Waze - putting a nail in the coffin of conventional sat nav?

Waze is a mobile app offering satellite navigation services using GPS for its users on a free to use subscription. The service connects all waze users together into a navigational network where information is shared to optimise journey times and assist your fellow waze(rs) to avoid hold ups. The mobile app based solution attracted so much attention that Google decided it was worth over a billion dollars of their money to buy it out. Nice work and it remains the most successful emerging tech story to breakthrough from an Israeli start-up. The app itself has a fresh feel to it with gamification at its heart with candy rewards for activity. This is a bit of a sideshow from the real star of the show. What the device gives you is real time speeds for all the roads in your journey and alerts up ahead for areas of delays which have been flagged by fellow users. This really is social media navigation but it really works. Usual functions such as trip planning and alternate routes are offered but this speed update service for free is fabulous. Is there any need for a conventional satnav when you can use this? Epic customer experience delivered through your smart phone for free. 

Form versus Function - Does style in a user interface matter?

As the world of web aligns itself with Google a mobile first approach to websites becomes more common. This thinking pushes functionality to the forefront of site design with everything orientated to make the experience as simple, efficient and fast as possible for the user. 

But are we missing out with this military approach to digital interaction?

What value is there in beautiful designs that delight the eye and heart as much as the logical brain? As digital becomes a bigger part in all our lives I think the style of our solutions should play a larger part as people seek out enjoyment from the time they invest digitally as well as a route to making their lives more manageable. Each time you use a beautifully crafted site it has the opportunity to delight you and give you some relief from the functional lists and anonymous burger menus. Design and style need focus too if we are to provide epic customer experiences. 

When will the Internet of Things really start delivering on customer experience?

The Internet of Things (IoT) is a buzz word describing the connectivity of devices such as homes, cars & people. In effect it means that connected devices will not be limited to phones, tablets and computers but opened up to everything from your fridge to your heart rate monitor. This explosion in connectivity is expected to mushroom over the next decade and depending on who's research you care to believe we could be looking at tens or hundreds of billions of devices all uniquely connected sharing data and status details. Brilliant - customers receive amazing experiences without having to lift a finger. But when will this "tomorrow's world" actually start to make a difference?  My 8 year old car doesn't currently let my garage know when it needs a service and books it in for me nor does it keep records of my commute comparing speeds and delays to suggest alternate routes to optimise my journey. Home heating systems seem to be demonstrating the most obvious lead in this field allowing your boiler to be wirelessly enabled allowing heating adjustments remotely which is great but hardly revolutionary. Arguably the TV anywhere services from Sky and Virgin media that allow remote viewing and trigger of recording services is more significant but still in its infancy. Expect to see big things soon but the real winners in this space are yet to emerge and grasp real value from this technology. From a customer experience perspective we  await with anticipation. 

The 4G mobile network change in customer experience

Each of the major mobile networks are now offering personal contracts using the latest 4G mobile networks. With numerous boasted improvements and compelling figures what is the experience really like for customers taking this next step in the mobile world?  4G offers improvements in data streaming to rival most home broadband speeds but has not reached significant coverage to ensure you can enjoy this wherever your mobile needs take you. Certainly in most of the major cities across the UK 4G is available but depending on which network you are on will depend on how much you really feel the improvement over 3G speeds. In simple terms 4G should be able to deliver 10mbps+ of download speed when in use which is plenty to stream video or download music or even movies in reasonable time. For most therefore as an experience that is likely to be plenty and against the 3G speeds a great improvement as that network has really started to show its age as the demands on it mean often people see poor capacity. Travelling further afield with 4G however and you are likely to see your handset switch to 3G or worse as coverage isn't 100%. So is 4G enough and worth having?  Increasingly yes is the answer as coverage improves and the 3G network shows its age. And what of 5G?  The next generation of network is due with us at the end of the decade and likely to deliver even faster speeds but it is not just focused on speed but on reliability and "sufficient" speed to meet needs so intelligently allocating bandwidth. Maybe with this reliability and speed will come dependable epic customers we all search for from our mobile. 

Netflix - enough of an experience for the money?

Netflix (www.netflix.com) is an American supplier of streamed media operating in Europe and across a number of regions outside the states. The company has been pioneering media streaming services for over a decade and competing directly with the Amazon on demand offering. Netflix is available through your browser or through mobile and tablet native applications allowing you to view TV and film on the go. The interface to access your content is a wonderfully rich experience with vertical and horizontal scrolling through their database of titles. In the background Netflix is running matching algorithms to learn your viewing patterns and suggest the most likely titles to suit your taste even predicting your ratings for these unwatched gems. Streaming is very reliable with high quality imagery uninterrupted by painful buffering issues. It even remembers where you are as you jump between platforms picking up on a movie started on your TiVo box that you finish watching on your iPad. The problem is not with the technology but the content. Much of the content served up is old or not mainstream popular picks. Leaving you floundering to find something to watch that grabs you. Netflix has a huge user base and should invest in first class content to maintain its market position. Epic experience in media streaming needs epic content. 

The patient experience of getting a new iPhone 6

As demand seems to have outstripped supply customers are finding their patience tested in waiting for a new iPhone. With lengthening delivery timescales on the 64gb models customers are getting poor service by the network carriers who are pointing the finger at their supplier while still collecting the costs of the new devices which they cannot be sure on when they will arrive. This tension is forcing customers to test the feedback loops available through the networks and independent suppliers.  Your most guaranteed route would appear to be with Apple direct and then securing your network after the event as Apple protect the delivery stream to their direct customers. Options for the weary customer?  Sit it out?  Switch to android or windows? Go big and switch to a 128gb model that seems to have greater availability due to the premium price?  General advice is keep pursuing your supplier and in the event they have taken money from you seek to agree an acceptable compensation for this. Epic customer experience on shiny new devices is unfortunately not easy to come by. 

Call centre queueing - making it worse than it should be

When resorting to the phone for customer interaction you are eager for personal connection and prompt support. You have elected to skip the digital channels for your own reasons and head for the conventional analogue channel no doubt deciding this is the path of least resistance to achieve your goals. You hope to avoid a multitude of options and steps between you and the right person, keeping your fingers crossed to connect direct with a well informed individual. Many companies recently seem to be delivering incredibly well in this area but I have found some of these gems of service couple this with a horrendous queueing system. Poor music is acceptable but not giving an up to date notification of your position in the queue is criminal. Finding you are 20th in the queue is never good but being left stranded for 30 minutes without any feedback means when you finally get through your mood leaves you in no position to talk rationally. Call centres need to keep customers as informed as possible, missing this out avoids an epic experience. 

Virgin media delivering and failing on the key factors of customer experience

The most important factors for good customer experience in the B2C market are 

1. Helpfulness

2. Value for time 

3. Customer recognition 

Virgin media (www.virginmedia.com) recently succeeded on all these dimensions only to immediately fail in the next step. They wrote to me highlighting my media pack could be improved and they provided a number to call and discuss. Just a fishing exercise?  Not in this instance. Speaking to the helpful adviser they informed me I qualified for an upgrade in broadband speed. Wonderful!  Recognising me as a customer and making it super easy as you understand my time is valuable. All round 5 stars for Virgin media.  

But what if you push this further and present them a new opportunity?  For Virgin media they unfortunately immediately failed and lost this customer engagement positive impression. When asking if there were deals on mobile phones that I could extend onto my contract they were stumped. The adviser couldn't help and passed me onto another department. Not a surprise in fairness but connecting me to the wrong team who don't have any details pays no respect to my value for time. Sticking with it still keen to build on that earlier positive experience you are then bounced to another adviser who asks to do a credit check rather than provide any advise, recognising me as a customer?  Not even nearly. Opportunity lost to potentially double my contract with the company. Sales and service need to both meet the customer experience factors. 

Stores that track your behaviour through wifi - are we okay with that?

Breakthroughs in wifi provision mean that companies can now track your movements in store to understand which aisle you are, which product you are in front of and how you are conducting your online buying research instore. This zoning of wifi is possible through customers accepting free wifi services that stores can then use to target promotions using contextual information about you from your movement. Scary big brother intrusion or wonderfully connected services?  For most of us this activity will be underway without us consciously aware of its presence. This is a dangerous stepping stone for companies who want to enhance the customer experience and interact in a more targeted manner but how do you prevent customers running for the hills as they realise you are monitoring their every move.  Slowly?  Or take a leap and lead from the front?  Customers will adapt to this open access to their behaviour and will become the norm. Until then those stepping into this space need to be as open from the outset with this approach. Publicise it in your stores and shout about it rather than doing it by stealth to help educate your customers and build that epic experience. 

Ocado on the go getting your groceries mobile

Ocado (www.ocado.com) lead the way with online grocery shopping establishing a market leading presence without any physical store presence. They continue to win awards and new customers with a quality product set that is underpinned by distribution rights to the wait rose range of food produce thanks to a ten year rolling deal with the John Lewis group. Ocado was also one of the first to venture into mobile app provision of grocery delivery with their app ocado on the go. Launched initially for iOS and extended latterly for android. Still movement on a windows version but it is surely only a matter of time. The app allows customers to create and amend their deliveries within a secure environment that syncronises real time with any updates made from a desktop. You can make changes up to a few hours before your delivery for any last minute forgotten items. The delivery side of things is akin to all the other main competitors with pre-booked delivery slots at specified times. The online experience is similar to many others aside from one differentiator which is the ability to import your favourites from other companies. So upload your sainsburys or Tescos favourites and it will immediately learn from this history with all recommendations. Amazing but requires a good degree of trust as you have to provide your log in details and pass over this secure information to ocado. All governed by various t&c's but a leap in the dark for customers really and stretching security in order to deliver enhanced customer experience. You have to admire this innovation but will it catch on? 

Baby comforting goes digital

A newborn in the house is a wonderful and challenging time as the house becomes taken over by baby products and all sense of order is lost. The wealth of products available to the new parent is daunting as you are presented with an increasing volume of products for your every need. Indeed for every need you didn't know you had. One such area is the invasion of digital services into the world of childcare with an app for that. A new born baby may well be a wonder to us all but equally they are comforted by the strangest things. A washing machine the background. The rumble of a car engine. A fan whirring away. This "white noise" bizarrely helps keep them at peace and can now be delivered wherever you may travel as various white noise apps serve up this content. Go digital baby comforting!  Epic in the modern world. 

Pizza Hut delivery - more than just a moped and spotty teenager delivery boy

Pizza delivered to your door is as low effort as you can realistically put into a meal. Historically this has meant phoning up your local outlet reading through a leaflet shoved through your door, paying the delivery lad when they rock up and chomping down on your Hawaiian deep pan. Pizza Hut (www.pizzahut.co.uk) have been working on digitising this experience with mobile optimised web pages and PayPal mobile payment options. You can work through your choices from your smart phone and pay without having to worry about scrabbling about for loose change. This makes a low effort dinner even lower effort. Epic. 

Email address harvesting by companies as part of returns policy

Companies use a returned product as a good opportunity to gather valuable customer data in the process of authenticating the return seeking to weed out fraud. Historically this would entail providing a name and address but in a digital age this has now extended to include email address. Rather blatantly companies are using this harvesting of email details to immediately add you to their mailing list and then sell on your details to associated companies. Unlike most forms of personal data collection there is no box to opt out of this and you are by default then subject to this and the corresponding flood of promotional emails that follow from the offending company and any related organisations. This process can happen fast as well with your personal details swilling a around within 24 hours the customer database of all many of suppliers. There is little you can do other than to unsubscribe from each of the email intrusions retaining control of your inbox. Not a very customer centric experience and far from epic 

The virgin experience days customer journey

Experience day gifts have been with us for years offering a good solution for the person who has everything and impossible to buy for.  Virgin experience days is one of the market leaders in this field (http://www.virginexperiencedays.co.uk) offering hundreds of different packages starting from as little as the price of a decent meal. At the other end of the scale you could stay at Richard Brandon's own Necker Island for 7 nights for £17,000. But what about the customer journey?  How does someone negotiate through this buying process where the gift recipient is already identified as a difficult bugger to buy for? With some difficulty is the answer due to the vast range on over. With experiences from £9 to £17,000 and everything in between there are 1,000's of alternatives and it is easy to get lost in the wealth of choice. Yes on the web site they offer excellent search and filter utilities but with such a depth and breadth of things to do it becomes too much and the gift buyer gives up and goes for the easy option of a voucher. Passing the buck onto the lucky recipient who then has the issue of trawling through the 1,000's of alternatives for themselves. How many of these vouchers expire I wonder as people can't face the scale of searching for a favoured choice. Lots of choice but epic scale of numbers doesn't lead to an epic experience. 

Are companies ready to deliver the next generation of customer experience?

All companies face many blockers to delivering a modern customer journey with "digital" buzzwords pinging around every major organisation in the world.  Making that leap to transform the customer journey into a truly digital interaction requires a huge commitment and potentially too daunting for many to make a start.  The realities are unless companies can operate successfully in the mobile and social commerce universe they will die, there are bound to be exceptions but the number will be very small.  Maybe the local ice cream van with a legendary reputation will never need trouble themselves with the issues of accepting PayPal through a tablet but they will be in the minority.

So what must companies address to make the transformation a success?

Culture
A digital organisation needs commitment and understanding from the top down with advocates who can converse on the value this adds at the most senior level not merely playing lip service to ticking some box in a digital audit.

Innovate
Companies need to be able to connect the thought leaders to the delivery areas and be able to strike the right balance between transformation strategic change and disposable test and learn initiatives.

Invest
A digital transformation programme needs major investment irrespective of the size of organisation and it needs to be centrally held allowing the digital capabilities to be built for re-use and not absorbed into the latest profit making project that results in a single purpose.

Collaborate
Working across internal and external boundaries companies will need to work in a collaborative style making the most of external partners and ensuring internally that the vast gaps between divisions are quickly bridged.

Measure success
Have a clear vision articulated that can be referenced throughout the transformation and track progress against this ensuring you have a powerful PR machine selling the benefits that have been realised as they emerge to ensure impetus in maintained and commitment does not drop.

Blue Chip Holidays - letting the end customer down

Blue Chip Holidays (www.bluechipholidays.co.uk) are a small UK based company promoting luxury properties across the West Country, Yorkshire & the Isle of Wight. Their website provides a good range of top end properties with lengthy descriptions and numerous photos to build confidence in those using them for their well earned holiday.  A polished e-commerce website with a corresponding UK telephone number allows new and repeat customers to book their holiday accommodation.

Booking a holiday is a complicated process even more so if you are trying to book for more than one family as you juggle dates, needs and wishes so confidence in the people you are booking with is paramount.  But what happens if things go wrong and you don't get the luxury holiday you have been promised with accommodation that is not a suitable standard?  Blue Chip to the rescue and resolve your issues?  Unfortunately not.  Checking the small print (always your first port of call when holidaying) reveals the following with respect to your trusted Blue Chip Holidays booking agent.

"9.1 The Agent works closely with the Owner to ensure that all properties within the Promotion Material are fairly and accurately described. Occasionally an Owner will make changes to the set-up of their property after publication of the Agent’s Promotion Material for which the Agent cannot be held responsible. Where these changes materially alter the nature of a booking the Agent will contact the Tenant in writing informing the Tenant of the nature of the changes."

This should mean you have every confidence that what you see is what you get and Blue Chip have earned their money.  From a recent experience where a property was not as described with photos taken some years earlier of a property Blue Chip Holidays quickly pass the buck to the Property Owner claiming no responsibility and placing all the blame with the Owner.  Something to consider if you are thinking of using them to market your property as well as booking with them.  A good customer experience?  If the property hasn't been checked by Blue Chip they are surely failing to meet their own terms and conditions, so if you experience similar issues then check the small print and consider if the customer experience matches the luxury tag.  If not unfortunately this is an epic fail and a word of warning.

Impact Hub in kings cross Open for creative thinking

Spending the day in London at an event often means descending to the basement of a vast hotel to lose track of time as you are subject to artificial lighting and painfully sterile rooms. For an alternative experience the impact hub in kings cross ( http://kingscross.impacthub.net ) offers beautifully crafted surroundings. The impact hub is a social enterprise helping individuals and organisations with areas to collaborate and work offering membership packages to suit all levels of usage. This gives flexibility to larger organisations and a wonderful meeting point for smaller firms wishing to retain a professional engagement without losing inspiration or unique identity. 

Will fears around social engineering kill the customer experience of social media usage?

Social engineering is a nasty business with strangers able to pry into your world and piece together personal information from you social media footprint. With enough motivation it can then be possible to amass enough information to break most security questions posed even by your own bank. Taking precaution on your privacy settings in social media had been deemed good practice and the right approach to ensuring you stayed safe in the socially connected internet. But what about your network?  Are they so cautious?  And what about more public sites that promote connectivity such as twitter or linkedin?   Have you considered how a photo on Instagram by a friend could allow any stranger to have your date of birth details?  Your running records on map my run give would be burglars a pattern of your movements and understanding on your location. If security requires double authentication and a lock down on connectivity in the future it could kill social media for all but pointless comments and observations. People want to be connected and to use social media without fears but it could be well worth considering the possible implications of that tweet of a picture your front door or Pinterest snaps of your new car in all its glory parked proudly on your drive. The epic experience of social media is under FIRE. 

The Cryptolocker virus - a sure way to ruin your day

Early June the Cryptolocker virus went public and the threat of the latest wave of computer viruses was signalled with a 2 week warning. The grace period has now passed and this nasty virus is roaming the internet desperate to ruin your day and impregnate your data. The customer experience results in all of us now being super cautious while opening email for fear one of these could be riddled with this disease. The guidelines on avoidance are consistent with previous viruses in not opening up any email that looks suspicious in terms of the sender or content. In particular avoiding emails with files or zipped content which may be fostering the crytolocker virus. Once inside your system it encrypts your data files and then holds you to ransom to have this unlocked but it is extremely difficult to then determine if the virus has been removed or if you are sitting on a time bomb waiting for the next ransom request from your PC. Unfortunately the experience is painful and potentially expensive which means until this gremlin has passed the experience for all of us is to proceed with extreme caution. 

The epic experience of the Cotswold 113 middle distance triathlon

Middle distance triathlon is a modest sounding affair which positions it as an accomplishment we should be proud of but nothing ridiculous. This event also can be tagged as a half ironman which conjures up strong feeling from the ironman association but falls a bit flat with the first word "half". Sure to be ribbed with comments asking why you couldn't do the whole thing. Middle distance triathlon is a 1.9k swim following by a 56 mile bike ride finishing with a half marathon. It is not something you just rock up to without having invested some time in preparation. The cotswold 113 is just such an event held in the heart of this beautiful part of the country ( http://cotswold113.com/site/ ) with the swim taking part in the Ashton Keynes water park lake. The bike course is a 2 lap sweeping course around the nearby villages that only see 54 metres of climbing so as flat as you can achieve minus a spirit level. After all this effort you wrap it up with a 3 lap run around the lake and adjoining country park. The event is quite small with less than a 1,000 people but has everything you would expect of much bigger races with marshals everywhere and aid stations helping you along the way. The event is run twice a year in June and August with an iron distance also taking part at the later event. This years event in June enjoyed some sunshine and little wind conditions to give competitors every chance of achieving a personal best. The event this year was only tarnished by the theft of bikes from competitors camping at the nearby site. The details of the story only become worse in finding that these competitors were part of the help for heroes charity team doing wonderful work to raise money and awareness for wounded service men. 

http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-27858918 

Hopefully this team will get their bikes back but have missed out on competing at this great event. 

If you do enjoy middle distance triathlon this event is epic for fast times and a real close community feel. Fingers crossed for the legends from help the heroes. 

Even the BBC website has flaws in the mobile customer experience

The BBC (www.bbc.co.uk) websites are often heralded as a leading light in good practice for web design, indeed as part of the practice for checking a browser the BBC is often called up to check performance. But this isn't true across the board as the BBC is the same as many other organisations in struggling to keep up with the pace of technology for its entire estate. If you browse the site from a mobile it is very slick and really showing how mobile can be the primary platform for web browsing with optimised pages and a portal customer preferences capability allowing you to tailor how your pages are rendered. This is great but when you link through to their weather pages it all breaks down and there is the standard desktop displayed with no consideration for mobile. As a heavy user of the internet from a mobile this is not an uncommon experience but when it comes to the BBC that is not the case. As your benchmark has been raised so high finding a site needing pinch and move actions really doesn't sit right. For an epic experience the BBC needs to look across the patch and create a consistent journey. 

The Nirvana Spa - a little slice of holiday

Located just outside Reading the Nirvana spa complex ( www.nirvanaspa.co.uk ) offers facilities for those wishing to pamper themselves or their nearest and dearest. 

The complex itself is a series of pools, seating, treatment rooms and exercise facilities. If you plan your visit to coincide with a rare warm UK summers day then there is even an outdoor area with pool, hot tubs and sumptuous seating areas. It is on these blessed moments that a few hours at nirvana spa can feel like you have relocated yourself on holiday with all the same positive emotions flowing through you. A personal favourite of mine was finding the endless pools for some swim training which effectively gives you a treadmill for your swimming needs with a mirrored floor for checking on weaknesses in technique. That said the spa is more about relaxing and spoiling yourself including a wonderful restaurant at the heart of the complex. The added bonus of endless pool and gym does mean there really is something for everyone. For a cheap holiday break after a hard day in the office, nirvana spa gives you an epic slice of this experience. 

What is advertising likely to mean to the Instagram customer experience

It was announced this week that Instagram (www.instagram.com) would be introducing advertising to the uk site ( http://mashable.com/2014/06/09/instagram-international-ads/ ). Instagram is currently a beautiful site of imagery and video content allowing the sharing and distribution of this content in a social media environment. Following acquisition by Facebook in 2012 it was expected this monetisation of the site with adverts would take place much sooner. But what does this mean odd the experience?  The site is built really for consumption via mobile devices meaning opening it up for adverts is not as straight forward as Facebook where the desktop site can pull in most advertising revenue as a side panel to the core content. So will Instagram adopt a sticky header or footer with advertising space reducing the available window for displaying the amazing photos shared by corporations and individuals alike?  Adverts are a sensible and inevitable step and if you are reading this from a mobile the blogger site overlays this with some adverts but I hope Instagram think this through and come up with a fresh approach to presenting advert content that compliments the visual nature of the site. Keep it epic and consider the core site objectives when adding adverts. 

MIND THE GAP - The problem of the growing gap between digital natives & technophobes

As technology continues to transform our lives and gadget freaks wish lists grow year on year this causes a problem for supporting your customers. The digital native has high expectations and is looking for corporate world to meet their demands which is seeing multi-million pound projects in every industry to address this opportunity. But what about those less tech savvy?  Those who are still to embrace the internet let alone social media on a phablet. This cavernous gap is widening so the customer journey mapping for companies only becomes larger. This creates the new concept of a legacy of customer journey debt that you can not ignore. These complexities mean while we are looking at multi-screen omni channel experiences we need to also factor in the customer coming into store or picking up the phone that hasn't researched every online option or asked their social media followers for advice and ensure the journey is aligned go every digital path. Effectively the range of customer journeys has grown but we cannot forget those old school journeys and customers. Share the love with those less tech savvy too so that epic customer experiences are possible for all. 

Epic customer experience means knowing I have more than one customer profile

Customer insight and knowledge is of huge value to businesses from Tescos to Tom the baker. More and more investment is being poured into analytics so that you as a customer can be more deeply profiled with every aspect of information about you. Companies are using this to build more rich pictures of their customers tailoring offers and personalising the experience. But is this enough?  Will this really help or will all this investment only result in irritation for customers who previously may not have been aware of your big brother spying. For this to really work and create true value these customer profiles need to consider which profile your customer is using.  As an example I may be a customer who buys lego for my kids (my parent profile) but is that the same customer insight I want deployed when considering which smart phone to buy (my gadget profile). And what about where these profiles collide and have common interests such as cycling profile and healthy diet profile?  This is hugely complex and firms need to be sure not to limit the customer profile to a single dimension but consider that customers have different needs and may only want to engage with you in a certain profile. For epic experience really look at how customers want to be engaged. 

The fabulous tri2o swim centre

For open water swimming the options for customers are slim but growing year on year. The tri2o swim centre just outside Reading (http://www.mysportingtimes.com/tri20-swim-centre.htm) is one such location where those enjoying swimming out amongst nature can truly indulge. Open water swimming is a different prospect to popping down to the swimming baths and tumble turning in a lane with the customers at a lake more of a club than distant strangers at a pool. Customer demands are lower with the requirement of a marquee to change in and an outdoor shower the heights of luxury. As long as the lake is well marked out with bouys and the weeds are under control your laughing. The tri2o centre keep in touch with their loyal faithful with digital thermometers and a web site posting regular information on how the sun is pushing the lake up to a toasty 18 degrees. Simple needs and getting back to nature while satisfying your exercise appetite all add up to happy customers and people who come back year on year. Tri2o simply epic. Give it a go. 

Does Pinterest have a role to play in a Corporate world?

Pinterest (www.pinterest.com) is a beautiful social media site that allows users to pin and share imagery with customisable home pages where your pins represent your taste. The site allows imagery to be uploaded and then shared with kudos for repinning of your own content or for amassing a board of popular pins that people then repin. The site is hugely visual and relies more on imagery than text unlike a twitter alternative. As well as the desktop site there is also dedicated native mobile apps that make the experience accessible on the move. The site has only been around since 2010 but has a great deal of exposure and most mainstream companies have a Pinterest account and therefore presence. 

Does Pinterest fit in corporate culture?  Why would this work for a high street bank and what content could they share that makes this a viable tool worth their time and investment?  Sponsorship yields a large quantity of rich imagery that could be used through social media so companies with some mainstream sponsorship can certainly use Pinterest to broaden the reach of this marketing but beyond this?  Some firms such as fashion retailers can use the site as an extension to their advertising promoting new lines and raising interest through the site. For firms not ticking any of these type of use cases the challenge is to use this in a meaningful way not just being a "me too" following the herd. The platform is wonderful and with rich visual content this has a massive part to play but outside this you really need to think hard about how this fits across your overall social engagement strategy. 

Customer contact forms - do these help with the customer experience?

In an age where digital transformation is affecting all avenues of our lives the contact us page on a web page has a distinctly old school feel about it. When web chat and social media monitoring gives instant response to queries is there still a place for a customer query contact form with a fire and forget approach?  These forms are more commonly found on websites for small firms where they have no dedicated IT function for customers to contact them (generally out of hours) with an enquiry. When using this service it is important to consider some basic customer journey principals. 

1) acknowledge receipt of the enquiry immediately with confirmation to the supplied email account

2) have SLAs in place for how quickly you will respond in person to the enquiry 

3) make the form as simple as possible with as many aids to completion as possible

4) if you have other channels of communication available then make these visible for the customer who may wish to ditch the form and contact you another way

5) welcome the interaction and the positive outcome this could mean

Web page forms still have a place especially for smaller firms but make sure you follow the basics in best practice to optimise epic customer experience. 

The 5 golden rules for epic customer experience

1. Keep your customer needs at the front of your priorities

Without your customers your company will fail, even if you are Apple!  Everything should be for the customer and if it isn't making the customer experience better then stop it & do something more valuable. 

2. Listen to your customer to understand them & learn from this

If you are lucky enough to get feedback from your customers then use it and maximise the value of this listening to get insight on how your customers behaviour. This isn't just in the realms of big data but in the customer who highlights a problem finding a parking space. 

3. Treat each customer as an individual

I may enjoy online interactions with your company but my neighbour may prefer to speak to someone in person over the phone. Each customer is unique and you need to strive to ensure the experience feels personalised to them. 

4. Experience is as important as price

The right product at the right price misses the important element of the customer experience. Ensuring the experience of buying or using a service is perfect leads to loyal and repeat customers. 

5. Delivery, delivery, delivery

Do what you say you are going to do, when you say you are going to do it, how you say you will do it. Every aspect of the delivery chain is your responsibility and needs to be optimised towards the customer. 

Windows 8 phones - still need an instruction manual

As a smart phone addict I feel reasonably comfortable navigating my way around whichever device I happen to be using. With smart phones dependent on touch screen interaction the functionality needs to be intuitive. Granted there is often the odd extra function that you might not have realised until peering over the shoulder of a neighbour doing something new on their phone that opens up a new world of control. That said the bulk of usability should be as simple as using a pencil but it has to be said the windows 8 phone this week has me stumped. The home screen has lots of beautiful tiles and I love this different spin on Apples app iconography which I had assumed I could move around. Yep. Holding on one tile allows you to move it around or indeed remove it from this home screen but what if I wanted to add apps not already here?  How to introduce new tiles?  I tried dragging them from the app list. I tried using the settings to adjust the home screen settings but nothing worked. In the end I had to go online to find out how. It turns out I was close but didn't understand the language. In the apps list I needed to hold down on an app as I had been doing but when presented with a drop down list of options the correct next step was to select "pin to  start screen". Why this language?  What does pinning mean unless I am in Pinterest?  And why start screen, why not home screen which feels more familiar?  The functionality is clearly there but the language is confused which leaves people needing a manual.  I'm sorry but this needs to be more obvious. Epic fail in customer experience. 

Ibeacons - has Apple embraced big brother?

GPS tracking means your position can be tracked through your mobile device which creates huge opportunities for navigation and location aware contextual information. Namely I don't where I am but fancy a pint, which pubs near here have a good rating on trip advisor?  Bargain. But move indoors and GPS bombs as it can't locate you so your movements are once more your own private activities isolated from the peering eyes of satellites. 

All that is no longer necessarily true for Apple users who have adopted iOS 7 onto their shiny i-things. Retailers and events companies have the opportunity to GPS pinpoint your location when indoors even when satellites would long since have given up. Ibeacons use low energy blue tooth to map your presence indoors and allow companies to push messaging to you based on your exact location on their premises. Imagine looking at a new jacket but not sure if it really is for you to be messages by the store pointing out the matching hat that you must buy. Scary. How did they know I was here and looking at this. Effectively satellite tracking now follows under the cover of rooftop and into every corner.  Brilliant innovation for sure but you have to see some connection to 1984 and the epic apple advert fighting against big brother. Epic u-turn? 

Digital reaches the Queens Head in East Clandon

The local village pub has been a pillar of the small communities of the UK for centuries with the public house sometimes the only commercial premise in a small hamlet. East clandon is a beautiful pocket of the world in leafy Surrey only a few miles outside Guildford with a modest population of under 300. The local pub here is The Queens Head (www.queensheadeastclandon.co.uk) which is a traditional pub offering food and drink servicing the village and surrounding areas. The mark of how digitalisation is affecting every corner of our lives is quickly evident merely from their website which is not just some holding page with a phone number but a mobile optimised clean customer experience. The digital maturity continues inside with staff using tablets for orders retrieving up to date availability of food and efficient placement of orders. The pub also has a social presence on all the key sites combined with the use of QR codes to make it easy for customers to provide a review on trip advisor (www.tripadvisor.co.uk). All too much when all you want is a quiet pint and some pork scratchings?  Not really as the technology is in play to support the customer and much of this goes unnoticed if your not looking for it. What it means though is the digital reach of this small pub goes well beyond the local vicinity and gives a clear representation of what you can enjoy even if you are new to the area. Digitisation making your pint of bitter even more epic. 

The Yorkshire dales welcomes the Tour de France

The Yorkshire dales ( http://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk ) are a national park in the north of England. The Dales are an area with few major roads or towns but roaming hills and primarily farm land perfect for walking and biking (if you like your hills). The area will play host to the Tour de France (http://letour.yorkshire.com) later this summer and there is Tour merchandise wherever you look already decorating the scenery.  The area is expecting an influx of biking fans with pop up campsites taking over many unused fields in readiness. Between now and the tour, cyclists have the chance to cycle the route and feel the same pain and pleasure of those racing in the event. It is a brilliant opportunity for the area and a unique experience. Fingers crossed the sun shines to really help showcase this beautiful part of the world and be seen by millions as well as the resident sheep who will also be enjoying the spectacle.  Epic experience pedalling its way through the north of England this summer. 

An app is the answer - but what was the question?

Mobile apps are everywhere with every company of every size pushing out some form of mobile app in the true spirit of test and learn. But have we been learning?  Do we continue to create apps that solve great problems that didn't need solving and result in great download figures but disappointing usage rates?  Mobile web now further muddies the water with questions raised as to which is better a mobile app or a mobile web site. Multi-device now throws in a new dimension as consumers are working across multiple platforms using the tools most fit for purpose which could lead to the conclusion that we need lots more apps all tailored to the individual device. 

Mobile apps make most sense when they are dependent on some form of native functionality within the mobile device. Namely dependent upon some form of geo-location or camera or microphone or possibly even just more suited to touch screen interfaces. If the problem you are trying to solve can best be addressed by something using this native functionality then an app is best. Of course the app route may make sense from an authentication perspective as you seek to provide a permanent logged in state for consumers which produces huge levels of stickiness for the app and may not need any native functionality of the device other than it being permanently on and with the consumer. 

Mobile apps moving forwards give us the chance to build on all this with omni channel experiences that nurture multi device where you can understand the customer behaviour and journey as they bounce from web to tablet optimised site to mobile app. Across all of these working simultaneously and in support of each other potentially utilising pairing technology to help ease usability. The app has a great deal still to offer and we need to develop our thinking to maximise the benefits to really transform some complex customer problems. Epic outcomes delivered through app evolution. 

The tragic failings of Evans bike servicing

Evans (www.evanscycles.com) is a middle to high end retailer of bicycles with stores dotted around much of the UK. While not completely high end they cater for more hardcore cyclists than halfords while not maybe meeting all the needs of the cycling purist after true top end parts. That said you would not struggle to spend a couple of thousand pounds in there if you wished. The chain is aligned also to the bike to work schemes so pulling in custom from people using this tax efficient route to bike ownership which gives them plenty of regular customers looking at making the most of this spend. Buying a bike in store is a slick sales experience with price matching and bike fitting all catered for by enthusiastic sales staff. 

So having bought your bike where else would you head when it needs a service after many miles of hard pedalling but back to trusty Evans for a continuation of this are felt from your purchase. Unfortunately this can be where it all falls apart as you can't book anything on line and need to book in store or by phone which is generally not straight forward as answering the phone seems to be the lowest priority for store staff. Having booked in your service you need to select which level of service labelled bronze, silver and gold linked to the degree of work involved. Unfortunately not a reflection on the customer service received. Arriving to deliver your bike it is whisked away on the day of service parked in the back quickly forgotten. Your pride and joy left idle to fend for itself. You find on returning to collect your bike that it has not been looked at in spite of your pre-booking thoroughness but sat still lonely at the back. You then are told to return at a future date when it will be ready. Meanwhile you receive an email stating your repair is complete. Hurrah. But not trusting those slightly grubby mechanics you phone to check if this is the case. After wasting many hours for the phone to be answered you finally find it has not in fact been fixed but was just it being rebooked on the system because the missed the original slot. Magic. 

Returning days later to collect your fixed wheels you find it hasn't been finished and is in fact in bits on the floor - can you come back later and we will chuck in a 10% discount?  Gold service for £90 quickly disintegrates as you have a melt down after countless phone calls, emails and visits still to be messed around. 

The servicing of your bike is doubtless quality but the booking and customer handling is appalling and completely turns you off from doing any further business with them. Not just servicing but buying more bikes. Evans needs to sort this out or withdraw it as a part of the range of services or risk destroying the customer base it is building. 

What the biggest security breach in the history of the internet could mean for customers

Internet security has been the joint concern of the consumer and businesses since private information began to be stored through web pages. Over the years hackers have found ever more advanced techniques to get around security protocols and get access to web information using this to gain company and individual insights. The latest breach is potentially the most significant breach we have seen as the underlying security certificate system that we have depended upon is the problem itself. OpenSSL certificates are used by 2/3 of the web servers in production today and had widely been considered to be the standard for security on the internet. This process meant companies could install this certification approach safe in the knowledge it was "bulletproof". Unfortunately this week it has come to light that for the past two years this system has been flawed and open to access from hackers who know the hole and gain access in an untraceable way, this has been dubbed "heartbleed". So what for the poor consumer?  We are being advised to change our passwords, but is there really any point as until the OpenSSL Certificates are patched by the companies the hole will still exist. Watch this space and watch your internet space for any suspicious activity as for the next few months we could be in unchartered territory with the web showing some frailty. Epic customer experiences need some sense of security. 

Netflix bringing the big screen into your living room

Video streaming has moved out of the realms of illegal file sharing and into mainstream business as monthly subscription services continue to appear. Netflix has been one of the original players and working to get their software installed as a standard within numerous bits of kit from TVs to set top boxes. The service allows you to browse through various movies and TV series watching at your leisure and in as volumous quantities as your eye balls can consume. There are corresponding smart phone apps to receive the service pulling content into your phone and tablets or indeed accessing direct from your laptop via your browser. The service includes some advanced data analytics that attempt to profile your streaming choices by using your ratings and viewing behaviour to select content you might like. The library of content is vast and Netflix faces the same challenge as other providers in how to simply allow users to gain access to this without becoming lost in the wealth of choice. The list of content is not instant so don't expect to see your favourite blockbuster movie available a week after it closed at your local cinema but Netflix has tried to counter this with some premium TV content to soften the blow. For the money you have to say this us epic and no comparison to the DVD store on your corner charging you £5 for an overnight rental. Streaming certainly the future. 

Videostar mobile app - creating the next Stephen Spielberg!

Mobile apps come in many different forms and have varied lifespans as people use them as a trial and error style not anchored by the historical issues of expensive software costs. Videostar is a mobile app (http://videostarapp.com) for iOS devices and if you have kids of the "selfie" era they will love it. In the time it takes to make a roast dinner they can have created a pop video using only an iPod touch with editing and effects that would shame most studios in the 90's. Now empowering the teenage generation to discover movie making in its simplest form and awaken an appetite for future careers. The power of these apps is staggering as you sequence in video footage timed to match the musical changes while enhancing the basic visuals with filters and effects. More complex video editing software seems now redundant. Move over Spielberg the kids are coming for you. Epic in every sense. 

The Skype customer experience

Skype (www.skype.com) is a Microsoft owned product the uses voice over ip technology to deliver free voice and messaging services. Essentially this enabled phone, video and text messaging services without cost when connected to wifi so for devices without phone capabilities such as the iPod touch it converts them into a fully fledged communication device. Within the Skype Eco-system you can set up approved networks of people so only contact with approved individuals is possible allowing you to set it as a safe environment for grand kids to keep their grandparents updated on the latest activities at school. Skype is very much in the same space as WhatsApp which Facebook recently paid over the odds for but has been left somewhat unloved by Microsoft maybe once again missing some real opportunities for growth and market share. While not epic for a free service Skype is extremely useful and you have to suspect could have been even more epic with some more investment. 

Munich airport empty due to strikes by Lufthansa

Using Munich airport this week is an absolute dream for customers assuming you are using another airline than Lufthansa (www.lufthansa.com). With the principle Munich airline on strike it leaves the bulk of the airport unused and deserted with capacity running at a hugely reduced volume. While this spells misery for all booked with Lufthansa it brings to joy to anyone using and alternative airline as they have the run of the airport and security. For every cloud!  With the strike due to carry on until the close of tomorrow thousands of travellers will be caught up in this and other carriers will benefit from this reduced competition. For those still able to travel the experience may be more epic than expected while for those stranded miles from home it could be a long wait until Saturday. 

The mighty Big Data transforming customer experiences

Big data is on the agenda for nearly all major business's desperate to identify a killer application for this and understand the business case behind spending money on this. What is it though?  Just more data warehouses with a sexier front end and whizzy reports?  Something so crazy in its value that a team of data scientists needs to guard the value secretly without releasing it to the executive? The classic definition is "high velocity, high volume and high variety". But this does little to explain it. 

Big data allows firms to combine data sets to answer live business issues quicker and more effectively than ever before. And we are not just considering classic data sets here with common data models. Big data allows unstructured data to come into the mix, information such as textual data evident in social media postings as an example to utilise sentiment context to your data. This powerful revolution means business exec can throw a question at their teams and expect an answer in weeks not months. 

This is all working in an open source environment where the technology is being exchanged in forums with the minds behind this working through these emerging technology issues. This is certainly epic and for the customer the shift in experience will be huge but likely unnoticed. Will you spot the personalised web site based on your last twitter post about wanting  a ski holiday?  Will you notice the email from your mobile phone operator that is tailored to your address and made more fluffy because they now know you have a dog?  It will be epic but you might not notice!

The minefield of selecting an email provider for your kids

With the wealth of technology now dominating our daily lives it is no wonder that children are being influenced by it an ever earlier age eager to use and understand the latest tech that we are dumb founded by.  No instruction manuals for them but pure intuition to understand how things work and stretch the capabilities from the off.  This junior digital journey inevitably leads to a desire for them to own their own kit rather than be dependent upon you for access to this capability and at this point key decisions cascade over you in a flash. Which device?  How much to spend? How to prevent downloads? How to enable downloads? How to control usage? The list goes on. One such issue is deciding if they are to have their own email address on the electrical marvel. There are many free and paid services allowing parents to monitor use and restrict access to inbound and outbound content. Configuring the account with under 18 restricted access is straight forward enough and then limiting to certain email accounts inbound and outbound also readily available. With all these controls you can set them up in safety. That is until they know more than you and get round this in ways you didn't even know existed. 

Getting omni channel customer experience right

The UK continues to be extremely demanding in its needs for digital maturity with customers expecting a great deal from companies when it comes to digital interaction. Websites need to be responsive and we expect email and SMS as standard alongside conventional phone interaction. We also increasingly want webchat alongside our web usage with options to sign on and communicate through social media with authentication from our Facebook account. This multi-channel universe creates huge issues for companies as they try to keep pace with communications between channels and safe guard the customer from having to authenticate each time they switch through channels, e.g. Proving who they are in webchat but electing to switch to the phone and not expecting to have to go through this all over again. Getting this right and creating real omni-channel engagement means building this into the system architecture from the ground up and considering how you will move customer information between channels real time so you know that it is Jim Brown on the phone and he has been browsing for a new iPhone but has previously looked at Samsung and has been asking questions of the webchat team on 4G compatibility. Omni-channel means all this information is effortlessly moving between channels and the customer golden record is key and moves between them picking up fresh details at each step to help make the experience as epic as possible for our customer who is blissfully unaware of the complexity behind their omni channel euphoria. 

The British national health service - still something to be proud of?

In the uk we enjoy a national health service that provides healthcare for all irrespective of wealth or status. A cornerstone of British culture for decades which is the envy of many other parts of the world. This "free" healthcare is funded from the state through taxes that allows you to receive treatment without first providing any proof of payment. But is this still such a pillar of wonder or is starting to fade around the edges. Using public healthcare over the past year has seen it glowing as a marvel and grovelling as a disappointment. Yes we provide healthcare for all but the empathy and compassion seems to be lacking in a number of areas where you feel bad news would not be handled in the most delicate way and fail. The customer experience of the NHS varies wildly and it needs better support to ensure the right people are available in all aspects of the job not just the critical areas. 

iPod touch 5th generation customer review

The 5th generation Apple iPod touch (www.apple.com) continues to dominate the personal mp3 market with a device that goes well beyond being a music player. The device is available in three formats. A 16gb size that has stripped back the forward facing camera and available in black or silver. A 32gb device with a forward facing camera in a range of colours or the mighty 64gb device that is the same as the 32gb spec but with increased memory. The 5th gen all use the lightning bolt adapter with increased capacity allowing faster connectivity. This however is of less value than the wireless capabilities with the iPod touch more frequently connected via a wireless network than hard wired to a computer. They are incredibly slim and near weightless meaning a case is a must to preserve the integrity of something so beautifully crafted but delicate. The speed of the processing effectively means you have a mini computer in the palm of your hand capable of multi tasking handling even complex video editing functionality while simultaneously streaming music wirelessly and polling your email provider for updates. Battery life is relatively poor due to the perfect resolution screen and processing demands so don't stray too far from a power source. Wireless charging would be a nice addition but currently not available. Airplay and full access to the App Store are all fully featured on the touch opening the gateway to millions of applications. Favoured by kids this marvel should not be discounted as a toy but a powerful iPhone equivalent minus the 3G phone functionality. Epic in every sense and too good for the kids! 

Sports physio's - medical science or modern day witchcraft?

The human body is a hugely complicated system of parts that is beyond most of us to understand. Regularly pushed beyond its limits by modern life we generally take most of it for granted. That is until it stops us in our tracks and those grand plans for your next sporting milestone have to go on hols while you struggle with an ache, pain, pull or tear. When these moments strike us it is often the job of the sports physio to put us back together and get us going again. These qualified professionals with certificates on their walls decipher these signals from our bodies and translate them into fixes with little help from us. They watch us move and probe at muscles quickly able to identify that some previously unknown body part is now misbehaving and needs some attention. How they do this is either the amazing world of science or their sixth sense witchcraft skills coming to the fore as they bend us back into shape and highlight how we have been abusing our bodies for the past decade. Epic. 

Bicycle servicing - more expensive than your car

My early days of car ownership were a delicate balancing act to manage enough cash to keep my car on the road with thoughts of how to buy enough petrol next week at the forefront of my thinking. As a result car servicing and repairs was generally conducted with a lowest cost wins evaluation. Anything I could do myself was done and any garage that undercut the rest irrespective of quality was the winner. As a result car expenditure was minimal although even with this Scrooge like approach on more than one occasion I had to concede and give up my motorised transport. Nowadays I seem to be the same process with my road bike, the pedal variety!  My road bike is used for training through the winter and then for triathlon races through the summer where I curse my lack of prowess on the bike and wish for lighter and faster kit. My bike now needs looking after which means a regular trip for a service which is becoming an increasingly expensive encounter. General service = check. Cable replacement = check. Group set replacement = really???!  What I had in my mind as a £50 check up quickly spirals into something approaching £500. When did my bike start costing more than my car.  Epic in its ability to empty my wallet! 

Vivanta by Taj hotels across India

Travelling in India is a unique experience. The sights, sounds and smells are quintessentially Indian that are ever present from the moment you arrive at the airport and move through security. The road networks in Southern India are to the uninitiated traveller utter chaos with five lanes of traffic negotiating a single track road with minimal incident although maximum use of the horn. The surrounding buildings place beautifully ornate three story homes next to dust bowls with only a shack present.  Setting the scene for a stay in India makes it potentially a nervous decision when choosing a hotel where the local landscape appears a completely different world. Enter a chain of luxury hotels appealing to business and holiday travellers alike with Vivanta by Taj (www.vivantabytaj.com) that is a chain of hotels owned no surprises by the Tata group who see to have a stake in most of  India's infrastructure. The hotels are generally 5 star and seeking to cater for all needs with well appointed rooms with catering accommodating local and international cuisine. With pools, gym and wifi available it is easy for a business traveller to forget where they are and maximise the value in any stay. Security on face value is tight with walled perimeters and guards checking the underside of cars and metal detectors for bags and guests. This is the result of a bombing previously on the chain where they now take this more seriously. That said it is only a token effort and in six days of staying I set the metal detector off daily without any enquiry. The hotel is what you need though with quality rooms and all the facilities you would expect. Epic?  It is certainly enough. 

DPD failing to deliver

DPD ( dynamic parcel distribution - www.dpd.co.uk ) are a courier service owned by Geopost providing parcel delivery services for commercial and direct customers. A recent experience of DPD has shown their customer journey handling has some major holes in it. A parcel was due to be delivered and the day prior to delivery I received an SMS and email asking how and where I would like the parcel delivered allowing me to respond by SMS or log into a customer portal for more options. So far so good. Excellent to be given notice of a delivery and excellent to be given choices in terms of where to have the delivery made complete with a reference number to use. Selecting to have the parcel held at their local depot I chose an evening collection time when I would retrieve the parcel. All good and meeting customer needs. On the day of delivery I received an email alerting me that the parcel was in the depot for collection as requested. Superb customer contact and building confidence in the delivery. Upon reaching the depot I was informed that the parcel was flagged as damaged on the system and what would I like to do. Upon asking when it was damaged was told it was updated as damaged when it reached the depot first thing this morning. Taking a look at the parcel it was in no shape to be accepted with half the box torn off and missing with the interior showing sign of serious damage and some of the contents missing. Clearly not acceptable for a customer collection. When asked why I hadn't been notify received the generic "it's the computer" that someone absolved them of responsibility. Why not notify the customer straight away of the problem and save them time and travel to come and find out late when the end outcome is fairly likely. For epic customer experience the customer needs to be kept informed and given control of the journey. DPD. Epic fail. 

Feeling small in Dubai international airport

Travelling long distance to many destinations requires a connection with a quick stop in Dubai. This vast airport serves more than 65 million passengers each year and continues to expand. With traffic of this nature the scale of the airport is frightening with the bulk of the airport in one location unlike the sprawling multi terminal approach taken by London heathrow airport. Dubai features dozens of business lounges, trains, terminals and more shopping than you can enjoy in Westfield. As a passenger flowing through this ocean it is easy to feel very small and overwhelmed by the scale as you hunt down your terminal number rushing along with the rest of the army of daily passengers including families braving this madness with small kids on tow at early o'clock. The airport is spectacular and even more so by the multitude of modern planes dotted around its perimeter. Dubai international airport epic in its size. 

The Emirates quality chauffeur service

Travelling long distances by planes means lots of waiting around and generally not the best way to spend your days. Emirates (www.emirates.com) work to ease your pain with a quality service for those lucky enough to secure business or first class tickets. A chauffeur service is available to help you begin your journey on the right foot and end it without any return to home trauma. With airlines under pressure to improve their offering this is certainly the way forward. With a Mercedes door to door and no waiting around elongating your trip. Emirates helping make things more epic. 

Running shoes dilemmas

The sport of running is a past time accessible to the masses with low entry costs and high availability of facilities - you can run straight from your front door!  With marathons looking many will have been training for months in preparation for the big run ahead of them and hopes for personal bests as important as hopes for making it round without incident. The key component in these events is the running shoe with hundreds of different styles on offer from minimalist to complete support. Anyone serious about this will have headed to a decent running shop and has their run assessed on a treadmill with a gait analysis video giving them accurate advice on which shoes are best. But what if this goes wrong?  I went through this earlier in the year and were convinced to adopt a different shoe to my normal selection based on what would suit me best. Three months later and after three separate injuries I have had enough and reverted to my favoured brand of shoe and exact model in the hope I will suffer no more injuries.  I may be wrong and it will be the same with my new shoes but I'm happy to blame my tools and cling onto the hope that a return to a classic will be the answer to all my problems!  Epic customer experience sometimes means sticking with what you know. 

Check-a-trade helping you track down reliable professional services

Many of us thrash around our homes proving our DIY mettle but there comes a time when every man must admit defeat and recognise his limitations. While the prospect of putting up a shelf sees us fire into action and strap on our tool belt the thought of fixing a leaking roof is not something we feel so compelled to tackle. In these instances our lack of knowledge also hinders out capacity to select any help in these matters as we pour over the internet trying to meaningfully compare tradesmen. This is before we even try and find out about their availability. Thankfully check-a-trade (www.checkatrade.com) is at hand with real life reviews of local people able to help us find that diamond in the rough and the right man for the job. So if your roof has flown off head to the site and see what people like you think of the various companies on offer and select with confidence. 

iTunes iMatch woes

iTunes introduced iMatch as a cloud extension to iTunes allowing you to have access to your full music library from any device streamed from the cloud. Brilliant?  I have written an earlier blog on this but felt worth revisiting as there is one major issue that people are experiencing with this. How to remove songs that are local to your device?  Many iPhones and iPods only have a limited memory of 16GB so managing your data usage is important to juggle music and apps and any other data hungry resources. This left Most of us regularly deleting and refreshing what we had on the device to manage the memory restriction. Problem is no with iMatch you can't delete tracks from a sync to your computer. The option has been removed. What this means is that you need to remove them locally from your device by selecting with a swipe from right to left and then delete. A bit more cumbersome but still an option so if you have battled with this. A solution is at hand. Epic step forward or backward? 

Zoopla for planning how to spend that lottery win

The classic long journey conversation of how to spend your lottery winnings always includes a chunk of time dedicated to your dream home and all the details down to where the pool will be located. This fantasy planning can be greatly aided by zoopla (www.zoopla.co.uk) that can help you find homes and prices for dream properties to let you know just how big a lottery win you need to make.  Go running down a picturesque lane where the houses are all hidden from view in idyllic settings. Whack the address into zoopla and find out how far out of reach that home is the. Head straight to the newsagent and purchase your trusty lottery ticket ready to wallow in misery on Saturday when no surprises you don't win. But the service of zoopla in understanding this dream is hard to knock and something that would have taken days of research in the past. The data and availability of this through the likes of zoopla is epic and we should not fail to recognise this. 

Amazon local - does anyone know what this is?

I have been an amazon (www.amazon.co.uk) customer for a number of years not put off by documentaries showing the pressures of the workforce but sold on the range of products and price. The store and corresponding services have grown beyond recognition from the original offering swallowing up businesses along the way. Since the start of this year I have seen a new product splattered all over my inbox from amazon for Amazon local. Why I have started receiving these emails I am not sure and the value proposition is not clear I assume it is more of the groupon type discounts that I steer well clear of. As a frequent amazon customer I would have expected them to value the position of the brand and not want to risk this with an existing customer base but they seem to have decided to start pushing this new service uninvited. As it is clearly still amazon I will associate it with the main company but at the moment as I have no idea why I am getting this or how it meets any consumer need I have the only impact it is having is annoying me and threatening the value I put on the main amazon brand. Epic fail. 

How a poor customer relationship management capability can reflect badly on a company

In an ever increasing digital age all companies are desperate to get greater stickiness with their customers seeking all manner of personal contact info and asking you to like their Facebook page and retweet their least catalogue but all this insight requires sophistication. Recently I blogged about a company where I was thrilled with their customer experience and could see an opportunity for them to market this capability harder to differentiate. I tagged a twitter link with the companies twitter ID so they would have the opportunity to hear my feedback and use as they wish. A few days later they send out a generic feedback request with links scattered all over it to social media sites but it is clear they are not listening. Eagerly scrabbling about for customer insight and failing to maintain the channels. Social media is a tough nut to crack corporately but if your going to join in the game then you really need to think through what that means to your other customer touchpoints and manage the customer journey. What was epic unfortunately becomes somewhat tainted. 

Bupa delivering when it matters

Private medical is something many of us have but are never really sure if its worth it renewing each year not quite brave enough to cancel. One provider of stealth medical to rival the UK nhs is Bupa (www.bupa.co.uk). They deliver private medical cover for an annual premium seeking to deliver where the nhs can't. Having never previously used the service I have been doubting if it were worthwhile having in the same period on occasion been genuinely pleased with the nhs on dealing with things. This week the customer experience of Bupa I can 100% confirm is worth it and absolutely epic. A member of family who had been ill for some time had the opportunity for surgery that could be exactly the remedy required but due to waiting times would have to wait until next year. The consultant pointed out that with private healthcare that time frame could be a few weeks wait instead. So phoning Bupa not sure what to expect got straight through to an agent who could verify who I was and confirm I was covered under my policy. Moreover they could authorise the surgery with a confirmation code for the surgeon and get the procedure booked in there and then. Amazing. Bupa literally to the rescue. No forms to fill in. No quibble over cover. No changes needed in terms of medical care. Just quick clear support. I may have been a doubter but will not question my renewal now. Epic. 

Top 10 epic fails

My top 10 epic fails in customer experience where the customer journey becomes shockingly bad. 

1) impossible contact options. Hidden in the depths is a contact number for a telephone locked away in a cupboard nobody will ever hear ring. Fail. 

2) over promised offers that fail to deliver. The hard sell enticement that lures you in only to mystically disappear upon entry. Fail. 

3) complexity to baffle even the most nerdy customer. Where am I in the digital journey and what am I supposed to do next?  Fail. 

4) love you then leave you. Huge attention right up to the point of purchase closely followed by absolutely nothing. Fail. 

5) spamming you for feedback after every touch point. Having made some effort to use their service you are then battered for feedback on how much you loved it even if you haven't done anything yet. Fail. 

6) Monday to Friday 9-5 with an hour for lunch and finish early every other Friday. When the opportunity to get some customer service is so restricted that you can never be around to use it. Fail. 

7) personalised journeys that completely miss the point. Offer me a discount on a new car when I am looking at bicycles. Fail. 

8) pricing that has a life of its own changing seemingly at random with little or no explanation and certainly nothing that could be understood by any normal individual. Fail. 

9) style over substance. Websites that swoosh and dazzle your eyes only to offer utter rubbish and tell you nothing meaningful about what your looking for. Fail. 

10) like me buttons on everything. Ooh you used our next page option. Like me! You looked at our page on opening times. Like me!  Fail. 

Heart rate based fitness

Conventional fitness training sees us pounding out the miles in order to achieve fitness anchored in achieving a distance at a target speed where we feel little motivation and even less when we are slower. An alternative is to use heart rate monitors to control your training and discipline yourself with this and a timeframe rather than distance. So for example on heading out for a run you will do an hours running at an aerobic rate (110 - 150 beats per minute) and build on this. It takes your training to a different level and you stop thinking so much about miles and speed and more about maintaining a controlled heart rate over a set timeframe. This ensures you are delivering the right aerobic or anaerobic training rather than pounding out the miles and probably sitting somewhere in between these and not really delivering much benefit. So how to monitor your heart rate?  I would recommend polar watches with a heart rate strap for accuracy (www.polar.com). They give you continuous heart rate reading that is wirelessly synchronised to your watch from the heart rate strap. Interesting samsung are keen on such thinking and announced the S5 with heart rate monitoring capabilities. Shift your fitness training to epic. 

Bathstore in house design service quietly delivers

Fitting out a bathroom is a vast array of complicated choices and design decisions that can leave you dithering between free standing baths and integrated shower heads until you ultimately give up. The bathstore (www.bathstore.com) has an in house design team who can take your room dimensions and help you model the bathroom there and then. Walk in with a vague idea of what you want and you could be walking out with bathroom picked and ready for install. The service goes beyond merely 2D overhead views of your room to a 3D walk in flavour of your bathroom complete with flooring choices, tiles, mirrors and walls painted to your preferred colours. This helps convert a maybe into a sale as you have confidence in what you are getting which is even more relevant where you are comparing different layout choices. This brilliant service is not hugely advertised and is free so no obligation to buy. It is an epic aid in the purchase process and something they could really market harder as it makes a huge difference for those this side of employing an interior design to make their feng shui informed room designs.  

When things go wrong with LoveFilm

LoveFilm (www.lovefilm.com) offers a number of levels of service from conventional movies on a disk to your home through to on demand download services. For movies sent to you at home this model started the death of the high street rental proposition with customers finding it far easier to manage an online list and have these sent to them at their leisure to be returned when they were ready. The thought of venturing out to your blockbuster hiring a film then held to ransom for return the next day seemed outdated. There is a flaw in the customer service for LoveFilm with this postal model. What happens if you don't get the film. If the postal service squirrels away this diamond of entertainment and is watching your cherished copy of "piranha 3DD" in a back room somewhere while you scour the TV guide for an episode of "extreme fishing" you have not already seen three times. The service is pretty simple. You get an email telling you what the film is that is on the way and you wait by your post box for it to come through. When it doesn't it would make sense for a call to action on the email for you to flag a problem. A "press this button if it doesn't who up" piece of customer support. This simple step could improve customer experience significantly. 

The experience of having your email account hacked

On a seemingly more regular basis inboxes are being peppered with viral mails from the most unlikely senders. Why would your sweet old auntie want to send you a link to make your biceps bigger with a miracle pill (and that is one of the more tame ones). The reality is that our personal email accounts are under a constant attack from computer nasties that are trying to get access to your contacts and spread their evil further through the connectivity of the web. As ever this is a strong reminder that anti-virus software is a must and keeping our online profiles secure ever more difficult. When your account has been hacked unless someone lets you know you may well be ignorant to the fact you are firing off naughty messages to everyone you ever knew. Finding out is irritating and frustrating as you have to unpick the mess and heighten your security with a password so ransom there is a good chance you will get it wrong on a daily basis. Email hacking spells pain for the foreseeable future. 

LinkedIn for social selling

LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) has dominated the professional social network space and retained this position in spite of a strong challenge from google+ to lure people away with professional circles that has failed to ignite appetite. The value of LinkedIn is widely under utilised with people maintaining a lose network that they pay little attention to with the occasional endorsement to a past colleague. But is there more opportunity?  Could individuals and indeed firms use this further?  B2B selling is all about relationships and connecting to the right people where LinkedIn can up the value of any interaction. So should firms pay more attention to the Linkedin profiles of their key sales staff? Absolutely. Using tools within LinkedIn to connect your organisations networks means that all those disparate connections can be joined and used for insights.  Finding the husband of the marketing person you are trying to contact is an ex-colleague of your boss is a relationship to get you through the door so your bosses profile could be key to developing that lead, it could be damaged by a profile picture of them in fancy dress.  This process of social selling yields much more success than conventional cold calling that delivers returns of less than 5%. We have been working in this way for many years but have we really been understanding this as social selling and improving the levers that influence this?  Not yet but we are learning and developing this further, as are linkedin who are developing this business model to increase revenue and increase the number of users beyond the current 277 million.