Customer Experience

By nickjohnson - May 17th, 2013

A few days ago, I had the opportunity to talk with Jennifer Dominiquini, who is the Chief Marketing Officer of Sears/Kmart Fitness, Sporting Goods and Toys.

 

We’re thrilled that Jennifer has agreed to contribute to our forthcoming Incite:Marketing Summit, along with CMOs and CCOs from other brands like Sony, L’Oreal, Arby’s, Molson Coors, Aflac and Hertz. We took some time to discuss some of the key issues our research has highlighted.

 

What did you learn in 2012?

I kicked off our conversation by looking back over the year, looking at the key learning Jennifer made in the last twelve months.

 

The answer was clear, “balance”.

 

As Jennifer said:

 

“The key thing I learnt in 2012 was the increasing need to balance emerging marketing techniques with more tried and tested techniques. The challenge is to experiment sensibly - to find value”.

 

“Balancing all these techniques is vital. Using a new technique simply because it’s new makes does not necessarily make sense but likewise not trying something new because it is not proven also does not make sense.”

 

You’ve got to think through the marketing mix, and find bang for your buck and proven ROI.”

 

She added that her’ focus is ‘integrated retail’ - which is an internal term most closely linked to the more recognised ‘multi-channel/omni-channel marketing.

 

“It’s about making the pieces connect. I believe very much in ‘360-degree marketing’ - aligning the new and the old for the greatest possible impact”.

 

What’s the plan for 2013?

2013 is the year that Jennifer “get more savvy about digital”.

 

More specifically, Jennifer is focused on “making the pieces connect” better between traditional and digital campaigns, and between traditional and digital functions. Those more established departments - like PR, marketing, communications - all need to get increasingly tied into the digital function she runs.

 

In store, the challenge is to push the offline, online. Merging the in-store experience with the online experience is crucial - and Jennifer uses QR codes, URLs and mobile enabled sites to do this.

Importantly - and perhaps in a departure from those brands moving aggressively into using phyiscal locations for ‘showrooming^[1]’, Jennifer also expects digital sites are pushing people back into the store.

 

“We’ve got to make digital a way of life - not simply an addition to existing marketing strategies”.

 

Measurement is key

Measurement is a constant bone of contention for CMOs - how to measure, what to measure - and how to learn from information gathered being key foci for 2013.

 

Jennifer feels her measurement focus has one clear goal:

 

“Everything we do we track -some things work, and some don’t. We’re trying to do enough measurement to know whether something works - and then scale it up if it does”.

 

“In the old days, people measured the wrong things. When social media became popular, brands were relying on metrics that were too simplistic - follower numbers and the like.

 

“Nowadays, there are far more sophisticated ways to measure, and the challenge comes in choosing what to measure.

 

“Don’t measure for measurement’s sake. We think before any campaign about what, specifically, we’re trying to measure. We set up dashboards so that info is tracked, and front of mind at all times.

 

“My advice? Keep it simple! You’ve got to be realistic - if you try to measure too much, you’ll end up measuring nothing.”

 

One of the big trends in 2013 is a drive towards providing more personalised, relevant experiences for customers - how do you deal with this?

Many source of personalization data comes from the company’s membership program, called Shop Your Way rewards.

 

“We have information on every person in our loyalty programme. We understand at the level of the individual now - not the household, as previously. We know what people buy, when they buy it, whether they use mobile devices to make purchases, where they tend to leave the buying process, what messages they respond to.”

 

Of course, the loyalty programme is not the only repository of data on the consumer:

 

“And that’s a challenge - a lot of this info is in different systems. It’s hard to get it to connect, and fundamentally, the more connections between different data repositories, the better.”

 

What does Customer-Centricity mean to you?

“First, there is enormous possibility in this area - we know about people on a deeper level now through our measurement, and we can now target individuals with offers, with exclusives, with messages.

 

“We don’t tend to focus on ‘customer-centricity’ though - we call it ‘member-centricity’. We’re focused on understanding every member in our loyalty programme, to ensure we can be centric to them - through coupon provision, deals, exclusives, products - even customised web experiences.

 

The big development? Well this is no longer at a segment level - we’re no longer beholden to targeting based on demographic groupings. We’re understanding at an individual customer level now - and that’s enormously powerful.”

 

Changing organisational models: how do you see this evolving?

 

There are big changes afoot for large brands - and there are two main drivers for them:

 

• An increasing need to deliver a consistent, unified experience to customers, whatever touch points they use
• A desire to make the most of new measurement and learning opportunities to become more ‘customer-centric’ and focused on the consumer, not the delivery of specific products

 

When I asked Jennifer how she saw these changes, she said
“The lines are certainly blurring between departments now. Between PR, Marketing, Communications and more. We’ve really got to ensure that these more traditional departments are closely aligned with the newer social and digital functions.

 

“There is an increasing bleeding together of departmental responsibilities and roles - the challenge in trying to provide an integrated marketing and communications functionality is who does what, evolving those job descriptions and ensuring people don’t revert back to outmoded roles and responsibilities.

 

“And there’s friction inherent in that - deciding which groups need to collaborate on a project, and who does what. There will be arguments. The challenge is to ensure that pre-existing silos do not get in the way of integrated campaigns.

 

From my point of view, as a CMO, I don’t care who does something, simply that it gets done. I don’t want the PR team to focus solely on pulling media impressions, but all impressions - even though that may represent a change to their previous role. After all, bloggers are today’s journalists. And for them to take on that additional responsibility, collaboration and integration are required.”