SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE April 18, 2012)–Authors Jeofrey Bean and Sean Van Tyne went behind the scenes to discover the true drivers of Apple’s success go well beyond the sales of the iPhone, iPad tablet and Apple TV. Bean and Van Tyne detail their findings about Apple, the world’s most valuable company, and other successful companies in their new book, The Customer Experience Revolution – How Companies Like Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks Have Changed Business Forever, published by Brigantine Media.

Bean and Van Tyne’s insightful stories, based on live interviews and in-depth research, reveal why and how flourishing large and small companies outpace their competition through successful adoption of customer experience principles.

This new book details the critical management decisions and best practices that take place at companies dubbed “experience makers,” including industry leaders such as Apple, Amazon, Starbucks, BMW’s Mini Cooper, Netflix, Square, and LPL Financial. These experience makers purposely determine and deliver extraordinary customer experiences that are profitable and hard to duplicate, prospering despite economic downturns and competitive threats. “Delivering extraordinary customer experiences is becoming more and more important,” according to J.D. Power & Associates. “We know from the data that people will pay for it.”

According to Larry Tesler, a former Apple and Amazon executive alongside Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos, “Companies that delight their customers outperform their peers. This book tells us why and how they do it in industries as diverse as retailing, smartphone, food service and driver education.”

Authors Bean and Van Tyne launched The Customer Experience Revolution recently with a keynote presentation at the J.D. Power & Associates conference honoring customer experience leaders.

Additionally, World Vision International requested the first seminar based on the book, opening their “Customer Focus” learning week. The international Internet seminar was hosted from Johannesburg, South Africa, with over twelve countries throughout Africa and the Middle East participating.

The Customer Experience Revolution is available from Amazon, including the Kindle version (English), in France, Italy, Germany and the UK, at Barnes & Noble and for Apple computers and iPad®. For volume purchases please contact the publisher, Brigantine Media, at www.cxrevolution.com or 802-751-8802. To schedule a speaking or seminar engagement with the authors, please visit www.delmarresearch.com or call 858-776-6384.

See additional coverage of the new customer experience leadership book The Customer Experience Revolution on the following web sites and in these publications  

•  Business Wire
• The Wall Street Journal
•  Wall Street Journal MarketWatch ( WSJ Market Watch )
•  Bloomberg Business Week
•  Yahoo Finance
•  Bloomberg ( Bloomberg News )
•  World News
•  German Financial News
•  Time Warner Cable News
•  Docstock
•  India Times
•  iPhone World

Within customer experience is the user experience, sometimes referred to as UX.  The user experience is based on a person’s direct interaction with a company’s products or services.  It IS the proof point the promises made by the companies during the customer experience (with messages, people and processes) about what the products or services will do for customers is true or not. 

Since 2007 customers in the wireless phone market, and more specifically the smartphone market, have voted with their dollars and it has not been in favor of Nokia or Blackberry. 

When doing the interviews and research while writing the book The Customer Experience Revolution with Sean Van Tyne, I was focusing on what Steve Jobs and the team at Apple saw prior to 2007 that made it a very good idea to enter the smartphone market.

Before 2007, there were already many successful companies making smartphones, which combine computing, Internet connectivity, and other capabilities into a wireless phone. Before Apple entered the market, these smartphone companies included formidable competitors such as Nokia, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry, Palm, and Motorola. These telecommunication giants leapfrogged each other every three months, constantly adding innovative features and functions.

Most customers were not having a very good experience with smartphone companies, the promises made, processes, and the user experience with smartphones.  As Apple saw it, success in this market wasn’t about the technology, features, the calling plan, or the price.  While all those are important ingredients, Apple’s iPhone delivered exactly what it promised – an extraordinary experience. From the time people heard about the iPhone until they became customers and then enthusiastic advocates, the iPhone offered, by far, the best smartphone experience.

It is no accident that Research in Motion (RIM) and their BlackBerry is in crisis along with Nokia.  From a customer experience standpoint, they were marginalized along with Nokia in 2007.  Research in Motion and Nokia never changed when market leadership changed to require extraordinary customer experiences.  The people at Google understood this.  They are experience makers and compete effectively with Apple’s iPhone.  They get it.

A great customer experience with an extraordinary user experience is not exclusive to high end markets.  The Wall Street Journal noted last Thursday that “Nokia is also losing its dominance in developing countries like India and in the Middle East as consumers increasingly dump their basic Nokia phones for cheap smartphones running Google Inc.’s Android operating system.”  Those cheap smartphones offer a customer and user experience that is now expected throughout the smartphone market and the world. 

I would like to see Nokia turn around.  The competition would be healthy and positive.  I hope that Stephen Elop, appointed CEO of Nokia Corp. in September 2010, with the help of all the people at the company do it. 

However, if Nokia is to turnaround, it will have to include a customer experience and user experience that is at parity with the leaders.  It would be better if they took a careful look at what kind of experiences people where having now and innovate a completely new and extraordinary customer experience.  

Can an experience maker come into your market and change the rules of success? What would you advise the people at Nokia and Blackberry to do regarding customer experience leadership?

Our keynote presentation was the launch of our new book “ The Customer Experience Revolution How Companies like Apple, Amazon, and Starbucks have changed business forever,” published by Brigantine Media. 

We shared our aggregate view of some of the best customer experience companies and the practices that make them better, different, and more valuable than their competition. These companies dominate their industries and change consumers’ lives for the better.  They have a different view of the interaction between customers and companies compared with most other businesses. These “experience makers” know that great branding, products and services, are not enough. They purposely identify and deliver extraordinary customer experiences to their advantage. 

Experience makers are large and small and include Apple, Amazon, Starbucks, BMW’s Mini Cooper, Intuit, Netflix, Square, Skinit, I Drive Safely and LPL Financial

People were very engaged and the book signings and the discussions that followed the keynote presention were fantastic.

Additionally, I presented the first international seminar based on the book to open World Vision International’s “Customer Focus” learning week.  The Internet seminar, or webinar, was hosted from World Vision’s Johannesburg, South Africa office, using WebEx^TM with African and the Middle East offices from over twelve countries participating!  The questions people were asking were great and I really enjoyed the discussion points and helping World Vision to improve their customer focus.

I appreciate the support from so many of you and the opportunity to have launched the book at a great event as well as doing the first international customer experience seminar based on the book. 

If you have read The Customer Experience Revolution, write a review on Amazon and let me know your thoughts and comments about the book and customer experience leadership.,

- Jeof

What may surprise you is that, other than much lower ranked eBay, Amazon is the only one on Temkin’s customer experience list of retailers that is Internet only.  That’s an incredible accomplishment!

While writing the book, based on live interviews and research, we learned that Amazon has three key strategies to determine and create extraordinary customer experiences.  Also, Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s Founder and CEO, and his team, are constantly improving the customer experience.  Instead of innovating products and services based on the existing skill set of the company, Bezos purposefully innovates experiences based on what customers want and how they want to get it.  Then they develop and deliver the experience based on the results.  In 2011 Bezos wrote in a letter to shareholders that “Invention is in our DNA and technology is a fundamental tool we wield to evolve and improve every aspect of the experience we provide our customers.”   

If you were given the challenge of delivering an Internet only customer experience more highly ranked and profitable than other stores with brands and people what would you do? 

Here’s Zaheer’s question -

Defining Contact Strategy: Improving Customer Experience

Hi all,
There seems to be varying definitions available on ‘Contact Strategy’ – some argue it as an essential marketing and brand management strategy whilst others see it as customer management tool – and then there are others that see it as an holistic approach to enhancing customer loyalty, revenue for business and achieving operational efficiencies… however,

-What is your understanding of Contact Strategy?

-How do you define it for your organization?

-What objectives do you aim to achieve?

-How do you measure it?

-Is Contact Strategy part of your overall Customer Experience Strategy? If yes, how do you map it?

I have attached a simple document detailing key components for ‘Contact Strategy’ however, I am sure you will help me achieve more comprehensive understanding of this subject. Looking forward to your feedback.

Thanks in advance!
Zaheer Gilani – Senior Programme Manager – Deutsche Telekom, United Kingdom

Zaheer,
For our book “The Customer Experience Revolution - How Companies like Apple, Netflix, and Starbucks have changed business forever” Sean Van Tyne and I interviewed many great people at genuine “experience companies.” Large or small, these companies were all faced with answering the same question about developing a contact strategy. And that depended upon their definition of customer experience, what their customers wanted in terms of contact experience and their business objectives.

All of the companies we interviewed have a much broader definition of customer experience than most other businesses. The same is true for how they define when the experience actually begins. It begins when people are potential customers, continues as they become customers and through to when they become advocates. And these companies have a positive and disproportionate number of energized advocates compared to their competitors.

Here’s how some of the best in the experience business define cx and ux and it guides them through the process of determining, developing and delivering great experiences, including contact experiences.

Customer Experience ( CX )
All interactions people have with or about a company’s messages, people, processes, products or services from potential customer to customer to advocate.

User Experience ( UX )
When a person directly interacts with a company’s products or services they are having a user experience. It is the proof point that promises made are true.

Make sure to define customer experience and user experience at your organization before you finalize your contact strategy.

I hope this is helpful,
Jeof

All of these companies have a much broader definition of customer experience than most other businesses. The same is true for how they define when the experience actually begins. It begins when people are potential customers, continues as they become customers and through to when they become advocates. And these companies have a positive and disproportionate number of energized advocates compared to their competitors.

Here’s Bean and Van Tyne’s aggregate view of how the best experience companies define customer experience and user experience -

Customer Experience ( CX )
All interactions people have with or about a company’s messages, people, processes, products or services from potential customer to customer to advocate.

User Experience ( UX )
When a person directly interacts with a company’s products or services they are having a user experience. It is the proof point that promises made are true.

How does your company define customer experience and user experience?

The book is about a select group of extraordinary companies that have shown us that great ideas, great products and services are not good enough. Not good enough for their customers, not good enough for their business or our future. www.cxrevolution.com

These exceptional companies include Apple, Amazon, NetFlix, Starbucks, Flip, Intuit and Mini-Cooper. There are also smaller businesses like Skinit, EMN8 and Square. “Delivering extraordinary customer experiences is becoming more and more important. We know from the data that people will pay for it,” according to J.D. Power & Associates. Companies that have adopted these principles are much more profitable than competing companies in the same industries.

Sean and I were fascinated by the people and these companies since they transform industries and change people’s lives for the better. They have mastered purposely discovering, developing and delivering great experiences!

From our live interviews and research we show in detail the stories and principals behind the best customer experience leaders. Yet all of these companies have experienced challenges and have occasionally faltered. This book shows how and why these companies have been able to overcome adversity to become industry and profit leaders.

“The Customer Experience Revolution is a book that everyone who wants to succeed in business must read.” –Todd Robinson, Founder and Former Chairman, LPL Financial

“Companies that delight their customers outperform their peers. This guidebook tells us why and how they do it in industries as diverse as retailing, smart phones, food service and driver education. I highly recommended it to anyone building a customer-focused business or refocusing an existing business on the experience of the customer.” –Larry Tesler, former Vice President and Chief Scientist at Apple Computer and Vice President of Shopping Experience at Amazon, now Consultant Director at The Gorilla Foundation

Sean and I hope that you enjoy reading The Customer Experience Revolution as much as we did writing it. Let us know what you think.

Availability
While general availability and promotion will begin January 1, 2012, The Customer Experience Revolution can be ordered now directly from the publisher with delivery in late December. http://brigantinemedia.com/books.php
Enter code CX for a $5 discount when ordering before Christmas

Or
e-mail: neil@brigantinemedia.com or
Call Neil at Brigantine Media 802-751-8802

Could this also mean that Bank of America and other giants also do not understand the increasing power of social media and communications platforms like smartphones and tablets? The speed, power and importance of social media and communications platforms in decision and the customer experience should not be underestimated during such a volatile economic time.

If big banks don’t understand the new world they will have to learn through trial and error that this is not the old school days. Instead of having people, social media and communications platforms doing things for their business, they run the risk that they will do things to their business.

Banks will do much better if they engage prospects and customers in their decision making much earlier than after they announce a new fee. J.P Morgan Chase & co. also retracted their plans to demand debit card fees at about the same time B of A did, according to the Wall Street Journal on November 2, 2011. The Journal also reported that Wells Fargo, Suntrust and others banks were dropping either plans or fee programs too.

There is opportunity for ‘an experience maker’ to easily best the low benchmark of what customers are experiencing. After seeing companies in other industries transform their markets and change peoples’ lives for the better, I am convinced that the banking industry is ripe for a customer experience makeover. Will it come from one of the traditional financial institutions or a new player in banking? Either way, it will have to come from an organization where the Chief Executive is also the Chief Customer Advocate.

The 30 minute show, featuring Jeofrey Bean from Del Mar Research & Consulting speaking about marketing and business development, aired on the AmericanLifeTV NetworkSM October 10th, 2007!