An early start Stacksters, as your humble editor is headed for the west coast this morning, where among other things he’ll be moderating a panel at ON24’s Webinar World ’18 “Reality Checking ABM: Moving from Buzzwords to Business Results.” So let’s prise open the virtual envelopes, and see what’s in the news.
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What are fashion customers talking about online? If that question has been interrupting your sleep, worry no more. Yotpo, the user generated content hub for direct commerce brands, scoured over three million online reviews to identify topics and sentiments front-of-mind for U.S. fashion mavens. Here’s the lowdown:
- New Mexico is home to the nation’s happiest shop-til-you-droppers; Nevada breeds the saddest
- Los Angelenos disdain money as a sentiment. Maybe they have plenty
- New Yorkers are a tough crowd, 10 percent less sentimental than their L.A. counterparts (cheer goes up in the DMN office)
- And by the way, customer service is really important to these people.
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When we checked in with Dave Dague, EVP of Marketing at Infutor, earlier this year, there was a sense that significant enhancements to the offering were coming down the road. Yesterday, the Chicago-based identity management platform launched ID Max for identity completion. The tool collects, verifies, updates, and completes identity profiles in real-time, based on fractional and fragmentary consumer information. Think of it as finding the tune hidden in the white noise (that’s me, not Infutor). Instant, complete data on inbound consumers, saving them from having to complete long forms or constantly re-identify themselves: that’s the aim.
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If you’re headed to conferences over the next few weeks (and who isn’t?), you must be dusting off that old box of business cards. Why, by the name of all that’s digital, are we still using those things? Well, there is a digital business card vendor out there, by the name of Convey, and it wants you to know its service is now available with native support for Apple and Android devices. How does it work? “Convey’s patent-pending technology simplifies and streamlines the entire process of connecting with someone,” says the press release. “Using advanced mobile positioning technology, Convey instantly creates a cross-platform and always up-to-date connection with a simple click of a button.” Plugs into CRMs and MA too. Had to happen.
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A question very close to my heart — I was manically putting it to everyone at MarTech Boston last fall: Who owns the customer experience. Market researchers Vanson Bourne and CX platform Sitecore and customer journey strategists Verndale to study a bigger sample than I could manage in a day and a half. They put the question to 200 senior CX decision makers. But let’s get the other (largely unsurprising) highlights first:
- 88 percent said CX is crucial to their business strategy
- 94 percent think good tech is going to help with CX challenges
- 92 percent think personalization is key to good CX
- 100 percent think that fully optimized CX will generate tangible business results
Okay, all singing in harmony. But here’s who owns this crucial and key component of the business’s future:
(A) lack of clarity and cohesion within organizations as to where ownership of and responsibility for the customer experience should even sit. This perhaps reflects the challenges that are now faced where traditionally siloed roles are having to collaborate to provide and develop the customer experience. At present in respondents’ organizations, three different C-level employees have involvement and five different departments are involved to some extent, on average. The situation becomes even more complex as the size of organizations increases.
Just pause and ponder, please. It’s so important that we don’t know who owns it. (Probably marketing?) I’m going to carry on asking that question.
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Hopefully I’ll see some of you at RampUp or Webinar World or Episerver Ascend in the coming couple of weeks. Look out for dispatches.
