Touch-Point Technology: Transforming the Customer Journey

UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW.
TRANSFORMING THE
CUSTOMER JOURNEY
TOUCH-POINT
TECHNOLOGY
1
the latest installment of our: Snapshot Series
LHBS // TOUCH-POINT TECHNOLOGY

ABOUT.
At LHBS, we believe in continuously observing and learning from
what’s happing in the market.
We’ve created our Snapshot Series to provide insights on platforms,
industries and companies. Using best practice examples, we explore,
analyze and share how businesses are adapting to new trends.
Moving from insightful data to best practices to inspiring thought
starters for brands, Snapshots can be a guide to bring meaningful
innovations to life in different areas of business.
This issue explores the rise of digitalization along the customer
journey, and for what reasons brands are utilizing new technologies
for touch-point interactions.
We hope you enjoy this deck and ﬁnd inspiration for your innovation
process.
UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW. 2
Discover Deﬁne Develop Deliver

INTRODU
CTION.
Technology has become a part of almost every day-to-day activity.
Things are no different for how brands do business. The customer
journey has been transformed to address rising expectations in speed,
precision, personalization and security through implementation of
technologies at crucial touch-points, or the moments of interaction
between the brand and the customer.
This snapshot explores three trends we see in today’s brands’ use of
technology at touch-points along the customer journey:
• Reducing customer effort
• Re-humanizing interactions
• From responsive to predictive
LHBS is a marketing & innovation ﬁrm with ofﬁces in Berlin and
Copenhagen. We help clients to understand today's emerging
customer expectations and to shape their business offerings for
tomorrow.
http://www.lhbs.com
Kathleen
McCaffrey
Marketing
Strategist at LHBS
lhbs.com |
kmc@lhbs.com
INTRODUCTION
3
Abhijeet
Patil
Strategy Consultant
at LHBS
lhbs.com |
ap@lhbs.com

CONTENT.
Chapter 2
RE-HUMANIZING
INTERACTIONS
Chapter 3
FROM RESPONSIVE TO
PREDICTIVE
Chapter 1
REDUCING CUSTOMER
EFFORT
CONTENT
4

CHAPTER ONE
REDUCING CUSTOMER
EFFORT
In what ways does a low-effort experience value both businesses and customers?
How are brands utilizing technology to simplify touch-points in the customer journey?
5UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW.

With each (successful) innovation we see a reduction in some
form of effort undertaken by consumers. Recently there have
been extensive reports revealing that when consumers reach
out to brands, above all else what they want is simply an
effortless experience.
The fewer number of steps needed to order a pizza, the
increasingly natural speech recognition capabilities of devices
and the advancement of device-to-device communication with
little to no human involvement all demonstrate the growing
success of reduced customer effort.
We’re seeing companies implement technology at various
touch-points along the customer journey, some of which have
been innovated around extensively (e.g. customer service and
use), others are seeing disruption for the ﬁrst time more
recently (e.g. payment and delivery).
6
REDUCING
CUSTOMER
EFFORT
LHBS // TOUCH-POINT TECHNOLOGY REDUCING CUSTOMER EFFORT

Technologies making reducing customer effort possible:
REDUCING CUSTOMER EFFORT
Automation
Integration:
omnichannel
New processes
e.g. app

Customer Effort Score (CES) is the resulting score given on a scale of 1 (very low effort) to
5 (very high effort) when a customer is asked “How much effort did you personally have to
put forth to handle your request?”
Source: HBR / CEB
This research by CEB focused on the customer
service interaction stages of the customer journey,
but can be applied to other touch-points.
HIGH
HIGHLOW
PREDICTIVE POWER FOR REPURCHASING
CES
NPS
CSAT
CES outperforms other
measurements of
customer experience in
predicting behavior
CES outperformed both Net Promoter Scores (NPS)
and Customer Satisfaction Scores (CSAT) in
predicting behavior.
Customer effort as a measurement of business success

A experience from the customer’s perspective results in:
HAVAS MEDIA HAVAS MEDIA
6026 %
74 %
increased likelihood of spending more
or wallet share, meaning they will
spend more over a lifetime on the
brand or product
increased likelihood of
recommending the brand to
others
HAVAS MEDIA
60
12 %
88 %
88% 74%
LOW EFFORT
Source: CEB, The Effortless Experience

HAVAS MEDIA HAVAS MEDIA
60
4 %
96 %
increased likelihood of negative word
of mouth
increase in overall disloyalty
towards the brand
HAVAS MEDIA
6019 %
81 %
81% 96%
A experience from the customer’s perspective results in:HIGH EFFORT
Source: CEB, The Effortless Experience

By streamlining it
How can a touch-point be made effortless?
By turning it into
something else
Process
automation
Making it more fun and
enjoyable, either through
gamifying the step or
connecting it to a social
platform
Reducing
steps
Simplifying
design

BEST
PRACTICES
12

UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW.Source:
REPORT TITLE // IMPLICATIONS.
eBay’s Image Search
eBay is rolling out a new feature to let shoppers
search for products using a images.
Explore sign
eBay’s new feature analyzes photos to ﬁnd similar
products on the site for the best prices.
The technology behind the feature does not
simply search for images that have similar colors
and shapes, but instead uses deep learning and
computer vision to highlight what the product is
and look for similar products.
13
REDUCING CUSTOMER EFFORTLHBS // TOUCH-POINT TECHNOLOGY

Adidas’ Text To Shop
Billboard
Adidas has released a new collection available
exclusively through a chat bot accessed via
billboards.
Explore sign
Adidas has partnered with Alexander Wang to
release a new collection. The collection is only
accessible by locating advertisements placed
throughout Manhattan.
By texting the phone number with the speciﬁc
product code displayed, the customer is able to
engage with a chatbot and purchase their desired
item.
14
Find & compare

WeChat Stores Open
Doors to Chinese
Market
The WeChat stores offer brands a way to
seamlessly lead shoppers to purchase.
Explore sign
The newest addition to the service: WeChat
commerce, mobile digital stores.
One version of the stores is the off-the-shelf store
that is a template provided by third-party
interfaces. The other version of the WeChat store
is to integrate the functionality into an existing
mobile commerce.
15
Find & compare

Volvo’s Concierge
Service App
Third party services can be granted remote
access to clean, refuel or service the vehicle
through a secure app.
Explore sign
Third party services such as fuel providers, car
washes and servicing teams can be contacted and
granted access remotely by the Volvo car owner
through the app.
They are given a single use, single location digital
key for a speciﬁed time to access the vehicle.
16
Find & compare

Amazon Working on
In-Home Delivery
A partnership with smart home developers may
open your front door for Amazon deliveries.
Explore sign
When checking out an order on Amazon, users
would be able to opt for in-home delivery. They
would allow Amazon’s courier one-time access to
their home via a connected front door or garage.
The courier would get access by using the
correspondent app and leave the package inside.
17
Find & compare

Louis Vuitton Use
WeChat for Instant
Customer Service
Offering customers support and immediate
keyword-based responses, all via WeChat.
Explore sign
By utilizing the message automation and
intelligent response API of WeChat, Louis Vuitton
customers in China can now head to WeChat to
get immediate answers to common queries.
When a conversation is opened, customers
receive a welcome message straight away which
also lets them know the customer service hours of
the support team.
18
Find & compare

IMPLICATIONS
19

-1-
Create a low effort experience for
customers at each touch-point
Your customers want an effortless experience, and to get the job they
want to do, done. Whether this is reading content, ordering a product or
ﬁnding a solution to a problem. Make it effortless.

-2-
Frequently measure your
customers’ effort scores to keep
up with evolving expectations
Measure and identify touch-points along the customer journey of highest
effort, and deﬁne the contributors that make it a high effort experience.

-3-
Reach customers where they are
Reach out to customers via the channels where they’re spending time, or
simply be there whenever they need you by optimizing services for
mobile.

CHAPTER TWO
RE-HUMANIZING
INTERACTIONS
What’s the reasoning behind making a brand seem more “human”? Why do we want this?
How are businesses harnessing new technologies to convey themselves as more “human”?

Customer interactions for a long time became standardized to
cope with fast-paced growth, and so were stereotyped as robotic
and disconnected. More recently, the importance of customer-
centricity has become widespread, as disrupters of consumer
expectations enter the market swiftly and successfully as a result
of a technology driven business models.
Keeping up with the fast-paced trends and changing consumer
behaviors has become the only way for businesses - both small
and legacy - to stay relevant, and to do this, the customer should
be at the center of the business.
Business is now turning a corner and recognizing the
importance of showing their human side in order to reach and
connect with customers, and are delivering this new experience
to every single customer, efﬁciently and effectively by
harnessing new technologies.
24
RE-
HUMANIZING
INTERACTIONS
LHBS // TOUCH-POINT TECHNOLOGY RE-HUMANIZING INTERACTIONS

Technologies making humanizing interactions possible:
Artiﬁcial
Intelligence
Natural
Language
Understanding
Chatbots
RE-HUMANIZING INTERACTIONS

“It is ironic that where the race to automate everything
seemed to obviate the human factor, technology is now
being used to personalize and humanize service.”
Catherine Chetwynd,
Raconteur

Creating an
emotional connection
Making
communication as
natural as possible
Personalizing
interactions
Here are 3 ways technology is helping brands to
‘humanize’ customer interactions:
As we hear about robots replacing staff in
almost every industry, we are beginning to see
the marketing power of “brand human.” The
act of presenting a brand as having a human-
touch - something we feel we will soon lose.
The man-power required to not only provide this
human-touch, but to also meet rising consumer
demands of speed, omnichannel consistency and
personalization is massively costly and
impractical. Enter technology solutions.

Source: The New Science of Emotions report
Creating an emotional connection
“An emotional connection matters more than customer satisfaction”
Emotionally connected customers
are more than twice as valuable as
highly satisfied customers, on a
lifetime value basis.
They will buy more from brands, pay
more attention to communications
and recommend them more.
Consumer behavior is driven by hundreds of
“emotional motivators.” Some of the most
significant include a desire to stand out from
the crowd, to have confidence in the future
and to feel a sense of freedom.
“To relate
is human”
By implementing technology at touch-points along the
customer journey, brands can apply sophisticated data
analytical techniques to gather data to inform them of their
customer’s motivators at each point.

Making communication as natural as possible
Source: Tratica Research, eMarketer
129%
In the last year, the user base of
voice devices grew:
90%
This coincided with the rise in
accuracy of voice recognition
technology, which, in 2010 was at
70%, and in 2016 was:
It’s predicted that in 2020, the percent
of speech-recognition based
interfaces will be:
82%
“60% of smartphone users agree that “if voice assistants could
understand me properly and speak back to me as well as a human can,
I’d use them all the time.”

“I want to talk to a robot” - said no customer, ever.
30
Making communication as natural as possible
Source: Techanalysis Research, Wired
“To help rid Alexa of its cyborgian lilt, Amazon recently upgraded its
speech synthesis markup language tags … [to] allow Alexa to do
things like whisper, pause, bleep out expletives, and vary the speed,
volume, emphasis, and pitch of its speech.”
Customer-centric company Amazon are making a huge effort to
make Alexa sound more human:

Personalizing interactions
Source: L2 Report on Personalization, Accenture
Consumers are more likely to
buy from a retailer that either:
75%
recognizes them buy name
recommends options based
on past purchases
knows their purchase
history
“I would give more data to businesses if it meant avoiding irrelevant offers”
With masses of customer data at our ﬁngertips, in
real-time and with great accuracy, we have no reason
not to personalize customer journeys where possible.
Consumers now recognize that a personalized
journey gives them a more enjoyable and relevant
experience, and is well on it’s way to becoming an
expectation.

BEST
PRACTICES
32

Connecting with the
Lufthansa Crew
Lufthansa created a highly successful behind-
the-scenes “stories” campaign.
Explore sign
The behind-the-scenes Snapchat stories featured
the preparation work in getting a plane ready for
take off.
Titled “Crew Stories,” audiences were given
candid insights into the process of preparing a
Lufthansa ﬂight. Since its debut the airline has
seen an 800% increase in the viewing rates of
their Snapchat stories.
33

Interactive,
Personalized
Shopping Experience
The North Face is working together with Fluid
and IBM to launch an AI-powered personal
shopping assistant.
Explore sign
Customers will be asked a series of questions
related to their needs, as well as their
requirements. IBM’s Watson interprets the
answers and leads the shopper to products that
meet their individual needs.
Named XPS for North Face, the system relies on
natural language, which is one of the most
successful applications of AI to date. This allows
shoppers to speak to the assistant as they would
an real person in store.
34

CoverGirl’s Chatbot
Modeled On
Inﬂuencer
CoverGirl’S chatbot simulates the tone and
style of conversations with celebrity inﬂuencer
Kalani Hilliker.
Explore sign
Named the KalaniBot after the 16-year-old
celebrity Kalani Hilliker, the bot is designed to
interact as authentically as possible. It introduces
itself as a bot, sharing product information and
exclusive deals, already reaching x14 more
conversations than an average Hilliker post.
The KalaniBot gets smarter the more it interacts,
tracking analytics such as conversation length,
sentiment analysis and response rates.
35

In-car Voice Assistant
Improves with Use
German Autolabs have created an AI-powered,
in-car digital assistant for communication,
entertainment and navigation via voice.
Explore sign
Dubbed the digital co-driver, “Chris” has been
described by founders as an “Alexa of the
automotive world.” The greatest difference
between “Chris” and other devices such as Alexa,
is that it can be interacted with just with hand
gestures as well as voice.
The artiﬁcial intelligence used also means that
speech recognition will improve over time when
one speciﬁc driver is using the assistant.
36

Lark, Your Digital
Coach And Friend
A compassionate, human-like companion to
help people manage chronic illness, in the form
of an AI app.
Explore sign
Advertised as a personal, digital coach, Lark offers
a highly personalized and inﬁnitely scaleable
support platform. The app makes searching for
content related to illnesses, communicating with a
professional for advice and for general support
and motivation easy and friendly.
The “coach”, run by Artiﬁcial Intelligence is there
24/7 for users, and speaks in a caring and
personal way.
37

Artiﬁcial Intelligence
Customer Service
Agent Can
Sympathize With You
The consulting ﬁrm Accenture is
recommending companies use Amelia, a self-
learning cognitive customer service agent..
Explore sign
Amelia can have a back and forth conversation
with customers in natural language, answer
questions and manage processes, like opening a
bank account for you.
38

IMPLICATIONS
39

-1-
Analyze customer data to uncover
needs and make a connection
Before transforming touch-points to become more ‘human’, you ﬁrst need to really
understand your customer, the job they are trying to get done and their emotions at
that point.
When a customer feels you ‘get’ them, they will be more likely to see the value in - and
trust - your solution.

-2-
Create frictionless and ‘human’
interactions
“Brand human” is trending. Businesses who speak via content or directly with customers in
a conversational tone, without jargon are described as having a ‘human-touch’, something
increasingly valued today.
Consumers are wanting to become more involved with the brands they love, and speaking
to them as equals and empowering them with understanding and solutions is a huge step
towards bringing them closer.

-3-
Personalize touch-point
interactions
The more you use customer data to personalize, and so increase the value and
relevancy of an experience for your customers in a way they can see, the more willing
they will be to offer more personal data in the future.
As personalization becomes an expectation, this is something every brand should begin
experimenting with.

CHAPTER THREE
FROM RESPONSIVE
TO PREDICTIVE
Where is the demand coming from for more than instant service?
How is technology beginning to open up new opportunities for predictive intelligence?

As consumers become accustomed to instantaneous service
from brands and from the products they use, we see businesses
taking a step further to stay ahead, to meet and exceed
expectations. The huge quantity of customer data that can now
be so easily aggregated has brought about the possibility for
technology that can begin to anticipate customer needs.
This technology has been around for a long time - just think of
Google search predicting what you want to type. We’re now
seeing this advance further under the title “smart automation.”
Far from perfect, this technology can be a negative impact if
not done right, but when successful, it proves to be immensely
valuable to users and businesses alike. Technologies
anticipating our needs before we even have to act will soon be
routine.
44
FROM
RESPONSIVE
TO PREDICTIVE
LHBS // TOUCH-POINT TECHNOLOGY FROM RESPONSIVE TO PREDICTIVE

Technologies making prediction possible:
Predictive
Analysis
Artiﬁcial
Intelligence
Connected
Devices
(of customer
data)
FROM RESPONSIVE TO PREDICTIVE

40 %
60 %
SALESFORCE
“STATE OF THE CONNECTED
CUSTOMER REPORT”
60%
More than half of consumers
expect companies to
anticipate their needs, and
make relevant, proactive
suggestions across every
touch-point
46
HAVAS MEDIA
60%49 %
51 %
51%
FROM RESPONSIVE TO PREDICTIVELHBS // TOUCH-POINT TECHNOLOGY

“Predictive analytics, self-learning algorithms and technology create a
connective thread powered by data to ﬁne-tune customer interactions and
experiences. This enables a company to use real-time data to calculate
and anticipate customer needs, delivering the next-best product, service
or experience for customers.”
Source: Forbes
Rob Walker,
CTO & VP of Product Marketing at Pega

30 %
70 %
HAVAS MEDIA
LHBS Put the Title of the Report here
increase in conversion rate
as a result of Microsoft’s
tailored email offers using
real-time customer data
70%
When sending email offers for Bing, Microsoft saw an increase of
70% in conversion rates. They achieved this by using real-time
customer information such as location, age, gender, past and very
recent online activity and information about recent responses
from other customers. This data was not gathered beforehand,
but was collected and analyzed within 200 milliseconds of the
email actually being opened, in order for the most relevant offer
to be made.
This use of predictive analytics in real-time and consequent
success demonstrates that if data is being used to ensure
ultimate customization and so deliver the most value for the
user, customers will respond.
UNDERSTAND TODAY. SHAPE TOMORROW.Source: 48
Source: HBR

“..remembering customer preferences is only the beginning; the
personalization capability extends to optimizing the next steps in a
customer’s journey.
At the moment a customer engages (for example, by responding to a
message or launching an app), the ﬁrm must analyze the customer’s
behavior and tailor its next interaction accordingly.”
David C. Edelman & Marc Singer,
HBR, Competing on Customer Journeys

BEST
PRACTICES
50

Harley-Davidson Is
Using AI to Drive
Sales
A Harley-Davidson dealer in NYC has increased
it sales leads by 2,930% by utilizing targeted
marketing driven by AI.
Explore sign
Targeted marketing from AI is saving a Harley-
Davidson in NYC. Mid winter saw less than 3
motorcycles selling a week. The week after
implementing the new tools they sold 15 bikes.
By using the advanced AI algorithms to ﬁnd
people similar to past customers, the dealer is able
to be much more efﬁcient and effective with their
advertising. They have been able to successfully
predict who their next customers will be, and
target them.
51

Otto Harnesses AI to
Predict Customer
Orders
German e-commerce merchant Otto is using
artiﬁcial intelligence (AI) to make decisions at
scale by predicting monthly sales.
Explore sign
Using AI, Otto decreased product returns by
almost 2m a year, automatically purchase items
each month for quick dispatch and reduced their
quantity of surplus stock held by a ﬁfth.
By also analyzing around 3 billion past
transactions as well as 200 variables including
past sales, Otto site searches and weather
information, the technology is able to predict
customer purchases weeks before they place
their orders, and does so with a 90% accuracy
rate.
52

Using AI To Help
Millennials Budget
AI banking app Chip is trying to do just that by
analyzing spending and maximizing savings.
Explore sign
Chip works by analyzing spending and
automatically moving small amounts of money
into a saving account. By only moving small
amounts during times when the AI has noticed
you don't usually need the extra cash, the goal is to
reduce the impact of saving money to the point
where the user doesn’t even notice their reduced
spending power.
Chip is currently focusing on Millennials, with a
special focus on trying to cut down on the
overdraft fees which 40% of Brits are affected by.
53

Orange Bank
Chatbots
The telco moves into the French markets after
success launching their mobile banking services
in Poland.
Explore sign
The Orange chatbot will apply machine learning to
gradually understand more about you, like your
future needs and wants, along with your projected
spending habits.
The chat bots are programmed to detect emotion
through 'sentiment analysis' where you, as the
customer may require human advice over
machine.
54

Proactive Customer
Support
BetterCloud offer proactive support when their
technology notices potential issues with users,
and initiate conversations.
Explore sign
BetterCloud help businesses manage software-
as-a-service applications, and know full well that
many times customers will attempt to ﬁx
problems themselves, or even look for an
alternative solution to avoid the time it takes to
submit a ticket.
So their technology ﬂags potential issues the
website spots, and support staff preemptively
contact the customer offering support.
55

Disney Can Now Read
Audience Emotions
Disney's new technology can read individual
audience member's faces to determine
emotions, and so their enjoyment of films.
Explore sign
Asking audience members for feedback on the
film they just watched is informative, but not
completely reliable. So Disney have devised a new
facial recognition technology utilizing deep
learning techniques, which can analyze the
motions on the faces of every single audience
member in a movie theatre.
It can confidently predict how a person will react
to an entire film after analyzing reactions for only
ten minutes.
56

IMPLICATIONS
57

-1-
Map your customers’ digital
journey
Businesses should ﬁrst have a comprehensive overview of their customer’s journey with
their product or service. Then place themselves in the position of the customer.
Compare your journey with those of competitors, but also with the highest ranked
customer journey experiences of companies from other industries. Can you disrupt
your industry by tailoring and applying the best experiences?

-2-
Identify the touch-points of
highest effort for customers
With the mapped digital customer journey, acting as the customer and by
utilizing data and feedback identify the touch-points of highest effort
using the Customer Effort Score (CES) scale. This is where you begin.

-3-
Use data insights to form
hypothesis, and inspire innovation
From your customer data and internal insights, begin forming hypothesis around what
might be possible, and around what predictive technology might spark in customers in
terms of emotional response and actions.
Testing predictive technology is crucial. When done right it can be immensely valuable,
but often what seems logical to a business can feel intrusive or an annoyance to
customers.

Discover
ABOUT.
Define Develop Deliver
LHBS is a marketing & innovation firm with offices in Berlin &
Copenhagen. We work with legacy organisations to adapt their
customer value proposition to meet emerging customer
expectations. Together with our clients we discover business
opportunities and deliver integrated customer offers for products,
services, experiences and communication.
http://www.lhbs.com
ABOUT
DISCOVER DEFINE DEVELOP DELIVER

LHBS Put the Title of the Report here
HUB.
This case study has been created with the help of signmesh.
signmesh innovation hub is a tailored dashboard of curated insights and
business cases to keep your company ahead of the learning curve and
inspire ongoing innovation.
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Touch-Point Technology: Transforming the Customer Journey

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