giving customers Gold Class movie tickets to their favourite movie. A Virgin Australia, cabin crew might serve ice cream to passengers watching a movie – a real movie experience, or the crew might hand out colouring books to kids, keeping them entertained. These initiatives are simple and also support Virgin’s brand values of being fun, entertaining and irreverent. The challenge really is about standing out - differentiating your brand. As we’re all aware, it’s easy to claim you stand for something but it can be difficult to behave in a way that supports your claim: ‘Don’t tell me how funny you are; just make me laugh.’ Having a good understanding of your customer journey both the online and off-line customer touch-points is essential. Making sure that your brand values are consistently applied through all potential customer interactions. Consider the following items in relation to your organisation’s customer service experience: Does your organisation get the basics right – most of the time? Does your environment inspire staff and allow them to delivery a great customer experience?