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.