Experience Delivers

Transforming customer experiences by designing processes from the customer-in, enabling rich, meaningful interactions

Yesterday I spent a lively 45 minutes pummeling my keyboard for a very good cause. I was adding my perspective to a multitude of perspectives on the state of Customer Experience Management (CXM) in 2011 and the future of it in 2012 at CMSWire’s Tweet Jam (#cxmchat). Although it is a topic most debated among marketers, technologists and experience strategists, the innovation and understanding around it, I am convinced, impacts all of humankind.

Think about it, how many times are we all subjected to bad customer experience in our personal lives? Imagine each of these turning into a utopian interaction that inspires delight. Ah, the improvement to quality of life.

Outcomes from the Tweet Jam? Here’s my take and some of the perspectives I provided:

Most agreed that Web Experience Management/Web Content Management is a core subset of CXM. There was very little controversy on this matter from the stream of tweets.

As for other tools besides Web Experience Management that are central to CXM? I really emphasized the need for strategy and tools that enable companies and marketers to both listen and deliver experiences across all channels/touch points. I know, listening, what a concept. The notion of customer context was also hot as an area critical to CXM.

Where does the buck stop?

Most agreed it was bottom-up and top-down. I think of the executive sponsors as the CMO, CIO and CXO, the trifecta of customer experience leadership. The three musketeers of CXM. I was excited at this point. Thankfully, Twitter’s forced brevity restrained my desire to make other references to superhero trios and exclamations.

What is the most important CXM lesson you learned in 2011?

My tweet: “Any cxm strategy worth its X needs #wem digital and multi-channel element. Investment is imperative. This is Darwin in action.” I am serious about the Darwin reference. All the businesses I’ve talked to about WEM and CXM strategy in 2011 are thinking and investing hard in the area of digital and multi-channel. I firmly believe companies not doing this will fade, crumble or drop into market irrelevance.

What is the CXM opportunity in 2012?

Read the post title my friend. Full tweet: “2012 is Year of Personalization. How we make CXM and #wem intimate in a world of digital bits and bites. #cxmchat” Simplicity from the depths of complexity. It’s funny how we need sophisticated technologies to ultimately deliver the seamless, delightful experience customers crave, make the technology interfaces meld away, and in the end feel a true connection to businesses and other people.

The kicker was a bonus question from CMSWire about how one differentiates the offline and online strategy. Can you guess the response from several of the participants? I thought it was a trick question, in fact. There should be no differentiation, it must be an integrated strategy for CXM.

Period. I say no more…for now.

Loni Kao Stark, @lonikaostark

Group Manager, Solution Marketing

The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) wanted to develop marketing and brand experiences that resonated emotionally with potential visitors to the country. With that in mind, STB, along with development partner XM, looked to our Web Experience Management (WEM) and Adobe Digital Marketing Suite solutions to provide rich, interactive online experiences that engage potential visitors and help to boost tourism. Since the web is the leading source for travelers planning their own vacations, STB developed YourSingapore.com – Experience, an inventive, informative platform that offers useful information about vacationing in the country. The website achieved five million unique visitors as of December 2010—representing a gain of three times the amount of traffic compared to STB’s previous online presence.

Our WEM solution enables STB to create and distribute tailored content, giving customers more personalized and memorable experiences. The single-source publishing capabilities of Adobe WEM enable dispersed STB teams to quickly update, edit, approve, and publish pages, accelerating time-to-market for new online information and services. STB also uses the Digital Marketing Suite to acquire deeper insights into customer behavior. For instance, SiteCatalyst enables the board to gather reliable, real-time data across all of its online platforms. In addition, with the help of the Digital Marketing Suite, STB achieved a five-fold increase in the social fan base of YourSingapore.com.

To learn more about STB’s story, check out the full case study here.

Calling all digital marketers, advertisers and publishers! Want to learn how to gain a competitive advantage, strengthen customer relationships and extend brand value – and top it off by hitting the slopes? Then you’ll want to book a trip to Salt Lake City, Utah for the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit (formerly Omniture Summit) from March 20-23, 2012!

Attend Summit 2012 to take advantage of up to four days of informative sessions, insightful keynotes from industry leaders, training workshops and numerous networking opportunities exploring the latest trends around social, mobile and web analytics, site conversions, audience and advertising optimization, Web Experience Management (WEM) and implementing multi-channel marketing. More than 70 breakout sessions across eight tracks (Analyst & Reporting, Media Monetization, Mobile, Web Experience Management, Multi-Channel Campaigns, Personalized Engagement, Social, and Tech Track) will focus on real-world customer case studies and how digital marketing data can drive business decisions.

Summit 2012 will also include a customer and partner showcase, opportunities for attendees to connect with Adobe’s Digital Marketing teams, a Summit Bash with a surprise headliner concert and a ski day at the end of the week. Thousands of marketers, advertisers, publishers, agencies and developers across industries will come together to better manage, measure and optimize digital experiences so don’t miss out. Register today and lock-in early bird before Friday, January 13, 2012. Visit the registration, pricing, and accommodations page for more information about special discounts and group passes.

Check out today’s announcement for more details and visit the Summit 2012 website. We hope to see you in Utah next March!

With more than 450 hotels, resorts and vacation properties worldwide, Hyatt is a global leader in the hospitality industry. Having a strong web presence plays an important role in giving customers valuable information and resources for travel and leisure. To make the web experience more dynamic and personal, Hyatt is leveraging our Web Experience Management solution and Digital Marketing Suite to accelerate creating and delivering rich, relevant experiences to customers using a range of mobile devices, as well as desktops. By continually updating websites worldwide with the latest content, the hospitality leader gives customers easy access to the information they need—booking details, schedules for local events, weather, and other information—to plan their ideal vacations.

Our WEM solution enables Hyatt teams to quickly and efficiently publish content to more than 500,000 web pages that attract almost 250,000 visitors every day. Customers who are on-the-go can find hotels, book rooms, review reservations, and check loyalty points all from their mobile devices or from their desktops via traditional websites.

To further refine customers’ online experiences, more than 1,000 Hyatt managers rely on the Digital Marketing Suite to gain quick insight into the performance of both regional and national marketing campaigns. By following trends and optimizing visitor experiences, Hyatt saw a 1,000 percent increase in mobile visits over the past year.

Check out the full Hyatt story here.

Ben Watson and Hank Barnes of our Experience Delivers team participated as panelists in CMSWire’s latest Tweet Jam, on Oct. 26. Over the course of an hour, the event brought together some of the strongest and most informed voices in the field of customer experience. Check out Ben and Hank’s thoughts on the event just below, as well as a recap of the complete Tweet Jam conversation.

Ben Watson (@bitpakkit): It was great to participate in this Tweet Jam and to be able to gain different perspectives so quickly to the questions while we were thinking about the challenges they represented – leadership, mobile, social, cultural and more. The conversation today really proves we are thinking about both the art and science of great experiences in the digital space and are doing digital with a huge dollop of humanity.

The patterns of customer focus and customer excellence are there now. We can see the successes of brands like Hyatt, Audi, Nike and others who have really focused on transforming their brands through more customer-centric thinking. Both the art and the science are inclusive and holistic for these brands. From co-value and shared value through service excellence, every time we interact with a brand that ‘gets it’ we feel the difference.

It starts with customer awareness and building the story around brand promise but in the mobile, social and UX-driven world we live in today it’s no longer enough to be a great digital marketer that promises a great experience. You have to deliver. You have to be awesome more. People often ask me where to start. I first tell them to figure out what they suck at, what people don’t like, and stop that first. Then move on to the aspirational stuff. And somewhere in there, take the opportunity to walk a mile in your customer’s shoes. That’s the kind of context that buzzwords can’t describe.

Hank Barnes (@HBatAdobe): The most interesting part of the Tweet Jam for me was seeing things flip from technology orientation, i.e. content management and e-commerce, to a business discussion centered around Customers and Context. That was great to see and shows the understanding that the real issues of CEM/CXM center around meeting customer needs.

That focus on the customer is both easy and hard. Easy in that if you can truly commit to it, the opportunities for experience improvements become very clear. Hard in that it requires new disciplines and approaches and it’s easy to get distracted.

When we look at things from a technology lens, we get sidetracked arguing about acronyms (WCM, WEM, CEM, CXM) and lose sight of the opportunity. You can’t do CEM, or digital marketing, or pretty much anything without technology today, but we have to remember that the idea of context is not just about “customer context”. Technology only provides value when used in the right context—otherwise it just adds complexity and confusion.

I look forward to more of these Tweet Jams with CMSWire and others.

View the full TweetJam transcript below.

On the heels of our recent announcement of the Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform and set of Customer Experience Solutions, we’re excited to announce that registration is now open for Adobe Digital Marketing Summit 2012.

Previously, we expected this premiere industry event to take place October 3-4 in Los Angeles with Adobe MAX 2011, at the L.A. Convention Center and Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE. However, we have expanded what was originally the Omniture Summit to the new Adobe Digital Marketing Summit, at the Salt Palace Convention Center
March 20-23, Salt Lake City, UT.

We’re designing the Summit specifically to help business and technology leaders stay at the forefront of the digital enterprise transformation.  And we’re balancing a ‘learning journey’ with exposure to new product innovation, the latest industry trends, and direct access to a thriving ecosystem of thought leaders, partners, and technology solution providers. If you’re a business decision maker, technology leader or marketer interested in deepening customer intimacy and extending brand value in your organization, we’ve built this event based on what we heard you needed most:

• See how leading brands are optimizing customer experience across all digital channels

• Discover innovative new approaches for using customer experience to gain competitive advantage for your brand or organization

• Learn from your peers and industry thought leaders, pick up new skills and tools, and get inspired

• Get a sneak peek of new Adobe enterprise solutions

We will continue to post more details regarding keynotes, session speakers, and more.  In fact, we will be inviting our speakers, partners and you to participate in the conversation leading up to and through the show through our various social channels.  This conversation will help us to evolve and shape the conference content and will help you prepare to get the most of your summit experience.

We can’t wait, and we hope you’ll be there to share the experience with us and your peers. Stay tuned for more information…

Ben Watson, Adobe’s customer experience strategist (@bitpakkit), joined us for a Twitterview Thursday. Our thanks to those who participated by submitting questions in advance and during the actual event.

If you missed it, or are interested in a good, single source of knowledge and conversation on CEM, the Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform and Customer Experience Solutions, please check out the recap below. It includes each question Ben addressed during the Twitterview.

Each participant who asked a question during the Twitterview was entered in a random drawing to win a $100 gift card to Amazon (North America residents only). Congratulations to the winner, RobOlague! We’ll be contacting you shortly on Twitter to discuss delivery of your prize.

Thanks again to everyone who joined this Twitterview and made it an enjoyable experience. We look forward to the next one. In the meantime, please keep in touch with us on this blog and on Twitter @AdobeCEM.

Ben Watson, Adobe’s customer experience strategist, will be at your disposal and ready to answer all of your CEM-related questions live… and artfully within 140 characters or less!  Please join us for AdobeCEM’s first Twitterview, hosted by one of the visionaries behind the recently announced Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform and Customer Experience Solutions, this Thursday (June 30) from 10:00-10:30am PT.

We’ve seen and participated in so much great conversation about our news from last week that we thought this was a great opportunity to have Ben chat with live with all of you and to address any and all lingering thoughts, comments or questions about the Digital Enterprise Platform, Solutions and related topics.

For those unfamiliar with Twitterviews, this event gives you a chance to chat with us in real time over Twitter on a specified date and at a specified time. And if you can’t make the time we mentioned, feel free to shoot us your tweet in advance. If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can just ask your question in the comments section of this post and Ben will be sure to address it.

Our only requests are that you direct your questions to @AdobeCEM and use the #AdobeCEM hashtag in your tweeted questions so we can be sure to spot them. If you do, you’ll be entered for a chance to win a $100 Amazon gift certificate (North America residents only on the prize). We’ll choose the winner by random drawing after the Twitterview and communicate about the winner in a follow-up blog post and over Twitter.

So if you’ve had some burning questions about Adobe’s play in the CEM space or, again, about anything related to customer experience, please do join us on Thursday or share your questions in advance.

Ben looks forward to connecting with you then!

We know many of our blog readers and Twitter followers are in for a busy week, with a number of you attending the Enterprise 2.0 conference.  If you are at the conference and interested in sitting down with one of the top experts in the field of Customer Experience Management, Adobe Customer Experience Strategist and Enterprise 2.0 keynote speaker Ben Watson would love to ‘tweet’ up with you!  Anyone attending is invited to join us for a TweetUp tomorrow (Wednesday), 6/22, at 11am ET at the Starbucks in the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel (39 Dalton Street, adjoined to the Hynes Convention Center).  The first 10 attendees to arrive will receive a free coffee courtesy of Ben.

This meeting is an opportunity to chat with a recognized thought leader in CEM, and one of the visionaries behind the recently announced Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform.  You’ll have a chance to learn more about Adobe’s future from one of our most engaging and creative team members, so keep an eye on @AdobeCEM tomorrow for more details.

Remember, Ben will be heading to the Starbucks in the Sheraton Hotel’s lobby, following his keynote address at the Enterprise 2.0 conference, at 11am ET on Wednesday.  Join us for some coffee, good company, and an informative discussion on how brands communicate with the most important commodity of all – the customer. 

*Updated*

Today (6/20), we’ve rolled out our first in a series of three planned Tweetaways over the coming weeks. Don’t miss the chance to win a $100 gift card from Amazon with each Tweetaway just by using your Twitter account.

ReTweet this tweet for your chance to win: Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform announced! More from @AdobeCEM http://bit.ly/jBEGZ8

Any of our @AdobeCEM Twitter followers who ReTweet that post before this Friday, 6/24 at 5:00pm PT will be entered into a random drawing to win the Amazon gift card. Keep an eye on @AdobeCEM, or check back to this blog post for more details.

The @AdobeCEM account and Experience Delivers blog always strive to bring you our latest thinking and perspective in the field of Customer Experience Management. Please keep in touch with us on this blog and Twitter for ongoing conversation about CEM.