Marketing, Interrupted

by Dave Sutton

  Staples has had a digital presence since 1998 — long before many other retail- ers — but Masud’s ambition was to take it to the next level and create a seamless omni-channel customer experience. He knew that just supporting multiple chan- nels for customers would be insufficient. Staples would have to be sure that all channels would connect to one another.

  “The goal for Staples has been to be a unified view of the customer, where we are completely agnostic to where customers shop, offline or in the stores, on their phone or on their desktop, or through any other means, and really making sure that we personalize that experience to them.” — Faisal Masud, Chief Digital Officer at Staples

  One of the biggest challenges of omni-channel is resolving the deal-breaking frustration customers experience when they are forced to engage separately with the online and offline pieces of the same business, from deals and coupon offers to product purchases and returns.

  Watson IBM and AI Powered Chatbots Reinforce Staples’ Brand Story

  The Staples team started by attempting to reduce some of the friction in their cus- tomer service department by building an online chat function using IBM Watson. The brand leveraged artificial intelligence tools to answer basic customer ques- tions in real time on their mobile app. Staples later announced plans to extend the chat functionality beyond customer service to support more sophisticated customer ordering experiences on its website, through Facebook Messenger and via Slack.

  With the quick success of the chatbot enhancing the customer experience, Masud’s team moved on to a much bigger challenge: transforming their iconic Easy Button into an intelligent, voice-driven interface that allows customers to reorder office supplies with minimum human interaction. In a single after- noon, Staples built a simple but effective and engaging conversational platform using Watson services to link the Easy Button with a customer’s online shopping cart.

  “A critical component of Watson’s technology is engagement, facilitating better interactions between brands and consumers, deepening connections,

  and enhancing how people engage,”

  — Steve Abrams, Vice President of Developer Advocacy at IBM Watson

  But Masud and his team have not stopped there. They continue to build out the technology to include natural language processing and analytics tools from Watson. Today, the Easy Button is truly living up to its iconic promise: making it far easier for any customer to place an order and get access to other Staples services, anytime, anywhere.

  However, as Masud has pointed out in his public comments, successfully delivering an omni-channel customer experience has more to do with break- ing down barriers in the organization rather than beating the competition with technology.

  “The biggest challenge retail faces is not Amazon — it’s actually the struc- ture within, that setup where the store location and the online business are completely siloed and essentially combating each other. And it doesn’t work for the customer. Because the customer is looking at the retailer with one lens: Can I shop with them any which way I want?”

  — Faisul Masud, Chief Digital Officer at Staples

  And that’s where Staples is headed next. They are exploring how to “finger- print” customers across channels—stitching together all the valuable customer data they must have to provide a cohesive, personalized experience regardless of

  channel touchpoint. For companies like Staples with lots of retail locations, this is a major barrier to overcome. Fingerprinting a store customer requires attaching an identity to every shopper who walks through the door. No one’s nailed the algorithm for this yet, but Staples is working on it!

  User Experience (UX) is a subset of the overall Customer Experience (CX) With 97 percent of consumers indicating their purchasing decisions are influ- enced by an online experience, it’s evident that user experience (UX) is now inex- tricably linked to the overall customer experience. Just as living the brand mes- sage extends beyond the marketing department, so too, has UX extended beyond the domain of the web design and development.

  Customers don’t care when they start browsing in one place and end up pur- chasing in another — but you need to.

  Moreover, a good user experience is no longer a nice-to-have; it’s an expecta- tion, as illustrated by the 89 percent of consumers who said they would switch to a competitor if an online experience was poor. To transform your customers into brand advocates, a positive user experience must be part of every interaction a consumer has with your brand.

  While having an aesthetically pleasing UX may initially drive ROI and con- version, the overall customer experience is what drives repeat business and brand attachment.

  When preparing a user experience strategy, knowing your buyer personas and understanding the Customer BuyWay as it relates to each persona is essential. Only after you understand this can you design a customer experience strategy that makes the consumer the hero.

  Gables Residential is a great example of a brand strategically using UX to make the customer the hero, enable sales, and create a seamless customer experi- ence both online and offline. By approaching the problem through the eyes of the consumer, Gables was able to find a way to delight customers and convert sales.

  The company developed an iPad sales application that gave leasing agents tools that covered the entire lead to lease process. The sales app is integrated with the customer-facing search tool which enables customers to search properties in real-time and then forward the search preferences and profile to the agent. By making the prospects’ lives easier, the brand successfully positions itself as the guide to empower customers to arrive at their desired destination.

  UX must be fully aligned with your Brand Story and Strategy

  Your brand story must be incorporated into every aspect of the user experience, online and offline. Each touchpoint should align with your brand story in a way that speaks to your customers and invites them to engage.

  Apple, one of the world’s most valuable companies, is renowned for its stellar design and product UX. But, even for Apple, pretty design and good aesthetics alone aren’t enough. Its brand story is aligned across the organization and incor- porated into every aspect of the user experience.

  From hardware to software, applications, and in-store experience, the simplic- ity and clarity of Apple’s messaging is intertwined throughout the whole customer

  experience. In its stores, laptop screens are adjusted to a recommended angle that causes a glare, so prospective customers have to adjust the screen to see it. This multi-sensory experience increases buyer interaction with the products and helps evoke a sense of ownership pre-purchase. Apple’s consistency in user experience increases brand attachment.

  A transformational user experience is clearly aligned with a brand’s story and strategy.

  The marketers and leaders who are innovating and transforming the cus- tomer experience understand that UX goes far beyond digital design. It’s a sales enablement tool, an opportunity to create customer experiences that engage and delight, and a vital subset of the overall customer journey. In order to create an effective and revenue-generating UX strategy, you must distill your brand story down to six seconds.

  So, what can be learned from Apple, Gables and Staples omnichannel experiences?

  First, we all must acknowledge that customer experience is at the heart of every business. No matter what your business does and how you do it, your customers are what keeps your business going. Finding new and innovative ways to engage with them and make their experience better is what every company must strive to do.

  By adopting an omni-channel mindset and answering two key questions, you can begin to uncover new opportunities to create remarkable customer experiences:

  Do you have a unified view of the customer?

  As we learned in the Staples case, an organization must have a unified view of the customer. That view must be completely agnostic to where customers shop—offline or in-store, on their mobile device or on their desktop
—so you can personalize and optimize the customer experience. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer than having to share their same information with your team over-and-over to complete a single transaction or resolve an issue. Your team should have visibility to every interaction that has occurred across all channels with the customer up to

  that “moment of truth.” The data they need should be at their fingertips not only to respond to the specific request, but also to anticipate their potential future needs based on interactions with other similar customers. Tools like Weaveability can greatly improve your team’s ability to deliver a consistent, unified experience across all customer channels and touch points.

  What are the channel preferences of your customers?

  Customers have become accustomed to a retail society that is almost always open and accessible. With 24-hour stores and “always-on” social media, customers expect instant gratification. Social media interaction tools and online chat are enabling companies to be accessible at all hours and on their customers terms. Until recently, this technology was expensive and could only be afforded by companies with deep pockets. But that is no longer true. Today, even small retailers with limited budgets can leverage these capabilities for their own business.

  Of course, many of your customers will still seek out more tangible, conversational interactions—preferring natural voice over text. Chatbots, using embedded natural language processing, are maturing rapidly. We predict they will become a standard way for companies to reduce friction in customer experiences and to eliminate long queues in their call cen- ters. Chatbots are especially ideal for responding to customers who are asking routine or frequently asked questions. As a side benefit, this enables the company to focus their human CSRs on serving those customers with more challenging or complicated issues.

  We can learn much from Staples as they evolve and enhance their omni-chan- nel customer experience. Clearly, it is a company whose leaders have embraced a transformative approach to their business and they’ve tackled the 3S’s. They have a simple and compelling Story, a clear and integrated go-to-market Strategy, and they are aligning their Systems (people, process, and technology) to deliver a remarkable, omni-channel customer experience.

  Chapter 13

  Making Innovation Real

  “We are transforming from a building services company that uses technol- ogy to a technology company that is disrupting the building services sector.”

  —Jim Brady, President of Brady Services

  ftentimes, the most visionary and transformational leaders come from industries that are perceived by many to be the backwaters of innovation.

  Jim Brady is one such leader.

  From humble beginnings 55 years ago, Brady has certainly come a long way. The heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) services company was founded by Jim’s father, Don Brady, as a Trane HVAC franchise in Greensboro, North Carolina. Fast forward to today, and the Brady family of companies have emerged as innovators in smart buildings, smart cities and a category of innova- tive solutions broadly described as the “Internet of Things” (IoT). But this trans- formational journey has not been without its challenges.

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  When Jim first took the reins of the company from his father, he realized that he needed to gain a fuller understanding of their current brand positioning in the marketplace. If he was to reposition the company successfully as a technology inno- vator in the building services industry, he needed to deeply understand his customer and their needs and wants. The Brady brand had been so closely linked to the Trane HVAC brand for so many years that Jim knew that this shift would not be frictionless.

  “Our company had been so successful for so many years that whenever talk of change came up, we always experienced huge pushback.”

  — Jim Brady

  Jim’s first hurdle was to overcome internal skepticism about the company’s ability to execute a strategy positioning them as a technology innovator. How could Brady be considered an innovator when their own employees felt they lacked the requisite systems to support the existing business units? Brady had not sufficiently staffed skilled strategic marketing resources to build a leadership position based on an understanding of market needs.

  Enter Harmandeep “Harman” Singh, the man who Jim tapped to help him formulate the strategy and make innovation real at Brady. Having played senior roles with Pacific Controls, Trane and Ingersoll Rand, Harman brought with him global knowledge and experience of marketing, sales and technology innovation in the building services industry.

  Harman kicked things off by conducting over forty individual interviews of employees, customers and prospects to understand market perception of the cur- rent Brady brand and Jim’s vision to become a technology leader. He then consol- idated feedback to identify key marketing initiatives to drive brand understand- ing, development and execution. From this, he created a strategic “playbook” that detailed strategic initiatives to reposition the company as technology innovator and mobilize the team to make it happen.

  “Innovation is literally at the center of our ‘3I’ strategy: (Integrate, Innovate, Illuminate), which is not just about new technologies, it’s more about our people.”

  — Harmandeep Singh, VP of Strategy and Innovation

  One of the first plays was to recruit a group of innovators from across the company to begin driving transformation. Jim and Harman established the Brady Opportunity Launch Team (“BOLT”) to work on diverse projects arising out of Brady’s business needs or challenges. Using an agile ideation process, BOLT collects the ideas, quickly conducts experiments and builds a business case. Brady business unit leaders then decide when to activate the innovation in the core business. In this way, there is shared ownership and less disruption to the ongoing business.

  Particularly impactful was establishing the Brady Innovation Center (“BIC”), located in the Brady corporate headquarters in Greensboro. Jim and Harman knew that gaining buy-in from customers and employees would be much easier if they could present a tangible and tactile experience of the destination they had planned for Brady. The BIC was outfitted with all of the latest technology and futuristic solutions for the building services industry. It quickly became the seat of new learning at the company, a laboratory for testing new ideas, and a show- case for modeling the future of Brady. In fact, Jim and Harman positioned the BIC as not a place to “see the future,” but rather a place to “be the future”.

  From inspiration, illumination and integration in the BIC, the BOLT team has championed several new innovations for the company. For example, “Virtual Coach” enables senior Brady service technicians to remotely assist newer field technicians thereby delivering high quality outcomes for customers while not overextending senior resources.

  “Virtual Energy Manager” allows Brady to monitor and manage the utility consumption of their customers remotely—making their customer look like a hero for reducing costs while increasing employee productivity.

  “Building Clarity”, their most ambitious entry in the “Smart Buildings” space, offers predictive and automated analytics to directly connect building perfor- mance to business results for Brady customers. Through innovations like these, and many more in the works, Brady expects to continue to grow, to change, and to use enabling technology to make their customers the hero by operating more comfortable, more productive and more profitable buildings.

  Innovation Recognized

  In 2017, Jim and his Brady Services team’s efforts were recognized as the winner of the Most Innovative Workplace at the North Carolina Tech Awards. NC Tech

  Awards is North Carolina’s only statewide technology awards program, recog- nizing companies and individuals who have characterized excellence, innovation and leadership.

  “Since 1995, the NC Tech Awards has honored excellence and innovation throughout North Carolina, representing the best and the brightest. As a winner, Brady Services has distinguished itself as a peer-leader

>   and we are proud to recognize them. “

  — Brooks Raiford, president and CEO of NCTA

  Transformational leaders like Jim Brady and Harman Singh understand the critical nature of having the conditions for success in place before embarking on a marketing transformation journey. Along the way, teams often get caught up with the tactical execution and fail to see the forest for the trees. Here are a few tips and takeaways from the Brady experience to help marketing leaders navigate transformation:

  Don’t let the tactical distract from strategic business outcomes

  The activities of sales and marketing are, by their very nature, tactical. When implementing a new technology or automation system, it’s impor- tant to understand the business goals upfront. This will prevent operations from consuming unnecessary amounts of time and money. You need to challenge your thinking constantly by answering these strategic questions:

  • How do these tasks tie back to our overarching strategy?

  • What’s our goal for this tactic?

  • Does that goal align with our strategy?

  If you can’t clearly and succinctly answer these questions—it’s time to rethink priorities and reallocate resources.

  Build an agile team that can respond when demand rises