How trust is the foundation of the data driven supply chain

by Thomas Wieberneit | Jun 27, 2022 | Blog |

In the course of the last year or three, I have written a few times about the supply chain and how it affects the customer experience, sometimes badly so. In my last article ‘the impact of the supply chain on the customer experience’, I explained some of the issues and laid out a couple of high level solutions. Let me elaborate a little on what I wrote then. Of course, there are challenges in two main areas: The demand sideThe supply side The customer expectations are quite simple: A customer expects that things just work, that the vendor, and information given by the vendor, is reliable, accurate and comes timely; that deliveries after order are coming reasonably fast and that there is transparency about the order and delivery status. This is all quite abstract, so let us fill this with life. An example to the contrary goes as follows: You buy something, e.g., some whiteware, from a brand with a very high reputation; you are asked for upfront payment (several thousand dollar, remember, high reputation), get an approximate delivery date two months out – along with a warning that there may be a delay of a month or so. So far, so good. I could live with that although even the two months should be explained … Now, imagine that one month into the wait time you get an e-mail notifying you about a changed delivery date, pushing it out by a month. Well, not nice, but also not out of the range of expectations. After all you got told so. However, the next month you get a similar...

How to create value with a CDP

by Thomas Wieberneit | May 23, 2022 | Blog, Sponsored |

These days, Customer Data Platforms, or in brief CDPs, are one of the most discussed topics in the CX industry. Last time I looked, the CDP Institute counted more than 150 CDPs of different flavors that target different business challenges. This raises a lot of questions, chiefly: What is a CDP? Which business challenges do companies solve with a CDP and how do they approach the solution, i.e. how do they proceed implementing one? Let’s start at the beginning. According to the CDP Institute, a CDP is “packaged software that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems”. Figure 1: A simple model of CDP functionalities Functionalities offered by CDPs reach from simple data gathering and unification to the activation and even active usage of information derived from customer data. This already shows the different business challenges that can be addressed with a CDP. It also shows, that the business challenges can be addressed in a way that provides increasing value to the business. As an aside: A good CDP always bases on a solid foundation of customer identities and the consents that customers have given. The second important question is how a CDP can or should be implemented. What is a viable approach? To learn more about these questions, we spoke with Mario Kurmann, Senior Product Manager CRM at Migros Fachmarkt AG in Switzerland. Mario was responsible for the initial CDP implementation and now for its continuous improvement. Migros is one of Switzerland’s biggest retailers. Fachmarkt, as part of Migros, basically operates five independent brands in the areas of sports, electronics, home improvement, furniture...

How to measure the ROI of CX – A CXChangersTalk

by Thomas Wieberneit | Apr 28, 2022 | Blog, Sponsored |

These days, customer experience is one of the biggest topics. Many, if not most, vendors have restructured, reshaped, or just renamed their portfolios to reflect customer experience one way or the other. Customer experience is great, customer experience is valuable. Now, what is customer experience? According to Paul Greenberg’s definition, “customer experience is how a customer feels about a company over time”. Bruce Temkin defines customer experience as “the perception that customers have of their interactions with an organization.” Similarly, the Gartner Group defines customer experience as “the customer’s perceptions and related feelings cause by the one-off and cumulative effect of interactions with a supplier’s employees, systems, channels or products.” What all these definitions have in common is that they are talking about something that is not in the realm of the business and quite abstract. I often say that good customer experience (CX) is the new differentiator as products and services delivered by businesses are increasingly becoming a commodity. Only few brands can truly differentiate themselves based upon their products/services, price, placement, i.e., the classical tools of the marketing mix. This leaves customer experience as the lever that businesses can and need to work with. But customer experience is not an end. It is a means. Businesses mostly need to be profitable, which means that the CFO is always on the table when it comes to approving new projects or initiatives, even in important areas like customer experience. The CFO’s main questions are about financial KPIs – and are often not answered in a better way than “everybody knows that good customer experience is good for business”. This...

The almighty Metaverse – its Rise and Fate

by Thomas Wieberneit | Apr 27, 2022 | Blog |

This is the third part of my return of the undead series. The first two parts dealt with identifying what components or building blocks a metaverse ecosystem needs to consist of. These components basically define how metaverse can work and serve as a model for the identification of how/where participants in an ecosystem could earn their revenues. Figure 1: The metaverse ecosystem These building blocks are mainly independent of the notion of a(n open) metaverse, as described by Tony Parisi in his article The seven Rules of the Metaverse. They also apply to a more multiverse type world of a collection of closed metaverses – something that I really do not want to call metaverse. The openness, that is necessary for a “metaverse” to thrive can be achieved either by common consent or via regulation – or more likely by a combination thereof. In any case, I believe that some amount of regulation is necessary in order to create and maintain a level playing field and to avoid one or few companies hijacking the area – as this is a platform game and platform games prefer size and allow only few dominant players. Users and creators use front-end applications that enable them to create the and interact with the virtual worlds that are offered. It is here, where the experience happens.These applications run on devices that offer the necessary sensors and actuators.The front-end applications connect to one or more virtual worlds that are provided as a service and that themselves rely on technology platforms.All this gets connected by an infrastructure that includes servers, storage, networks, chips, etc, as well...

The impact of the supply chain on the customer experience

by Thomas Wieberneit | Apr 19, 2022 | Blog |

There are a couple of lessons that the pandemic taught us, apart from that there are different opinions about whether Bill Gates makes us all drones via the vaccines … The most important one is that there is a need to not only look at the demand side but to also look at the supply chain when one wants to improve the customer experience, especially when the customer intention is a purchase. You now might say that the experience happens at the touch point, which is for example the e-commerce site. However, this is only partly true. It is important to make sure that the front end provides the right information, with good performance and without too much distraction, and to have a smooth and comfortable checkout process. In other words, provide a great e-commerce site. Still, this is only half of the story. And this is, where the supply chain comes into the picture. Detour – what does the customer expect? On the base level, a customer expects that things just work, that the vendor, and information given, is reliable and accurate, and that deliveries after order are coming fast and that there is transparency about the order and delivery status. On top of that, customers justifiably expect that the overall process is easy for them and that their time and effort are valued by the vendor. This includes that the process works across devices and channels, without undue hassle. Lastly, the occasional surprise cannot harm. How about over-delivery to promise? How about proactive information? Of course, on the base level it is not possible to win a...