THE HIGHLIGHTS
Why serving customers well starts with mindset and culture
Customer-centricity is about much more than customer analysis. At the DX Summit, senior marketers across energy, sport, media and automotive pointed to the values that keep customers – and employees – engaged.
“You can have the best customer journey system in the world, but if what you’re putting into it isn’t engaging, then what’s the point?” So says Mini UK’s general manager for marketing and product management, Colette Healy, about integrating the customer voice into a brand’s operations.
She was speaking at this year’s DX Summit, hosted at the Festival of Marketing in partnership with Zone and Cognizant Digital Experience, where it became clear that the definition of customer-centricity and good customer experience (CX) has moved beyond understanding the customer through data. It has even moved beyond joining up experiences seamlessly across channels.
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In fact, “it’s bonkers to think we ever didn’t think about CX”, according to Octopus Energy Group’s global director of product and marketing, Rebecca Dibb-Simkin. In a separate DX Summit session, she argued: “Every message has to build a relationship and brand trust.”
The Financial Times’ managing director of consumer revenue, Fiona Spooner, agreed, noting that metrics for success reflect must now this principle. The focus has shifted away from acquisition and even retention.
“Now, our North Star is around lifetime value; the way we think about our business in relation to customer needs. From editorial to finance, we need to think about increasing the relationship with customers and understanding the valuable points across the whole experience.”
Highlights from across the DX Summit sessions
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Pulling in the right direction
Over the eight streamed DX Summit sessions, one theme stood out. Engaging the customer is not a veneer, or a tactic. It’s something that comes from the heart of the business. And it simply cannot be faked.
“Mindset and culture make you the kind of business you want to be, for everyone to pull together in the right direction,” stated Cognizant’s assistant vice-president of experience strategy, design, research and insights, Patti Alderman. She pointed out that experience isn’t just for customers. If it’s not something employees can live too, businesses find themselves without the glue that holds the whole thing together.
“Top talent is critical to all of our businesses. Our purpose is going to have to be really strong for employees to want to come alongside. Next, we’ll see it in partnerships – making sure our partners are aligned and that we hold them to account.”
One example where employee, customer and partner experience all become very tightly enmeshed is the high-octane world of Formula 1 racing. At the DX Summit, Paul Latham and Kate Dalton – head of audience development and head of brand strategy, respectively, at Aston Martin Aramco Cognizant – discussed how the F1 team can engage with a hugely diverse set of stakeholders through a set of core principles.
“No two fans are alike,” Latham said. “We know some will have the wealth to buy an Aston Martin car, some will work in an industry that is of critical importance to one of our partners and others will be fans who spend hundreds of pounds on merchandise. We need to know which fan is which.”
Dalton added: “More chatter and interest [in F1] means more opportunities to understand these fans and what they want from us as a team. [But] we don’t treat fans as a collective. [Added interest in the sport] has put extra pressure on teams, but you need to look at fans as individuals. We have to be strategic; finding a way to story-tell, engage and give our fans an amazing experience through a narrative that gives them a specific set of values they can really grab onto.”
Mini’s Healy may not have a phalanx of racing fans to speak to but she does note that there’s a huge degree of complexity in the simple act of car ownership today, which goes far beyond rational product attributes. To help the customer navigate this new context takes the brand back to values-driven marketing.
“We have to serve them in a customer-focused way, not forgetting about [the Mini brand] and emotional engagement.”
The push towards net-zero carbon emissions and vehicle electrification can be a stumbling block for automotive brands, but Mini has taken a novel approach. Healy described how it made the decision to connect prospective electric vehicle purchasers with owners of electric Minis to get first-hand, trusted information.
“Can we take the brave step of allowing prospects to talk to owners – unmoderated?” she had asked at the time. She noted, however, that doing so allowed potential customers to get a deep dive into what they really wanted to know, along with reassurance from people who drive the car every day.
Excite customers and employees
Zone business director Ian Barlow noted that being customer-centric and finding a way to offer values-led CX can often be a question of gut-feeling; something that can create internal tension in businesses driven by data-led decision-making.
Healy’s response is to support what she calls “pirate ship” projects, where teams are given permission to experiment at small scale to test their hunches, which may be driven by a piece of data. One example is acting on the insight that many Mini UK employees who drive Minis also happen to be dog owners. A subsequent survey discovered that a Mini driver was seven times more likely to own a dog than the average driver.
The result was a partnership with Dogs Trust that included a Dogs Hub, with tips on travelling with dogs and choosing a dog-friendly car. “It’s about an emotional connection with a brand, and we’re lucky that we have a really interesting playground [for ideas] - not being afraid to ask, and looking for the things that light people up,” Healy said.
Likewise, it becomes very clear when employees are immersed in projects that light them up. In discussion with Latham and Dalton from Aston Martin, Zone senior strategist Julian Smilg couldn’t help but talk about his excitement at working with the F1 team, as well as the interest generated when talking to others about his involvement.
It’s an excitement that both Latham and Dalton are keen to protect and, whether you are serving fans or customers, their maxim for CX should resonate with all marketers: “You have to be fan first. Everything derives from that,” said Dalton. “The decisions you make will always enhance their experience. Don’t just tell them, understand them. It’s never been more important to have a brand story.”
Latham added: “It’s a real privilege to work with fans who are emotionally invested. There’s a real responsibility to treat that trust with the utmost respect.” ■
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Click here to watch all the DX Summit sessions on demand