Reducing Uncertainties With Design Thinking: The 7 Uncertainty Index

Part 1: The Challenge and Our North Star The Challenge Every now and then, we see designers wasting their time creating UI flow diagrams inside slide decks and whiteboard tools to show UX/UI design to executives or senior management. Designers are also at times found giving walkthroughs of their design files to every member on their team, then to all product managers, then to all developers, then to all the people who missed those calls, and it goes on and on until the end of time. When we have designers working repeatedly on these things, it impacts not just the designers but the whole organization. We want the designers to work on more important things: solving user and product problems. When this starts to happen, the designer’s valuable time and energy are reduced to doing these repetitive tasks. Design Ops to the Rescue One of the key areas of Design Ops is to alleviate problems exactly like this. Our North Star here is to completely eliminate the handover process of design with stakeholders. In an effort to achieve this, we need to bring everyone to the same table and have the same language that everyone speaks and understands, which is what DesignOps achieves. This will have two immediate benefits: Eliminate (reduce) time wasted by designers doing side tasks. Build confidence with stakeholders. Stakeholders feel more comfortable trusting their designers when they can understand their work and process as well. The design department will no longer be seen as a black magic box that no one really knows how it operates. The shared language will help the stakeholders understand how design files are organized and documented, so they can go and find anything whenever they need it without bugging designers. The documentation on design decisions in best cases eliminates the requirement for tedious walkthroughs, one of the biggest benefits of DesignOps. Laying the Foundations As a first step, we set up two keys or legends to identify the state of the design and document the design files. State of Design Very similar to project management statuses, we introduce the states of UX/UI design. The key allows anyone coming into the design file to understand their status. This can be used not only to identify design files as a whole but also the pages, user flows, and individual screens. Our first set of statuses look like this (these can be modified and adapted to any team’s needs, but we have found this to be most productive in our case): ✍️ Working on it Anything that designers are currently working on can be denoted by this status. 🚧 In-progress Things that are not yet finished but also not being actively worked on can be denoted by in-progress status. ✅ Pretty much done This status is important to indicate your progress on work. Statuses like these will build confidence with your stakeholders. 🔸 Please review for approval With this time you are inviting the product manager or other stakeholders to review your UX/UI designs and decisions. 👍 Ready for presentation UX Designs that have been approved by product managers and the internal team will be ready for executive presentation. 🔹 Approved Designs approved by all the stakeholders can be marked with this status. 🔒 No further changes Use this state when a design has been officially locked and you want to hand it off to developers. This will mean that no more changes will be catered to on the design and it is locked until delivery of the project. 🔻 On hold Designs that get deprioritized due to any reason can be marked as on hold. 📦 Archived or legacy Any old or deprecated design can go under the archived or legacy label. 🎆 Magic Lab All the amazing ideas and designs can find their place in the magic lab. These are proposed pieces of design that designers want to showcase or show off but are not part of the main user flow. Documenting Design Taking this a step further, we also set up comment keys. These can be used to document design decisions, clarifications, ideas, concerns, and more as raised by designers and stakeholders during the design process. The comment key we generally suggest to use looks something like this: The status and comment key is part of the Figma File System, a subset of the Figma Design System by mobileLIVE. This can be downloaded free from the Figma community. This is available as ready-to-use components that you can plug in any of your design files and start using them.

Customer expectations are always changing; however, digital has not only accelerated the rate of that change but elevated those expectations. Needless to say, this has caused challenges for business, with BFSIs being particularly hard hit. The Googles, Facebooks, and Amazons of the world have spoiled customers, providing them with seamless experiences, on-demand, wherever and however they want. And now, it’s time Financial Institutions and other BFSIs do the same, and I’ll show you how below. But before you can solve the problem, you need to understand it. The Problem For Banking Customers For banks, credit unions, and insurance brands, and BFSIs in general, the shift of consumer preferences towards digital solutions poses one of the biggest threats to their core modus operandi: in-person customer appointments. And while physical bank visits were not an issue felt by banking customers previously, their perspectives have changed on two significant fronts: Experience over products More customers now prefer that their experience should be better, more efficient, and faster, prioritizing it over the products that they receive, which are pretty vanilla in their construct. Convenience over privacy Customers are also willing to let go of a little bit of privacy in exchange for more convenience, better integration of financial or banking softwares, and faster action for the services they’re choosing. Changes in Customer Behaviour With customers getting so used to getting all of their tasks done instantly and in a few clicks, BFSIs are lagging in adopting such efficiencies in their customer engagement models. As a result of such fundamental changes in customer expectations from the industry, we’re now witnessing alarming statistics in customer acquisition rates as experienced by banks, financial institutions, insurance companies, and BFSIs that are trying to shift their processes to a digital framework: 51% of customers drop off from their onboarding journey with a bank due to the length of the process. 46% of customers leave their applications midway because the user interface is not friendly enough to proceed. 41% of those who start the process digitally never return if they log out or if the sign-up process is too long and requires too much information. In addition to changing customers’ tolerance levels towards their banks, such variables contribute largely in showing BFSIs that they have a lot of catching up to deliver the differentiated experiences that their customers have already become so used to receiving from interacting with other non-financial services. The Industry Perspective on Digital Experiences When we look at financial institutions and BFSIs as a whole, it’s no news that it’s a heavily regulated industry. While that in itself is not a challenge, their use of decades-old practices, processes, and financial softwares is still being followed. Such institutions have never viewed it as a customer journey but rather a journey that happens internally within the bank and involves the customer’s file to move physically from one department to another. In simply trying to make such a process seamless and convert it into a frictionless onboarding journey for the customer, many issues come to the fore. Organizational Challenges Before looking at how financial institutions could begin to address these bottlenecks, we need to consider some of the grave organizational challenges that exist as well: Disconnect at the first touchpoint Whether the customer’s first touchpoint is a website or app, in the case of a digital channel, or to visit the bank and talk to a teller for non-digital channels, this is where most of the disconnect happens. Systems failing to cope up with expectations On a system level, the challenge remains to cope with increasing customer expectations, be it an internal system or a legacy system with the customer. Old and outdated processes The fact also remains that the processes and financial softwares adopted by these institutions are simply too old to convert and involve too many layers in pushing the customer’s application from one place to another. The true picture that this paints for financial institutions is that of struggle: breaking the numerous silos, being unable to implement automation, and using non-modular technology, rather than using modern technologies like banking softwares that offer convenience in accordance with the current needs in the digital world. That being said, one sliver of hope we’ve seen in the last three to four years is that the right technologies have become available to remove nearly all such hurdles. With such technologies at hand, processes like identity verification and document scanning and organization can all be reduced to a matter of a few seconds and done purely digitally rather than taking days and manual interaction with people. This is where successful institutions are now setting themselves apart, and the reason why achieving the optimal customer onboarding experience has become more critical than ever before. How Banks Can Address the Challenges Most banks resorted to addressing the digital shift by taking the same system and flow of process and creating an online facsimile of it. With research showing us that 85% of customers drop off between clicking on an ad to starting their application online, it’s evident that these ways aren’t working. We see such high drop-off rates because the customer onboarding process isn’t being adapted to digital, rather just shifted to it. Even if financial institutions didn’t – or didn’t need to – think about these earlier, certain factors are unique to a digital journey and need to be taken into consideration: Capturing the customer as soon as they come in How can the institution position the journey and capture customer information so that even if the customer drops off, they can be contacted again to help move their application forward? A lot of organizations are rewarding customers to return and complete their journey, an incentive that is doing wonders in the way of new customer acquisitions. Upgrading to new systems Most core banking softwares are quite archaic and need upgrading, and to run a digital workflow, institutions will need new systems rather than relying on the same old financial softwares. Speeding up the process With digital experiences, the pace of action is one of the most critical factors, and the question becomes of how fast banks can get the customer in and through the system and convert them into revenue-generating customers. The 5 Stages of the Customer Journey Digital Onboarding - The 5 Stages of the Customer Journey Understanding that the customer journey cannot remain in the background anymore needs to be prioritized above all else. From an organizational point of view, it can be broken down into five stages: Acquisition of Data Whether customers fill-up the form themselves or their information comes from third-party portals, capturing their documents and organizing them in as little time and clicks as possible is the first stage. Verification Is the customer who they say they are? Depending on the product offered, there are different Know Your Customer (KYC) regulatory requirements. Risk Assessment Once customer information is verified, an automated risk adjudication process is conducted. Payments Are customers paying directly, or are payments integrated with third-party payment providers? Provision of the Service The customers are issued a digital card to add to their Apple or Google wallets to get started with using the service as soon as they sign up. Interestingly, from the first to the last stage, this entire journey can be 100% automated, without human intervention, and in most cases done almost instantaneously. The experience needs to be easy, fast, and frictionless. In 5-minutes, a customer can and should be able to activate their account, with a digital card added to their device, all without ever having to set foot into a branch. Takeaway Every organization hoping to enter the digital era needs to break from or evolve their traditional processes, and this, although harder, is especially important for financial institutions. The question is, how to create a solution that balances customer expectations and business objections; and it will be those who can most effectively achieve that, who will be the most successful in the future.

While my career choices might make me appear biased, I truly believe that few practices will carry as much importance in the future as Service Design. In truth, service design isn’t new. However, as our world moves towards all things digital and finds that transition accelerated by historic and uncontrollable forces – like the pandemic – there has been a keener interest in what exactly service design has to offer. Much like the world had to evolve and transition to digital quite rapidly, so too did the practice of service design adapt and evolve to help architect and orchestrate that transition, or at least, many of the success stories. And seeing how at the heart of service design is incorporating a variety of perspectives, I’ve included a few of my peers’, taken from a virtual talk we shared, to show how service design can improve ever-evolving digital experiences by evolving alongside them. Changes in Service Design An Internal Perspective Service design is all about going out into the world and observing how people interact with services, gathering data and plotting the best course forward. And to address “the elephant in the room,” as Patrick Bach, Director of Service Design at CIBC, put it, research and the way it is conducted has been forced to change significantly. Ethnographic interviews are a great example, notes Patrick, something he and his team would historically conduct in-person, and in some cases even fly across the country for, have all had to shift to virtual. He admits that while many elements do translate well to a Zoom call, getting to the heart of research questions isn’t without its challenges. Virtual poses many obstacles, especially to participatory and activity-based research, while the lack of a traditional conference room setting has forced teams to reimagine how they collaborate and co-create. “One of the ways we’ve adapted is around how we communicate. So it used to be these very physical walkthroughs; we would print things over large sheets of paper and get everyone to walk around, annotate, and reflect. In the virtual world, we’ve been embracing the format of video, so instead of creating a journey map or service blueprint, we’ve been converting those things into something more portable, repeatable, and reusable.” I couldn’t agree more with Patrick, and will come back to this point later. An External Perspective Video does allow for many opportunities for collaboration and connection; however, not everyone is so quick to embrace it. “Let’s take observational research, for example,” says Judy Mellet, Director of Service Design & Strategy at Telus Digital. “We are on a project where we try to observe what happens in an installation process in the home where a customer might be comfortable in some ways letting you into the house and observe them and they see you as perhaps somebody that may be able to support them through that process. They are less wanting to be observed over video, and it’s just a dynamic; they feel like they’re being watched.” Service design beckons professionals to dig deeper for ways to improve, revamp, and evolve how specific processes or activities are carried out. It proposes new and reimagined ways of achieving the same, if not better, results – and it appears organizations and enterprises are ready to embrace. Judy goes on to remark that evidence of this can be seen in how the nature of requests from businesses of service design are evolving. Rather than asking to fix one specific problem, the demands are more transformational, reimagining entire concepts or approaches. And to me, this is the real proof of its value – when applied to transformational initiatives. Growing Appeal of Human-Centred Design An interesting observation is that the pandemic pushed customers and stakeholders into becoming the end-users of a complex and broken system. Suddenly, everyone knew what it was like to be on the wrong end of a bad digital experience. So how do we fix it? The answer is human-centred design, and by putting it at the centre of all transformation projects, we’ll best be able to craft an experience that justifies the systemic journeys and buy-in processes that are becoming the norm of digital life. This has seen the demand for service design increase and, to echo Judy, so too have the project sizes, as organizations realize, in some cases the hard way, that their digital experiences simply weren’t good enough. Communication & Collaboration Adding to Patrick’s point earlier, professionals are now more driven to develop new digital tools to overcome their biggest problems, which couldn’t be more evident than in collaboration and communication. Virtual tools now complement physical walkthroughs otherwise conducted in more tangible ways. For instance, where experience mapping was previously being done on physical walls with location and size limitations, virtual walls are now being used that are more conducive to collaborative research and come with fewer physical restrictions. This is not to say that such virtual activities weren’t in play before the pandemic hit; rather, it’s their prevalence and adoption that have increased. Not only does everyone have to have access to them now, but being a part of such an environment has led to better and more efficient ways for everyone to play their part within an organization. Industry Impact & Opportunities Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals The role that service design can play in healthcare is just now being paid its due attention because workers are faced with challenges and questions unlike ever before. A new scale of awareness is now observed, with individuals partaking in conversations like which vaccines they can get, where they can get them from, and where they currently stand in the process. Such a level of individual engagement has opened up a large window of appreciation for service design principles and how they can be applied to solve all such concerns. Telecommunications & Banking Where driving sales and engagement with customers has always been a priority, sectors like banking and telecommunications were severely impacted as a result of the pandemic. Powerful, yes, but these industries driven by sales and customer engagement saw a massive disruption in their processes. Now, as offices and retail are reopening, we are seeing these industries finding some resistance in going back to the old ways and much value in staying on the course forced upon them. It appears much of the “quick patchwork” intended to tie us over is being revisited, refined, and will likely make an appearance (or at least some facsimile) in whatever the “new normal” turns out to be. Real Estate Another industry is real estate, where historically, physically visiting a property site was vital. Beyond virtual tools and walkthrough technologies, service design thinkers created completely new ways to translate physical interactions into immersive virtual journeys that took the customers from point A to point B via a seamless digital process. Why Service Design? It’s Adaptable & Malleable What makes service design so relevant and effective in today’s global landscape is its multifaceted nature. There are numerous service design methods, principles, and applications that can adapt to any given situation to the degree with which it is required. Rather than offering a single solution to a specific problem, service design takes up a problem-fit approach to really tackle challenges as they come along. It Breeds Innovation & Human-Connection Being applicable to a range of different projects makes service design a huge facilitator for innovation. It drives out-of-the-box thinking because it urges users to think along bigger lines for better solutions. And the value of service design is not going to fade away when and if we “go back to normal.” The new norm will be a different one, and service design has the potential to assist organizations with rethinking the best ways to design this new reality, keeping the people who will be living it at the forefront. Practically speaking, our own service design team comes in at the start of engagements, rethinking how the business is currently serving customers and the quality of the experiences being offered. It’s imperative to translate the context of the customer in such situations, but transferring the same level of empathy across all user testing channels is challenging. In my opinion, the onus is on service designers to augment themselves throughout the end-to-end process so that they can reimagine these experiences and prioritize human-centrism every step of the way. Take Away While I know I am not alone in this opinion, I’m doubtful we’ll ever go back to the way things used to be. Already, hybrid work models are being implemented, businesses are shifting and transforming to digital at an accelerated speed, and the demand for better digital experiences is increasing at an exponential rate. And it’s those reasons why service design is so largely at play now across the globe. It’s also why service design will continue to support the efforts of future-focused businesses in not only improving their digital experiences, but crafting them (and their organizations) in such a way that the interest and journey of all parties involved are best served.

Pursuit of optimal customer experience is driving digital transformation initiatives; with technology allowing customers to be in direct control of their interactions with businesses. From the ease of multi-channel digital connectivity to immediacy in service, the customers are demanding seamless and hyper-personalized experiences that embody simplicity, Do-it-Yourself, and social. Hyperconnectivity is growing at an unprecedented pace and there is a global urgency in embracing “digital-first” strategies. Benefits already being witnessed from digital transformation efforts include: increased market share by 41%, increased customer engagement in digital channels by 37%, more positive employee morale by 37%, greater web and mobile engagement by 32%, and increased customer revenue by 30%. However, growth in this highly competitive digital economy must be lead with a clear vision, in a collaborative culture of highly motivated departments, fueled with disruptive innovations in both business models and offerings. Ultimately, all efforts narrowing down into two strategic streams: Customer Value and Operational Agility In this paper, my colleagues and I share how customer experience is driving digital transformation initiatives. What are the key challenges and how they can be addressed to attract, win, and retain customers in this ever-increasing digital economy.

Let’s play a game. How many brands do you think I experience in a typical day? Shall we find out? It’s 6:55 AM and I’m awoken by the sounds of Lovely Day, by Bill Withers. A smile inevitably crosses my face as the tempo rises, that is, until I hear my girlfriend yell, “OK Google, STOP!” She obviously is not a morning person. Still half asleep, I wander into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee and pour myself a bowl of cereal. As the aroma of the coffee diffuses throughout the house, it peaks the interest of my other half, who joins me for a cup. She mentions that the hardware store is having a sale on the bathroom tiles we liked and maybe “we” should pick some up after work. I tell her I’d be happy to as long as she promises to be ready by 7 PM for the show tonight. She agrees; I’m skeptical. After a long day of reviewing and editing content, making travel arrangements for a conference, and too much time with the accountant, I eventually make my way home. That is, only after a series of text messages caused my trip to the hardware store to also include the pharmacy, grocers, and courier. No matter, for when I pull in I get a little excited to see my girlfriends car in the drive and think she may, in fact, be ready. So you can imagine my disappointment when I saw her on the couch looking particularly comfy in a pair of sweats, a glass of wine in hand. I ask her about the tickets, putting a box of new bathroom tiles in front of her. She responds by handing me a beer and a book on bathroom renovations. Confused, and likely looking it, she then said, “The show is next week, but I picked up some grout, and we can get started on the bathroom tiles tonight ” Oh, a day in the life… So, how many did you count? There’s at least 15, but it probably wasn’t easy. However, if I were to put the words ”Kellogg’s,” “Samsung,” “Toyota,” “Home Depot,” and “Visa” in that story, it may become a bit more evident how often we experience brands, at least, the successful ones. That is because the successful ones lend themselves to our lives, adding value while not drawing attention to itself. This, in essence, is what the customer experience (CX) is all about, and is something that the most reputable brands in the country have perfected. And why shouldn’t they? After all, according to Gartner, CX is the new marketing battlefront, and in two years’ time, 81% of companies expect to be competing mostly or completely on the basis of the digital experience their customers get. This made me curious, so I decided to dive deep and compiled a list of 22 inspiring customer experience quotes and statements from 28 of the top brands in Canada by “sector” as reported by Leger. Enjoy! “It’s a world of multiple screens, smart displays, with tons of low-cost computing, with big sensors built into devices. At Google, we ask how to bring together something seamless and beautiful and intuitive across all these screens.” —Sundar Pichai, CEO, Google “The customer changes every day, so we need to remain keenly interested in the customer and evolve to remain relevant.” —Mike Motz, President, Shoppers Drug Mart “Our customers are at the heart of our company and our growth strategy. Understanding our customer better means we can create a more consistent experience and offer products, services and promotions that meet the specific and every day needs of our customers and create an incredible competitive advantage.” —Stephen Wetmore, President and CEO, Canadian Tire Corporation “If you see the name Sony on any product, content, or service, it symbolizes our promise to move you emotionally. Our products are designed to have a personal and individualized place in all of your lives.” —Kaz Hirai, President and CEO, Sony “This project (Bear Naked) was born out of a consumer need like most good innovation should be. The consumer need that we identified was what we call a ‘desire for taste exploration.” —Chris Tutor, VP of Strategy, Kellogg “Most people try to solve for what their internal problems are, or a pre-determined view of what they think the experience should be. We want to listen to our customers first, they tell us how they’d like to shop with us, and how they’d like to see us presented to them, and make those changes appropriately.” —Matt Carey, EVP CIO, The Home Depot “The way our customers operate their businesses and live their lives in today’s interactive digital world requires a shift to a hyper-personalized experience. Customers expect us to know them as individuals and provide them with access to more information and visibility. In turn, we have to empower them to take control. This focus has translated into a shift for FedEx in terms of how we approach our business and communicate to our customers. ” —Laurie Tucker, SVP of Corporate Marketing, FedEx “Our Vision at Visa, to be the best way to pay and be paid for everyone, everywhere, prioritizes consumer behaviour and drives every product innovation.” —Derek Colfer, Head of Technology & Digital Innovation, Visa Canada “We knew it was time to reimagine the core bookstore experience. As people and consumers, we are evolving. There are some people who will long for the old-fashioned dusty bookstore, but most people don’t. In the 21st century, people are “phygital”—that is, they do some things digital and some things physical.” —Heather Reisman, CEO & Chief Book Lover, Indigo Books “It is our strategic plan to improve every consumer touchpoint, beginning with the look and feel of the restaurant. Our new Fresh Forward design brings to life what we have always had—healthy, fresh vegetables. We are integrating new technology to make us more accessible to the consumer and leveraging all of this into a new image.” —Suzanne Greco, CEO, Subway “Through these channels, we can provide more details about the characters, unveil behind-the-scenes footage, create interactive discussions with our fans and, ultimately, engage with them to drive our collective imagination further down the road on its never-ending journey. Customer loyalty can only be achieved through sustained, entertaining, and engaging interactions with our fans.” —Patrick Corneau, VP of Sales and Marketing, Cirque du Soleil “I have learned, based on my experience, that everything is dominated by the market. So whenever we are struck by any obstacles or difficulties, I always say to myself: ‘Listen to the market, listen to the voice of the customer.’ That’s the fundamental essence of marketing. Always, we have to come back to the market, back to the customer. That is the Toyota way. So, whenever we’re stuck, we always go back to the basics. Because branding, image, or Lovemarks are determined by the customers, not us. We really cannot determine anything. The customer does that. That is the essence.” —Yoshio Ishizaka, Former President and Current Advisor, Toyota Motor Corporation “I often remind my team to keep our consumer purpose at the center of everything that we do. To me, our purpose centers on caring for people around the world by anticipating their needs, creating solutions and experiences that help them and those they care for live healthy, vibrant lives.” —Josh Ghaim, Ph.D, CTO, Johnson & Johnson “It is through digital transformation, coupled with our WestJetters’ caring touch, that we will be able to provide the ultimate guest-centric service.” —Gregg Saretsky, President and CEO, WestJet “…while the world is focusing on new and shiny disruptive technologies, we sometimes forget about the customer experience. If we start with the healthcare consumer in mind, the gaps in their experience, how it can be improved, and what the key problem statements are, only then will we be able to see how and which technologies are here to enable a transformation.” —Eugene Borukhovich, Global Head of Digital Health Incubation and Innovation, Bayer “Engaging and marketing to our customers in new ways is key to building shopper loyalty and encouraging repeat visits, and it is the foundation of our retail brand strategy.” —Pat Lizotte, Director of Marketing Strategies, Petro-Canada “In a culture where usage is the primary goal, the primary focus is on ensuring customers are unblocked and the product is constantly being simplified to make it easier and easier to use. This focus is so central to the work we do that it takes priority over adding new features.” —Brad Anderson, Corporate VP Enterprise Mobility & Security, Microsoft “There’s no one-size-fits-all audience.” —Magen Hanrahan, VP of Media and Marketing Services, Kraft Heinz Company “This new model will be powered by data, analytics and audience insights, providing creative solutions as we continue to connect with new generations of consumers.” —Yin Rani, VP of Integrated Marketing, Campbell Soup Company “I must say that if you’ve got good customer insight it’s an excellent starting point. However, I think it is a mixture of getting customer insight, understanding where you currently stand with certain metrics, and what you need to do to build on these metrics. All these put together contribute to building a customer culture within any business.” —Carol Sheppard, Customer Experience Research Manager, Molson Coors “The client experience is everything, end-to-end, from the point that you first establish interest and awareness and are sharing initial thoughts, to the long-term, sustained relationship where you are coming back and back because you want more and more services from the person offering it.” —Diana O’Brien, Global CMO, Deloitte “All that insight (data and analytics) allows us to understand the final clients of our clients a little better,” —Jérémiah Bousquet, Digital Transformation Leader, Airbus It is our hope that these quotes/statements from some of the brightest minds, behind some of the most prolific brands, will inspire you in your journey to create the most memorable customer experiences. Do you have any inspiring customer experience quotes? We’d love to hear it.

Brandy, a Generation-Z consumer, comes across an Instagram “like” by her friend for a featured dress. She likes the garment and is interested in purchasing it in a different colour. She decides to go online and compare prices, and while browsing, she is prompted to download the retailers’ app, which would result in a 10% discount off her first purchase. However, after comparing prices, downloading the app, and moving the dress into her “shopping cart,” she abandons her purchase thinking the dress isn’t the one for her.Retailer App ExperienceA few days later, Brandy finds herself visiting the local mall in search of a new outfit for the Easter weekend. As she passes by the store location of the same retailer chain, she receives a notification on her smartphone offering her a “no obligation” discount subject to her visiting in-store to play an Easter Egg Hunt.using augmented reality she finds the Easter egg in store to earn the discountExcited to get in the Easter spirit and play the egg hunt in store, the retailers’ app on her smartphone intuitively prompts her to activate the “AR Buddy” mode so that she can begin the game, just as she would if she were playing Pokémon Go.As she browses the store through the lens of her smartphone, she excitingly finds and “cracks open” a virtual Easter egg that entitles her to an instant rebate of $20 towards a purchase within the next three days. At the same time, she also notices the blinking icon of the retailer’s online cart, which still has the dress she selected a few days earlier. While on the fence before, with the added discount she thinks that buying the dress now makes for a great deal that is difficult to pass up.virtual Easter eggHaving placed the order, she is then given the opportunity to like the same dress on Instagram, entitling her to an additional $10 off her next purchase. Thrilled with the bonus promotion, she earmarks another dress she has come across while searching the store for the Easter egg, thinking to herself, “I’ll get this dress next time with the extra discount.”PRO-Gamification And that is how Personalized-Retail-Omnichannel Gamification (PRO-Gamification) works. From the moment Brandy logged into the app, the retailer’s back-end services platform started tracking her shopping experience. The social network API, merchandising catalogue, analytics engine, and Business Intelligence services all worked in tandem to track her clickstream, cart abandonment, and in turn, were able to predict Next Best Actions (NBAs). The fact that she compared prices hinted at her sensitivity to product pricing, and as something the analytics engine could hone in on, it predicted a higher statistical likelihood that if offered a discount or promotion, she would convert.When Brandy passed by the retailer’s brick-and-mortar store, it gave the retailer an ideal opportunity to get her attention. Beacons placed at the store entrance helped the mobile app sense her proximity and signalled the retailer’s back-end services to deliver a targeted promotion as a push notification. Given the season, however, this was no ordinary promotion, which immediately caught Brandy’s attention. The egg hunt provided the perfect reward mechanism to convert her into a paying customer. The cart history with the dress she had selected earlier helped “firm up” the purchase by avoiding manual searches online or the need to ask a sales associate for help.Furthermore, beacons located strategically throughout the store helped her “find” her Easter egg in proximity to items she would likely prefer to buy – something determined by the analytics engine based on her prior search. Beacons also enabled the mobile app in helping her locate and earmark the new dress in the online catalogue. In fact, now she is almost tempted to purchase the other dress directly from the store’s Point-of-Sale (POS) as she can take advantage of the extra $10 promotion because it is her next purchase anyway.Brandy’s entire journey, from searching online, purchasing, and sharing her positive experience on social media not only triggered “impulse buys” in real-time, but it also turned her from a prospect into a repeat customer and brand advocate. And now that the retailer has established predictable behaviour markers, they can personalize her future shopping experiences.Quick links to key sections Gamification, Past and Present Gamification as a Unified Marketing Strategy Towards an “Everything Digital” Approach Identifying Customers Individually to Personalize Content Understanding Customer Sentiment in Omnichannel Melding Art and Technology to Create Memorable Experiences Bringing Experiences to Life via Storytelling The Value of PRO-Gamification in Retail Gamification, Past and Present Gamification in retail is not a novel concept; however, with consumers being more connected than ever before, the notion is quickly becoming an imperative. With the rapid increase in digital connections leading to increased speed and convenience across all aspects of life, the question now raised is how and where to deploy resources for digital initiatives effectively and efficiently and how to apply them towards gamification. Digital transformation itself has evolved into a priority stack comprising the Internet of Things (IoT), Design Thinking, and Artificial Intelligence, and retailers need to act accordingly.Simply put, gamification is the use of elements of play and reward to affect and influence user behaviour; and with this evolved stack, it is quickly becoming the new retail battleground to win and grow customer base.So why does it work? Well, at its most basic level, it can trigger positive emotions, mainly those associated with play and reward. And if you have followed our past article on customer experience, you know these emotions are fundamental in capturing user’s attention and commitment to a purchase transaction.Take me back to quick links Gamification as a Unified Marketing Strategy Although the gamification of shopping experiences is not yet mainstream in the retail paradigm, it can be applied towards any product or service, regardless of the stage in the customer journey. Not only that, but the process can be easily adjusted, regardless of requirements, and can be scaled to almost any budget as part of a strategy to lead potential customers towards the desired goal along their journey.At its core, the appeal of gamification is to provide the users with a sense of control. Similar to a game where participants get a reward – a new character or power-up for example – for completing a level, gamification taps into our brains inherent reward mechanism, thus helping to reinforce a specific habit or behaviour.For putting together a bundle of products or services, this technique has proven hugely successful.The modern consumer is short on time, especially when it comes to processing the volume of content required to select and purchase the right collection of products or services. By turning that identification into a gamified experience, the natural attention of the user is enhanced. This method also drives higher customer engagement and increased brand loyalty through the implementation of such customer-curated collections. This also has a positive impact when you are rewarding your customers with loyalty points for activities – such as store visits, product videos watched, products reviewed, or purchases made – and provides far more information on consumer habits and the shopping cycle across multiple channels, which can, in turn, drive future sales.According to a set of recent surveys on mobile POS and retail gamification, retailers plan to use enhanced gamification features, incentives, and loyalty program tactics in their mobile strategies. Furthermore, some studies suggest that a substantial number of retailers plan to identify customers when they walk in the store, and that customer experience and engagement are one of their top customer relationship management priorities. However, such undertaking cannot be effective or profitable without carefully implementing a gamification framework with the following key points in mind:Moving towards an “Everything Digital” Approach Identifying Customers Individually to Personalize Content Understanding Customer Sentiment in Omnichannel Melding Art and Technology to Create Memorable Experiences Bringing Experiences to Life via Storytelling Take me back to quick links Towards an “Everything Digital” Approach New ways to interact over digital channels give you new opportunities to engage with customers at an unprecedented level. For example, there was once only the need for call centres to handle remote purchases and support, but with the advent of smartphones, apps can now serve customers directly. This has also allowed for a significant shift in customer experience and expectations due to new devices like wearables, voice-based assistants, and even augmented and virtual realities. It is essential to appreciate that in a digital transformation (and, for that matter digital business) all contexts arising from functions, processes and interactions are in fact interconnected and should be treated thusly.Customers now expect interactive experiences on these new devices rather than relying on conventional methods of accessing content. With the help of big data analytical capabilities, retailers can turn enormous structured and unstructured data into actionable customer insights. “Big data” with the right analytics can enable retailers to develop enriched 360°customer profiles, establish customer-centric KPIs, and develop more targeted offers.Retail Presence in the Digital Domain Specificity of interactgital domainion is extremely important within digital experiences. For example, studies have found that the app conversion funnel is wider at every point of contact than conventional and mobile web. In particular, app users were found to browse four times as many products than those on mobile web; indicating that app users make for more loyal and dedicated customers. From that larger base, customers are almost twice as likely to add items to their basket in an app than in a mobile browser.Applications and targeted interactions not only convert a higher percentage of your customers, but they also bring in more revenue per transaction. Controlling this environment can allow you to engage customers through verbal responses, videos, images, reviews tailored to personalized elements such as buying history and browsing behaviour within mobile apps, on social media, as well as in direct interaction with you. In fact, each channel can yield multiple touch-points to track individual customer engagement and sentiment as shown below:browsing behaviour within mobile appsIn-APP Operation in Mobile/Web APP are Functionalities Used, In-Cart Abandons, Flows Completed, Daily/Monthly Activity and in Conversational Interfaces are Views/Verbal Queries, Emotions Exhibited, Topics Queried, Effort and Interest. Social Media Sentiment in Numerical Metrics are Followers and Fans, Number of Mentions, Inbound Links, Blog Subscribers, Retweets, Social Shares and in Engagement Metrics are Positive Sentiment, Negative Sentiment. Direct Communication in Brick-and-Mortar are In-Store Visits, In-Store Purchases, Web-Cart Conversions, Tie-ln with Campaigns, Location Data and in Call Centres/Support are Tickets Responded, Completed Survey. On top of that, IoT has made it possible for all connected devices and touchpoints to affect the customers daily life. It integrates data gathering sources, assembling data strategy and analytics for better-informed decisions; designing products, experiences, and businesses with a focused human-centred approach, all while identifying patterns and providing personalized experiences. Web and mobile are no longer the most significant source of data generation; rather, it is being generated by the apps we use and by the way we interact with smart devices including wearables, cars, cameras, and routers to name a few. According to recent studies digital businesses will be leveraging IoT for in-store experience in addition to mobile and web channels with less than 20 billion connected devices today to 30 billion in 2020 to 80 billion in 2025.Leveraging Mobile App-Centric Touchpoints According to a recent survey, mobile touchpoints remain relevant as the gap between, consuming analytics content on a desktop computer versus a mobile device, has all but vanished. This diminishing gap is even more apparent between smartphones and tablets. Traditional means of data delivery and presentation cannot be taken for granted. Instead, innovation is necessary for finding new ways to harness strategic data assets with cutting-edge tools for faster and better-informed decisions.Digital transformation does not change the value proposition for mobile innovation, in what I call the “Triple-A” of mobile analytics: Anywhere, Anyplace, Anytime. Via app Software Development Kits and Application Programming Interface (APIs), any data, whether structured or unstructured, big data or small data, on-premise or in the cloud, can be captured.Mobile App-Centric TouchpointsThe digital economy demands a mobile-first approach to maintain the strategic value in order to turn insights into action.Take me back to quick links Identifying Customers Individually to Personalize Content Personalization is a growing trend that enhances the customer experience, and its core is the ability to identify and remember the customer uniquely. This allows retailers to make interactions more accessible and more intuitive, as well as target the customer based on their specific behaviours. You must analyze and realize what the customer wants most – convenience.Limitations of Third-Party Analytics Tools Popular analytics tools (such as Google Analytics) help identify user behaviour through cookie-based tracking. However, one should note that cookies are site-specific, and therefore subdomain or cross-domain tracking needs additional effort. Since cookies are not shared cross-domains, every interaction of a single user across different devices is recorded as activities by unique users in the absence of user identification. For instance, a visitor researching a product on your website decides to subscribe to your newsletter a week later and purchases a product a month after that. All of these interactions count as the activities of three different users. Therefore, third-party analytic frameworks end up being completely ineffective in identifying unique customers who choose to use multiple devices or browsers across visits to a site.Generating Individually Identifiable Analytics Integrations between identity management solutions and Data Management Platforms (DMPs) or automation tools make it possible to link existing, anonymous consumer data to known user records once a user accesses a site via a registered session on-site. Using probabilistic models, the user’s identity data will be passed directly from the identity management platform to the DMP and attributed to the correct user based on the site ID match – even across devices and domains. A User-ID in Google Analytics is a unique set of alphanumeric characters that is assigned to a user to identify him/her across multiple devices uniquely.Considering the previous scenario after implementing User-ID verification, and the same visitor performing the same actions can now be recognized as a single unique user:User-ID makes it possible to implement cross-device tracking because it associates sessions across multiple devices to a single user instead of multiple unique users By setting up User-ID, you can gain access to cross-device reports in Google Analytics User-ID will help you understand the relationship between multiple devices and engagement between sessions, which is essential when developing new marketing campaigns and their gamification To track users across multiple devices, you need to assign custom User-IDs to site visitors by changing in the analytics tracking source code. However, you would also need to add code that would pull any session-specific (login) IDs from the authentication system and send to Google Analytics as the User-ID. Finally, to view and analyze data from sessions in which a User-ID is detected, new views can be created showing cross-device reports.track users across multiple devicesThese reports can provide much-needed insight into user engagement on multiple devices with multiple sessions. They can also be considered as a breakdown of the activities users participate in during each of their sessions, which can further enhance game and level design for retail experiences.Take me back to quick links Understanding Customer Sentiment in Omnichannel The interdependencies of all the channels available must be understood thoroughly because customers want consistency across channels. For instance, customers want to continue their shopping experience where they had left off whenever they switch between channels. In the retail scenario, brick-and-mortar stores are associated more with customer service. This face to face advantage obviously shifts when specialized cross-channel journeys are considered, such as searching online but purchasing in-store, and vice-versa. For instance, you may find that limited sales are occurring via social channels and wrongly conclude them as ineffective. But, when viewing the entire journey across channels, you may discover that social channels are in fact a critical influencer of sales.The result of appreciating such consumer behaviours have a profound impact on marketing strategies, especially when the customer is no longer viewed within a single channel. Rather, each channel must be considered a driver for conversion in a different channel, and loyalty or fulfillment in yet another – all as a part of an omnichannel (interdependent) journey.Multi Channel Vs Single ChannelThis creates a clear, single view of the consumer, which will enable you to interact across all available channels. Taking advantage of better customer information, delivering consistent quality of service, and personalizing the customer experience, you can evolve your customer-centric business plan-of-action and enable all your channels.Analytics for Decision Support The most prevalent method of data storage for business is in silos across a variety of new and legacy systems. This lack of consolidation makes gleaning meaningful and timely insights difficult, if not impossible. Moreover, the analytical approach used by most companies is channel-specific, hindering them from getting a complete picture of the end-to-end customer journey. Remember, consumers are constantly producing data about their likes and dislikes, channel preferences, product choices and more; and to capture it, you must be prepared to glean data from website visits, email opens, social interactions, forms completed, purchases and so much more.Choosing to view this data in channel-specific silos can be misleading. To reach customers with a level of relevance that grows conversions and loyalty, you must first understand your customers. Advanced analytics, though at the heart of this approach, is more than just a new name for business intelligence. With advanced data architectures, you can now store new types of data, retain that data longer, and join diverse datasets together to gain new insights, not only to describe and summarize results but also to create possible futures based on-time-sensitive decisions and to predict likely outcomes.Advanced analyticsDescriptive Analytics are used when Summarizing Results and tool used Data Aggregation and Data Mining. Predictive Analytics are used when Making Educated Guesses and tool used Statistical Modelling and Simulation Techniques. Prescriptive Analytics are used when Making Time-Sensitive Decisions and tool used Heuristic Models and Optimization Models Insights gained from big data analytics, improve the customer experience at every touchpoint through high-performance services, fast feedback and customized offerings. Today’s advanced big data analytics can allow you to unlock new insights in real-time, enabling you to proactively offer products and services to your customers at the exact time they are most likely to subscribe, buy, or respond. This will lead to a proactive retention approach through analyzing mobile/web interaction, social media sentiment as well as direct communication based on combining customer churn prediction and marketing action optimization.You can go beyond “actionable customer analytics” to automatically determine what marketing action should be taken for each at-risk customer to achieve the maximum degree of retention possible – and create a customer experience that is unparalleled in the industry.The Role of Machine Learning in Analyzing Customer Behaviour Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligenceare extremely useful in deciphering the data captured from each customer interaction and can be used to predict the likely outcome of each event several steps down the line. For example, outcomes may be customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction concerning a product sale or call centre incident. Based on the sum of these calculations for the customer, or the customer segment, the system will determine and recommend the highest probability actions to take for marketing, sales, or support scenarios.Machine Learning in Analyzing Customer BehaviourOne of the main applications of machine learning – to drive customer engagement – is in market segmentation. In the absence of labelled real-time data, a subset of these techniques (called unsupervised learning) is very useful in advertising, implementing strategies for customer engagement and so on. By intimately understanding the intricacies of measuring and analyzing the customer experience throughout the journey, you can apply advanced diagnostic, predictive, and