Designing a Cohesive Customer Experience

Elizabeth Rosenzweig – Bentley University

Scott Gunter – Usability Sciences

About UsScott Gunter

VP of User Experience at Usability SciencesOver 13 years as usability / user experience

researcherHas led over 250 research projects on behalf of

companies like Microsoft, J.C. Penney, Nokia, Kohl’s, Oracle, and Nike.

Elizabeth Rosenzweig Principal Consultant, Adjunct Faculty, Bentley

UniversityOver 25 years experience in UX fieldFounder and Director World Usability Day4 Patents in UX Design

Today’s TalkIntroduction

Touch points and the User Experience

Research

Virtual Ethnography

Some solutions

Setting the stageYour company has continued to expanded its

market presence by adding a…Facebook pageMobile enabled siteiPhone appAndroid appWeekly promotional emails,etc.

Each of which received extensive user testing before deployment.

Touch pointsIs the experience across each of these new

touch points consistent?

What about with the existing touch points (e.g., website, store, etc.)

Are the individual touch points working together to enhance the customer's total experience?

What role does each touch point play in your customer's journey?

“You recently moved into a new apartment and would

like to purchase a reasonably priced leather sofa.”

Website

Email

Facebook

Mobile

Store

CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Was the experience consistent across each touch point? Was trust being built along the

way?

Was the customer compelled to continue shopping?

Was the brand messaging consistent?

 Multichannel Customer Experience

by Consultancy, November 2010

49% of company respondents say a joined-up multichannel customer experience is very important to their organization,

41% say multichannel UX is quite important. 68% recognize a strong link between long-term

business performance and customer experience.

Multichannel Customer Experience cont’d

69% of organizations are just beginning to develop a UX strategy.

9% surveyed have no strategy for improving the customer experience.

38% report that ownership of the multichannel customer experience lies within a combination of different departments.

Forrester Research

Global eBusiness And Channel Strategy Professional Online Survey, Forrester Research Inc., November 2010

Retailers who had focused on multichannel integration found:an average of 48% increase in online sales28% reduction in operating costs25% increased profitability

Cross-Channel Experiences in Retail

http://pervasiveia.com/blog/cross-channel-retailing83% of consumers prefer retailers offering a

continuous and consistent shopping experience across the different channels

Pervasive information architectures are consistent information spaces that are not limited to the Web, but bridge across all active communication channels for a given company, product, or service. In the the team promotes a heuristic approach to design them, based on 5 related indicators: place-making, consistency, resilience, correlation, and reduction. 

The Cross-Channel Experience, Slide Share Presentation

by Nick Finck

3 Types of Touch points• Static Touch points• Interactive Touch

points• Human Touch points

Cross Channel Touch Points

• Web• Email• Packaging• Product• Streaming media• Mobile

• Retail• Sales Support• Environment• Click-to-Chat• Social Media• Broadcast Media

3 Types of Touch Points• Static Touch points• Online or on paper (newspaper, magazines) information

only

• Interactive Touch points• Often online, internet or mobile internet, allows for

interactions:• Search• Find a product• Ask about a product• Find a store• Etc.

• Human Touch points

• In person, usually at the store

Static Touch Point

Interactive Touch Point

Human Touch Point

How can “Out of the Box” thinking help?

Virtual EthnographyBrings together disparate elements to understand

a complex problemTime, Space and Technology- where do they merge

Virtual Ethnographyby Christine Hine

Ongoing study of how people interact online, through the social world of the internet

Time is viewed differently in a virtual world, it can slow down or speed up with no relation to the laws of physics

Space becomes an altered reality, whereas it must adhere to the laws of physics in the physical world

Technology then evolves based on how people use it

Consider ThisSpace and Time create a context for interaction

Space, Time and Technology

Some Steps To A SolutionIdentify your core customer

Put the user at the center of the process: Inventory your touch points Identify attributes of each touch-pointCreate journey maps

Evaluate touch points within journey map

More SolutionsResearch new ways to create and augment

online reality

Use tools of Virtual Ethnography to study online social behavior

Observe the effects of Space and Time on touch points

Today’s TalkNew customer experience must integrate many

touch points

What are examples of different touch points

What is the latest thinking

What can you do to apply this to your work

Q&AAny questions?