By Todd Chusid, Anexinet
The
phrase, “there’s an app for that” has become so ubiquitous as to now be a corny
cliché. But it’s time we all stopped thinking of mobile as a set of apps that
support a mobile strategy, and instead focused on adopting an Enterprise Mobile
Lifestyle Strategy. What do we mean by a Mobile Lifestyle Strategy? A Mobile
Lifestyle Strategy is one that reflects how customers engage with your company,
and the path and channels you might offer customers to obtain your product
and/or service. A Mobile Lifestyle Strategy value increases further when you
leverage the data to forecast the path of future customers.
The
requirements necessary to effectively track your Mobile Lifestyle Strategy
include the following:
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- Understanding the customer perspective — using
techniques like Day in the Life to get a true picture of the customer
experience versus what the company perceives that experience to be. - Considering multiple customer profiles — using
journey maps and similar UX techniques to differentiate how various types of
customers (age, gender, etc.) experience products, brands and services
differently. - Leveraging customer Touch Points — customers
connect with your company in countless ways and by following many paths (email,
text, web sites, social media, etc.).
In this
world of emerging technologies (Augmented/Virtual Reality, IoT, Blockchain,
Machine Learning, Wearables, etc.), we must all focus on building a mobile
strategy rooted in your organization’s business values, and which aligns with
your customer’s mobile lifestyle. The nature of the customer’s mobile lifestyle
is premised upon a mobile-first approach. Ask yourself: what is the mobile
touch point during your customer’s journey? The ultimate goal here is to
eliminate steps or speed delivery of goods and services through emerging
technologies; helping customers fulfill their needs as quickly and efficiently
as possible.
Some
emerging technologies that will start to play a more visible role in shaping
the Customer’s Mobile Lifestyle in 2018 include:
- Voice Interaction – voice integration expands the
customer’s Mobile Lifestyle to include many new possibilities, most notably our
ability to voice-control devices. How long before the ability to talk to
devices and computers eliminates the need for a user interface? The journey of
voice interaction has just begun and taking full advantage of its power now
means transforming the way you do business, transforming the way you service
customers, and transforming the way you create products and services. - Geofencing – Geofencing is a great way to
increase your brand’s value, so long as you’re careful. Geofencing is not just
about the opportunity to target customers with personalized ads in the context
of their physical location. Rather, we should view Geofencing technology as an
opportunity to track — in real time — key performance indicators that drive
your business as well as an opportunity to understand how customers view/use
your brand when at home versus on-the-go. - Cognitive Computing; Cognitive computing in the
form of Artificial Intelligence (AI) such as chatbots and virtual agents will
play a larger role in the Mobile Customer Lifestyle when it comes to customer
support and online merchant interactions. For instance, IBM’s Watson-based
platform leverages AI’s natural language processing (NLP) and cognitive
computing to build customized business chatbots for customer interactions. As
with Geofencing, the value of Cognitive Computing will come from tracking
chatbot analytics to increase user engagement and drive monetization. - Augmented Reality (AR) offers digital
enhancements to real-world experiences during your Customer’s Mobile Lifestyle.
AR use cases already abound in retail, advertising, construction,
manufacturing, training, etc. but it is best to provide novel content to
justify the AR experience and enhance the Mobile Customer Lifestyle while
encouraging customers to try/buy new products and services.
As
touched upon above, to achieve a successful Customer’s Mobile Lifestyle
Strategy, your organization must incorporate the following strategies:
- Day-in-the-Life — Day-in-the-Life sessions
generate a complete and accurate picture of real-world user requirements. Over
the course of a Day-in-the-Life session, strategists interview and physically
shadow subjects as they perform their daily tasks, being sure to record every
relevant detail. This may entail accompanying drivers on a ride-along to
experience customer interactions as they occur, taking a factory tour or
sitting with operators as they interact with customers over the phone. - Micro-Moments — Micro-moments occur when a user
turns to a mobile device to perform a task and the mobile device predicts the
user’s need (by using prior history, time/date or physical location as
triggers) and provides information and a UI that prioritizes fulfilling the
task at hand. - Micro-Personalization — Content that provides
exactly what the customer is looking for at any given time. This might take the
form of short blog posts, how-to videos, step-by-step guides or even
downloadable coupons and special offers. - Technology Agnostic — Software is described as
being technology agnostic when it is unbiased in terms of which technology tool
is used to run it. Allowable device tools may include wearables, Android or iOS
smartphones or tablets, or laptop or desktop computers.
These
emerging technologies and strategies will be the building blocks for aligning
your business with your Customer’s Mobile Lifestyle. By 2018, every
organization wishing to remain competitive in the digital age will have adopted
some mix of mobile platforms, customer personalization and targeting,
analytics, corporate systems and emerging technologies to support their Mobile
Strategy. Companies need to evolve their Mobile Strategy to incorporate the
Customer’s Mobile Lifestyle; not just to check the boxes and build the apps
they believe should be in their Mobile Portfolio.
Todd Chusid is a Mobile Strategist at Propelics, an
Anexinet company.
Chusid has a proven 15-year track record of taking end-to-end ownership and
delivering diverse technologies on web, mobile and ecommerce solutions. His mission
at Propelics is to help clients reimagine, refine, and reinvigorate their
business processes, systems and data to enable more engaging and productive
interactions with customers, partners and employees through mobile devices.
