Connect

We have identified this new belonging model to help organizations build communities through the use of the acronym ACT, which stands for Attract/Connect/Trust, and reinforces the fundamental steps consumers take to develop a relationship. However, the model explores how each of these three steps can be leveraged to evolve from a functional or emotional nature to an aspirational dimension that shifts the value equation to include a strong sense of control and knowledge.The use of ACT as a verb, to take action according to key insights, and also a noun, a main division of a play or performance, reinforces the duality of the “Belonging Experience”. Since the process includes a physical asset, the acronym leverages the stage and play metaphor, where the physical setting is the backdrop to the performance, setting the stage for the act.ACT also stands for the actual performance by the actors, which is the new experience model, including the customer and the staff as active participants in the play.

The verb “to act” also talks to the action-oriented nature of building a trusted relationship, and the fact that creating this relationship is not a passive process and involves various actions along the various steps of the relationship process.The following pages outline our consumer experience mapping model and processes to assist your organization by:Helping to deliver a brand experience that appeals to the cognitive, rational, and emotional dimensions of the customer’s needsAttracting, Connecting and establishing Trust with the core target group in a way that helps differentiate your offering from competitorsBeing fully integrated as part of your corporate culture and operational strengths of the organizationCreating unique brand relationships will allow organizations to retain the best customers and, as a result, be able to charge more, sell more, more often, generating stronger profits.

The Belonging Ripple FactorThe service model acronym ACT is divided into six core factors that spiral out to an emotional and aspirational outward ripple:Aware: Create an impression in the blink of the eye that gives the brand permission and credibility to sell knowledge as value.Attract: Provide an environment that helps reinforce the value proposition while laying the groundwork for a sustained relationship that builds towards sales and profitability.Communicate: Developing tools that allow for a sustained relationship beyond the purchase.Connect: Creating an experience that allows for a comfortable and effective transaction for both the customer and the staff.Transact: Ensuring the experience, branding, and tools help in the sharing of control and knowledge process.Trust: Establishing a relationship, and not just a transaction, is part of how the experience needs to act as the bridge between business owner needs and those of the organization – building trust through consistent performance, and living the brand promise.

The challenge in evolving the ACT “Belonging Experience” beyond the functional needs of customers is to identify the answers to the following key questions:

1. What are the various consumer touch-points with the brand and how do they influence perception and reinforce the brand promise?
2. What are the steps taken by consumers and what are their sequential values? How do they differ pending consumer target group profiles (men and women, young and old)?
3. What are the hidden need states that are not being met by the current consumer experience, and how can these be leveraged to create a true brand community?
4. How can the various stages/processes help build a total consumer experience that is meaningful and fully integrated?
5. What are the ideal communication tools and their level of importance at each of the moments of truth, throughout the ACT process?
6. What aspect or type of knowledge has significant value to customers that currently is being undervalued or not leveraged?
7. What behavioural changes are required by the front-line staff to ensure a strong sense of belonging and community?

The factors outlined are based on key mega-trends and consumer need states that are currently being channelled to impact everyday lives, and highlight the need for a “Belonging Experience”. Let’s look at just a few implications that you can harness within your organization.Evolve Offering, Restructure Processes

Organizations need to evolve their approach from the transaction-focused aspect of selling products to providing added value services that are built on the customer’s hunger for collaboration and dialogue. Leading edge organizations have already started leveraging these added value services by offering knowledge-based services that clearly tap an unmet consumer need for control.What aspect of your organization is focused around knowledge, and how you leverage this aspect of your brand to build engagement amongst customers is becoming the real value. A great example has been in the technology retailing industry with the recent acquisition of Geek Squad by Best Buy. The added branded service leverages knowledge of how to set up networks, systems, and IT programs within your house or office. Although Geek Squad does sell products, its true value to consumers is knowledge that has a dollar value equation.

Leverage the Experience as a Doorway to Empowering Consumers

Review the current physical manifestation of your brand to identify areas of opportunity where knowledge and understanding are the key factors in transforming consumer needs into aspirational desires for knowledge and self-awareness.What are the key transactional processes that you need to retain, and what are those that allow you to evolve to take advantage of how consumers seek information? What new aspects of your consumer experience do you need to add to give your organization credibility to sell knowledge? What type of knowledge is the consumer seeking, and how can you best deliver this information within your environment? We need to think beyond signing and in-store conventional communication, since these tools do not create a changed behaviour or effectively communicate new innovative ways to think.The true opportunity is to disrupt the way consumers interact with your brand in order to create a new behavioural platform that will allow for a new understanding and empowering process. We need to think about how the physical aspect translated by all of the senses can play a role in changing behaviour, and create a doorway to the acceptance and willingness to pay for knowledge.Currently, very few retailers or service organizations have been able to break through to gain ground in this opportunity. Another dimension is the ability of organizations to clearly understand key hidden and stated need states that are currently not being met by competitors. Establishing a better understanding of consumer needs is the surest way of building a strong brand experience and providing permission to sell knowledge as a value proposition.

HR -  A Key Factor for Change

A key factor in ensuring the experience delivers on the need for consumers to feel empowered is a rethinking of the role of in-the-trenches staff in building this bridge from the tangible to the intangible. The expression “What gets measured gets done” could not be more applicable to changing established behaviours within organizations.As humans, we are all reluctant to change since it offers a certain level of risk. Organizations that want to transform their operations into a knowledge-centric, consumer-empowering process will need to re-evaluate their hiring, training and operational practices to determine how the front-line staff can live the new brand experience and promise.Creating a physical change in the environment they operate is just one of the steps required to make the transformation a success. Developing clear performance metrics and success criteria that are evaluated on an on-going basis are additional tools that will be required and form the foundation for defining progress.

Redefine the Definition of Target Groups

In order to build a house on solid foundation, it is important that we review current customer target group information in order to better define the profiles based on cognitive, aesthetic and self-actualization human needs. Through the use of research tools that clearly identify consumers’ unmet emotional and rational needs, we can better understand how these can be clustered as part of like-minded communities that share similar lifestyle and culture needs.Our experience has identified that such research and re-evaluation of the target groups demonstrates that age and gender may not be the only discriminators for how consumers respond to your brand. For example, the growth of business ownership by women, the increased buying power of homosexual consumers, and the growth of importance and active participation of consumers in social issues ranging from HIV to the climate changes has demonstrated that shared values play a critical role in how we view brands and the world.

Explore the Full Consumer Touch-Point Continuum

The new “Belonging Experience” occurs well before and well after the actual physical experience occurs. Understanding how you foster a sense of community at all of the consumer touch-points is critical. In order to draw your communities’ attention to the fact that your experience has changed and the offering has evolved beyond transactional services or discounted products, you will need to disrupt their current perceptions of your organization at every contact point, challenging their current beliefs.The use of an integrated communication program that talks to the hidden needs of customers in a way that disrupts their current thinking is a very effective tool. A recent Scotia Bank campaign “You are richer than you think” has been very effective in getting customers to think differently about their conventional bank transaction. It sets up the financial institution in a different light, establishing a higher level of confidence for the client through the access of a second opinion.