From customer service, marketing, digital, UX, loyalty, Employee X, e-commerce and payments. We know that every employee plays a crucial role in experience delivery. As such, we think everyone deserves a ticket to The Customer Show. With over 1,000 attendees, here you’ll be able to connect, learn and benchmark with over 50 speaker experts. 

“With over 30 percent of customers willing to change who they do business with after just one bad experience – now is the time for business leaders to take urgent action to improve the experience at every moment that matters,” says Jason Bradshaw.

Speaking at the event will be Jason Bradshaw, author of bestselling book, It’s All About CEX and the former chief customer officer of Volkswagen. He is going to share his tips and techniques that modern day marketers need to boost customer retention.

Bradshaw believes having your IT, Digital and CX departments working together is critical for this overall success. 

“Customers are our most important and valuable resources. If we invest in their experience and overall happiness at work, then the Customer Experience and overall happiness will follow”, says Lauren Reid, Manager for Member Experience at ESSSuper

Lauren will deep dive into various ways on how to manage a change to new technology for contact centres and agents.

Lauren and Jason will be joined by CX and marketing leaders from ANZ, Allianz, Google, WooliesX, Simply Energy, Verve Super, Barwon Water and many more.

The Customer Show exhibition has been created as a platform for companies across Australia who are keen to meet the challenges and embrace the opportunities ahead in customer experience be it BFSI, Retail, Government, Telecommunication sectors. 

Being housed in the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre on 4 and 5 May 2022. The show will showcase the leading and most thought-provoking sessions on Customer Engagement and Loyalty, Digital Experience, Employee Experience, Frontline Customer Service and Payments Experience. It promises to bring every leader who plays the largest to smallest role in CX under the one roof.

“Customers are moving at such a rapid pace today that it feels like CX leaders are forced to run this never ending marathon just to keep up. This is the challenge and beauty of the Customer Experience space – and the one thing we work to solve in bringing the community under the one roof,” says Show Director Mary Anne Ghobrial.

With ServiceNow and Inmoment contributing to the discussion on cross-collaboration in CX; Khoros exploring the importance of Contact Centres today; and Sprinklr portraying a new outlook for customer loyalty and retention, the event encapsulates the key industry trends and emerging opportunities.

To apply for your free visitor ticket to the show, simply visit:  https://tickets.lup.com.au/customer-show-2022?cat=cat-registration&ref=MARKETINGMAG

Original published: May 2011, Marketing magazine.

It’s difficult for me to write the review on this event. Schmart Marketing, and its progenitor PMP Limited, did and do much promotion in this magazine. But, sorry, that doesn’t change the fact this was the best marketing/advertising event I’ve been to in a year.

Schmart Marketing got the spectrum of speakers right with client, new media, agency and owner/operator represented by

Jeffrey Hayzlett, former CMO of Eastman Kodak and author of The Mirror Test, Amber MacArthur, of MGI Media and host of several tech web TV shows, the omnipresent Russell Howcroft, CEO of Y+R Brands and The Gruen Transfer stalwart, and Janine Allis, founder of Boost Juice, respectively.

Hayzlett stomped out in his black caiman cowboy boots and, better than my preceding three coffees, woke the crowd with, “If you were thinkin’, ‘oh great, here comes another loud American’, I’m here to tell you I won’t disappoint!” He then took us in with his devil-may-care style, explaining that through his “shake things up” remit at Kodak he discovered one of a CMO’s core responsibilities is creating tension within a company. He also proffered the advice that befriending your CFO and demonstrating the margin and revenue impacts incurred when certain programs are ceased creates an unlikely and powerful ally in finding more budget when needed.

MacArthur’s advice was aimed more at those brands and SMEs beginning in social media – much of it I’d heard many times before, but a few undiscovered tools excited. However, the number of pens scribbling around me suggested this introductory level content is still very much sort after by the majority of senior marketers.

I can’t comment on Russell Howcroft’s hour of proselytizing as I had the good fortune of interviewing both Hayzlett and MacArthur during his speech – look out for a Hayzlett ‘Career Centrefold’ in our next issue.

Allis spoke of Boost’s journey: from the nascent idea, to hot young thing, to slashed tall poppy and finally international expansion – along with all the bumps en route, including her husband’s print ad ‘The suck you love to swallow’…

But one of the real highlights of the day was seeing the four speakers battle it out for over an hour across a range of topics in one of the few unscripted panels I’ve seen in a very long time. In discussing a phantom widget, Howcroft sung the song of mass media while Hayzlett and Mac countered. Hayzlett scored a sucker punch when he asked Howcroft approximately how much a full page ad in Melbourne’s highest circulating daily newspaper cost. Russell responded $30,000 and that it would reach half a million eyeballs. Hayzlett’s counter strategy was to give that much product of widget X away to the most read local bloggers across various relevant interest groups. He did concede, however, that in most cases he’d just do both – broadcast and narrowcast.

But the real proof of brilliance? Even the Twitter stream was free of cattiness.

Times have been tough with the UK still reeling from the Northern Rock debacle and a spate of Cameron government spending cuts.  The D&AD's president Simon "Sanky" Sankarayya touched on these in his opening speech as he welcomed the biggest crowd these awards have had in years. 

As soon as the proceedings were underway, Sanky broke the news that this year's ceremony is looking a little different. For starters, there would be no celebrity comedian hosting the evening. Instead he and D&AD CEO Tim O'Kennedy would be doing the honours and if the audience was not okay with that, "tough".

As Tim quickly explained: "We always catch flak from those guys. Since all in this room know that designers are not wankers and advertising definitely is not the incarnation of all evil in the world – do we need someone trying that one on yet again? Yeah, we thought kind of not". 

They may not be comedians but the duo got laughs for simply telling it like it is without any semblance of hype.  As far as awards go, that alone must be a first.

But of course the biggest change for the D&AD event this year pertained to inclusion. For the first time ever, professional and student pencils were to be awarded together.

As Sanky explained that since the government seems to  have decided that education of the arts and design is not actually deserving of real funding, "it's really up to us in the industry to step in and help".

Here O'Kennedy added that the point of being a creative student, apart from studying stuff, is to have a creative career. "This means connecting with professionals of which this room is stuffed," he surmised. 

This sentiment proved to be more than lip service.

Alexandra Hickmott and Ryan Purcell, the two Yellow Pencil-winning students from RMIT University In Melbourne, were seated next to John Pallant, Regional Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi Europe, Middle East and Africa. Throughout the night John chatted with them at length, shared his insights and offered to introduce them to a contact closer to home.  In all, one of the most awarded creatives in this industry seemed to be a genuinely nice guy and the students were chuffed for this opportunity to meet him.

I'm sure all 250 graduates there on the night would have experienced something similar.

Professional and student nominees had their entries displayed before and during dinner.  Then when it came to the awards, winners were announced, applauded as their work came up on the screen, before being given their pencils and ushered outside for a picture to commemorate the occasion.

This was all done in around two hours, with plenty of time for some serious after party networking in the bar. Or some not so serious dodgem car riding.

Fairground amusements aside, you may be thinking all the changes would have made for a fairly flat event and you'd be wrong. Instead, the work starred from start to finish, celebrated by an extremely appreciative audience. 

When Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney and the students from RMIT Melbourne went to collect their awards, the crowd became even more vocal. Testimony to the huge number of Aussies working in London ad agencies and there on the night.

Earlier in the evening Sanky had talked about the new home for this year's D&AD awards, a relocation that will help them to continually put the work at the heart of everything they do. I'd been to the Vauxhall headquarters the day before to collect my ticket and compared with their previous premises, the move to the grittier end of town must be saving them a small fortune. Some of this I'm guessing may have even been redirected into the revamped D&AD Annual that is soon to be released.

On the evening little mention was made of the slices of Yellow Pencil that are now being awarded for both Book and Nominated work. Even less was said about the White Pencil which will be awarded for best answering a cause-related brief. This pencil will be presented for the first time at the D&AD Award's 50th anniversary next year.

From where I sat, this year's changes made for a sharper and smarter event where the only things missing were any displays of inflated egos. It's a format that will certainly lay the foundation for the next 50 years of creative excellence. Good work D&AD.

Run by 2 Sticks Digital’s Tim Martin, the course started off with a pretty comprehensive round up on how to get brilliant SEO for your brand. It’s all about offering information that people want to know, often without the catch of a sell. Martin thinks if a brand was to hire someone to do nothing else but create great keyword–aligned content for a year, with each page targeted at a micro segment of a market, their work would keep rewarding you forever. Once something is on the internet, it’s not coming down unless you let it.

“If you put out information neutrally and give it away for free,” he said, “your credibility goes up. People are always looking for the rat, looking for the catch. The trick is not to have one, people can come back a hundred times a day and never buy anything, but you get in their minds.

Martin used examples of people looking for specific shoes, cars and wines, and said that you don’t necessarily need an online checkout.  “You just need good content” he said, “because, most research happens online, but most transactions still happen offline.

Martin also believes it is essential for brands and businesses to verify their Google place listing before someone else does. At the moment, anybody can take to Google Maps, find a business address that hasn’t been verified by the owner, and take ownership of the listing themselves and upload whatever they want. Even the Commonwealth Bank has plenty of branches that aren’t verified, meaning they are only listed by default as a bank, missing out on consumers who search Google for local financial services, mortgage lenders etc.

Martin also gave a good lesson on crisis management: be careful when you fight Google because you might fan the flames. He was consulted by Ivanhoe Girls School during the school formal same-sex partner drama, and told them to take the ‘flight’ route. Don’t respond online, just let it die, because they could have made it worse by entering the social media debate. Another option in dealing with scandals is ‘flood’. Get the negative content that shows up in searches out of the way by flooding your key search terms with new positive content.

Martin also walked us through targeted Facebook and Linked In advertising. Martin’s rundown of how to deal with reviews that show up with Google listings was particularly intriguing. He called it the ‘Wild West’, a lawless landscape where you can shoot a guy in the leg (write a bad review) just because you don’t like the look of him, and it tarnishes your reputation forever.

All the talk of Google was enough to think Martin was on their payroll, but there really is no other player to consider [sorry, Bing], at least at the moment. Martin did offer one final caution to the tech giant, though, and it’s something they seem pretty aware of: “If Google doesn’t dominate social, they’re buggered. Facebook will dominate.”

It truly is the Wild West out there. What will happen next?

Check out the footage below or on our YouTube Channel here: www.youtube.com/marketingmagazine.

But what struck me about this particular ad was that all the actors advocating travel on the budget airline were particularly ordinary looking.

I’m not saying they were bad looking, far from it, but they were nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly not glamorous. If I was watching an ad for Louis Vuitton or Armani they would have been out of place, but in an ad for Jetstar they were perfectly placed.

This brings me to my point. It is essential to keep your brands message consistent in all communications and all circumstances where you may be communicating direct with an existing or potential customer.

Jetstar is a budget airline, therefore all aspects of their communication with customers must reflect this.

If I am travelling on Jetstar I know not to expect leg room, not to expect any form of meal or in-flight entertainment. Meaning when the flight attendant offers me the obligatory crackers and cheese it actually comes as a pleasant surprise.

Conversely if I travel first class – a long forgotten luxury for me – I expect every aspect of my journey to be first class. From the service, to the comfort, to the ambience everything should be perfect. As I mentioned in a previous post, Singapore Airlines even goes as far as controlling the scent in their cabins to add to the overall experience.

Haynes, Lackman and Guskey introduced the concept of Comprehensive Brand Presentation (CBP) in 1999. In short their principle refers to formalising the alignment of the manufacturing and communication functions of any given business. Put simply this means making sure the end product or service that your business creates matches the communication or marketing function that is utilised to sell it.

According to the research paper the CBP enhances success through synergistic execution of the manufacturing and marketing processes via increased focus on measuring customer response to both manufactured product and promotional efforts supporting that product.

So with all that I mind I have come up with a few key ways to help to increase your brand consistency:

Go and experience your brand from point of sale

One of the most important places where customers get to experience your brand is at the point of sale.

If I went to buy a new Mercedes I would expect a luxury buying experience. I would expect that the sales staff would be immaculately dressed and presented. That is what I am led to believe from their marketing. If they were not it would effect my perception of the brand and effect my brand loyalty.

Put yourself in a customer’s shoes, what level of service have you led your customer to expect at the point of sale.

Dont oversell it, tell it like it is

There is always a temptation to oversell products. Clients will always tell you that their brand is the best. But you need to make sure you don’t oversell it.

The last thing you want is for the customer to be disappointed when they experience your brand.

Back to my Jetstar example. If Jetstar positioned itself as a high luxury, high service airline they would be shooting themselves in the foot, because when the customer experienced the product they would instantly know that is not the case.

I attended an event once where the elaborate invitation came inside a chicken egg. You actually had to break the hollow egg to retrieve the invitation. I was so excited for the event itself, if they had gone to that level of intricacy for the invitation what would the event be like. It turned out the event was awful and I was left disappointed with the brand. Classic case of oversell under deliver.

Make sure your events reflect your brand

Personally coming from an events background I have seen far too many events that miss the mark. They have nothing to do with the actual brand.

Your events need to reflect your brands messages. An event for Louis Vuitton should exude luxury, while an event for Aussie Disposals should reflect their own unique brand values.

Maintain visual consistency

I want you to go and get all your marketing collateral from business cards, to your website, letterhead, advertisements, brochures or signage even you email signature and lay it all out on the table.

You need to make sure it all looks the same. Are your company’s colours reflected consistently across all your material or are their slight changes?

Is your logo always the same shape or does it differ? Does your website have one colour scheme and your business card another? How about fonts? Do you always use the same or do you chop and change?

This will give you a good indication of how consistent your image is. By having a consistent image you will increase brand awareness.

Work closely with outside agencies

If you are in a position to hire an outside agency for any part of your marketing mix you need to make sure that you work very closely with them.

I’ve made the mistake before of hiring an agency and leaving them to their own devices. It is important for the agencies sake and your own that you treat an agency as an extension of your business. They are selling your brands messages and they must understand your brand.

But please don’t expect that an agency will understand the intricacies of your brand instantly it is a collaborative process that must be worked on.

Conclusion

The above are just a couple of the ways to keep your brand consistent. Everywhere that a customer interacts with your brand the experience should be the same.

Whether that be at an event, conference, point of sale, radio/television ad, website, or social networking site.

All of these communications should give the customer the same experience they get from actually consuming or using your product or service.

There’s been a lot of talk about whether Australia is suffering from the ‘r’ word but regardless of what it is called, the upcoming year will be tougher than the last one. The key to survival will be to work smarter, be creative and brave.

As Harvard Business School Professor John A. Quelch noted recently:

It is well documented that brands that increase advertising during a recession, when competitors are cutting back, can improve market share, and return on investment at lower cost than during good economic times. (From http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5878.html).

I think that this logic applies equally well to PR and money strategically spent on PR can have the result Quelch notes above. Your customers and potential new customers still have their needs and will be looking to fulfil them, maybe with a lesser budget, but they are still out there looking.

An economic downturn can provide opportunities that aren’t there in the good times – competitors may stop spending on PR so there is more chance your key messages will get through, you will receive more media exposure and your share of voice will be higher.

If you are running competitions and giveaways, you may have greater bargaining power as fewer businesses are jostling for the same number of places, and overall more customers will see, hear or read about your product or service.

Customer retention is cheaper than acquiring new customers and getting closer to existing customers through strategic, targeted PR is essential in tough times. Your existing database or clientele list shouldn’t be neglected as these people know you and hopefully trust you already.

If there is a need to reduce spending on PR, make sure what you spend is on PR that targets your market. It might be a good time to spend on new research to make sure you really understand where to find your customers and what motivates them so your marketing spend is most effective.

If you are reducing your ad spend, it might be better spent on PR in any case. PR delivers more bang for the buck with the added credibility of the media effectively endorsing any businesses they mention.

It’s also a good time to re-examine your PR strategy and goals and make sure you are on the right track still.

If you are in an industry where there is fear or speculation running rife (anyone for investment banking?) PR is an essential tool to communicate with investors and shareholders to ease their minds and position you away from the danger zone.

It’s important not to neglect quality even if times are tough. You might still need to run events but don’t suddenly let them slip into sandwiches and cordial from a five-star lunch.  Keep up your reputation and brand values and maintain your image, creatively if you need to.

If you are looking for a new PR angle, examine your products and services and see if the recession offers new opportunities for you. For example, could your gorgeous, expensive silk gowns be repositioned as inexpensive wedding dresses?

Importantly, don’t give into the fear. I once shared an office with a guy who sat up all night and watched the World Trade Centre disaster happen. The next morning he came into the office and packed up his things and left, convinced the world was at an end.

Obviously it didn’t end. The opposite in fact, and he missed out on some fantastic opportunities along the way to grow a successful business.

Points for discussion:

• When did you last revisit your PR strategy?
• Do you have a PR strategy?
• Can you do what you do better and more cost effectively?
• Do you really know your customers and how to talk to them?
• What opportunities do you have now that weren’t there before?

If smell is the most impressionable and responsive sense, why are we not seeing more focus on multiple sensory brand engagements? Smells ignite memories and appeal to feelings without being filtered and analysed by the brain (which is how the remaining four senses are processed).

How do we effectively engage all five senses whilst remaining relevant?

Some clever brands are doing just that, effectively utilising all major senses, sight, sound, touch, taste and smell, and are reaping the benefits.

In retail, the use of scent has been well documented. Outdoor clothing supplier The North Face believed they could enhance their customers shopping experience and brand recall using the scent of their stores. To reflect the retail concepts of bold imagery and nature, The North Face combined scents of hinoki, rosemary, pine and eucalyptus to give the store the smell of wilderness.

A visit to a Virgin Megastore or a flight on a Singapore Airlines jumbo is a carefully crafted multi-sensory experience. Virgin has designed their stores to create a shopping experience. Bean Bags, carefully selected staff, listening booths and unique background music are all vital to the Virgin experience.

Singapore Airlines also pay careful attention to each sense; the aircraft cabin has a very carefully selected fragrance, and interior, while the food and service is also carefully tailored to reflect the overall brand experience.

At a recent Chloe event for the launch of their latest rose scented fragrance they ensured the activation targeted all the senses. Guests tasted martinis made with rosewater, smelled more than 3000 cut roses, heard a collection of music selected to reflect the Chloe brand values, and saw the unique design of the bottle.

Touch has traditionally been the hardest emotion to capture. Initially online shopping for clothes was slow to take off because customers couldn’t feel the texture of the clothing. This has certainly changed the last couple of years as customers have grown less wary of online shopping.

One current example of touch used in a marketing campaign is the new Coca-Cola bottle design. While they have maintained the visual stimulus of the patented contour bottle, they have incorporated feel into the design. The feel of the new extra grip bottle in the hand provides a unique sensory experience. Although I must admit I am still not convinced my Coke needed additional grip. But I must say I now sleep sound at night knowing that my 390ml bottle will always sit safely and snugly in my hand.

People have an emotional attachment to certain smells and feelings. The smell of freshly brewed coffee makes me think of Sunday, which in turn makes me think of the paper. The Sunday Age are capitalising on this emotional attachment to Sundays in their latest ad campaign.

Everything we see, smell, touch, hear and taste elicits an emotion. It is vital for advertisers and marketers to be aware of all of the emotions, not just sight and sound when delivering a campaign.

Winning the hearts and minds of customers is paramount so the consumer experience should activate connection with all five senses. This is a truly unique platform (when effectively designed and activated) and we cant underestimate the psychological importance of appealing to the senses.

When multiple senses are engaged they provoke emotive response and increase the ability for a person to absorb and remember information. Why don’t we use that to our advantage?