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Stuart Gentle Publisher at Onrec

Learning from the best; examples of amazing customer experience

By Andrew Forster, Recruitment Industry Expert

Customer experience is often only quantified by how satisfied you leave the customer. However, the danger in focusing on the endgame is that companies often forget about what goes into the experience itself. These four companies have put their customers’ needs first and used experiential marketing successfully to make their customer experiences stand out as amazing and noteworthy. Perhaps recruitment agencies can take the lessons and implement them into their own experiences, whether that’s the candidate, client or employee experience.

Amazon accounts for over 40% of all ecommerce business in the United States1, and so doesn’t particularly have any close competition in their field. However, they still continue to dominate and better their customer experiences regardless. Amazon commit to following three pillars2, when tailoring their buying experience for customers: conversion rate, relevance and customer satisfaction. Following these pillars provides the buyer with search results that have the highest chance of ending in a purchase by focusing on the product that the customer wants, and less on the brand. Thus, streamlining the process, and providing a positive outcome for both parties. The buying experience aside, they also offer customers the Amazon Prime loyalty scheme, unmatched speedy delivery, and are continuously expanding their AmazonGo shopping experience. Even without intense competition on their back, Amazon are consistently focused on bringing new and impressive experiences to their customers, and mostly to make their customers lives easier.

Nike has focused on building a community for athletes since its inception. However, the main pull for customers is that actual athletes spearhead the design and direction of the overall community. This ‘For Us, By Us’ attitude keeps customers feeling included and validates their decision to engage with the brand. Although their logo is one of the 5 most recognisable symbols in the world, Nike don’t hide behind their brand to retain custom.  The Nike+ Rewards Program, instead of providing their customers with a generic list of discounts; incentivises them with highly targeted experiences as rewards as well as the usual transactional rewards3. Nike+ offers customers access to special events where they can train with other athletes in the community. They also get access to Nike experts and an advance on new releases. For Nike’s athletic audience these targeted perks, and the plethora of other options, are invaluable. It’s interesting to note what plus services could recruitment companies provide to their loyal clients and candidates.

Coca Cola, similarly to Nike, has long since focused on creating individual and memorable experiences for their customers beyond their brand name. Their annual Christmas Truck Tour is one of the most well-known immersive experiences that they offer. However, something that garnered over 1.7m Facebook impressions and countless positive reactions was their ‘Beat Generator’4. The experience was available during a series of experiential roadshows where customers were able to create music by mixing sounds from sporting events with beats and samples. Customers were then given an MP3 recording of their track, and their creation was played on a big screen during the roadshow. This experience was particularly amazing because it not only made the customer feel celebrated by the brand but it also gave them a tangible memory to hold onto afterwards.

Spotify has changed their interface many times in just the past two years and each change has been a development on the last, keeping the customer at the forefront. Music being the personal experience that it is, can be a difficult field to generate positive individual experiences for. However, Spotify have used this fact to their advantage. Spotify target the user as much as possible through personalised playlists, like ‘Daily Mixes’, ‘Release Radars’, ‘Discover Weekly’, based on the listener’s music taste. Spotify even give the listener the option of ‘liking’ or ‘hiding’ new music that they might stumble across on the app. As well as unique listening, Spotify have also offered immersive experiences for their customers in the past. Their collaboration with Smirnoff focused on a trending issue in the music world of gender bias, and made it into an experience for customers to expand their listening habits5.

While these examples are huge brands that have big budgets behind them and a product to offer at the end, there’s no reason the recruitment industry can’t learn and start taking from the success stories of those who have done, and continue to do customer experience well.


Sources:

1 & 2 - Smile
3 - Smile
4 - Econsultancy
5 - Promo Marketing