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.