Today’s consumer expects, if not demands, an excellent customer experience of all products, services and brands they’re using. You better keep up, because their voices are being heard. We believe consumers should be on top of mind from the start and lead every step of the way. But what if you’re in a fast-pace process without enough time to conduct proper research? We created the CX sparks; a tool of universal motivational drivers or insights that you can use to optimize every experience, innovate or for problem solving any moment and in any retail context. The CX sparks make sure that all your work is consumer-driven even with zero time for solid research.
To grab or not to grab
Chances are you know some bits of what your consumers say and do. Thumbs up, it’s a start! But, do you also know how your consumers’ shopping behaviour is influenced by their moments in life, course of the day or the situation within their everyday context? Just knowing how many chocolate bars your consumer purchased, is not going to help you understand their motivation to grab or not to grab that bar in the first place.
After ten years of qualitative and user experience research in retail, you can only imagine the collection of consumer data collected. Throughout our work, we found out that every experience people have related to time, regardless of topic or culture, share the same nine essential moments that make or break your consumers experience. We analysed these moments from our own consumer data and supported them with academic research and insights that focus on the psychology behind how consumers make purchasing decisions. These powerful insights lead to the CX sparks.
Find your key-moments
Well, with the CX sparks we identified nine essential moments that impact how consumers make decisions throughout an experience. These moments are your key to great customer services. Each moment is captured in a time-spark, designed on a card deck of which every single card helps you understand how consumers make their decisions influenced by that exact moment. This time-spark tells you what it is, why it’s important and how retailers should act upon it. Take for example Present Bias; the spark with a focus on demand forecasting. We know that the closer consumers are to the moment of purchase, the less rational they become; ‘what we want now is not what we seek for in the future’. And let me be clear, we’re not (only) talking about those grabbable sweets at the cashier, but we’re zooming into how for example (planned) online grocery shopping might result in a loss of revenue.
Let’s get sparking
Anyone who’s working to improve its product, service or experience can use the CX sparks. In case you face a specific challenge, the card-deck can help you identify what moments are essential within this challenge. One client noticed that it was losing a lot of its customers in the moment they were directed to an external website; this seemed a disaster and customers were not returning to their service. With the help of CX sparks we’re able to identify the right moments and create tailor-made solutions.
But, this tool is also worthy to face challenges that are less specific. Internally, we work with the CX sparks to improve our products and services, develop new concepts and identify opportunities. We believe that all stakeholders belong in this process and thus do we invite different expertise's to start their work with the consumer in mind. This tool is one of the powerful ways to make sure the whole team owns our consumer & user insights. Because, after all, together we co-create experiences that stick.