Often am asked, which industry or company type benefits the most from CX. This is indeed a tricky question, because the question assumed a baseline or benchmark which in reality is ever changing and dynamic. Having said that, I do feel that the companies who either have:
1) Wide portfolio of offering and thereby a larger potential for Up/Cross Sell
2) Possibility of Repeat Purchase and/or subscription renewal
are better placed to get a faster & quicker ROI from CX initiatives. While this is open for debate and am sure would get varied inputs, this puts the FMCG companies in a tighter spot when it comes to leveraging CX. FMCG companies are characterized, typically, by "Non Sticky" customers, intense competition, channels & shelf management plays, Non-existent Customer service, and a Brand Communicaton which is quite over the top (Remember a gentleman using a Deoderent and 5 beautiful ladies suddenly getting attracted to him?).
What then could be the key pillars around which a CX strategy for an FMCGbrand could be pivoted? I am sharing the following 5 that have proven to be quite useful for me personally and would be keen to get your views on the same:
1) Brand Promise Disconnect
There are obvious advantages of building a larger than life brand persona to create an appeal in the target market. Especially since the purchase most often than not is either an impulse buy or a brand association purchase, this makes sense. However, this creates a risk of a "Brand Promise" to "Customer Experience" disconnect and also leaves room for a competition to create an equally compelling narrative to break in. A brand persona which is not rooted in the value of the offering will have a fragile shelf life. Focusing on the target persona, their impulses/ emotions/ considerations that lead to the purchase, their key expectations, the differentiation that would work and then building a brand persona aligned to that would result in a much more tangible BrandComm, MarComm and SalesComm. I have seen brands being led by creative possibilities from the agencies than by the VOC (Voice of Customer) led insights and that is precisely what a CX intervention may help transform.
2) Access
Many a times a brand looses revenue not because the customers are not interested but because the customers do not have access to the products when and where they need. The reasons could be many:
a) Channels team discounting a Geo assuming that there isn't much scope for growth
b) Shelf management is a challenge
c) Supply chain is a challenge, and so on
The root cause most often than not is a missing "Voice of Retailer". It is critical to continually look for incremental insights from retailers across the target Geographies to track if there is a change in demand pattern, if there is an unaddressed demand and have the channels & supply chain team quickly align to address that. This is critical because the "Customer Expectation Set" and "Market dynamics" change frequently and drastically and not being nimble footed about it may not only result in an "opportunity Loss" but the negative customer experience may also impact "Brand Affinity", "Customer Switch overs", "slackening word of mouth", and much more.
Modern technology also offers new opportunities like "Direct to Consumer" and "Ecommerce" roll outs that could be a huge boon for "Voice of Customer" and "Voice of Retailer" insights, not to discount the alternate revenue stream they may create.
3) Content as an engagement enabler
Think about an "Organic pulses & grains brand". What do you think could be their BrandComm, MarComm Content centered around?
a) How do they farm & ensure that their grans & pulses are organic?
b) Which farms do they produce in?
a BIG NO! None of such content could be of any use to the end customer. But the contet around health benefits of organic food, nutrition value, receipes, etc. would attrack loyal readership and active engagement. Many successful FMCGBrands have managed to cultivate a disciplined and structured approach to create affiliate content thatis centered around the WHY of their offering and not as much about the WHAT & HOW. Such content further helps build a sense of community and brand advocates that further improves brand association and customer stickiness.
4) Outlier Personas
Imagine a Toothpaste brand which has come up with a "Glistening White" thoothpaste that caters to a niche which is ready to pay more for "Glistening White Teeth". Imagine that they get a "Ground Up"feedback from one of their Channel Sales team saying one of the shopkeeper interestingly has an above average demand for the "Glistening White"toothpastes. Given that it is a Niche, such a high demand would be unexpected, A channel Sales Rep sent to investigat finds that the shopkeeper sells small portions of the opened toothpaste in plastic pouches to labourers from nearby industrial area every weekend. Apparently the laborers are using it "once every weekend" as they go back on weekends to visit thier families. Wouldn't this open up an entire new segment for a "Sachet packet" consumption?
This is the power of tracking Outlier personas. Many FMCG innovations like the Shampoo sachets have come out of such insights. Having an eye on outlier persons to track such insights for new product devleopment, new offering, new segment mapping, etc. is hugely productive for any brand.
5) Service & Community Engagement
Most overlooked aspect of a customer journey in an FMCG brand is Customer service. Returns management, support has proven to be hugely successful when rolled out the right way. Customer support/ service in such context could also be limited to content availability in terms of consumption, usage, "best/ right way to use..", etc. Affiliate content that I talked about in the point above goes a long way in delivering that sense of support. Having a conscious strategy to build user community and have consumers create their own content and share within the network is a key to create that sense of belonging and thereby improve customer stickiness.
#2021#CXStrategy