There’s a lot of talk about Amazon decimating Australian retail with their seamless customer experiences and customer-led innovations.
In this customer-centric #growthhack we explore leveraging customer insight for real competitive advantage.
Many of you will have read the headlines: ‘Amazon Buy-Up Signals Aggressive Price Cuts’, ‘Amazon Closing In On November Launch’ and ‘Doomsayers Warn Of Amazon-Led Retail Collapse’.
The burning question: Are you Customer Experience ready?
You might have seen this meme: ‘Amazon didn’t kill other retailers – Poor service and experience did’.
Amazon now commands 43 per cent of all retail sales in the US. In the meantime, larger retailers and shopping centres here are gearing up by implementing ‘Click and Collect’ technology solutions and partnering with courier companies for fast and convenient delivery.
Many retailers will fight fire with fire by slashing prices – with some retailers offering shoppers secret codes to access exclusive offers.
But are these ‘me too’ strategies enough to abate consumer attrition in the face of Amazon’s superior customer experience?
Amazon’s signature experiences are built on the back of sophisticated algorithms, innovations in technology and service offerings such as Alexa and Prime which know each customer’s preferences and behaviours.
However, technology is only the enabler– the engine that’s driving the mega-retailer’s growth is its mission to be Earth’s most customer-centric company.
When an organization has their customer at the centre of its innovation efforts and seeks to solve customer problems or unmet needs, the solution enhances customer value and delivers real competitive advantage.
Simply put, when you understand your ‘customer why’; their functional, emotional and social needs and design solutions that help them get the job done, this delivers an experience that creates positive memories.
Businesses have never known so much about their customers and yet none of this data tells them why customers are making their buying decisions.
Customer Journey Mapping to understand customer behaviour is a method that’s been proven to be successful in innovating for future state experiences.
However, many businesses undertake assumptive journey mapping only; believing that employee perspective only is valuable enough to reflect actual customer behaviour.
Essential in mapping an end-to-end customer journey is capturing the customer’s viewpoint, and this can only be understood by having regular and ongoing customer conversations about their decision-making motivations.
Understanding the job they’re trying to get done, their needs and context; it is this point-of-view that delivers the ahh-haa moments and insights that is essential in innovating to enhance customer value.
When your customer sees no difference from one brand to the next where will your brand’s competitive advantage come from?
Today’s marketplace is full of same-same brands with me too promises, leaving most brands to compete on price alone. Businesses now need to look beyond copying competitor offerings to a new source of competitive advantage.
That source of disruption is customer centricity. Understand customers, innovate for a distinctive experience and build a customer-led culture to ensure that your signature experience is delivered.
Get ‘CX Ready’ – Customer Understanding with Customer Journey Mapping
Develop customer-centric capability and learn CX tools that you can begin to apply back in your business immediately.
In the Journey Mapping Workshop you will learn how to identify your customers’ unmet needs. By day’s end you will understand how to:
- Undertake customer interviews
- Synthesise insights
- Empathy map to create personas
- Map an end-to-end customer journey