Personalization started out innocently enough. For decades, database marketers have gathered available socio-economic and demographic information to tighten and tailor their marketing messages to the greatest extent possible. The level of intimacy and personalization, however, was often handicapped by the lack of details regarding individual consumer’s tendencies, behaviors, and preferences. Over time, thanks to a more connected and seemingly transparent society, that drought of detailed consumer information has ended.

Today, the ways and means by which marketers can tap into personal consumer information is seemingly endless. Mobile and computer web browsing activities, online search patterns, inbound and outbound interaction history, and the network of social media friends can all be utilized to make interactions more personal than ever before. With all of this consumer information, it’s possible to identify an individual consumer, where they are, what they are doing, and anticipate what they’ll do next, all without the consumer being readily aware of how much they are being watched.

Despite the emphasis on privacy rights, the average consumer isn’t doing themselves any favors by embracing social media sharing at a record pace. According to a powerful video by Socialnomics founder & author Erik Qualman titled “The Social Media Revolution”, social media adoption has forever changed the way consumers interact with businesses and each other. Highlights from the video include the fact that Facebook has topped Google for weekly traffic in the U.S., the total number of Facebook users would make it the world’s third largest if it were a country, and that 50% of the mobile internet traffic in the United Kingdom is for Facebook.

The wealth of detailed information that is shared through social media and other mediums can then be used in creative, and sometimes creepy, ways. Take, for example, the musical artist Arcade Fire who earlier this year published an interactive website titled “The Wilderness Downtown” featuring their song “We Used to Wait.” By visiting the site, a user enters some basic information, which is then incorporated into an interactive short film that uses maps and images of the user’s childhood home.

In a more real world example, German publisher Zeit Online published an article online titled “Betrayed by your own data” that unveils just how much insight can be gained through private and publicly available data. The article includes an interactive map based on 6 months of mobile phone geo-location data that is augmented with other personal information such as Twitter feeds, blog entries, and websites to piece together the exact movements, activities, and behaviors of Green Party politician Malte Spitz. This article is an excellent example of the amount and depth of information that can be compiled at the individual level.

And finally, in perhaps the creepiest example of utilizing social media content, consider the recently published web site titled “Take This Lollipop” which incorporates a visitor’s actual Facebook images, friends, and posts to create a live action interactive video. In the video, actor Bill Oberst Jr. plays a very frightening and increasingly agitated man that appears to hack into the visitor’s Facebook page and browse through the list of friends and images. The video is extremely well produced and will cause most visitors to give pause about how much information they share online.

The future of interactive marketing promises to get even more sophisticated as new technologies begin to monitor and share even more aspects of the individual consumer’s friends, location, behaviors, preferences, and tendencies. The unabated adoption of social media sharing across all age groups will only add to the tsunami of consumer insight data that is available to today’s interactive marketer. Only time will tell whether this new era of consumer transparency will be used more for good than evil.

A touchpoint is commonly defined as any instance where a customer interacts with a brand, product, or service. Using this broad definition, the ecosystem of potential touchpoints that comprises the customer experience can be enormous. For most customer experience programs, it’s common for an audit of customer experience touchpoints to reveal 500 – 1,000 or more touchpoints.

Cataloging the entire portfolio of touchpoints in an organization can be a daunting endeavor. This challenge can become even greater when companies don’t know what they are looking for or how broad to cast the net. For example, if you were to ask a dozen people to identify the touchpoints in a typical Starbuck’s coffee shop, you’re likely to get at least a dozen different answers. At one end of the spectrum, some might argue that there is only one touchpoint represented by the interaction with the barista at the point-of-sale. At the other end, others would argue that there are a myriad of touchpoints that include everything from the menu boards, the length of the line, and the type of products on display in their display case, to name a few.

Both perspectives are correct. From a pure operational standpoint, the interaction at the point-of-sale is perhaps the most tangible and measurable touchpoint in the customer experience. This type of touchpoint can be categorized as a transactional touchpoint; it’s required to complete a customer’s order and receive payment. Other touchpoints, such as the menu board or length of the line, can be categorized as influencing touchpoints; they aren’t directly necessary to complete the transaction, but are critical for setting the stage and ambiance for the customer experience. When well-designed, the transactional and influencing touchpoints work together in perfect balance to create a unique and branded customer experience.

Effectively designing, orchestrating, and managing the customer experience ecosystem must begin with a clear and comprehensive inventory of all customer touchpoints. The inventory should include all touchpoints along the entire customer experience lifecycle from customer attraction, interaction, and cultivation and across all channels and locations. Each touchpoint should be a discrete interaction that does not overlap other touchpoints and is unique for each channel. For example, a touchpoint might be identified as ‘place order’ in a company. However, if this interaction can be accomplished in the retail, call center, and online channels, each interaction should be identified as a separate and unique touchpoint (e.g., place order-retail, place order-call center, place order-web).

The attributes identified for each touchpoint may vary widely, but at a minimum should contain a title, a short description, and unique identifiers to describe who, what, when, and where that the touchpoint occurs. Other attributes should also be identified, if available, including performance attributes (frequency, volume, duration), importance attributes (relative customer & company importance), and appropriate quality attributes.

Inside Jobs

All of the touchpoint information should be consolidated into a single touchpoint repository that can be maintained, managed, and analyzed based on the various attributes. Ideally, touchpoint performance information should be updated on a regular basis to show any changes over time. For example, the conversion rates of a web landing page should be measured and monitored to determine the relative performance of this touchpoint over time.

By creating a consolidated touchpoint repository, companies gain a better and more detailed understanding of the breadth, depth, and complexity of their customer experience ecosystem. The repository can also serve as the primary source of customer experience insights to identify customer experience gaps, issues, or improvement opportunities. Ideally, the touchpoint repository should be updated on a regular basis to keep the information current and relevant.

Touchpoints serve as the foundational building blocks that facilitate and enable the customer experience. Establishing a comprehensive and clear inventory of all customer touchpoints is a critical first step for any customer experience initiative. While the level of detail gathered for each touchpoint may vary, it’s important to start with even basic information rather than nothing at all.

“Apple’s record of customer satisfaction preeminence in the personal computer industry continues unabated in 2011, as the company adds another point to its already exceptional score. At 87 (+1%), Apple outdistances its nearest competitor by 9 points.“

While the correlation between customer satisfaction and corporate performance has been well analyzed, Apple’s stellar performance during their reign atop the ACSI rankings are impressive.

“In the eight years that Apple has led the PC industry in customer satisfaction, its stock price has increased by 2,300%,” stated  Claes Fornell, founder of the ACSI and author of The Satisfied Customer: Winners and Losers in the Battle for Buyer Preference. “Apple’s winning combination of innovation and product diversification—including spinning off technologies into entirely new directions—has kept the company consistently at the leading edge.”

Of special note is the differentiation between Apple’s record-setting score of 87 and the 9-point gap to its nearest competitor.  As we’ve discussed here before, customer experience mediocrity rarely pays. However, by delivering a truly differentiated customer experience, Apple’s overall performance has significantly outpaced its competitors: While Apple’s stock climbed over 2,300%, Hewlett Packard’s stock grew by only 22% for the same period.

ClearBrick Premium Memberships

Introducing Premium Memberships: Providing unlimited access to proven customer experience methods, tips, and best practices.  Premium Memberships will provide you with unlimited access to ClearBrick’s comprehensive customer experience methodologies, solutions, and best practices to help you and your company to transform your customer experiences.

Coming Soon.

In the coming weeks, ClearBrick will be introducing Premium Memberships; a brand new approach to help you and your company to transform your customer experience.  Premium Membership is a paid subscription program that provides you with unlimited access to ClearBrick’s proven portfolio of customer experience methods, tips, and best practices including:

• Methodologies: A proven system to identify issues & opportunities, assess customer needs, and deliver a compelling customer experience strategy.
• Templates: Interactive templates based on best practices with detailed instructions and examples to help you save time and improve the quality of your work.
• Best Practices: Best practices and tips to support the entire lifecycle of your customer experience project.
• Strategy Guides: Forward-thinking ideas to spur innovative thinking and help to frame your customer experience program.
• Customer Lifecycle Process Maps: Illustrated process maps and a step-by-step method for mapping your customer experience lifecycle.
• Customer Experience Capabilities: A complete customer experience capability maturity model including over 50 customer experience capabilities to help gauge your company’s own customer experience capabilities.

Visit ClearBrick.com soon to discover when Premium Memberships arrive.

CX Method is a methodology for customer experience transformation as it should be; clear, comprehensive, and focused on results. ClearBrick’s CX Method provides a comprehensive customer experience methodology with interactive templates and best practices to help you and your company to transform your customer experiences. CX Method is the next generation of ClearBrick’s proven customer experience solutions, strategies, and methodologies designed to help you increase the breadth depth and duration of your customer relationships.

Proven Methods.

CX Method includes proven methodologies to help you tackle every aspect of a customer experience transformation program. Key customer experience methods are organized by key themes and help you to diagnose your customer experience issues & opportunities, map and manage the customer experience journey, develop forward-thinking and pragmatic customer experience strategies, and measure your customer experience value.

Interactive Templates.

CX Method includes interactive templates using Adobe’s advanced forms capabilities to help you to create your own customer experience deliverables based on ClearBrick’s proven methodologies. Download, collaborate, and publish professional looking customer experience lifecycles, customer needs analysis, customer strategies, and more.

Best Practices.

Get tips and advice based on best practices gathered from ClearBrick’s vast experience in designing and delivering innovative online and offline customer experiences across the retail, consumer packaged goods, telecommunications, and other industries.

Coming Soon.

New Book: The Customer Experience Fiasco

The first run of the book will be in paperback only and will be distributed at the Andrew Reise booth at Forrester’s Customer Experience Forum in New York, June 21-22, 2011. A hard copy of the book will be made available for sale through Amazon.com later this summer.

Sprint CEO Dan Hesse recognized that addressing this problem would take more than a quick fix and publicly committed to making customer experience job one. To make good on his promise, he named Jerry Adriano to a new position of Vice President, Customer Experience. Since then, Sprint’s year-over-year improvement in customer satisfaction ratings has been impressive.

In 2011, The ACSI published its annual scores for the Wireless Telephone Industry and the results were nothing short of astounding. In the new ratings, Sprint Nextel shared the top spot for customer satisfaction with Verizon, a result that few could have foreseen just a few years earlier.

Through their unwavering commitment to improving the end-to-end customer experience, Sprint Nextel improved their ACSI score by over 28% from their 2008 low point to tie for the top spot with Verizon. It was the first time in the history of ACSI’s coverage of the wireless industry that Sprint had taken the top position in customer satisfaction.

In the early days, everyone had their own definition for CRM.  In 2001, for example, the speaker at a major CRM conference polled the audience to determine how many people had successfully implemented CRM in their organizations.  The result was surprising.  When nearly everyone raised their hand, the speaker was shocked and pressed further by asking a few individuals what exactly they had implemented.  ”We implemented a new call center solution!” shouted one attendee.  ”We implemented Sales Force Automation!” crowed another. “We implemented a new web site!” yelled another.  Each respondent answered with conviction that they had tackled CRM in their organization.  But had they?  They had hardly started.

At ClearBrick, we define CRM as something much more broad – and at times – much more elusive.  Customer Relationship Management is a business discipline, a culture, and a way of interacting with customers throughout the customer experience lifecycle.  Truly mastering it requires equal parts of art and science.  There are a myriad of solutions that claim to deliver on the promise of CRM, but few, if any, will automatically create more meaningful customer relationships simply by implementing a new technology or creative solution.  Realizing true CRM capabilities involves the transformation of the organization to create a customer-centric culture that effectively combines people, process, and a range of technologies to deliver differentiated customer experiences.

An added challenge is that the scope of capabilities that fall within the category of CRM continues to evolve.  Any definition of CRM at the turn of the century likely had no concept of the impact that social networking would have on the customer relationship.  Even today’s definition of CRM will not likely foresee the next generation of customer interaction technologies or solutions that will drive the customer relationship.  CRM has indeed come a long way and it will continue to evolve in the years to come.  Business that are at the forefront of CRM capabilities will know that their work is never done; They must continually learn and adapt as the CRM landscape continues to evolve.

For a retrospective look at the CRM software industry, visit the CRM software timeline published by Software Advice.