We're talking about customer experience and
the experience economy with Alicia Tillman,
Chief Marketing Officer at SAP, and Ramin
Beheshti, Chief Product & Technology Officer
at Dow Jones.
Alicia, how are you?
It's wonderful to see you again.
It's great to see you again as well, Michael.
Thanks for having me today.
Yeah, I'm doing well.
Trying to make the best of the situation,
just juggling being at home, working, and
all the family obligations, but all is good.
Thank you.
Alicia, tell us about your role as chief marketing
officer at SAP.
I've been with SAP for a little over five
years now.
My role is I'm accountable for setting and
executing the global marketing strategy for
SAP, so everything related to how we tell
the story of value around our products and
our services, how we drive demand, how we
focus on the retention of our existing customers,
how we show up in the marketplace, how we
speak to our stories of value, how we differentiate
our brand, how we really grow, and how we
support the overall aspirations of the business
is really what myself and my global team are
accountable for in terms of driving the marketing
strategy for the company.
Ramin Beheshti, welcome to CXOTalk.
This is your first time here.
I appreciate you being here.
Tell us about your role at Dow Jones.
I am, as you said, Chief Product & and Technology
Officer at Dow Jones.
That means that I'm responsible for all of
our customer-facing products like wsj.com
all the way through to Factiva and kind of
everything in between.
It also means I'm responsible for all of the
engineering and technology that goes into
those products.
Ramin, you have a partnership with SAP creating
something called the Experience Report.
What is that?
I think the Experience Report is born out
of our newsroom, out of the Wall Street Journal.
They identified our audience, how they desire,
and need to learn about what companies are
doing when it comes to customer experience.
They've started to create content and analysis
about what organizations are doing in that
space, who is doing it well, who is doing
it kind of less well, if you like.
That was really the kind of genesis behind
the Experience Report and then we've kind
of looked for and found a fantastic partner
who is as passionate as we are about a great
experience.
Alicia, why is this topic so important to
you that you embarked on this partnership
with Dow Jones?
The reality is, we live and operate in an
experience economy.
Business today is certainly often won or lost
based on the quality of the experience that
is delivered.
So many companies today are focused on how
to drive an exceptional experience, what are
the tools, what are the best practices that
are needed to really drive an exceptional
brand experience, product experience, service
experience?
That is so much what companies are focused
on solving, achieving, and opening up opportunities
for.
When the Wall Street Journal decided that
they were going to create a new report that
focused on showcasing best in class experiences
and talking about customer service, coming
together to form this partnership, it made
perfect sense for us to be able to be part
of helping to create and solve experience
challenges for companies by sharing our story,
sharing our content, and certainly talking
about our products and our solutions.
Ramin, what kinds of opportunities are created
for businesses when they present really excellent
customer experience?
I think there's the price of getting it right
and you can really kind of set yourselves
miles apart from your competition.
We've seen companies kind of come from nowhere,
really, from startups and they delivered this
kind of world-class experience, as Alicia
says, in all kinds of facets: in the brand,
in customer service, in their products.
They've taken incumbents and taken competition
kind of away, basically.
I think that's the price, that's the opportunity
of getting it right.
I think the opportunity of not focusing on
it is you're going to get left behind, especially
even more so now.
I think us, not only are we kind of producing
something like the Experience Report, but
it's such a key part of the experience you
expect as a paying member of the Wall Street
Journal.
You expect a world-class experience wherever
you're asking the Wall Street Journal.
Alicia, as you speak with your customers,
why is creating that customer experience so
difficult across so many different industries,
sectors, and businesses?
It's exactly for that reason, Michael.
There are so many different industries that
require different kinds of experiences, right?
An e-commerce experience will certainly demand
a different experience from that of an in-person
one.
It's really important, and this has been a
big part of what SAP has focused on is, how
do you really get closer to the consumer in
particular?
How do you understand what it is that they
need, the way in which they want to utilize
the product and service?
What challenges are they trying to solve or
what opportunity are they looking to create?
How do you get closer to that?
How do you extract that level of information
from them so that you can ultimately shape
an experience that is going to be the one
that they expect time and time again?
I think that that's the key and, certainly,
the way in which SAP has operated to be sure
that we are meeting and exceeding all of the
service requirements that today's consumers
have.
I think, if I may, that is the nail on the
head, so to speak, in terms of understanding
the customer.
If I take our organization, we'd gone from
being a traditional print publisher, right?
When you produce print newspapers, you never
got any customer feedback about, did they
like this; did they read that story?
I think we've seen a shift, a transformation
in terms of, now we need to understand what
the customer is experiencing.
What do they like?
What do they dislike?
How are they reading the article?
Are they reading it on their mobile device?
Are they reading it on the website?
All of those and also, what do they want from
us?
With the array of customers that we have,
they all want slightly different things.
How do we service each one of those?
I think that, again, as Alicia said, is the
key to kind of unlocking a great customer
experience.
It's understanding what does the individual
customer want from you and how are you set
up to deliver that.
It sounds like part of the problem or the
challenge is delivering this experience in
a consistent manner across a very diverse
customer base at the scale at which both of
your organizations operate.
There are so many different touchpoints that
a customer will interact with a brand like
the Wall Street Journal.
Each one of those experiences has to complement
and build on each other.
For a technologist, it also means that everything
has to be joined up.
I have to have the data that tells me, "Ah,
this person has been to a Journal event,"
and, actually, they're also coming to our
website, and they're also a print subscriber.
I need to join all of those information points
up.
I think that's an opportunity for a lot of
other organizations to break down those kinds
of silos that have tended to exist between
all of the different channels.
In today's world, the most effective marketing
is that which has a very seamless journey,
and the underlying ability to create that
seamless journey is technology.
How we actually connect from brand awareness
to demand creation to customer success and
then customer retention is how well, number
one, we can build that journey and have content
that connects the journey end-to-end, but
then the technology has to be equally as sophisticated
and seamless, connecting our customers so
that they have a very seamless, rich experience
across every stage of that journey with the
company in which they're interacting with.
Alicia, you're marrying together the technology,
the content, and then the data that gives
you the feedback so you can be on the right
course and course-correct as you may need
to.
That's the beauty.
First, you always have to start with the process.
You have to understand what are all those
touchpoints that a customer, a prospective
customer has with your brand.
We know that we live in a pretty complex world
today.
We've all seen the data.
Oftentimes, nearly 80% of interaction or knowledge
that a person gains about your brand happens
without a single interaction with a salesperson,
and so then you have to spend a lot of time
really understanding, okay, so where are consumers
getting information about your brand?
There are many channels out there, all of
which marketers are looking to become part
of in some way.
Then you have to really understand, okay,
so what is the information they are seeking?
When they come to us as a prospective customer,
what do they need to learn about?
Then how do we develop that information and
then place it effectively on all of the different
channels that they are visiting?
Then the other part is then how do you connect
it all together?
If you're showing up at an event and someone
in your leadership is telling the story about
the value of a product, you want to make sure
that that story that that person is telling
is also the same value story that appears
on your website because, certainly, people
go to visit your website to understand information,
and that it appears the same way in campaign
content or social media content.
Technology is the way to drive that consistency
but also drive that end-to-end, highly integrated
process across the customer journey.
One of the other thoughts I had is, the other
reason why this becomes complex is, it crosses
industry.
Alicia touched upon the consumer's expectation.
The experience you get in one industry then
raises the bar everywhere else, and I kind
of think of how Apple changed the experience
in retail stores.
That was buying technology equipment, but
then if you look at the people who came into
other industries like I think of Warby Parker
and how they created a completely different
retail experience with buying glasses, buying
spectacles.
You kind of see the cross, as you go from
industry-to-industry, what one company does
in technology, for example, and influences
another company in another organization.
I think that is always a challenge because,
actually, the consumer is the same consumer.
Their expectations are just raising.
Alicia, who have you seen that's doing this
well, companies or industries?
Ramin mentioned Apple as well in revolutionizing
the retail experience and what you can come
to expect not only about the product itself
but about the community that you buy into
as well.
Starbucks is another great example of people.
They want to buy a cup of coffee not so much
because it's necessarily the best coffee on
earth but because it allows you to be part
of a community that's so much more.
The number of people that sit in a Starbucks
and just want to hang out all that.
I think that that's something in particular
that brands are really recognizing when you
see the ones that have set the bar on experience,
all those aspects of what goes into creating
a great experience.
It certainly goes beyond the product and starts
to bring you more into the community-like
settings that people want to be a part of.
I agree 100% with Alicia.
I think the other thing that we've seen as
well and this is kind of almost a trait is
around curiosity.
Where I see companies doing really well with
customers and their experiences is when they're
curious about the customer.
This is something that, again, I think we've
learned is the customer isn't just the person
who buys their product.
They've got many different facets to them.
The companies that tend to succeed in this
game want to understand the needs of their
customer and then build either the kind of
brand, the services, or the tools to service
that kind of customer's need, and so I kind
of think curiosity is at the heart of their
success as well.
Is there a cultural dimension to those organizations
that are delivering these great experiences?
Culture is really at the heart of that.
It's the people of an organization that are
responsible for taking the vision of a company
and really creating a people culture around
it.
What are our shared values?
What are our beliefs?
How are we going to go about solving customer
issues and unlocking opportunities?
That all stems from the culture that's created
by the employees that live, work, and drive
it each and every day.
It really is at the heart of the purpose of
a company, the manner in which you drive service
on behalf of your customers, the way you innovate,
and then, ultimately, it's really what helps
to drive success.
When you think about the period that we're
living in, in particular, with the global
pandemic, it has really shown us the real
strength of a lot of companies and the cultures
in which they have.
What advice do you have for organizations
that want to cultivate this kind of great
customer experience that you've been talking
about?
Understand the vision of your company.
It's your vision.
It's your purpose.
It's your reason for being.
What is the purpose of your products?
What is the purpose of your services and the
solutions that you offer?
What problem are they helping solve or what
opportunity are they looking to unlock?
You have to first and foremost truly understand
that.
That's really about understanding the value
that your company offers and how you do it
through your products and solutions are the
answers.
You have to truly understand that and understand
that well.
Then you have to understand how to deliver
that in a way that really meets the expectations
of your customer.
Ramin, final thoughts and advice for business
leaders who want to put into practice the
lessons that you and Alicia have discussed
today.
Alicia covered quite a lot of the cultural
aspects.
I think the other thing that I would add to
that is data.
I know it's kind of a term that everybody
talks about and it's not a new thing, people
collecting data, but joining the data up that
you have about the customers, about how they're
interacting with you across every single kind
of channel.
That is the key.
You have to break down as many silos culturally
that exist within your organization.
You have do the same with the data as well
because, in most organizations, the data lives
in one pocket over here and another pocket
over there.
Typically, companies need to connect all of
that data and then start to understand what
it means or what they need to do with it.
That would be my kind of advice.
Okay.
Alicia Tillman and Ramin Beheshti, thank you
both so much for taking time.
Thank you, Michael.
