Special Report: Amazing Customer Engagement Ideas From IBM Amplify Conference

Just back from the IBM Amplify (#IBMAmplify, #NewWayToEngage) conference in San Diego and heard from some amazing industry thought leaders and IBM execs. The focus was on customer engagement, which has been, and continues to be, a hot, hot topic. As I listened to the presentations and participated in conversations, I took notes and tweeted a few thoughts. Here are some of those tweets and what I was thinking as typed them into my phone.

The Tweet: @DeepakAdvani references @Starbucks: Not in the coffee biz serving people. In the people biz serving coffee. It seemed a focus of this conference was on customers, both B-2-B and B-2-C. It’s not about the company, it’s about the customer. Hence companies are becoming more customer-centric and customer-focused. IBM executive Deepak Advani used Starbucks as the perfect example. They get it. As just mentioned, and worth mentioning again, Starbucks believes that they are not in the coffee business serving people. They are in the people business serving coffee.

The Tweet:  The secret to good customer reaction time? Help them when they need it; now, not later.There was discussion about customer response time.  Here’s the bottom line. Customers don’t want to wait. If they tweet a question to you, respond quickly. The American Express Global Customer Service Barometer says a customer who tweets expects reaction time to be less than two hours. But, here is a really scary stat: Social Bakers says the average response time to social media complaints or questions is nine hours. Come on! Don’t customers deserve better than that?

The Tweet: It’s not what we want to tell our customers. It’s what our customers want us to tell them. I met with David Haucke, Senior Product Strategist at IBM. He’s one very smart dude. We talked about the customer journey map and the intense focus on the customer. And the line we came up with was tweetable. The best companies know what their customers want and expect.

The Tweet: If something is to be top-of-mind, it is likely to be tip-of-tongue. Jonah Berger was one of the keynote speakers and talked about word-of-mouth marketing. He used stats and facts to make the point that the opinions of friends and family members – and sometimes even strangers – are more powerful than any advertising a company might pay for. The point is to be so good that your customers not only think about you, but also talk about you.

The Tweet: When co's joint venture, first think about the impact to your customer. Second think about the impact to the bottom line. Always put the customer in the center of decisions and ideas. This doesn’t mean to ignore the bottom line. On the contrary. It is just always keeping the customer in mind for any decisions that you make.

The Tweet: It's hard to customize a customer's experience with Big Data, but it can be a good start. I’ve always felt that Big Data can spot a trend, but Little Data (as I like to call it), which is information on specific customers, can create a unique, specialized and even customized experience. Tracking your specific customers’ buying patterns, product selection, and special requests can help you create a more personalized experience the next time the customer buys from you. In its most simplistic form, it’s the server that remembers the customer’s favorite drink and simply asks, “Would you like the usual?”

The Tweet: Customer data is a commodity. Anyone can buy it. How you use it? That's the differentiator. While many companies use the data that comes from their own customers, you can now buy it from providers, making the data available to virtually any company that is willing to pay for it. In other words, it’s a commodity. The use of data falls to the responsibility of the Chief Customer Officer. With so much data to sift through, a good CCO must know what data is important and then simplify it so it can be taken advantage of. Everyone has access to the information. It’s the companies that use it best that win.

The Tweet: Engagement is interaction w/ intention that goes beyond concern for the transaction. @chrisheuer. Chris Heuer is one smart dude. In the era of the customer, if you focus on the customer and not just the transaction, the profit will follow.

The Tweet: The predictable future is based on trends. The unprecedented future is like the Wild West. A few of us were having a conversation about how data predicts trends. However, sometimes customers don’t always know what they want. Think about Steve Jobs and his focus on bringing customers technology that they didn’t know they needed until after they started using it.

The Tweet: The customer uses mobile one day & desktop the next. To the co. it's #omnichannel. To the customer it's all the same. We keep talking about omnichannel or multichannel strategies. One day the customer connects to your website from their desktop computer. The next day they connect using a mobile device. In the end, the customer is just engaging with the company on their terms – what’s easiest for them. They don’t think of your company’s multichannel strategy. They think of how they are going to buy whatever it is you sell, in the easiest and most convenient way possible. To the customer, it’s not a strategy. It’s just the way you do business.

And, a great one to end with:

The Tweet: @AlexBanayan speaking at @IBMAmplify says the 4P’s of Marketing are dead. There is just one C (not P) – the customer! To me this sums up what this conference was all about; the customer. Hey, it was IBM, so there was plenty of cool technology, lots of discussions centered around IT, analytics, automation, data, and much more. In the end, all of these conversations were pointed in the same direction; toward the customer. It is all about the customer.

Today’s customer is smarter than ever. They buy differently than in the past. They have access to information that was never available to them before. They are influenced by friends, colleagues, and strangers who communicate socially; both verbally and online. They buy in person, over the phone, from their desktop computer, and their mobile phones. Smart companies are engaging and interacting differently than they have in the past, and they have figured out that the focus must be on the customer.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert and New York Times bestselling author. Find more information at www.Hyken.com.