SEEKING A NEW CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Sport has over the years showed how after defeat there can be reinvention and change from Brazilian football team in the late 60s; Muhammad Ali, the dope on the rope; the All Blacks; the list goes on from those that adapt during the game to those that reinvent themselves.

In this blog article, we suggest that for businesses to come back stronger, they need to reimagine the business model that has served them so well over the months and years as they return to the new ‘normal’. Those that step up and look how to change their game will be better prepared to meet the challenges and opportunities that the current environment presents than those who choose to carry on as before.

Through the customer journey there are key strategic areas to focus on: stabilising and returning revenue, rebuilding operations, rethinking the organisation-internally and externally and accelerating the adoption of channel-less strategies across traditional and digital solutions and experiences.

Whatever we think as a business, customer behaviour has changed and will adopt a new ‘normal’, unless we change our customer’s brand journey customers will move on or retain their lockdown habits. To operate as before and expect to carry on as before will be a huge risk to your business from acquisition to retention, for example the new retail experience, how do we re-engage and attract customers to stores when the new experience will be alien to them, how do in-store advisors engage from behind PPE.

Anecdotal research has already shown that whilst consumers are making their way back to the high street, the purchase journey will be different will instore purchase and online delivery be the new norm? Will consumers seek a more experiential experience in store? Will local retail benefit from the move to more at home working, consumers shopping near home rather than the office? Will there be an even greater move to distinguish between the shopping and leisure experiences of towns like Harrogate and major cities such as Leeds?

Whatever challenges the future holds, customer understanding remains pivotal to the success of any strong business, what continues to be hard is how you drive a whole organisation to embrace and believe these insights, whether its Julie in sales or John in customer services or Dan in marketing and Sue on the executive board - they will all see the customer from differing perspectives.

That’s why we developed the Distillery Process.

You need to be clear about the experience you are giving them. Is it the best it can be? Are consistent in everything you do and are you maximising every opportunity? Are you missing out on additional revenue? Are your customers able to seamlessly move between your buying channels?

If you’re not sure then what assumptions are customers making about you, your brand and what you offer? Your brand must reflect what you want to be known for. How do you know you’re doing the right thing? What else could you be doing? What’s the impact of lost opportunities and revenue?

The Distillery Process/Touchpoint Programme gives businesses the tools that helps identify how and when your brand is communicating to your customers, where you are doing it well and the opportunities that you are missing. Challenging the business to rethink its strategy and operations in a channel-less consumer environment – one that views touch-points not in isolation but as part of a seamless customer journey. Importantly these journeys as so often depicted are not linear or simple but a series of handoffs between traditional and digital channels that vary enormously between customer types – the Distillery Process helps give an in-depth understanding of what consumers and customers alike really want.

A channel-less transformation is the only way for a company to meet the challenges of the post lockdown/ Covid-19 consumer identifying and addressing the rising complexity of the new journey, giving an excellent customer experience, increase customer profitability and manage operations costs of the business.

We take you through a process that won’t be overwhelming but will give you real tangible outputs:

Using a series of one-hour sessions (via conference call) we’ll help you understand the unique challenges and opportunities that exist with today’s consumers, finding the answer first. Mapping out a strategy that plots your right course of action. Using our collective experience of different sectors, brands and customer behaviour, we help to provide a unique 'sound board' to challenge your business and brand to potentially discover a new opportunity or through different insight challenge the business to make changes to its strategy.

Whether you want to review an existing customer experience or overhaul your customer data into a single view to gain new customer insights to unlock a new customer acquisition strategy. Or audit the businesses existing digital marketing framework. Or you’ve simply stopped and want some help in re-starting a communications plan to find the right people, at the right time in the right place, Brand Distillery can help.

Our framework will provide your brand with a recommended approach, using our team and trusted partners. If we can’t add value, we will tell you and if we can we will introduce you to a partner directly who can help.