Download driving actions and reactions engaging your customers

DRIVING ACTIONS
AND REACTIONS
ENGAGING YOUR
CUSTOMERS
IN THE NEW
DIGITAL WORLD
The report at a glance
2
25 years driving digital change
Basic communication principles have remained unchanged for many years.
The emergence of leaner more agile operators who are developing digitally
attuned alternatives to the traditional services of large organisations threaten
many established organisations.
7
What you can control, what you can’t control and what you can influence
The contemporary digital landscape is three dimensional and many of its facets
are outside of the direct control of the organisations that seek to engage with the
customers who are using it.
10
Tactics and strategies
Often individual strategies fail to deliver to business objectives effectively because
their focus is too narrow and they fail to consider the three dimensional customer
journey. Tactics employed in pursuit of a targeted customer engagement strategy
can be quickly deployed, measured, refined and re-deployed.
16
Knowing your customers
In order to be tactical, organisations need to develop a deep understanding of
their customers, habits, motivations and needs. Creating personas and visualising
scenarios and user stories will help everyone to understand the tactics to employ.
20
Tactics, tactics, tactics
While every organisation should take the time to step back and think about their
strategic vision, this should not stop constant innovation. Lots of small changes
and incremental tactics can lead to big impacts.
54
Finally
Think Big, Act Small, Move Quickly, which is to say that quickly implemented
tactics can have the necessary impact to deliver value to you and your customers,
while providing the impetus towards your future digital vision.
56
About Precedent
Information on our thought leadership and services.
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
1
25 years driving digital change
Paul Hoskins
Precedent Executive Chairman and Founder
As Founder and Chairman, Paul has spent the past 25
years helping to transform businesses and improve the
way they operate using the power of digital. He has a
unique insight into the issues of digital brand and digital
transformation, and in 2013 he was awarded a place in
the British Interactive Media Association’s (BIMA) Hot
100, which recognised the impact he has had on digital.
He has vast experience working across all of our key
sectors, and has worked with leading organisations
across the UK and Australia, including; Monash
University, RSPCA, The London Stock Exchange,
The British Council and The Australian Institute
of Directors.
Most recently he established our Hong Kong
office where he is currently based, developing and
strengthening our strategic offering and thought
leadership in the Asia Pacific region to ensure we are
driving real digital change across all of the countries,
sectors and disciplines in which we operate.
2
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
After 25 years driving digital change, it seems
appropriate to mark the occasion with the release
of a report that takes a contemporary look at how
organisations across all of our core sectors can
drive actions and reactions from their customers,
potential customers and peer groups. In truth, this
report looks at what we as communicators have
been trying to achieve for our clients since we went
into business all those years ago – delivering value
to our clients and their customers.
The challenges that we face now are predominantly the
same as when we first started; identify the audience you
want to engage, understand the competition’s offer to
that audience, the media through which you are likely
to engage them, craft a message and call to action that
is likely to provoke the desired action or reaction,
deploy and measure.
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Different sectors, similar challenges
One thing that characterises Precedent’s client base
is the similarities between the organisations that we
work for. They are all large, complex, multi-faceted,
multi-product institutions with a wide range of
stakeholders who invariably hold disparate views on
the communication objectives of any given project.
Nowadays the situation is different. There are multiple
channels of communication, many of which reside
outside of the direct control or influence of the
organisation. How do organisations decide on the
tactics required to engage their audiences, what are
the arguments, and what is the right message?
Historically, this was not a problem. It was a pre-digital
world and projects tended to be discrete or formulaic.
By this I mean they were either commissioned by an
individual stakeholder and aimed at a specific customer
(think newsletter or promotional literature) or they
followed a traditional construction (think annual
report or university prospectus).
This report doesn’t provide all the answers, but
hopefully it will help you to make informed decisions
around the viability and optimum direction of future
digital projects. Hopefully it will enable you to recognise
when immediate action is required in order to remain
competitive, as well as to realise when to say ‘No’ to
an initiative and explore other options.
In both cases it was the design quality and accompanying
messaging that determined their success along with the
rigour of the associated PR effort.
Some of our clients include:
4
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
The digital threats
“The rise of the tech-savvy,
connected consumer across
all facets of society changes
the expectations consumers
have of companies, regardless
of their business.” Curt Garner
Chief Information Officer – Starbucks
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Digital threats are all around us. Leaner,
more agile operators are developing digitally
efficient alternatives to traditional services.
Fundamentally, the new players in any market are
picking off the services that most obviously lend
themselves to online delivery, cutting into the traditional
service offering of the more established players:
•
Universities feel threatened by online
course providers.
•
Charities find that single issue, or similar issue
charities can quickly eat into their traditional
donor base.
•
•
•
Membership organisations are continually fretting
over the value that they can add to their membership
base over and above the offer of like-minded and
generally free communities.
Few people would naturally go to their day-to-day
bank if they wanted to open a savings account or
secure a short-term loan when there are numerous
sources of financial advice and applications are
freely available online.
And everyone – none more so than the travel
industry – is threatened by the propensity of
comparison and review websites. These play a major
part (and are often the starting point and in some
instances the end point) in the consumer’s decision
making process.
Threats and their modus operandi
Universities’ – Khan Academy
‘A not-for-profit with the goal of
changing education for the better
by providing a free world-class
education for anyone anywhere.’
кк www.khanacademy.org
Travel & Leisure – TripAdvisor
‘The world’s largest travel site with
260million unique monthly visitors
and sites operating in 34 countries.’
кк www.tripadvisor.com
Finance – Money Supermarket
‘Our size means we are able to
offer our customers exclusive,
market-leading deals, including
some they can’t even get direct
from providers.’
кк www.moneysuper
market.com
Membership – Linkedin
‘When you join LinkedIn, you
get access to people, jobs, news,
updates, and insights that help
you be great at what you do.’
кк www.linkedin.com
Charities – Alive and Giving
‘We are an innovative charity
comparison and fundraising
website that promotes considered
charitable giving. AliveandGiving.
com allows you to search for,
compare, and donate to registered
charities of your choice.’
кк www.aliveandgiving.com
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
What you can control, what you can’t
control and what you can influence
“The internet is among the few
things humans have built that
they don’t truly understand.
It is the largest experiment
involving anarchy in history.
As global connectivity continues
its unprecedented advance,
many old institutions and
hierarchies will have to adapt
or risk becoming obsolete.
The struggles we see today
in many businesses are examples
of the dramatic shift for society
that lies ahead and we’ve barely
left the starting blocks.”
Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen
The New Digital Age, 2013
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Large organisations have similar customer groups
that they need to engage in actions and reactions.
In a traditional two dimensional sphere of influence
it is relatively simple to create a channel, control the
message and provoke engagement.
PEOPLE
PROFESSIONALS
PROPOSITION
PEERS
PUBLIC
Key
Controllable Action / Reaction
8
Not so long ago your sphere of influence was two
dimensional, revolving around your website and
associated social channels. As long as you had a good
understanding of your customers and their requirements
it was relatively easy to push out your message with
appropriate calls to action, sit back and wait.
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
The new three dimensional sphere of influence is
of the audience’s own making and relies on their
interpretation of your proposition. Many actions
and reactions will occur outside of your control.
PEOPLE
PROFESSIONALS
PROPOSITION
PEERS
PUBLIC
Key
Controllable Action / Reaction
Uncontrollable Action / Reaction
The new three dimensional sphere of influence is less
controllable and is often of the customers’ own making.
You may have no control over it at all and instead it may
rest in the hands of independent review and comparison
sites. Their expectations are higher than ever before and
the way they view your proposition may not always be
how you had intended.
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Tactics and strategies
“Strategy without tactics is
the slowest route to victory.
Tactics without strategy is
the noise before defeat.”
Sun Tzu
The Art of War
10
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
The majority of organisations believe that their
approach to digital is strategic, but a strategy
alone will not deliver actions and reactions from
their customers.
In our report ‘Daring to be Digital’ we challenged
organisations to decide whether their approach
to digital projects is either reactive, strategic,
or transformational.
Truly transformational projects transcend ‘digital’
and require organisations that are culturally attuned
to the disruption required to put digitally enabled
change at the heart of what they do.
This approach is not for everyone, but it is possible
to introduce elements of transformation into the
strategic mix without being totally disruptive.
Irrespective, CEOs are no longer convinced with
arguments for digital project funding based solely
on notions of increased efficiency or possible
competitive advantage.
The imperative today is to generate actions and
reactions that deliver to the business.
Digitally reactive
Digitally strategic
BUSINESS
STRATEGY
BUSINESS
STRATEGY
MARKETING
STRATEGY
DIGITAL
PROJECTS
DIGITAL
PROJECTS
MARKETING
STRATEGY
Marketing centric
Reactive
Digital initiatives are reactive to either a market
condition or a perceived benefit. They are loosely
aligned to a corporate objective and expected to
deliver efficiencies.
Strategic
The digitally strategic have a holistic view of their
digital landscape, which manifests itself across
channels; it includes and responds to elements
of the corporate plan.
Transformational
The digitally transformational interrogate their
business strategy in order to identify the digital
opportunities that it proffers. This means that a digital
strategy per se ceases to exist, as it is fundamental
to the corporate strategy.
Digitally transformational
BUSINESS
STRATEGY
DIGITAL
PROJECT
Business wide impact
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Organisations frequently seek advice around five key
areas of digital potential, areas that they believe they
can control and that will add value. However, delivering
more digital ‘stuff’ is not necessarily going to provoke
the actions and reactions that demonstrate real return
to the business.
The ‘digital future’
The diagram on the next page represents the discrete
digital initiatives, (essentially strategies) that potential
clients often ask us to address in the course of
discussions around their business requirements.
The discussions are generally related to a digital
objective, aligned to a broader strategic objective.
To an extent this is true, since discrete initiatives in any
of these areas can help organisations to achieve their
objectives. However, for the organisation of the near
future, digital as a stand-alone operational area will
cease to exist and each of these areas will merely be
a part of business as usual.
Each area is of course valid and is a part of the rich
contemporary digital mix, however too often they
are seen as isolated panaceas that can meet the needs
of all of the organisation’s audiences and help the
organisation to become more digitally enabled.
‘Digital strategies’ will just be ‘business strategies’ and
initiatives in each of the areas below will be considered
tactical in pursuit of an action or reaction from
a particular audience group.
12
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
Stand alone strategies will not provoke
customers into actions and reactions,
tactics need to be employed.
In conversations with clients, the need for strategies
often initiates our exchanges. Strategy can often be a
misnomer as the objective that the client is aiming for
can usually be accommodated more readily and less
expensively by a more selective appreciation of the
tactics required to deliver it.
What people ask for...
CONTENT
STRATEGY
MOBILE
STRATEGY
CUSTOMER
EXPERIENCE STRATEGY
PERSONALISATION
STRATEGY
SOCIAL MEDIA
STRATEGY
A plan for the migration
of existing content to
new systems, along
with a publication and
governance model.
A plan to ensure that
the organisation’s website
is viewable on all mobile
devices, with an app
release plan.
A plan to deliver an
optimised, enriching,
brand reinforcing
customer experience
across all channels,
devices and borders both
on and offline.
A plan to deliver
personalised content
to potential and existing
customers, along with the
capture of large amounts
of data.
A plan for the use,
maintenance and
population of content
across all popular social
channels, covering all
primary audiences.
What people often need...
DIGITAL
ASSETS
DEVICE
CONTEXT
ONLINE
SERVICES
CUSTOMISATION
EXPERIENCES
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
Tactics that ensure
customers are delivered
content that is relevant,
consumable and
in line with the
brand promise.
Tactics that ensure that
on access, customers
are delivered useful and
usable content. Or an app
that delivers added value
to the customer and
the business.
A rationalisation of online
service touch points and
a facilitated and intuitive
route to fulfilment.
Tactics that ensure
customers can find what
they want and more, and
move to relevant levels
of granularity.
Tactics to engage their
primary audiences in
dialogue of mutual value
in an environment they
want to use.
ALL TACTICS SHOULD BE DECIDED UPON IN RELATION TO THE ORGANISATION’S ABILITY TO DELIVER
TO THEM AND A BROAD BUSINESS OBJECTIVE FOR A PARTICULAR AUDIENCE.
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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A customer engagement strategy brings together
the five tactical areas into a cohesive appreciation
of the actions and reactions the organisation is
attempting to drive from a particular customer in
relation to a business objective.
For each key customer type, organisations should
have an engagement strategy which aligns to a business
objective. The level of sophistication employed in each
of the areas illustrated will depend on the value of the
target customer to the organisation and the importance
of the area in which you are engaging them.
The diagram (right) shows individual actions and
reactions for each area, and these could be similar
or the same across the piece, however each will have
a desired tactical outcome that contributes to the
overall objective.
14
Tactics should be measured, reviewed and refined
regularly across each area in order to evolve the
customer proposition and optimise the chances
of reaching the objective.
Ultimately, the success of an organisation will
be determined by its willingness to learn from
its successes and failures. At best this will involve
a cross-cutting customer engagement strategy,
underpinned by a series of discrete tactics focused
on driving actions and reactions. If the strategy is
sound it should remain the same; it’s the tactics
that are variable.
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
Digital assets rest at the heart of any successful
engagement strategy. Understanding how different
asset types relate to the action and reaction you are
attempting to drive is critical.
BUSINESS
OBJECTIVE
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT STRATEGY
DIGITAL ASSETS
DEVICE
CONTEXT
ONLINE
SERVICES
CUSTOMISATION
EXPERIENCES
COMMUNITY
ENGAGEMENT
Assets meet the
contextual needs
of the customer
Assets aid
or persuade
the customer
Assets meets the
individual needs
of the customer
Assets reinforce
the purpose of
the community
ACTION OR REACTION
•
Support needs,
or tasks – utility
•
Increased
conversion
•
Habit forming
(indispensible)
•
Fewer offline/
online enquiries
•
•
Key tasks
performed on
multiple devices
Advocacy –
recommended
to others
•
Greater
satisfaction
•
Advocacy
•
Assets viewed
(particularly
more specialist
information)
•
More willingness
to share data/
information
•
Reciprocal
information
exchange
•
Advocacy
•
Positive
conversation –
high activity levels
•
Connection
with other digital
properties
•
User generated
assets uploaded
•
Assets shared
•
Advocacy
TACTICAL OUTCOMES
MEASURE, REVIEW, REFINE, EVOLVE TACTICS
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Knowing your customers
“A customer is the most important
visitor on our premises. He is not
dependent on us. We are dependent
on him. He is not an interruption in our
work. He is the purpose of it.
He is not an outsider in our business.
He is part of it. We are not doing
him a favour by serving him.
He is doing us a favour by giving
us an opportunity to do so.”
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
A customer engagement strategy is the first step
to providing an exemplary customer experience.
Companies like Apple and Amazon have changed the
game when it comes to creating immersive, persuasive
and desirable customer experiences. The problem for
other companies is that they (and many like them) have
raised the expectations of customers for everyone else.
Attempting to emulate the ‘Apple Experience’ would
require a customer experience strategy that few
companies are yet ready for.
So what is the alternative? The simple answer is
a customer engagement strategy that is informed
by a thorough understanding of the customer the
organisation is targeting.
Personas, scenarios and user stories
With the proliferation of digital channels, the options
for engaging with your customers are wide and
varied. Add to this the offline touch points where your
customers might interact with you and the question
of where to start defining an engagement strategy
is daunting.
However, the complexity of your strategy should only
be limited by the amount of resources you can allot to
its development and your knowledge of your customers.
In essence, your strategy is scalable since at its most
minimal it can be limited to ensuring that you engage
your most important audience, on the top two most
popular channels, with the single most important
product or service you offer. At its most complicated
your strategy might target any number of discrete
groups or individuals across multiple channels, with
numerous offers.
Either way, your initial evaluation should be informed
by a simple set of questions, the answers to which
should provide you with stories and narratives that
link you with your customers.
Initial internal questions with regards
to the implementation of any digital
engagement initiative
•
Who is the customer?
•
What do they want?
•
What do you want to tell them?
•
What do you want them to do?
•
How will you deliver and measure engagement
within the constraints of your available resources?
External customer input
Answers to the questions above will provide you with
the basis to develop useful scenarios and user stories
that can be used to plan and test your engagement
strategy. However, the real value can be gained by
communicating with real customers and asking them
how they currently engage with you and how they would
prefer to engage with you.
Quantitative and qualitative research in the form of
workshops, surveys and interviews with real customers
can add the detail and test your assumptions. Doing
this will allow you to develop an understanding of your
customers’ behaviours, desires and habits along with
their motivations – what they do and why they do it.
Add to this an understanding of their preferred channels
and the context in which they use them and for each
customer you will be able to develop:
•
Personas – the ‘essence’ of a target customer.
Who they typically are and why they engage with you.
•
Scenarios – a real life goal-driven description of likely
actions and reactions between target customers and
you, including motivations and expectations.
•
User stories – as a... (target customer description),
I want to... (do something), so that I could... (benefit by).
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Visualising your customer’s engagement with
you helps everyone involved see how things
should work and identifies the mutual benefits
it will deliver.
“Hello, my name is Alan. I am
from Shanghai, China. I enjoy
gaming, table tennis and I have
been collecting miniature
robots since I was 8 –
I have quite a collection!”
This is an abridged version of one of the personas,
scenarios and user stories we developed for Monash
university. The storyboard on the next page
describes the online and offline journey of a potential
international student and the actions and reactions
taken by all parties, none of which are conducted
within the direct influence of Monash.
The full journey takes into account and is dependent on:
Digital Assets:
Initially the courses on offer at Monash, and
subsequently video and supporting information
of interest.
Device Context:
The devices used on the journey – Tablet, Smartphone
and Laptop.
Online service:
Delivery of course information via email and automated
login to application area.
Customisation Experiences:
The courses he is interested in and a personalised view
of the Monash website.
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
PEOPLE
PROFESSIONALS
PROPOSITION
PEERS
PUBLIC
The storyboard takes into account the interactions
between three of the audience groups common to
multi-faceted organisations. In this case:
People – the target potential international student
Peers – friends and family
Professional – the international agent.
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Tactics, tactics, tactics
“Tactics mean doing what you
can with what you have.”
Saul Alinsky
American community organiser and author of ‘Rules for Radicals’
20
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
25 tactics to drive actions and reactions
that you could start using tomorrow
While every organisation should take the time to step
back and think about their strategic vision, this should
not stop constant innovation. Lots of small changes
and incremental tactics can lead to big impacts.
Understanding your overall objectives and customer
engagement strategy is essential, so picking two or
three tactics that fit your understanding of your target
customer and pursuing them mercilessly, learning,
evolving and optimising as you go can produce the
quality engagement that results in the delivery of
mutual value.
Simply put, most organisations do not have the available
resources to serve all their customers, all of the time,
on all of their channels and technologies of choice.
With this in mind the following section offers 25 tactics
that you might like to consider beginning to implement
in the very near future.
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
21
Digital assets –
Designed to attract, service and retain customers
Tori on creating digital assets
Digital assets come in many shapes and sizes. When an
organisation embarks on creating assets, it’s important
to consider how they will add value to the business
and the customer as well as enhance the brand. In the
planning stages, remember to consider the lifespan of
an asset and how it can be used in flexible ways.
Good assets are powerful and versatile and are always
underpinned by a tactical mission. They can be used
in many ways to attract, persuade, service, reinforce,
inspire, strengthen and deepen customer relationships.
They should be easy to understand and engaging,
ranging from answering basic things like “How can I…?”
to providing experiences that entertain and inspire.
Many people think of an asset as the written word.
‘short form’ and ‘long form’ are familiar buzz-words for
different types of written content. The length of any
piece of written content is always defined by the context
in which it sits and the audience you are targeting. For
the most part, keep text short and punchy and make
your point quickly. This can always be supported with
longer form copy that unpacks the detail behind any
given thought or idea.
Make sure you can flexibly adapt content so that it can
be re-used across channels and devices, including print,
web, mobile and social. COPE (Create Once, Publish
Everywhere) is a useful acronym to keep in mind. If you
can’t ‘COPE’ institution-wide it could relate to your
tactics for a specifically targeted customer journey.
Wherever and whenever your customers engage with
any of your digital assets, this needs to signal the start
of a consistent and rewarding journey that leads
towards an action or reaction.
22
Tori Winn
Global Creative Director
“
Too often organisations fall into a kind of default
mode where they only think content is the written
word. This notion is a legacy thing that’s still hanging
around from the more traditional days of marketing and
communication. Don’t get me wrong, I love the written
word and know the power of it when you get it right,
but it’s so important to remember that today’s digital
environment is vibrant and alive; it gives organisations
the opportunity to deliver their messages in unique and
inspiring ways. Good content will always elevate and
enhance a brand’s reach therefore we have to use the
digital environment to spark new ways
of communicating.”
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
5 digital asset tactics you could try tomorrow
DEPENDENCY
AUDIENCE
People
Professionals
Public
Peers
1
Cull your content
Oxfam radically redeveloped its site through an
extensive exercise of clarifying their objectives and then
focusing on them. While this project could hardly be
described as minor, the basic principles that informed it
could be applied tactically by anyone. Establish a clear
vision by which all content is assessed. In Oxfam’s case:
only action-oriented content allowed, no editorial for
its own sake. The result for Oxfam was to reduce 25,000
web pages down to just 400 curated pages, making their
effectiveness easy to measure, and refinement and
associated learning simple.
кк www.oxfam.org
Oxfam realised that 92% of its website visits were to just
9% of their 25,000 page sites. The new site is simple and
action oriented.
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
23
DEPENDENCY
AUDIENCE
People
Professionals
Public
Peers
2
Curate assets
If you curate the right content your customers will find
it. Petplan insurance clearly understands its customers
and their love of animals. The variety of boards (46) and
pins (4k+)on its Pinterest page is impressive. None of
the content overtly sells the company’s services – rather
it either educates, empathises with, or simply amuses
its customers.
The French Premier uses a curation tool called Scoop.it
to bring together all of the social activity of its ministries
in one place on a daily basis. As a consolidation of
government activity and a quick reference for those who
follow French politics, it offers an excellent resource.
Petplan offers a plethora of pet-related sources on its
Pinterest page, all of which are aimed at connecting
with ‘fellow pet lovers’.
кк www.gouvernement.fr/gouvernement/
en-direct-des-ministeres
кк www.scoop.it
кк www.pinterest.com/petplan
24
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
DEPENDENCY
AUDIENCE
People
Peers
3
Teach people something
If there is an element of your organisation or its offer
that is interesting yet difficult to explain, then you
have an opportunity to glean immediate competitive
advantage by simplifying its concepts, or making it
entertaining to learn about.
The RSPCA in Australia asked us to produce a
campaign micro-site to highlight the plight of battery
hens . The attractive graphical approach to the site is
both compelling in its arguments and educational in
its content.
Financial institutions in particular have the problem of
making complex investment options understandable to
those whose money they seek to invest. Simple creative
solutions can increase awareness and the number of
people investing with you.
In the 12 months following launch, the site was accessed
by over 32,000 unique visitors. Since then, Coles and
Woolworths, the two biggest supermarket chains in
Australia, decided to move towards phasing out caged
hens from their in-house brand.
The online investment portfolio providers Nutmeg
offer simple yet effective graphics which help people
to understand the difference between low and high
risk investments.
кк www.nutmeg.com
кк www.hensdeservebetter.org.au/the-story.html
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
25
DEPENDENCY
AUDIENCE
People
Professionals
Public
Peers
4
Use video
Next to Google, YouTube is the second largest search
engine. And there is evidence that search engines give
video a higher ‘value’ and make them easier to find.
Add this to the upward trend in sharing video,
particularly on mobile phones, and the reasons
for using it are compelling.
Some things to bear in mind:
•
Don’t be afraid of low production values, particularly
if timeliness is important – think topical, or cultural
events. But be sure that audio is clear.
•
Short and concise is better than long and rambling.
Get to the point quickly and sound human.
•
Upload videos to YouTube and ensure that they are
relevantly tagged. Descriptions should be engaging –
YouTube sees itself as an entertainment channel
after all.
кк www.bbc.com
The BBC understands how to use video. A relatively
low production video is described in three paragraphs,
superseded by an eye-catching quote, which is ideal for
sharing and grabbing attention on social channels.
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Make your data engaging
The effectiveness of converting complex data or
simple knowledge into infographics is well reported,
it is something that all organisations should consider
when in possession of potentially interesting data sets
that could be presented in a more consumable format.
As part of a long programme of progressive digital
transformation, the Water Corporation in Australia
asked us to come up with a way of presenting the realtime
data that it collected about water usage and reserves in
Western Australia. The dynamic graphics allow people to
view the information in a meaningful way and are aimed
at encouraging customers to save water.
All organisations that engage in social media have
large amounts of data and information about what is
engaging their customers online. The Daily Mail has
rather cleverly used this information to produce a
visually appealing section of its website, which shows
the topics that are trending and where. This is not only
an interesting way of presenting news and comment to
its readers, but is also a good barometer for the paper on
what engages its readers most.
кк www.dailymail.co.uk/stats
кк www.watercorporation.com.au
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Device context –
Where customers are and what they are using
Sean on devices and their context
Clearly you cannot control when, where and how your
customers access your content, but you can control how
your content is presented.
If your digital presence isn’t mobile optimised, you need
to very quickly ask yourself what disadvantages and risks
– particularly reputational – you are exposing yourself to.
Realistically in this day and age you should ask what
the context of the asset delivery is likely to be to your
customers? Will they be looking at your assets on the
sofa, on the train, in a meeting or on the road?
Understanding the context allows you to understand
which devices your customers might access your
assets from, and consequently the most appropriate
ones to deliver.
Finally you should ask to what extent you can gain
advantage, or indeed mutual value, by being specific
about your asset delivery to devices other than, but
also including, the desktop/laptop.
Tactically your options are numerous, ranging from
the simplest mobile website to the most device specific
personalised app or website catering to the needs of
an individual.
Irrespective of the route you take, your decision should
be based on potential return, focused on your primary
targets and rooted in a sound knowledge of your
customers’ behaviour.
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Sean Gardiner
Managing Director Asia Pacific
“
The right question to ask is not always ‘what device a
user is viewing a website with?’ but rather ‘why is the
user accessing the website?’ Using adaptive design
principles, we can learn so much more about what the
user is trying to achieve, not just from the device but
from the time of day, when they accessed the site last,
the last task they completed, location and much more as
we begin to understand how to crunch through lots of
personalised data. Based on this we can then deliver tailored content to
enable the user to complete their task. Context –
not content – is king these days.”
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
5 tactics to deliver contextual assets
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1
At least do the basics
Imagine the disappointment for someone who has
become aware of your brand at a time when they
can’t access your website and in that fleeting moment
later in the day when they have five minutes to take
a quick look at you on their mobile the experience
is less than satisfactory.
Although a responsive rather than mobile site the
simplicity of the solution we designed for the Smith &
Williamson family office (seen here on mobile)
highlights the importance of understanding the content
your customer needs when first accessing your site
on a mobile device.
There is really no excuse for not at least doing the
basics. Offer your customers basic service information
such as your location, contact details and core services
ahead of offering a link to your actual website with
an accompanying apology for the fact that it isn’t
mobile-friendly.
A simple stat that explains why you cannot afford to have a
site that isn’t mobile-friendly. Graphic courtesy of Search
Engine Watch.
кк www.searchenginewatch.com
кк www.sandwfamilyoffice.com
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Be responsive to your customers
Econsultancy recently released statistics on 14
companies that had dramatically increased their
conversion rates as a result of making their websites
responsive. The stats are compelling .
In the article the writer, Chris Lake, makes the
following observations:
•
I have yet to hear about a decline in conversion rates
following the roll-out of a responsive site. In fact,
I only ever hear amazing things.
•
So, if you’re making a business case and need
some examples then here are a bunch of companies
that have benefited from significant uplift in the
key metrics following the implementation
of responsive design.
It is unlikely that anyone would search for the kind of
products that LoveHoney offers on the train to work,
or at work itself. This is very much a sofa, or bedside
situation. However the point is clear – understand
when and where your customers are likely to access
information and accommodate them in order to
increase conversions.
кк www.econsultancy.com/blog/64362-m-s launches-new-website-focuses-on-curation clustering-and-content
кк www.lovehoney.co.uk
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Take a laid back approach –
make it interesting
We don’t all want to be reading work-related documents,
or actively purchasing products in our leisure time,
particularly after a ‘hard day at the office’. However,
this doesn’t mean that we are not still interested in the
topics we talk about at work, if they are presented in a
consumable fashion when we are in ‘lean back’ rather
than ‘lean forward’ mode.
The evidence is that tablets are no longer the preserve
of early-adopters and that along with smart phones they
are the lean back device of choice. It is therefore worth
considering the content that you could present to your
customers and the manner in which it is presented. Can
you give your content a magazine-like quality, or just
make it more attractive to consume?
Ensuring an on-brand delivery across numerous
properties is a consistent problem for global companies
like Henderson. Our solution was to deliver a unique,
cross-device and modular pattern library for the
international investment firm which consists of a set of
guidelines and components that includes over 400 UI
elements, icons, navigation systems, buttons and forms
that are used as the interface to Henderson’s underlying
linked data platform.
A key feature of the new M&S website home page is
a horizontally scrolling panel (ideal for nonchalant
flicking on a tablet) that delivers editorial content on
a daily basis. Nominally known a ‘Storytailing’ this
approach delivers interesting content ahead of aiming
to sell products.
кк www.henderson.com
кк www.marksandspencer.com
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Think about practicalities
The phrase ‘mobile first’ describes an approach to
website development which at its simplest ensures that
organisations take the time to understand the minimum
content needed to deliver critical information and
services to its users on mobile phones, this content can
then be added to incrementally as the screen real estate
of the devices customers use increases.
Not all organisations have the capacity or resource to
adopt this approach immediately, particularly as it is
likely that they already have a desktop solution and
integrated delivery systems.
However the arguments for delivering mobile solutions
are compelling, so a minimal tactical approach is to
identify your most valuable and context critical service
and develop a mobile site that will deliver it.
Tesco Travel Insurance had a successful desktop
website, but it was recognised that many people buy
insurance at the last minute and in some cases on the
way to the airport.
With this in mind we designed a web app that was
easy to use by someone on the move and in a hurry.
This meant paring down the content and delivering
clear messaging and calls to action. Critically the site
automatically saves information at each step of the
application process to avoid internet dropouts deleting
a part-completed application.
Completed applications on mobile devices now exceed
the number of applications on the desktop website, and
data collected has confirmed that the mobile site is very
popular with travellers purchasing insurance on the day,
or the day before departure.
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The images above show our development process for
the Tesco Travel Insurance app, from sketches through to
wireframes and the final app.
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Apps that add value
While in the near future the most popular approach
to ‘going mobile’ is likely to be to create a responsive
website, the value of apps cannot be underestimated.
However, unless the idea for an app is so innovative
that it is likely to garner widespread take-up, the best
tactical approach to app production is to concentrate
on delivering an enhanced customer experience to a
particular audience with a specific requirement.
Your aim should always be to add value to your
customers. Essentially this is a customer service
exercise, not a marketing ploy. So unless an app can
leverage the inbuilt technologies of a mobile device to
add utility, or enhance an experience, a multi-device
friendly website is probably more appropriate.
St Andrews Links had a vision ‘to be seen as the most
innovative, creative and recognisable golf brand in
the world.’ As part of a much broader transformation
agenda we created a mobile app that linked the digital
to reality. Golf aside, St Andrews is a world class
destination, so while the app provides golfers with
weather updates, course hints and scorecards etc
it also enhances an experience for them and their
travel companions that starts well before their visit,
facilitates their off course activities and continues
well after they have returned home.
In the first week of launch there were 2,500 downloads
of the mobile app.
When Perth’s newest live entertainment, music and
sports venue opened, it meant that all visitors to the
Arena were unfamiliar with both the location and layout
of the building.
We produced an app that enhanced the offline and online
customer journey from buying tickets, arriving at the
Arena, enjoying the event, going out afterwards and then
travelling home. Features include event search, category
browsing, details, bookings, journey planning using
Google Transit, suggestions for alternative parking if the
Arena’s is full, the ability to find your seat, social check-in
to find your friends and interactive voting.
Above: St Andrews Links mobile app
Left: Perth Arena app
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Online service –
It’s not all about direct funnels
James on providing online service
While sales funnels are of the utmost importance
and need to be established and monitored regularly,
the plain fact is that it can take more than SEO,
link building, integrated social channels and clever
marketing to get your customers into the funnel in
the first place. Or at least you need to understand the
journey your customers are taking to arrive at the ‘top of
your funnel’ if you want to increase conversions.
Ultimately the best way to increase conversions is
to improve the UX of your website, which is about
removing points of friction along the fulfilment route,
but it is also about anticipating needs, surprising your
customers with a fantastic piece of information and
making it simple for them to buy-in to you.
Of course this is about providing an exemplary customer
experience*, but a holistic customer experience strategy
can require institutional change in processes and
personnel, something that most institutions are only
just beginning to grapple with.
Tactically you should be thinking that helping people
is all part of the service, the more you can assist them
in their journey to an action or reaction the better your
likely return.
James Downes
Digital Experience Director, UK
“
If you don’t take a step back, think of the bigger picture,
and map that out, you’re likely to fall into the trap of
incrementalism: asking for what you have now, but a bit
better. That leaves you wide open to the competition
You can’t mark your own homework. Worse, you’re not
normal – you’re the world expert in your organisation.
So you’ve got to bring in people from outside to test it,
normal people, who are not saturated in the vision, goals
and culture of your business.
Design isn’t just a bullet-pointed, fact-based process. It’s
emotional and psychological. Emotions tell people what
they like and don’t like without having to think about it.
Their emotional response to you will pull them towards
you, or push them away.”
* Forthcoming Report
Please keep an eye out later in the year for our
forthcoming report on Customer Service and the
Customer Experience, which will offer tips, advice
and steps towards producing a truly holistic customer
experience strategy, encompassing both on and offline
behaviours and institutional transformation.
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
5 tactics to improve your online services
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Watch your customers
Its an old tactic, but still a very effective one – get a small
group of one of your target customer segments into your
office and ask them to perform a task on your website.
Along the way, ask them to describe what they are
doing , the reasons for their decision making and what
information they would like to see at the various stages
of the process.
If eight out of ten customers encounter the same
problem then it is certain that you need to do something
about it.
Circle Housing Group provide social and private
housing and care. It needed to provide its customers
with support, information and the ability to report
problems. Key to the design that we delivered was
consideration for the user experience. There was a
particular focus on users who struggle reading complex
sites for a variety of reasons (such as interrupted
education, special needs, or English not being their
primary language). In order to understand the
requirements of this group we engaged them in a day
of interactive wireframe testing, that ironed out the
friction points of our initial concepts and allowed us
to adjust accordingly. Customer service was first and
foremost in our website designs, with simple navigation
and focused content to allow customers to find and act
on what they need.
кк www.circle.org.uk
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Facilitate their decisions
Every organisation should understand their offer to their
customers, but do your customers understand the way
that you talk about it to them and its variations? Helping
people to make the right choice is essential in terms of
customer satisfaction and ultimately your reputation.
Take the time to talk to your customers and understand
how they would describe your services so that you can
anticipate their needs and present your offer to them
in a language they will understand. Your tactics should
be to identify subtle variations in tone and motivations
that will allow you to alter the information you provide
in support of a fulfilment process. Or as in the examples
below, identify a simple mechanism that will facilitate
them in choosing between your services.
Knowing that changing their membership model after
over 100 years would require expert communication
and explanation of the new model the British Dental
Association employed us to design the interface
that would present their new membership options.
A key component in this was a facility for members
to understand the model that was most suitable for
their requirements. We are glad to say that currently
no members have felt the need to contact the BDA by
telephone to seek assistance in their online membership
renewal process.
The National Australian Bank (NAB) uses plain and
simple language throughout its site to describe its
services and products. As with most banks, the array
of credit cards on offer is bewildering, however they
make the selection process easy by presenting three
simple questions.
кк www.nab.com.au/personal/credit-cards/
credit-card-finder
кк www.bda.org
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Encourage questions
A ‘contact us’ link at the bottom of a website home page
linking to a generic enquiry form really doesn’t cut it
with customers in today’s digital environment and we
would hope that few of you still adopt this approach.
Encouraging your customers to ask questions can
benefit an organisation in numerous ways, so why not
put a big link on your home page that encourages your
site’s visitors to ask about your services so that you can:
•
Identify pain points on your site.
•
Create a dynamic and responsive FAQ’s section that
will forestall popular telephone and email enquiries.
•
Allow you to gauge the current sentiment around
your brand.
•
Identify opportunities to improve your offer, or to
offer new services.
•
Counter any common misconceptions about you and
your services.
It is up to you how you choose to receive and reply to
these questions. You could use the old enquiry form
method, a forum format, or establish a social channel
such as Twitter, or an intelligent FAQs database.
Your decision will depend on available resource, your
moderation method and the response time that you
must commit to with enquirers.
McDonalds in Canada has created a website specifically
for its customers to ask questions about its offer.
Customers are asked to submit a question and
authenticate themselves via their Facebook, or Twitter
ID. Answers are provided in real time by a team of
moderators who maintain an ever more sophisticated
database of answers and deep understanding of the
sentiment attached to the brand.
кк www.yourquestions.mcdonalds.ca
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Got an enquiry desk? Hook them up
Live chat is an increasingly important method of
servicing customers online. According to eDigital’s
Customer Service Benchmark which surveyed 2,000
consumers, it has the highest satisfaction levels for any
customer service channel, with 73%, compared to 61%
for email and 44% for phone, so why not adopt it?
There are numerous options available that can be
relatively inexpensive to implement either in the cloud,
or locally. The question of course is one of human
resource to manage the online sessions. However, a
simple analysis of the number of enquiries generated via
your website and their relative cost to respond
to might easily provide the business case.
The manner in which you choose to use it will need
consideration. Do you use it proactively as soon as
someone arrives on your site, or do you just react to
visitors who are clearly ‘dithering down the funnel’?
The sofa retailer DFS uses a sophisticated live help
powered by vee 24 . Visitors can choose between text
chat or video chat during which the visitor can see the
operator, but not the other way round.
кк www.vee24.com
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Become omni-channel –
or audit your channels
Your customers will increasingly expect to be able
to interact with you using their channel of choice,
whether they are making an enquiry, a complaint,
or indeed attempting to take up your services, or
purchase a product.
The time has not quite arrived when you will be able to
service all of the interactions you are likely to generate
via every channel. However, this does not mean that
you can ignore them. Take the time to audit ALL of
your outward facing communication channels and
ensure that:
•
You are explicit about their purpose
•
You offer links to all channels from all others
•
Those who are responsible for the channels are aware
of the limitations regarding their interactions with
customers and what they need to do in the event of an
enquiry, or comment that falls outside of their remit.
If you are generating numerous enquiries on a particular
aspect of customer service on a particular channel, then
the opportunity is there to open a version of the channel
with the purpose of dealing with them.
Utility companies stake a large part of their reputations
on the quality of their service. Yorkshire Water offers a
multi-channel experience to its customers, including:
•
A twitter news and information feed
•
A twitter customer help feed
•
A generally focused Facebook
•
A YouTube channel with informational videos that
are integrated into its website
•
A live chat facility that appears on the website
contact us page
•
A comprehensive contact page on its website, with
links to all the other channels
кк www.yorkshirewater.com
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Customisation experiences –
Not always personalisation
Dan on customisation
Customers don’t tend to invest their time customising
their experiences on websites. Generally speaking, they
want to find what they need as quickly as possible, which
ultimately comes down to understanding the customer
journey and general UX best practice.
In general, anything that customises an experience
needs to be as simple as possible – keep it to one or
two clicks – rather than something customers need to
register to use. Or if you need some information from
them, ask for the least amount possible.
Of course there are exceptions. If someone is deeply
researching something, such as looking for a job
or a holiday, they may choose different ways of filtering
and sorting lots of data to narrow down a search, and
then save the criteria for later, or when registering for
email alerts.
The only way to know for sure is to find out what’s
motivating your customers and what they actually need,
then respond appropriately.
Maybe a polemic view is…. which customer suffers as
a result of diluting priorities by trying to be everything
to everyone?
And if there was only one audience which would
you choose?
Dan Baker
Digital Experience Director, Asia Pacific
“
Clients usually ask for ‘personalisation’ and often
confuse it with ‘customisation’ so I want to challenge
them . Do they really have personalised content (like
Amazon has tens of thousands of products and only
I, personally, have my particular mix that I’ve bought
from them). Or merely customised content (like most
membership organisations, that have particular content
that relates to particular groups?”
Everybody is not a good answer!
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
5 tactics to offer a customised experience
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Get into the mind of your customers
Understanding your customers and their motivations
is of course a research exercise that should result in a
set of personas, user stories and an improved UX for
your website and broader web presence. This is not
something that you can do tomorrow, but it is likely
that adding a single link on the home page of your
website is not such a onerous task. The question is
what should this link to?
There are a myriad of obvious options such as a link
to timely, or promotional content. But why not think
more creatively and spend some time collating, or
curating a bunch of content that appeals to a specific,
maybe under-represented customer group? Or think
of the motivations of your customers at a particular
time of day and post a link to a relevant digital asset.
Or if your site relies on a search facility, why not offer
an alternative view of the results based on a
sympathetic appreciation of what your customers
might be looking for?
Hipmunk is a flight and hotel booking site, very similar
to many others. It will trawl the web for you in order to
find the cheapest flights and present them to you in a list
that can be sorted by departure date, price, duration of
the flight etc. One interesting and differentiating factor
of the site’s search facility however is the ability to sort
flights into an ‘Agony’ rating. This takes into account
the relative agony of taking the flights displayed based
on the length of flying time and the number of flights
required to reach the destination matched against the
actual price. Hipmunk knows that its customers are
looking for cheap flights, but it also knows that there is
a limit as to how much someone is prepared to suffer in
order to secure a cheap trip.
кк www.hipmunk.com
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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Make it easy
Every time a customer gives up on an interaction or
information enquiry on your website, an opportunity is
lost to collect information, convert a prospect or move
them along your funnel.
In a matter of weeks the Office of the Public Guardian
managed to take a 14 page power of attorney application
form and transform it into a four page process which is
now a prototype web service undergoing user testing .
The key to avoiding this situation is to hide the
complexity and detail of your processes and present the
customer with a simple answer to complex questions.
Done properly, the process will appear personalised and
deliver an exemplary online experience.
Simple services are central to the Government’s digital
strategy and its excellent blog (www.gds.blog.gov.uk)
features numerous best practice examples.
Understanding whether you are entitled to maternity
pay involved answering a complex set of interdependent
questions. However, by adopting an agile approach
that saw a content designer and developer working
together to research the logic of the subject, it took
the Government’s digital services just hours to build a
method of delivering the answer to expectant mothers
in five simple steps.
кк www.justice.gov.uk/about/opg
Sometimes trying to develop a tool via which your
customers can view and use your data intuitively can
be restricting for all involved. The HMRC recognised
that people and businesses needed to access their tax
services their own way on their software of choice. The
solution was to open up the service as a set of APIs that
have allowed third-party developers to produce far more
effective and sophisticated tools for the payroll industry
than HMRC could possibly have developed itself.
кк www.bit.ly/1oFlPyu
кк www.gov.uk/calculate-your-maternity-pay
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
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If you want something, give something
One of the basic laws of social psychology is the
reciprocity principle. We all know it – it says that we are
more likely to do something for someone if they have
already done something for us. In essence, this is an
unwritten personal contract between two people. This
is important as people are much more likely to engage
with you if they feel that they have entered into an
agreement with a person.
So the question is, what can you give away in order to
engage with your audiences, and what would you expect
in return? There are numerous commercial examples,
some of which are highlighted below, but your aim
should be to offer value to your potential customers
in the first instance, in order to gain the leverage to
incrementally learn about them. Done properly you
should quickly be able to customise your offer to them
and maybe even personalise your offer completely.
Econsultancy has positioned itself as the de facto
thought leaders in the UK digital marketing space. Their
reports can be invaluable to organisations considering a
particular digital initiative. There are four aspects to its
subscription model encouraging take up of its services:
1. It regularly offers full reports for free via email,
but on an undisclosed time-limited basis .
2. Summary report information is always provided
as a clear indication of the content that a purchaser
can expect.
3. The price differential between purchasing one report
and accessing all of its resources is remarkably small.
4. For larger organisations, the corporate subscription
inevitably appears to represent value for money.
LinkedIn is unavoidable for any current professional ,
and whilst it can be of consistent value in disseminating
individual’s thoughts, presentations and career
progression to a widely connected group, the network
constantly sparks one’s interest by offering upgrades to
its services, which appear to add further value.
кк www.econsultancy.com
кк www.linkedin.com
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Have a customisation plan
Sometimes customisation has little to do with
individuals. It is about the issue of the moment, a
campaign, an event, a circumstance that requires
immediate attention, or just the time of the year.
We developed a website design for The Wildlife Trusts
that allows them to simply change the emphasis of their
home page to react to the prevailing weather conditions
both nationally and regionally.
While we would hope that you all have plans to review
your homepage content to reflect current marketing
activities, do you have a plan if a ‘disaster’ should befall
your establishment? Or could you totally change your
home page in support of a particular event, initiative or
just to reflect the likely context of your customers’ visit?
Consider the following tactics:
•
Redirect all visitors to your Twitter feed on a
particular day to generate debate on a pressing issue.
•
Dedicate your home page to a live stream of your
annual conference, or an important debate.
•
Change the focus of your homepage from news to
editorial in the evening so that your customers can
reflect on the issues that are affecting you and them.
•
What you would do if your website became unable to
cope with the traffic it generated, or a natural disaster
prevented you from providing your normal services?
кк www.wildlifetrusts.org
кк www.circle.org.uk
As a result of severe weather conditions, visitors to
the Circle website were recently informed that normal
levels of service might be affected.
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
DEPENDENCY
AUDIENCE
People
Peers
5
Connect the physical with the digital
All organisations have offices, groups, experts and
events located across the country, however in the
clamour to get the broader message to the widest
possible audience websites often omit to put their
customers in touch with local resources. Allowing
customers to do this can offer them a more customised
and personal view of your organisation which is likely
to drive engagement. Taken further, the view you offer
of your regionalised operations can be administered
by your customers ‘on the ground’ allowing them
to customise their activities to reflect local conditions
and activities.
The MS Society asked us to create a website for them
that would hammer home the message that the society
is there to fight alongside those who are affected by MS.
However, a key component of this was to put people in
touch with local support.
With this in mind local MS Society branches are
represented and can post regular updates on news and
fundraising, giving them a level of autonomy. Users are
now grouped by type, age, geographical location and so
on and are given the opportunity to personalise their
account homepage and request RSS feeds on specific
topics. This not only ensures they only see information
that’s interesting to them, but also gives the MS Society
the information needed to deliver more targeted
communications.
кк www.mssociety.org.uk
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45
Community engagement –
On their terms only
Lindsay on community engagement
Often organisations feel obliged to build rival
communities in order to control the conversation
and forward their own ambitions. You need to evaluate
whether you may be better served by contributing
intelligently to other communities as a means of
drawing attention to channels that you do control.
On occasion, communities do not exist, or are
inadequate for the needs of your customers. Similarly
communities can be used for a variety of activities,
including campaigning, brand loyalty, customer support
and/or peer support, experience sharing or even gossip...
Specialist audiences are often searching for like-minded
individuals with whom to engage. More generalist
communities (particularly the bigger social networks)
often do not serve the needs of these groups, who may
in fact be of high value to your organisation. If value can
be delivered to the organisation and the customer then
consider a bespoke community solution.
Engaging your audiences on any community platform
contains an element of risk, as you cannot control what
is said. It is important to mitigate this risk ahead of any
initiative by agreeing what the platform is attempting to
achieve and the procedures that will kick into action in
any given circumstance.
Key questions include:
•
How you will respond to controversial topics?
•
Do your staff know how to protect themselves
and you in the social environment?
•
Will you pre-moderate, or post-moderate
conversations?
•
Do you have policies on transparency, data
protection and privacy, along with general
terms and conditions?
Lindsay Herbert
Head of Digital
“
An aim that gets thrown around boardrooms too often
these days is ‘we need to build a community.’ Instead of
engaging with potential customers where they already
exist online, brands are creating communities of their
own as a tick-box solution to match objectives in their
strategic plans. It’s time to go back to basics: build the
community ONLY if it doesn’t exist already, and when
you do engage, make it about topics that match both
your interests and theirs.”
Done correctly you will be able to positively influence what
people think about your organisation in general, broaden
its reach and ultimately drive actions and reactions.
46
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
5 tactics to engage your community
DEPENDENCY
AUDIENCE
People
Professionals
Public
Peers
1
Adopt an attitude – be human
The common problem here is that marketers want
to market while social isn’t really like that – it’s
about serving current customers’ needs and building
awareness. Few brands really make a real social
connection unless they are pretty small and disruptive.
In order to adopt an online attitude, brands need to
understand what it is that differentiates them in their
marketplace and play to that strength. In reality this is
a more colloquial adaptation of the brand message that
sets you apart from your competitors and recognises
and responds to the pervading sentiment about your
brand across social channels.
If you consider how you personally interact on social
channels it is generally informal and uses language
that is rarely heard in the boardroom. This means that
a contemporary update of your brand’s tone of voice
and related training for those who will represent it
will yield exponential increases in engagement if
pitched correctly.
Tesco Mobile is not the most ‘well known’ or ‘trendy’
brand in mobile service providers. So when their team
recognised that many of their customers were taking to
Twitter to voice complaints and general dissatisfaction
with the brand, Tesco decided to fight fire with fire by
adopting an attitude akin to those who were voicing
their opinions online, creating what can only be
described as ‘friendly banter.’
The result for Tesco was a sizable growth in the number
of Twitter followers.
кк www.twitter.com/tescomobile/with_replies
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
47
DEPENDENCY
AUDIENCE
People
Professionals
Public
Peers
2
Find your champions
It is a well documented fact that marketers often think
of social channels as a new advertising space and despite
their best efforts, their posts, tweets and attempted
interactions are identified as marketing-speak by
those they seek to engage and subsequently ignored.
However, every organisation has within it, individuals
who not only understand the ethos of the institution,
but critically, they understand social media and the
audiences that use it.
In many cases these individuals are not working in the
marketing department – they could be almost anywhere
in the organisation and it is your job to identify and
train them.
Often training does not have to be deep immersion
into the company vision and values, since if they have
the required enthusiasm for the organisation and its
offer, training can be rudimentary, revolving around
privacy issues and the definition of what to do in
specific circumstances.
A couple of years ago Cardiff University tasked us with
developing a digital campaign that would create twoway engagement with prospective students to turn
leads into applicants.
A key element of the multi-channel campaign was the
recruitment of a group of students known as ‘Cardiff
Insiders’, who opened up their Facebook pages to
prospective students to give them an idea of life on
campus, answering questions and sharing experiences.
Having trained the students in privacy issues and given
them a broad lead on the kind of posts they should
deliver they were set free on their peers, the insiders
built real relationships with prospective students and
provided them with realistic insight into student life
at the university.
The campaign was a remarkable success and the
‘insiders’ concept has been maintained by Cardiff
as a key element of its student recruitment website.
кк www.cardiff.ac.uk/for/prospective/undergraduate/thrive.html
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
DEPENDENCY
AUDIENCE
Professionals
Public
3
Connect your community
The chances are that if you look around the social sphere
you will encounter places where your customers are
already connecting with each other. It is for you to decide
how best you might get involved within these places and
the value that you could add by intervening. Sometimes
the answer should be to do very little, and just monitor
the conversation, intervening only if you can assist or
guide the customers to authoritative resources.
However, a period of monitoring can reveal
opportunities to connect a series of smaller niche
communities together where the values expressed
within the communities resonate with your own, or
you notice a sympathetic thread through which you can
unite them under your brand.
The global nature of the internet means that this tactic
can work to quickly build a large community where
seemingly isolated groups of like-minded people are
discussing issues without the capacity to reach other
similarly isolated groups.
I Had Cancer is a community of people who are or have
been affected by cancer. Members can search by type
of cancer, age, gender, location, year of diagnosis and
type of user so that they can easily find others who have
experienced their specific situation.
кк www.ihadcancer.com
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
49
DEPENDENCY
AUDIENCE
Professionals
Public
4
Let your best blog
Culturally many organisations are nervous of allowing
their experts to demonstrate their sector knowledge.
This attitude can derive from a fear of losing control,
a sense that experts must have more profitable work
to do than blog, or even a reticence to give too much
away. Whatever the reasons there is no better way to
influence debate and expand awareness than to allow
your most insightful staff to share their knowledge
and advanced thinking.
As with your social champions, it is likely that you
already have people within your organisation who are
blogging, or who would like the opportunity to express
their opinions. With the correct policies and caveats
in place they should be allowed to express their views
in a manner that shows a human face and passion for
their subject area that is not necessary confined by the
‘corporate line’.
Bond Vigilantes is a group of expert bond investment
advisers, part of M&G Investments. Their blog is
authoritative and in places quirky, and not devoid
of attitude. The blog appears to be well followed by
those interested in professional bond investment (the
group that the blog establishes that it is for) and the
community are actively involved as illustrated by
James Carville’s introduction to the blog where he
says that ‘In one week alone I was accused of both being
an apologist for the US Tea Party, and a member of
a Marxist sleeper cell’.
кк www.bondvigilantes.com
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Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
DEPENDENCY
AUDIENCE
People
Professionals
Public
Peers
5
Set rules & automate – IFTTT
IFTTT stands for ‘If this then that’. This is a simple
tactic that ensures that you take full advantage of the
digital assets that your customers are generating across
the digital landscape.
Simply put, IFTTT is a set of rules that ensures
you become aware of and can subsequently utilise
or automatically distribute all mentions of your
organisation across your digital landscape.
A simple example would be to automatically retweet
tweets that mention you or use hashtags, or at least
store these tweets for retweet consideration.
Rules can be adopted to cover numerous scenarios
across all social channels and cloud technologies.
The IFTTT website contains hundreds of examples
of how these rules, or as it calls them ‘recipes’ can
ensure that you get the maximum coverage from your
customers’ mentions of you.
In the example featured, the recipe ensures that if
you are tagged in a photo on Facebook then this photo
is automatically saved to Dropbox. This could be a
fantastic way to moderate and re-use appropriate User
Generated Content.
Establishing rules and automating those that do not
need moderation will ensure far greater exposure of you
and your brand across the myriad of social channels and
can be set up for all eventualities.
кк www.ifttt.com
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51
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
CUSTOMISED EXPERIENCE
ONLINE SERVICES
DEVICE CONTEXT
DIGITAL ASSETS
The 25 tactics to use ‘tomorrow’
52
TACTIC
DESCRIPTION
RESOURCE
Cull your content
Review content in line with objectives,
remove content that isn’t action-oriented
Review content in line with objectives,
remove content that isn’t action-oriented
Curate assets
Use online platforms to present collections
of assets
Low – can be semi-automated
Teach people
something
Create simple assets to explain
complicated concepts
Initially high but good longevity
Use video
Create video assets
Low to high depending on production value
Make data engaging
Use data sources to create visually
appealing assets
Infographics - high potentially short shelf life.
Dynamic sources – very high but good longevity
Do the basics
Offer very basic information
on a mobile-friendly website
Relatively low
Be responsive
Create responsive website
High, likely to require specialists
A laid back interesting
approach
Reconfigure assets to suit the
mobile environment
High, likely to need editorial maintenance
Be practical
Produce a mobile site with real utility
based on core service
High, with potential longevity
Apps for value
Produce an app to enhance customer experience
High, with potential longevity
Watch customers
Basic user testing of customer journeys
Relatively low
Facilitate decisions
Simplify offer and language, produce
step-by-step tool
Medium, but good longevity
Encourage questions
Establish online enquiry mechanism
High initially, but can become self-serving
Online help
Live online help
High at an enterprise level. Could be lower using
existing staff and off the shelf solution
Channel audit
Ensure channels are clear in their purpose and
that they link together
Low
Understand mindsets
Identify ways to repackage content in a way that
makes sense to customers
Low to high depending on level of sophistication
Make it easy
Simplify registration processes
Low
Give something
Offer a taster or reduced version of your service,
product, or insight
Potentially low
Customisation plan
Plan to customise website for specific event, time
of day or disaster
Low to high depending on level of sophistication
Connect physical
with digital
Facilitate customers in connecting with each
other at a local level
Low to high depending on available data sources
Be human
Establish tone of voice and attitude appropriate
to customers on social channels
Low to high depending on development
and training needs
Find champions
Establish internal social team from ‘socialites’
around the organisation
Low to high depending on development
and training needs
Connect community
Identify niche communities and unite them on
branded platform
Low to high depending on platform
and moderation requirements
Expert blog
Identify specialist bloggers
Low
Set rules
Rules that govern dispersion of assets
across channels
Low, can be automated
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
ACTION/REACTION
DEPENDENCY
AUDIENCE
Engagement, conversion, satisfaction
People, professionals, public, peers
Sharing, awareness
People, professionals, public, peers
Take up of services, sharing, awareness, advocacy
People, peers
Increased search exposure, sharing,
awareness on multiple platforms
People, professionals, public, peers
Infographics – sharing, awareness.
Dynamic sources – repeat visits, awareness.
People, professionals, public, peers
Reputation ‘maintained’
People, professionals, public, peers
Satisfaction, conversion
People, professionals, public, peers
Satisfaction, engagement, conversion, advocacy
People, professionals, public, peers
Conversion, repeat business, advocacy
People, peers
Satisfaction primarily, downloads, conversion,
sharing, advocacy
People, public, peers
Conversion, satisfaction
People, peers
Conversion, satisfaction, advocacy
People, peers
Conversion, satisfaction, advocacy
People, peers
Conversion, satisfaction, advocacy
People, peers
Sharing, conversion, advocacy, satisfaction
People, professionals, public, peers
Conversion, advocacy
People, peers
Advocacy, conversion, engagement,
data sharing
People, public, peers
Advocacy, repeat business, conversion,
data sharing
People, professionals, public, peers
Sharing, advocacy, satisfaction
People, professionals, public, peers
Conversion, advocacy, awareness
People, peers
Sharing, engagement, advocacy, awareness
People, professionals, public, peers
Engagement, sharing, awareness, conversion
People, professionals, public, peers
Awareness, advocacy, conversion
Professionals, public
Advocacy, influence, sharing, awareness
Professionals, public
Awareness, sharing
People, professionals, public, peers
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
53
Finally
“Success is not final, failure
is not fatal: it is the courage
to continue that counts.”
Winston Churchill
54
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
Think big, start small, move quickly
We believe organisations must build a digital
transformation engine based on disruptive leadership
thinking, the powerful digital enablement of core
services, and an innovative team of digital makers
empowered to create uniquely simple customer-centric
solutions (see below).
Mark Sherwin
Organisations that achieve this will be well on the way
to deriving real competitive advantage from the digital
revolution by Daring to be Digital and Driving Actions
and Reactions Online. In the meantime there is no point
standing still, since proper targeting of any of the tactics
described here will begin to drive the value and return
both you and your customers now expect from your
digital landscape.
Global Commercial Director
ERS
D
L LEA
DIGIT
DIGI
EN
AL A
ERS
BL
L MAK
TA
ERS
The contemporary vision for all organisations should be
to provide an exemplary, holistic customer experience
that extends across all customer touch points on
and offline. This will be the focus of a new Precedent
report that we will be publishing in the Autumn. In the
meantime one question we are increasingly asked by
leaders is ‘How do I adapt my organisation to reap the
benefits of digital and drive business value?’
TA
I
The key take away from this report should be ‘Think Big,
Start Small, Move Quickly,’ which is to say that while
every organisation should have a vision of where they
want to be in the future, small, quickly implemented
tactics can have the necessary impact to deliver value
to you and your customers, and provide the impetus to
move towards your future digital vision.
DIGITAL DISRUPTORS
DIG
This report builds on the strategic themes introduced
in our Daring to be Digital report, by offering specific
tactics aligned to a customer engagement strategy to
drive actions and reactions online.
CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS
CULTURE SHIFTS
To read more about Mark’s Digital Transformation Engine visit:
кк www.precedent.com/engine
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
55
About Precedent
About the author
Our services
We have over 25 years of experience helping
organisations transform for a digital world and our
strategic research leads the digital agenda in sectors
such as Education, Membership, Travel and Leisure,
Third Sector and Finance. From strategy, web and
mobile to brand, UX and hosting, we believe in
meaningful ideas, intelligently delivered.
www.precedent.com/what-we-do
Our reports
We have been researching and writing reports
and whitepapers such as this for many years.
Some of our more recent reports include:
Adrian Porter
•
Daring to be Digital: On the road to digital
transformation
•
Optimising Mobile
•
The DREAM Day Out: Digitally promoting and
enhancing the attraction experience
All of our research starts with some considered thinking
– led by Adrian – who delves deep into our sectors and
digital disciplines. Combining Precedent’s internal
knowledge and expertise with external research and
insight building from experts in the field, he produces
the reports, whitepapers and insight pieces that gained
us the accolade of No. 1 agency for strategic thinking.
•
Membership Organisations: Big challenges,
digital answers
•
The Digital Campus: The online future of
Higher Education
Speaking regularly at Precedent’s seminars and pitches,
Adrian has vast knowledge of the digital medium and
its use within our key sectors and is regularly asked to
speak at events in the UK and Asia Pacific regions.
www.precedent.com/reports
Head of Strategic Research
Adrian’s research expertise stretches back to 1998 when
he first began analysing and benchmarking websites. In
2003 he came to Precedent and quickly established our
reputation as thought leaders.
You can request your free copies via the website
or by contacting us directly.
Our seminars and webinars
Throughout the year we hold regular seminars and
webinars across Asia Pacific and the UK that delve
deeper into the research, case studies and findings
of our reports and whitepapers.
Free to attend, you can find out what’s coming up
in our events calendar by visiting our website.
www.precedent.com/seminars
Connect with us
www.precedent.com
[email protected]
@precedentcomms @precedentau
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www.linkedin.com/precedent
56
Driving Actions and Reactions – Engaging your customers in the new digital world | © Precedent 2014
Get in touch
Asia Pacific
George Evans
Commercial Director
t: +61 (3) 9633 5100
e: [email protected]
@precedentau
UK
Lara Doherty
Relationship Manager
t: +44 (0)20 7426 8900
e: [email protected]
@precedentcomms