Internet TV - changing the TV experience

Television has been a foundation of British culture since its introduction with a basic set of black and white services. The growth of channels and programmes has catapulted since the advent of satellite television where customers could enjoy a huge range of new channels for a subscription fee. The popularity of satellite TV was always curbed by the licensing agreements and costs versus the free (subject to an annual license fee) channels on mainstream services. The world of digital certainly shook up this status quo with analogue services discontinued and freeview channels stepped into the satellite customer space offering a wealth of services without the license costs. All of these step changes have developed the customer experience and provided a much greater wealth of choice for the TV consuming customer. The arrival of Internet TV services over the past few years has seen the largest scale change in customer behaviour in my opinion of all these step changes. We now have the ability with services such as TVcatchup or BBC iPlayer to enjoy any programme we wish at the time we wish and in the environment we wish.  I might choose to take my iPad to the gym and watch the latest episode of Top Gear while on the treadmill. Or download to my device content I wish to watch on the plane knowing I will be without data services. Consuming TV at different times and in different locations than ever before.  We may no longer need to be a nation of couch potatoes as we can get our telly fix wherever we are releasing us from the restrictions of our living rooms. Internet TV certainly is an epic customer experience.  

The customer experience of stag do planning

The announcement of a forthcoming wedding is one of life's moments that really highlights the differences between men and women. For women the prospect of a white wedding forms the basis of the discussion with colours and style being topic of conversation. For men the wedding features as a distant blip on the horizon dwarfed by the prospect of a weekend of male bonding and opportunity to ruin their life long friend under the guise of a stag do. For the lucky punter who gets to be best man they have the pressure of delivering this once in a lifetime event while repeatedly being subject to a grilling by the bride to be.  For some best men this can even extend to grilling's by the mother of the bride as you are swallowed up as an extension of the family viewed as a possible threat to the future marital bliss. "There won't be any strippers I assume?" "You will make sure Bob / Harry / Jim doesn't drink too much?"  "You will look after him won't you?"  While the swarming stag party is only interested in making sure you provide enough opportunity for alcohol and that the groom will be consuming more than previously thought physically possible. This perfect storm has given rise to a number of stag do organising companies offering to take away much of the stress for the best man. With complex web sites including structured forms to billing and e-payment solutions removing the issue of chasing a bunch of chaps for cash these companies offer up a one stop shop for all your planning needs. These companies are a godsend to the battle weary best man and give them the chance to enjoy the process as well.  Epic work stag companies.  

The epic customer experience of competing in the Virgin London Triathlon

The Virgin London Triathlon(http://www.thelondontriathlon.co.uk) is the largest triathlon in Europe with over 10,000 athletes competing over two days seeing large stretches of London's road network closed to accommodate the cycling. The event is centred around the excel arena in East London right next to the city airport making a dramatic backdrop to the open water swim in the docklands. The arena itself plays host to the transition area for the many competitors alongside an exhibition area where many suppliers attempt to tease a purchase from nervous individuals pre-race time or broken bodies after the event. All of which playing to their specific needs and attempting to tap into this consumer base. The customer experience as an athlete is somewhat overwhelming as you realise the scale of such a competition which runs hand in hand with very prescriptive timing. With the volumes of people the logistics need to be spot on and at London this is certainly the case. The web site, emails and race packs are all provided and offer detailed briefing throughout.  For me the physical surroundings is all that lets it down and is a real shame for the organisers as it is the only bit they cannot influence. To make it epic I think a move to a new site could be in order. Running laps around an industrial estate is my day to day training. Come race day I want something special to really deliver that epic experience. 

The epic experience of a car test drive

The joy of a new car is an experience we rarely get to feel and something to be cherished. The new car smell, feel and pleasure of taking your first drive irrespective of the car is something to be remembered.  The magnitude of this event means for many the decision process is something that we invest more time in than a home purchase. Researching like a doctorate depended on it and questioning every step of the way.  Do you have the right manufacturer, spec, colour, alloy wheels, even cup holder type? Our cars may not be alive or indeed part of the family but the decision haunts us. Part of this monumental journey includes the test drive and the painful reality of entering the car dealership embracing the horror of car salesmen.  But need this be such a nightmare? Are all car showrooms a minefield of awkward interactions and bullet dodging heavy handed sales tactics?  To my relief and surprise the answer can be "no". A recent test drive at my local and friendly Ford dealership was pain free. Helpful sales staff. Patient. Understanding. Empathetic. Realistic. And certainly not the stereotypical pushy sales men. The result?  Thoroughly enjoyable experience and a customer who is not only an advocate of the brand but the dealership.

The world of connected homes and are we ready for the customer experience Virgin Media is offering?

For many of us our homes are a hot bed of wireless activity with mutiple devices hungrily searching out our wireless router and munching up our precious bandwidth.  This surge of connected devices is part of the "internet of things" concept where more and more of our life is being hooked into the world wide web and bringing with it a wealth of new opportunities for business and a wealth of worries for consumers.  To read more about the internet of things check out an earlier blog on the subject - http://epiccustomer.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/epic-customer-experience-starts-before.html

The connected homes is something everyone from your broadband provider to your utilities provider wants a piece of....but why?  Why does my TV provider want to be involved in this and investing in technology to join all the bits of my house together in some crazy wireless spaghetti?  The answer is to get access to some serious customer behaviour information.  With the connected home whoever controls this will know when you are home, what you are doing, how you heat and cool your home, how environmentally friendly you really are and a whole wealth of other personal traits about how you live your life.  So is this the ultimate realisation of George Orwell's book 1984?  Virgin Media are doing some interesting work in this area and the following link shows where their thinking is but funnily enough doesn't make many references to Mr Orwell's masterpiece - http://store.virginmedia.com/discover/broadband/explore/connected-home.html

Personally I think the customer experience opportunities in this are epic and a reality of modern life.  If you have a mobile phone chances are your mobile provider knows much of the information that any connected home will be providing so best to embrace the horror and enjoy the ride.  Milk it for all it is worth and make sure you get the most epic customer experience you can streaming media from your home to your watch while topping up your fridge with some beers for later.  Epic.

Can you get better than a kwik-fit fitter?

Kwik-Fit has been with us since the 70's offering a relatively unchanged recipe of automotive services (www.kwik-fit.com). Often the target for customer service failings by the likes of watchdog or the tabloid press it has survived numerous changes in ownership.  In spite of these reasonably regular public floggings and new owners there are over 500 centres dotted around mainland Europe located in or around the majority of our towns and cities. So what is the customer experience like for a brave member of the public venturing into contract with kwik-fit ignoring the haters comments on their shoddy car battery installations? The conventional route of heading in person to one of the branches is very much your worst nightmare with no booking process and held to ransom by a first come first served system. For the many leading busy lives this is as welcome as a 5 mile tail back on the M25. The busy front office staff are working hard to meet your needs as quickly as possible but have to resort to sourcing products from who knows where to get you back on the road. The waiting area looks like it was last decorated when the company was founded and refreshment and entertainment are in short supply. Would it really break the bank to offer free wifi to customers spending 100's of pounds or comfortable surroundings with streamed updates on progress. Or better still a booking process so you know exactly the whens and how longs of your visit. This customer experience contrasted with the mobile experience could not be more chalk and cheese. If buying 2 or more tyres they will come to you for free. Book in their arrival. Notify you when nearby and deal with everything at your convenience. Epic. Why can't some of this rub off on the branch model. Kwik-fit can amaze and it certainly can do epic customer experiences you just need to choose carefully to receive this! 

The breakfast radio customer experience

Mornings are a challenge for most of us as we battle in the early commute to reach our destinations for work or education or for many parents both. The daily pain of travel has become more expensive and more congested wherever people live with everyone striving to do more in less time which results in less patience and more irritation.  We need all the help we can get to survive this with many "plugging in" to some audio relief during this downtime. One common theme through the last 50 or so years has been the breakfast radio show to help get us going and start our day with national and local radio networks vying for listeners (customers) in this prime time slot. The advent of DAB and radio available via the web has increased the depth of choice to this commuter pool of customers. With a third of new cars in the UK now fitted with DAB the switchover is gaining some traction and certainly from my own experience with this medium it is a positive step. Network speed issues will restrict the options for internet radio until 4g is a more commonly adopted network so conventional radio and DAB are the current mainstream options. Epic customer experience is certainly being delivered by technology with more advancements in the field of radio broadcasting in the last 5 years than ever before. The mighty DJs of this country just need to deliver on this enhancement and provide some epic content to fill the airwaves. Bring it forwards. 

The high street still working to deliver an epic customer experience

The city centre landscape in the UK has been under attack by the global recession and advancing capabilities of the big bad web cannibalising the sales of the traditional shop. With uncompromising lease agreements and penalising taxation many businesses have struggled to make the old school shopfront window experience viable seeing a number of stalwarts of the high street crumble and disappear from our cities. For many items and indeed for many shoppers going into a physical shop is the preferred choice and for millions a borderline hobby consuming more "free" time than any other past time. So why is the experience not more epic and why are we witnessing more empty shops than ever before?  Certainly walking down Oxford street in London at any time of the day suggests this shopping format is as strong as ever. Too many shops have failed to keep up with the pace of the industry. Following the seasonal pattern of sales and traditional window displays. Some have tried to integrate the channel with the online experience. Some have integrated coffee shops into the bosom of their environment. All of this is missing the point. The high street and the concept of being in a physical shop is enough but companies need to invigorate this experience not dilute it with modern trappings. Get good sales teams passionate about the products. Revolutionise your layouts making products leap out at us. Welcome new customers and old into this world and make the high street epic again. 

The eBay virgin customer experience

The tech giant that is eBay (www.ebay.co.uk) has been with us now since 1995 and a success story of the dot com era outlasting many other tech start ups. In the UK there are over 10 million registered users with a peak level of 13 million reached in 2008 with around 178,000 of these being small businesses that would not have survived without the online auction site. For many the prospect of using eBay is too daunting a task requiring creation of profiles and corresponding PayPal accounts permitting linkages into bank accounts. Bidding, selling, feedback, dealing directly with people, nightmare!  eBay has a very loyal customer base and supports its multi billon annual revenues but does it do enough to open its doors to new customers, the less tech savvy and auction inquisitive?  eBay may well have a strong foothold with 10% of the UK population but that leaves opportunity for the remaining 90% and arguably in a market where it enjoys a monopoly position.  The customer experience for newbees needs to be the focus with corresponding promotion activities demonstrating the simplicity and safety of using the site.  More work on this untapped marketplace would really strengthen the companies position and deliver a broader epic experience. 

Petrol pump attendants - freaky UK customer experience

Petrol stations in the UK have begun to follow the example of our American neighbours and supply a pump attendant to help you fill your car. Is this something we were really missing and had been requested by the British public or just an attempt to mimic the American brand of petrol station. In terms of customer experiences this should be a good thing as it makes our lives easier and creates more of a personal touch when going through the process of buying fuel. But are we ready and comfortable with this as an interaction as the UK has a much more private and defined boundary in terms of personal space. I see customers approaching this with fear and prepared to wait for an alternative queue that doesn't have this facility so they don't need to face this interaction that they are unaccustomed to. In terms of delivering quality customer service we must applaud the companies trying this and it would be a shame if we killed it off because of the classic British reserve when this really could lead to a better customer experience.  Maybe not epic but ultimately an improvement. 

Book now for christmas to avoid disappointment in 30 degrees heat

The build up to the madness of Christmas seems to start earlier with each passing year.  No sooner have we packed away the bucket and spade than our email inbox is flooded with opportunities to book our Christmas events and avoid the rush.  With the current heat wave in the UK thoughts are very much focused on enjoying the tropical sunshine and making the most of a much missed summer not quite ready to face the horrors of the office party in the run up to Christmas. Are the Co-operative to blame for sparking the various pubs and restaurants into life with their emails requesting early bookings? The Co-Operatives recent TV advertising campaign using the Andy Williams Christmas classic could be the cause for this earlier than usual rush (http://goo.gl/mLnj7) which has seen them pick up a fair degree of bad press for bringing Christmas flavours into our summer mood. I think the abuse from the press is a bit harsh on what is a very tongue in cheek campaign and businesses vying for your Christmas business should show some common sense. Let us enjoy the summer and then ease us gently into autumn before the Christmas assault. 

The importance of a consistent customer name

For many companies having a single customer data record that forms the single version of the truth on their customers is an ambition but far from a reality with numerous disconnected data records relating to their customers. What this means to the customer is that in a single correspondence you may be referred to as Mr. Blog or Mr. Blogg or Ms. Blogg or Bertie or Bert. This lack of clarity and a failure from companies to cleanse their data records leads to damaged customer relations. Investing money in cleaning the data is a hard sell with the business case up against numerous new revenue generating project alternatives. The issue is that companies need and want to know and understand their customers and their behaviours. What hope do they have in reaching this level connection when they are struggling to know my name. If companies are serious about customer profiling then this has to be a priority and retain a single golden record of my details so you can start from a position of authority. This then leads to epic customer experiences. 

The customer experience of international App Stores

Since the release of the iPhone in 2007 the application software development approach has exploded and fuelled the rise of the smart phone with other platforms following this model. While iTunes had been in place with Apple since 2001 this application based solution has seen the software industry changed forever as a result. It is this mobile application usage of iTunes that I am looking at today and its usage on iPhones, iPads and iPods.  The Daddy of this being the desktop version is something for another day. The experience of using the App Store for your smart phone unlocked the cloud to the masses and created a new wave of developers with kids in their bedrooms competing with mainstream software houses. For the end consumer this has meant a wealth of choices as the volume of applications has continued to grow requiring intelligent search services to find the most suited apps. The App Store of iTunes has been distributed with local models so there is no global store. You have a local account and can download within that geographical constraint. This makes a lot of sense and permits greater localisation of applications based on geographical needs. Problems arise however as more developers are releasing their applications globally so they are present in all app stores even though as a consumer I can't download these. This is a poor result for a solution that has been a game changer and needs tighter control so apps are only released in the local area where they can be bought and used. Apple needs to step in now and protect this epic customer experience. 

The customer experience of shiny new tech

An ever increasing number of us are becoming gadget obsessed eager to have the latest greatest piece of shiny new technology. Historically this state of mind was limited to the IT savvy individuals working in the industry frowned upon as geeky by the masses. This is no longer the case with everyone from school kids to grannies owning multiple premium grade gadgets well beyond a mere home PC. How many homes have multiple laptops, smart phones, tablets, mini-tablets, game consoles, wireless devices?  We have become technology whores and it is only becoming worse with technology stepping into our kitchen white goods and even our watches. So what is the experience of receiving one of these new pieces of kit?  How does it make us feel?  The customer experience begins with the anticipation and excitement in the moments before receiving it. Often pre-dated with countless hours researching and considering this latest investment. The physical experience of opening the tech then becomes the classic return to childhood unwrapping your number one present under the Christmas tree. The gadget packaging often plays to this childhood memory with skilfully crafted packaging and the device resplendent in its transportation cocoon. Switching it on for the first time and exploring the depths of its new functionality allow the new consumer to lose themselves for that initial encounter. The longevity of this honeymoon period is very much dependent upon the quality of the product and whether it can live up to the hype. For a scarce few products this feeling of being ten and having your most cherished present will last well beyond the packaging and stay with you every time you use. These are epic customer experiences. And we will cherish them. 

The McDonalds customer experience

McDonalds has worked to step into the digital age with an impressive mobile optimised website that has geo-location services to help find your nearest restaurant. It also has mobile apps in multiple platforms present across a majority of the country specific app stores with in depth menu information and further opportunities for store location. No surprises then to find an official presence in all the social media sites posting topical content attempting to keep the brand present on social channels. But does this affect the customer experience.  Are the majority of McDonalds consumers aware of these efforts and using them to aid their experience when using the drive thru for a Big Mac? I don't think so. The customer experience is 99% about the visit to the restaurant. You can't buy it on-line or book or extend your services post purchase. When you are hungry (or for some maybe when they aren't so hungry) you head to the McDonalds near you and buy the food and drinks you want and consume it instantly. As a result all energy needs to be focused on the in-store experience and not on the digital elements. This means when I visit a McDonalds I need to know what is on offer and how much it is. Unfortunately the customer experience of this basic requirement seems to have been missed in many modern McDonalds with poor layout that leaves little visibility of the menu and customer support in that part of the buying process as you have no opportunity to discuss menu options at the till. McDonalds help your customers by telling them clearly what is on the menu.  Don't leave us in the dark. 

The proper camping experience

Proper camping in the UK as a rule means wind, rain and a battle to "make the most of it". But a stiff upper lip and getting on with it is the British way. For me that means none of your glamping malarkey but tents you pitch yourself and a back to basics experience. A detox from the telly box is mandatory and wifi distinctly off the menu. This weekend the usual end of the world weather is absent and campers are faced with the unusual challenge of sun burn and seeking the shade. Each field has been filled to the brim with tents of all shapes and sizes as teenagers downing yagerbombs rub shoulders with families with under 5's revelling in staying up past 10 o'clock.  For the campsite owner delivering a quality experience to this breadth of customers could be a challenge but the approach is fairly consistent. Simple tariffs. Limited facilities with basic showers and toilets and maybe a low key shop and that is your lot. But the customer experience is generally a good one. What you get out of your experience is up to you. Find your spot. Don't forget anything and enjoy a weekend absent of all the usual challenges of modern life. Epic customer experience is in your hands. 

The lucky dip customer experience of a motorway services

Travelling the UK by motorway results in the magical mystery tour of using the numerous motorway services. Every services seems to offer a unique blend of products many of which seem unlikely to be useful while passing Swindon on the M4.  A light cotton pair of trousers?  A solar garden light?  We never know what awaits us or indeed which shops will have tenancy with every stop offering a different blend of retailers. Our needs from a services have remained pretty much unchanged over the decades. Fuel, toilets, snacks. Yes our needs have matured with the advent of electric hook ups for cars and broader variety of food and drink expectations by visitors but the need is essentially unchanged. How then given this consistent demand and elevated prices in every service do they manage to make the experience such a shocker?  The captive customer concept is a weak excuse for charging us so much more when delivering so much less. Make the experience better value for money. Focus on the core needs. Deliver solid customer experience that in turn makes it epic in line with our needs. We don't want to move in. Just visit and go. Epic. 

The customer experience of a Lufthansa flight

The airline business is a difficult market to operate in with huge costs to contend with and equally frightening risks of potential enormous lawsuits. Competition for trade has never been higher with firms looking to cut costs wherever possible and demonstrate customer benefits over and above their many competitors. Lufthansa, a huge player in the European market has a vast range of customer experiences to deal with and the resources to make each and every one of these epic. So what does Lufthansa stand for in customer experience?  Innovation?  Excellence?  Economy?  Reliability?  They feel like they are drifting into mid-table obscurity with no real differentiator. Average pre-sale. Average terminal support. Average flights with very average attendants and no meaningful post-sale follow up. Are they resting on owning some of the premium connections in Europe that people will take irrespective of the experience?  It certainly feels that way. Lufthansa - far far from epic. A very average customer experience. 

Customer experiences and MY personal data

Many customer experiences teeter on the brink of fuelling big data today and whether you realise it or not your personal data contributes to this process.  Right now while I am using my smart phone to update my blog the mobile network provider know where I am, where I have been, how I got here, what book I read on my smart phone on my journey and which app I am using for my updates. My network provider are not the only "spy" into my digital world the app provider themselves know exactly what and where I am doing and on what exact type of device. All of this information is feeding the big data machine every minute of every day. But the data is mine. It is created by me about me. It is my greatest asset. For more epic customer experiences this helps companies deliver even more to me and have real customer insight into knowing me and what I want before I approach them which is fantastic news but we must all think more about how comfortable we are with this. In reality your only opt out option could be a hut in the woods as data about you is being collected constantly everywhere so better to tune into it and work out how best to turn it to your advantage and enable your own epic customer experience. 

Safer shopping - the customer experience of paying online

The world of e-commerce has moved on at a fierce pace crushing conventional shopping thinking and destroying the high street in its wake. As more customers become increasingly comfortable shopping over the Internet so has the maturity of fraud activity working to exploit this digital channel and the naivety of many of its virgin users. As a result epic experiences demand both convenience and security when providing payment details now that they can no longer rely on the assurance a conventional shop would provide.  There are many rivals to the secure payment arena with tech start ups such as PayPal (www.paypal.com) founded as recently as 2000 competing with traditional banks like Barclays offering new services such as PingIt. The customer requirements are simple, wanting to be able to shop on line as simply as possible while making it as difficult as possible for fraudulent activity to corrupt that experience. From a customer perspective we don't really care how or who manages and owns this payment connection, in fact to the customer this should be invisible and merely a background activity that can be relied upon in the same way as sending an email. For an epic customer experience make it meet the requirements but don't shout about it. Just get it done so we don't have to worry. 

BMW car servicing - a customer experience

The prospect of a car service fills most of us with dread and to be looked forward to in the same manner as a trip to the dentist. We have to plan ahead booking our car in and then working around what this impact on our mobility will mean while certain in the knowledge it will cost more than we would like and we won't know what the big number is until we are presented with the keys to our car after the event. BMW certainly work to make this as pain free an experience as possible by having informed staff answering the phones to book you in and working in the dealerships to take your details and your car. Indeed the general environment is not the worst place to spend a few hours with wifi and refreshments available. So have they done enough to turn around what is at its heart a negative experience and make it better?  Not quite. Why when booking in do I even need to pick up the phone?  Why can't I do that online or even better why can't my car be constantly communicating with the dealer and alerting then ahead of time of any servicing that then prompts the dealer to call me at a time they know I tend to be in the car doing longer journeys based on my driving record from the telematics data they receive. Additionally when I arrive because you know I am coming and my car registration number crossing the forecourt gives you all my customer information can you not be ready?  Welcome me by name, have everything ready and be looking to have me on my way in under two minutes?  Equally when my car is being serviced why can't I have a constant feed of information with video links that allow me to keep up to date with the progress?  I think car dealers have progressed hugely but there is scope to so so much more and make the experience more of an epic one. 

The epic experience of a day at the beach

British summer time rarely makes an appearance for very long and even rarer does it do it on a weekend. Today the weather delivered and was an expected delivery with the forecast teed up days in advance. The result is everyone in the UK that lives within a  100 mile radius of the sea runs to the sun and hits the beach. Pale white fleshy skin is exposed and having been in hibernation throughout the winter is shocked into life by the summer sun. The customer experience of a day at the beach is a challenge for the many privately owned beach spaces as they are maxed to capacity with expectations high from the many visitors all vying for that one special memory of the summer knowing that next weekend the rain will return and more internal activities will resume. The experience is often soured by the many issues that befall the visitors to the beach, the personal space invasion as the family of 20 descend on top of your precious spot, the hygiene battle of using the public toilets that challenge your real need to use them, the over priced low quality food and drink available that you often drop before you get the chance to consume it, parking prices that offer zero flexibility around duration of visit and the likely issue of burning to a crisp through lack of suitable sun screen while you "man up" and teach your skin a lesson. All this being said it is a unique experience that is cherished and in spite of all the issues experienced is one that you will think back on with a smile and look forward to next year for the one day a year when you can do it all again. A day at the beach - in every way an epic customer experience. 

The on-line shopping basket customer experience

As the virtual shop has grown through the advances in technology so has the references to physical shops in the on-line arena. Shopping is essentially a marmite experience with people either loving or hating it. There is some stereotyping that all woman love shopping and all men hate it but this black and white view is over simplifying the customer. While many men would run a mile at the chance to window shop for shoes all day long they may make a bee line for a technology purchase or DIY project. The converse is true and equally the window shoe shopping addict male customer is present. All of this diversity in our shopping needs means the on-line shop has a tough gig but with the power of technology more opportunity to quickly adapt and be flexible than a physical shop. The on-line shopping basket is a great example of this allowing customers to reserve goods they are interested in while still browsing where the on-line experience can augment this with comparator tools, reviews and augmented product information. This delivers a better experience on the traditional steel shopping basket and an example where the physical shop is influencing the on-line experience but enhanced and resulting in more epic experiences. 

Epic customer experience starts before you even realise

Epic customer experience is often a very visible event that a consumer is very much aware of. There is scope to Wow the customer with epic customer experience by meeting their needs before they realise you as the supplier are engaged. Indeed in these instances where the customer journey is in-flight before the consumer is aware epic customer experience is more readily achievable. The world of the "internet of things" gives rise to many opportunities for this. For those not clear on what this is it is most simply put machine to machine connectivity within the World Wide Web.  As an example your fridge recognises you are low on milk so adds this item to your on line shopping list.  A great example of this I was discussing recently was linked to the technology now being manufactured in cars that have built in SIM cards and can communicate directly without any phone sync. This means your car can book in the service it needs on its own, it can notify your insurer if it realises it has been in an accident, it can alert the police in the event of a break-in. Science fiction?  Not any more. This is all achievable today and will be standard to most of us in 5 or 10 years time. What this means is your customer experience may be starting before you even realise and for those firms at the forefront of this they will be delivering epic customer experience. 

Brand loyalty as a result of epic customer experiences

The goal of many brands is to have a loyal consumer base who will be repeat consumers and champion the brand within their networks. A loyal customer not only helps sell your brand but costs less to retain due to their established affinity with your brand and its portfolio of products or services. Brand loyalty ultimately demands a quality product that exceeds consumer expectation and is reliable throughout its life be that measured in seconds or in decades. The art of managing the customer experience though is increasingly relevant for loyal customers as a poor customer experience will only be tolerated for a limited period. Conversely average products with epic customer experiences can leverage a loyal consumer base. If you can afford to deliver outstanding products and services and also epic customer experiences this is optimum for customers but an epic customer experience could be worth the investment on an average product ahead of further product development. Customer experience improvements may prove easier and cheaper to implement and result in a more powerful business case. 

The QR codes impacts on epic customer experiences

Since the invention of QR (Quick Response) codes in the 90's by some clever chaps at Toyota all manner of business sectors have worked to create novel ways to deploy them. You will not have escaped their increasing usage on printed material from letters to bill boards with more firms now trying to improve the design of these ugly squares of black and white pixels. With the functionality to allow a consumer to leap direct to a specific web page it has potential to improve the customer journey eliminating the pain of typing in a 30 character plus long URL (uniform resource locator) address. Certainly taking a photo of a complicated square pattern is easier than opening up an Internet browser and spending time keying in a web site with its various backslashes, forward slashes, full stops and every form of punctuation. QR codes are certainly a positive step in creating a more epic customer experience but firms need to ensure they consider the application of these codes. Certainly lets adopt some colour and imagery in these so they fit better with brands but lazy use plastering them on everything doesn't make any steps to improve the experience. So select where to use them and brand them so they feel like a seamless part of the customer journey so they can help create more of an epic customer journey. 

The customer experience of failures

Many companies now recognise the value in dealing with a complaint or customer issue seriously and view this as an opportunity to build a stronger brand relationship. Where a customer takes the time to raise a complaint companies need to consider the digital age we now work in and the ripple effects of dealing with it in a positive manner. How do they know if the customer complaining isn't a journalist, a social media champion with tens of thousands of followers or even worse a blogger looking for their next topic!  Dealing with problems in a positive manner builds brand advocates and should always be the first response. Many instances exist where companies handle these well and poorly with the Dell complaint a well publicised example (http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/33307/jeff-jarvis-vs-dell-bloggers-complaint-becomes.html#axzz2Xmz1UDFk).  As a result companies need sufficient social media monitoring, need empowered teams who can make decisions to resolve complaints and senior management visibility and prioritising the efforts of managing customer experiences. This problem will only mushroom and companies need to manage this accordingly to achieve epic customer experiences.