Your immediate assumption when reading an article about customer experience may be that you are going to hear the stories of Southwest Airlines, Disney, Starbucks, Zappos, Apple or Nordstrom once again. It seems we are becoming immune to hearing these stories, as they are so well known and incredible that there isn't much more we can learn from them. It’s true - they are exceptional and they have set a high bar for what delivering a world class customer experience means.
I want to suggest we go to the next level in customer experience. One that is as dependent on customers delivering the experience as it is on them participating and receiving the experience. I like to call it the "collaborative customer experience," following on the heels of both collaborative consumption and the collaborative economy. These companies are moving into existing industries and changing the landscape, achieving degrees of loyalty that were once seemingly unattainable. They treat their approach to building a unique customer experience holistically, as part of a broader ecosystem, one enabled by co-creation, collaboration and technology.
Introducing the new stalwarts of experience building: Airbnb, Uber, Buzzcar, Birchbox, and Dollar Shave Club as well as older and more powerful brands such as the NFL.
With $250 million, Airbnb founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia built a fanatical global community with millions of people around the world using its site, apps, recommendations and referrals to find homes, condos, apartments or a spare room while traveling around the globe. In 2013, more than 10 million guests stayed at an Airbnb rental. More importantly, the experience before, during and after the stay is what the conversation is all about. The rankings and ratings are a two-way dialog and renters are as concerned about their guests experience as are guests turning around and providing feedback to the broader community. Renters respond to the community, the community rates the renters and Airbnb continues to facilitate and innovate to make the experience better for everyone. Features such as maid services, travel planning services and the bigger, bolder idea of re-imagining the entire customer journey just further builds on the collaborative customer experience notion…which is why its pending IPO is alluring to many.
Similarly, Birchbox continues to lead the pack in the fast-growing subscription membership market. While many flower, coffee and beer-of-the-month clubs have fizzled, Birchbox has survived and thrived, growing to 800,000 subscribers (double the total last year) and over $125 million in revenue since its inception in 2010. The customer experience they have carefully crafted has changed the beauty market and turned passive beauty buyers into active participants in the latest beauty trends. Users fill out a personalized profile, provide product reviews, add favorites and earn points toward purchases through a loyalty program that encourages members to engage further. Brand fanatics blog, tweet and take photos of their boxes and favorite products to post on their own social networks, which Birchbox then uses as a recap on their own site. Their blog goes beyond beauty tips and tricks to include information about books, celebrity gossip, yoga and more. Both the Birchbox site and app are full of product information and tips, including tutorials, interviews, and videos. And it doesn't stop there. Plans are underway to open their first retail location in Manhattan. In keeping with an engaging experience, technology will play a large role with touch screens throughout the store. Customers will be able to answer questions about themselves, pull up product recommendations and read customer reviews.
The $10B NFL has an aggressive goal of growing to $27B by 2027. It will happen because of its relentless focus on bringing the customer into the larger franchise and the customer, more importantly, bringing the NFL into their day-to-day lives. This is a brand that employs a full on customer collaboration and engagement strategy like no other brand out there today—sorry, Apple. From Fantasy Football, to its recent draft and Johnny Football, to a potential overseas team, to bringing in a new Thursday night broadcast partner to redefine “must see Thursday night TV,” the NFL may be the best example out there today of building a truly authentic collaborative customer experience that is boundary-free.
What do all of these companies have in common? They have tapped into an unmet consumer need and successfully translated it into an experience that is carefully managed and measured – in turn, becoming the next generation of great customer experience stories. In order to keep up with this next generation, companies must embrace the idea of collaboration and find ways to mitigate the potential risk of someone new coming in and changing their industry. It happens seemingly overnight, so finding ways to fuel collaboration is key. This may require a shift in mindset and business model to be more adaptive and responsive to customer needs.
At the end of the day, when a brand offers an experience that customers can make their own and is woven into your daily life, you have a win-win for all parties involved.
