What makes a good company great? How do some companies achieve commanding market share, innovate new product markets, and become iconic brands in their industry? In the current economic climate, it’s a meaningful question to ask (and one we can help enterprises address via news we made this week…but more on that later). We live in an era defined by the proliferation of mobile devices and social networks that’s given rise to a new connected, empowered consumer. In response, organizations are investing in new mobile apps and social media initiatives to engage customers and drive new growth initiatives. But is simply adding a new mobile or social channel sufficient to compete in today’s economy?
Great companies are often associated with strong brands. The strength of that brand can be directly quantified in any company’s market valuation. Companies with strong brands can achieve higher rates of revenue growth by entering new markets, innovating new products, acquiring new customers, or in-selling products to an existing loyal base. But a corporate brand is more than just your corporate identity – it’s a direct measure of your company’s current connection with prospective customers and its future potential for generating new sources of growth.
Building brand has fundamentally changed in this post-Facebook, post-iPhone world. Consumers have heightened expectations of quality, engagement, service, and immediacy. They want products uniquely matched to their needs. They want to know that a company understands who they are, and they want helpful staff. They want all of this every time they access your website, walk into your store, call into your call center, or meet with an agent in the field. When these expectations are not met, today’s consumer speaks up. They text their friends, post a diatribe on their blog, or make snarky comments on their Facebook Wall. In more dreaded cases, they post a video of a bad experience on YouTube with a Tweet announcing, “United Breaks Guitars” that gets seen by millions of people. We live in a world of not only heightened consumer expectations, but also heightened sensitivity of our brands. So then, how do good companies build great brands?
Good companies become great by understanding who their customers are, building a customer-centric culture, and delivering at all times on their brand promise. At the heart of this is delivering a customer experience that attracts new customers to your business, keeps current customers coming back for more, and generates a loyal base of advocates that amplify your marketing message and provide deep insight into new areas in which you can grow your business.
That customer experience, your customer’s perception of your brand, is defined by the multiplicity of touch points they have with your company – from initial marketing communications, to engaging in research on your website or online community, to the point of sale and service either through your call center, an agent in the field, or online self-service portal. Each customer is unique, and each has his or her own journey. Each customer forms a perception of your brand. Companies become great by knowing how each customer is unique, how they interact with your company, and understanding their expectations at each interaction point in terms of quality, engagement, service, and immediacy. Companies become great by doing this repeatedly, for each customer, building a base of happy customers that become the embodiment of your brand value. Organizations need to transform for customer-centricity to build brand, accelerate growth, and become market leaders.
Customer Experience is the new battleground in this era defined by the connected, empowered consumer. Forrester Research highlights this Era of Experience as a third wave of our modern economy: first, in the Era of Production, we competed on our ability to mass produce goods; second, in the Era of Distribution, we competed on our ability to optimize our supply chain and logistics to deliver those goods more quickly and more cheaply to broader markets; today, in the Era of Experience, we compete on brand and the insight and relationship we have with our customers.
Here at Adobe, we can help you compete in this new Era of Experience. With 25 years of design heritage and focus on user experience, we help organizations transform for customer-centricity and redefine how they drive customer acquisition, loyalty, and retention. Our new Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform, announced Monday, lets organizations break down operational silos and establish a new platform – a system of engagement – that leverages back-end systems of records to optimize individual line of business functions. This enables organizations to deliver personalized, targeted experiences for each unique customer across all devices and channels that are consistent in their message and brand experience, and that build customer intimacy and drive higher rates of satisfaction, brand advocacy, and lifetime value.
We also provide specific solutions for business to execute a holistic customer experience strategy mapped to an organization’s brand objectives and operational goals. These solutions, mapped to each specific stage of a customer’s lifecycle, aid companies in Attracting, Engaging, Selling, Helping, and Inspiring today’s mobile and social consumer, helping organizations to respond to new market conditions and drive fundamental changes in building and managing customer relationships to become iconic brands. Combined with our market-leading Adobe Online Marketing Suite, the Adobe platform for Customer Experience Management helps organizations develop unique insight into their market, their customers, how consumers perceive their brand and how that perception can be guided to drive market share growth.
We’re here to help make good companies great. We do this by putting today’s consumer at the heart of our efforts. With the Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform and our market-leading Adobe Creative Suite and Online Marketing Suite, we’re helping organizations worldwide lead a customer experience revolution and redefine how they build brand and drive demand in today’s economy.
For additional perspective on this week’s announcement, CEM and our new platform, check out Rob Tarkoff’s post and video.
What are your thoughts? I look forward to continuing the conversation, so please share in comments or by reaching out on Twitter. I’m @kevinc2003 and, as always, you can talk with our team @AdobeCEM.
-Kevin Cochrane, vice president, Enterprise Marketing, Adobe
