The customer experience of new running trainers

As we work our way into January the New Years resolutions come alive or quickly are forgotten as the alcohol and chocolate return. Many New Years resolutions would have set ambition health and fitness regimes with gym memberships committed to and personal trainers rubbing their hands with glee as fresh meat sign up for a fitness programme they will not maintain. For some this new found motivation will mean an excuse to buy some new kit and throw money at the problem of getting healthy. The shiny new trainers are extracted from their box looking resplendent with garish colour schemes and branded logos covering square inch of material. These new trainers give you the belief you could run that marathon and maybe a four minute mile is possible. As you run in them your feet realise just how poor your old running shoes were and these are like running on fluffy protective clouds making running a joy. Five miles in and that is soon forgotten as all you can feel is pain and discomfort as sweat cakes your entire body and you long to be home and out of your trainers doing anything but exercise. New trainers. Epic for all beginning their run and soon loathed along with everything else in your gym locker. 

The customer experience of online grocery shopping

A visit to the supermarket features low on many people top ten list of days out. Fortunately the supermarkets have responded to this and developed online grocery shop windows allowing you to complete your weekly good shop from your sofa and await its delivery at a prescribed time. Tescos (www.tesco.com) and Sainsbury's (www.sainsburys.co.uk) lead the way in home delivery food services with advanced web portals that try to ease the customer journey for food shopping. The functionality behind the sites are advanced and builds on the loyalty card systems bringing some value to the consumer by auto populating your favourites in your list. There are obvious filters for searching and complex search tools that allow you to refine your list from the 1000's of proud a available. All this online wizardry does not come for free as the delivery charge imposed aims to recover some of the cost of this but you are paying for convenience with the time saved of not visiting the store. Unlike many other delivery services you are also gifted with delivery slots accurate to a specific hour meaning you need not sit in at home waiting and wondering when your food will appear. Online grocery shopping certainly a luxury but for £6 maybe one worth considering. Epic with a price. 

The customer experience of using the wetsuit centre website

For those who enjoy neoprene based sports they will know the challenges of wetsuit purchasing. As an owner of various wetsuits for numerous water based activities I have tried a number of different channels to get my suits including specialist shops, eBay, friends and even the local paper. Recently I bought a new suit and used the wetsuit centre (  http://www.wetsuitcentre.co.uk ) to buy purely online. I didn't find my way to their site directly from searches and reviews but was so impressed by the knowledge and details in their YouTube ( www.YouTube.com ) videos that it lead me to visit their site. This is a great example of how a small firm is using social media to demonstrate their expertise and build trust and consumer confidence not using some gimmicky twitter competition but putting together valuable video content together that showcases their understanding. Wetsuit centre epic use of social media for customer experience. 

The customer experience of new shoes

As a man a new pair of shoes is not a happy event nor one that I look forward to. I know you can tell a great deal about a person from their shoes ao happy to keep mine clean and in one piece but I will happily stall as long as possible getting new ones. A hole in the bottom needs to get to the point of saturated toes before it deeply worries me but on a regular basis the realities are I will need to buy new shoes. My approach to this is similar to that of any other pain I may face in life with trying to maximise the degree of pain in as short a space of time as possible. With this in mind rather than just a single pair at any given point in time I will get two or three or maybe even four if I know it buys me more time in the future not having to buy shoes again. The customer experience around buying shoes is drifting increasingly to an online experience prepared to return unwanted items if it meets my buying criteria. 

Top woes of buying new shoes 

1) New shoes hurt. I know my shoe size but no amount of trying to seems to make any difference. New ones are like strapping on two iron maidens to my feet. 

2) I want shoes that look smart and "almost" trendy but certainly not like I am getting ready to go to school or have borrowed my Dads. This is a tricky line to straddle. Too trendy and you look like your trying too hard and too dull and you look like you have stepped back in time and preparing for your first day at school.

3) When did shoes start costing over £100?  I am a man and shoes should cost less than £50 unless they are coming with a free suit that I have previously missed in the promotion.  

4) Trying on shoes is a ridiculous affair. Walk up and down a shop floor. Have some disinterested teenager squeeze the sides to check for fitting.  All pointless and painful. Give me a pair of size 9's and if they don't fit be prepared for a lawsuit should be the way forward. 

5) I miss my old shoes. The ones that fit. The ones that made my feet look a normal size and complimented my wardrobe. 

6) The shoe shops are filled with a multitude of styles and types of shoes. Good luck finding a plain black pair for work without crystal heels and cross stitching. 

7) People will notice your new shoes and no doubt make some comment. This is not helping me forget about the mind numbing pain I am in from my new shoes and had managed to briefly forget about. 

New shoes. Epic fail. 

The customer experience of buying a mobile phone

Mobile phone complexity has mushroomed over the past decade as "smart" has shifted from just email access to a world of internet and application centric usage. No longer is it straight forward to understand the differences and pick which colour cover for your Nokia 3310 but you now have more to understand and choose from. And what if your choice is less?  What if you don't want all the functionality of a modern smart phone but only want a simple phone to make calls?  Crazy!  Where can you go for impartial advice and help with your buying process?  In terms of customer experience I see a gap in the market where customers want help but don't want the aggressive sales banter from a high street phone shop. People trust the John Lewis model of shopping where you can go and get trusted advice and buy with confidence across a range of suppliers. Where is this for mobile phones?  If you know you want an iPhone the Apple store will help you in every possible dimension but what if you want a choice and the likes of Apple or Samsung or HTC don't hit the mark with one phone to rule all phones. We need a shop for mobile phones that spans networks and device suppliers that gives a more John Lewis experience not a target driven bunch of sales hyenas hungry for your sale. Mobile phone shopping. Epic fail. 

The customer experience of a trip to your local Halfords

Halfords has been an established high street brand and online supplier ( www.halfords.com ) of automotive and bicycle parts for decades. Hard to believe but it is a business that is over a century old and currently weathering the storm of recession. The stores range from vast warehouse retail park monoliths to high street conventional storefronts with the range of products available dependent upon store size. As well as a new bike pump you can also get a number of basic car maintenance tasks dealt with which makes it a real spectrum of employees as you need your retail sales staff alongside your mechanic guru who knows how to strip the dash on a hybrid to install a new stereo. In store it is easy to feel lost as they operate with minimum staff so finding help may not be straight forward and with such a range of products retreating to the internet may feel a better option. As many large retailers have disappeared it is good to see halfords surviving, if you want to see and feel many of the products they sell there are few alternatives which would otherwise leave you at the mercy of the internet blind to the real look and feel of your purchase. It may not be epic but we are better for it. 

The customer experience of ASOS as a multi-device user

Having braved the sales shopping experience and realised the frustration of not finding what I wanted and fighting with the masses over last seasons damaged goods I retired to the safety of the sofa to assess the online sales. The ASOS ( www.asos.com ) website has been a pioneer in e-commerce and is now meeting the needs of the multi-device shopper who wants to browse while on the go and return to look through their favourites and consider the items placed in their shopping basket. The experience across devices is fluid with a portal flavour as you are logged in and therefore able to pick up your shopping journey from your phone, tablet or computer. As I switched between phone and tablet my basket remained up to date and I was able to add and remove items from my choice of device without compromise. ASOS even allows a suite of payment options including the likes of PayPal to complete your experience. No wading through last seasons cast offs having battled for the last car space, just a straight forward shopping trip without the blood, sweat and tears. Epic.