The Customer Is the Channel

Day two of the Leadership Forum educated attendees on how to reach increasingly savvy consumers through innovative use of social media.

February 12, 2014

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – The second day of the NACS Leadership Forum took a deep dive into social media and how retailers can best wield it to inspire engagement with their brand. 

Rouz Jazayeri of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Barnes Inc. (KPCB); Anthony Shop, chief strategy officer and co-founder of Social Driver, a digital agency; and Katie Elfering, senior director at IconoCulture, joined moderator Peter Tedeschi of Tedeschi Food Shops to talk about the future of engaging customers.

Jazayeri of KPCB, regaled the crowd with what his venture capital firm has identified as 2014 trends. Growth will continue on the Internet, driven by mobile. Internet usage and mobile users are growing and what this means is that we are in the middle of a transition, moving from a world where PC used to be first to a world now where the mobile is first — if not soon to be mobile only. While we’re in the middle of mobile Internet computing phase, we’re also on the cusp of a new platform: wearable devices and everywhere computing.

These days companies are re-imagining business models, their business and even entire industries, Jazayeri said. News and information flow is being reported via mobile in real time; education has moved online and has become more interactive with blended learning.  “Ride the wave don’t get washed away by it,” Jazayeri advised. “Find a way to participate.”

Anthony Shop of Social Driver told the crowd, “There are more and more ways to leverage people than ever before.” Today, he shared, your customers care about themselves (think “selfies”). So if you take social media and make it all about you and your brand, it will fall on deaf ears.

“Think of social media like a conduit, a modern day campfire that facilitates conversations,” Shop counseled. “If we think of it this way it completely changes our relationship with our customers. People are the new channel so they have to be at the center of everything we do.” 

21st century culture is flat (nonhierarchical), fast (instant reaction) and fun (less formal where work and play blurs). This culture has changed the way we interact with the world as well as the behaviors and expectations of your customers. What you did a decade ago to make your customer feel special doesn’t work today. Think of what they want and capitalize on it. “How can you get your customer to take a selfie with your brand in it?” Shop asked the crowd.

Katie Elfering talked to attendees about “right-sized engagement, also known as stop trying so hard.” She echoed Shop’s customer-focused sentiment but cautioned that effort is good but not if engagement is forced. “Find the right fit for you.” 

Awesome opportunities exist for customer engagement but people don’t want to constantly hit with all of your messages. Don’t get in the way, Elfering said, and let consumers choose when they want to engage with you.

To help, know the size and scale of engagement that’s right for you and then act appropriately. Know your brand, which means your current strengths and consumer expectations. Know your category and purchase frequency and level of emotion. Get comfortable with your brand and know when to take advantage of key moments or spikes of emotion for your consumers. 

And “be a tool,” Elfering said. A good tool is additive, not interruptive and doesn’t get in the way. It solves a real problem — not creates a problem and then innovates to solve that problem. Balance usefulness and entertainment. Add something to consumers’ lives. Be disruptive with a purpose and participatory by choice.

The theme of people and engagement was reiterated when The Reitan Group’s Magnar Møkkelgård, vice president of Reitan Convenience in Norway, joined the panelists on stage. Reitan is the market leader in seven countries with 2,500 stores, annual sales of $2.5 billion and 17,000 employees. Current formats in the Reitan portfolio include Narvasen, Pressbyran, R-kioski and 7-Eleven brands.

He shared the company’s unifying vision and the values it embraces. “We’d rather have 34,000 people with the values embedded in their hearts and acting as decision makers than 34,000 people stuck in meetings,” he said. Møkkelgård also shared how his company is using social media to drive loyalty.

Reitan’s Coffee Inspector app awards customers with a free coffee after they’ve submitted five reviews of the retailer’s Coffee Rosso — an effort to improve the quality and consistency of the coffee program.  After two months, the retailers experienced a 25% increase in coffee sales. Multiple other digital loyalty programs engage consumers while providing discounts and freebies.

The company actively uses Facebook to engage customers, such as deals for checking in at a store, donations for charities if you become a Facebook fan, and its Facebook Globetrotter campaign, which asks customers to share interesting items and offers they’ve seen from their travels.

The Bullogram (bun-o-gram) campaign encouraged customers to can send a discount code for a cinnamon bun to their friends via SMS. The code could be redeemed at any store — 5.4 million buns were sold during that period. 

Day two of the Forum wrapped up with a session on dependable loyalty and a discussion on the future of fuels. 

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