"Smart Marketing. Customer Experience Insights are Golden". Keynote presentation by Chris Olson at the inaugural conference of Association of Library Communications & Outreach Professionals, October 9-10, 2011. Held in Glenside, PA.

1. Smart Marketing.
Customer Experience Insights Are Golden
Christine Olson MLS, MAS
Chris Olson & Associates
October 9-10, 2011
Association of Library Communications & Outreach Professionals
Inaugural Conference at Arcadia University, Glenside, PA

2. Explore
• Relationship between brand experience and
customer experience
• Brand promise
• Brand touchpoints
• Customer experience, journeys, hassles
• Service industry brand snapshot & experience
2

3. Customer Experience
Response customers have to any direct or indirect
contact with an organization
Direct contact: purchase, use, and service
– usually initiated by the customer
– virtual, on-site interactions

4. Customer Experience
Indirect contact: unplanned encounters with
representations of an organization’s products,
services, or brands
– word-of-mouth recommendations or criticisms,
advertising, news reports, reviews
– social media, networks, communities

5. Critical Brand Components
Brand Promise
– what a brand promises to do every day
for every customer
Brand Touchpoints
– every encounter and interaction
5

6. Brand Components in the Experience
Brand Promise
• Builds expectations in the customer’s mind and begins
to formulate the mental brand perception
– the promise is delivered and expectations are met
– the promise is not delivered and expectations
become something that is not the promise
• Promise needs to be unique, compelling and believable
6

7. Brand Promise: Some thoughts by Medical Librarians in 2006
Only medical libraries and librarians Promise to Deliver:
• Incredible customer service • Great technology
• Fulfillment and satisfaction • Deliver info when you need it, where
• “...a nice bunch of people who you need it, and in the format you
help me all the time” want it
• Proactive and value-added • Helping clinicians make better
• Highly personalized service decisions...
• The ability for our clients to do
their jobs, better • Really? These are not unique promises and
miss the mark. Refine by asking “So what!?”
• For them to look good Ask that question from the perspective of
• Problem solving the customer until the essence of the
promise is uncovered.
7

8. Brand Components in the Experience
Brand Touchpoints
• People, places, things... every interaction
every encounter
• Brand communication channels
• Brand promise “lives”
• Factors that help define the customer experience
• Opportunities for expectations to be recognized,
met & exceeded
8

9. http://touchpoint-management.com/brandtouchpoint.html
9

10. Touchpoint Examples
reference service & chat e-mail signature blocks
database interfaces phone answer
professional meetings training materials & sessions
vendor interactions orientations & tours
displays staff & professional meetings
business cards/letterheads meeting rooms
signage (internal & external) flyers/brochures/posters
front desk/circulation
electronic catalog Your library will have different and more
web site(s) touchpoints than listed here. Each
Google Maps/directional signs touchpoint gives you the opportunity to
establish your brand and reinforce your
a/v & machinery rental/usage brand message. Don’t forget staff members.
podcasts You are a touchpoint right this very minute.
facilities
10

11. Customer Insight Tools
• customer journey maps
• customer experience maps
• customer hassle mapping
11

12. Customer Journey Map
• Diagram that illustrates the steps customers take
while engaging with an organization
• All the touchpoints- single and combinations
• Step into the customer’s shoes
• Start with awareness and go to the end
• Who, what, when, how every step of the way
• Insights not processes

13. http://servantselling.blogspot.com/2008/01/creating-your-own-customer-journey-map.html

14. Customer Experience Maps
Tracing the experience cycle
– steps people go through while building a
relationship with a product or service
• connecting (first impression)
• becoming oriented (understand what’s possible)
• interacting with the product (direct experience)
• extending perception or skill and use
• telling others (teaching or spreading ) customers
become advocates and introduce others to the
product, beginning the cycle anew.

15. http://desonance.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/customer-experience-mapping/

16. Gathering insights into the
customer experience starts on the
home page at this library.
http://www.highpointpubliclibrary.com/index.php?page=customersurvey

17. @#*#! argh! Customer Hassle Maps
Identifies and defines all the actual steps that
characterize the negative experience of a customer.
– hot spots (emotional and economic)
– irritations
– frustrations
– time wasted
– delays
• fix and innovation opportunities

18. Hassles
• Add up to outweigh the positives
• Plant negative brand perceptions and memories
1. Collect feedback
interviews: record the session (GotoMeeting)
2. Build the hassle map
(mind mapping software: Mindjet MindManager)
5. Analyze and eleminate the hassle
Don’t stop! Don’t let processes get in the way.
18

19. No need to be fancy, if you don’t want to be. A good white board and a
pile of sticky notes works too! It’s best if the white board is electronic so
you can capture your scribbles/notes in a computer file.

20. Insights
• Stepping into the customer’s shoes helps you to:
– Align with needs and preferences of target audiences
– Define functional requirements and fix possible gaps
– Strengthen the brand for all stakeholders
– Establish accountability standards
– Move from library-centric to customer-centric
– Competitively position a library/LIS in its market
– Create what people love before they know they want it
– Boost ROI on marcom strategies and initiatives
– Understand customer loyalty drivers (and you want repeat customers!)
20

21. Hospitality Industry Example DESIGN
ESSENCE
I believe in looking at other service industries
for ideas and examples of good marcom
techniques and tools. The hospitality industry
offers many examples for branding a service.
It’s a highly competitive industry requiring all
brands to differenciate themselves down to
the smallest detail and to make a guest’s stay
memorable so they will become loyal to the
brand. Tracking the customer experience is
taken very seriously and insights are key to
keeping the brand relevant. I have excerpted pages from the
document into this presentation. The
This document for the Hawthorn hotel brand complete file is available as a PDF in my
by Wyndham provides insights into the Slideshare list. The file is called
Hawthorn brand and how Wyndham aims to “WyndhamHawthorn BrandDesign
convey the essence of the brand to Essence Jan 2011.pdf”
customers. This document would be used to
help introduce Hawthorn franchise owners,
staff members, vendors, stakeholders and
others to the brand and how to nurture the
brand so that it successfully achieves its
business goals. Notice how the customer
experience is woven into the fabric of the
brand story and the roles different brand
touchpoints play in the customer journey.

22. This is quite a promise! They aim to have
their guests perceive and remember that
staying at their hotel is more comfortable
than their own bed and home.

24. A great example to apply to your
library brand. Think it through.

25. This is an example of a useful visualization for libraries to adopt
after performing a SWOT. Show your competitors and your
position relative to them and the marketplace. And yes, Google,
Barnes & Noble, and Amazon are competitors. Any library/
information service/reading room etc. within a 30 mile radius is
also a competitor if you’re basing your marketplace on
geographic boundaries.

27. They’ve segmented the customer experience
and the journey so brand touchpoints can be
managed to contribute to the brand promise:
The hotel is better than home.

35. Brand Experience: What Is It? How Is
It Measured? Does It Affect Loyalty?
J. Jo sko Brakus, Bernd H. Schmitt, & Lia Zarantonello
˘
Brand Experience: What Is It? How Is
It Measured? Does It Affect Loyalty?
Brand experience is conceptualized as sensations, feelings, cognitions, and behavioral responses evoked by
J. Josko Brakus, Bernd H. Schmitt, &
brand-related stimuli that are part of a brand’s design and identity, packaging, communications, and environments.
The authors distinguish several experience dimensions and construct a brand experience scale that includes four
dimensions: sensory, affective, intellectual, and behavioral. In six studies, the authors show that the scale is reliable,
valid, and distinct from other brand measures, including brand evaluations, brand involvement, brand attachment,
Lia Zarantonello
customer delight, and brand personality. Moreover, brand experience affects consumer satisfaction and loyalty
directly and indirectly through brand personality associations.
Keywords: experience marketing, brand experience, customer experience management, scale development,
marketing communications
Journal of Marketing
H Vol. 73 (May 2009), 52–68
ow do consumers experience a brand? How is brand brand attachment) and develop a scale that can measure the
experience measured? Does brand experience affect strength with which a brand evokes each experience dimen-
consumer behavior? Many useful constructs and sion. However, the experience construct is not as clearly
measurements have been developed recently in the branding associated with one particular basic discipline (e.g., psy-
literature, including brand personality, brand community, chology) as other brand constructs are. For example, brand
brand trust, brand attachment, and brand love (Aaker 1997; personality and brand attachment have been defined on the
Carroll and Ahuvia 2006; Delgado-Ballester, Munuera- basis of equivalent concepts in personality and develop-
Alemán, and Yagüe-Guillén 2003; McAlexander, Schouten, mental psychology; as a result, the development of
and Koenig 2002; Thomson, MacInnis, and Park 2005). scale items was relatively straightforward. In contrast, writ-
However, a conceptualization and scale for measuring ing on experience can be found in a wide range of fields,
brand experiences has not yet been developed. In addition, including marketing, philosophy, cognitive science, and
research has studied contexts in which specific product and management practice. Therefore, we must clearly conceptu-
If you’re looking for serious reading on
service experiences arise (Arnould, Price, and Zinkhan alize our construct and develop scale items based on this
2002). However, research has largely ignored the exact conceptualization.
nature and dimensional structure of brand experiences. To define and conceptualize the brand experience con-
Notably, brand experience has attracted a lot of atten- struct, we begin with a review of consumer and marketing
the topic, this article is very good.
tion in marketing practice. Marketing practitioners have research, which examines when experiences occur and how
come to realize that understanding how consumers experi- they affect judgments, attitudes, and other aspects of con-
ence brands is critical for developing marketing strategies sumer behavior. Next, we review the literature in philoso-
for goods and services. Many trade writings have appeared phy, cognitive science, and applied management to distin-
that present useful concepts as well as some ad hoc experi- guish brand experience dimensions and develop a brand
ence measurements (Chattopadhyay and Laborie 2005; Pine experience scale. We then examine the psychometric prop-
and Gilmore 1999; Schmitt 1999, 2003; Shaw and Ivens erties of the scale using standard scale validation proce-
2002; Smith and Wheeler 2002). dures. Finally, we test whether brand experience affects
In this article, we present both a conceptual analysis of consumer satisfaction and loyalty.
brand experience and a brand experience scale. As with
Find it at:
other brand research, the development of a brand experi-
ence scale must go hand-in-hand with conceptual develop- The Experience Concept in
ment of the construct itself. We need to identify the under- Consumer and Marketing Research
lying dimensions of brand experience (analogous to the Consumer and marketing research has shown that experi-
“Big Five” dimensions of brand personality or the dimen- ences occur when consumers search for products, when
http://www0.gsb.columbia.edu/whoswho/
sions of affection, connection, and passion that make up they shop for them and receive service, and when they con-
sume them (Arnould, Price, and Zinkhan 2002; Brakus,
J. Josko Brakus is Assistant Professor of Marketing, William E. Simon
˘ Schmitt, and Zhang 2008; Holbrook 2000). We discuss each
Graduate School of Business Administration, University of Rochester in turn.
more.cfm?&uni=bhs1&pub=4243
(e-mail: brakus@simon.rochester.edu). Bernd H. Schmitt is Robert D.
Calkins Professor of International Business, Columbia Business School,
Columbia University (e-mail: bhs1@columbia.edu). Lia Zarantonello is a Product Experience
postdoctoral research fellow, Department of Management, Institute of Product experiences occur when consumers interact with
Marketing, Bocconi University (e-mail: lia.zarantonello@unibocconi.it). products—for example, when consumers search for prod-
The authors contributed equally to the article and are listed in alphabeti-
cal order. They thank Professor Kamel Jedidi for his help in data analyses.
ucts and examine and evaluate them (Hoch 2002). The
product experience can be direct when there is physical
© 2009, American Marketing Association Journal of Marketing
ISSN: 0022-2429 (print), 1547-7185 (electronic) 52 Vol. 73 (May 2009), 52–68

36. Chris Olson
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