Customer Experience is the best way to create competitive advantage. Interestingly, only one-third of business executives polled by the recent Economist Intelligence Unit say that marketing is responsible for managing the customer experience today. However, over the next five years, 75% suggest marketing will take full responsibility.

A positive customer experience is increasingly seen as a company’s most valuable asset. And, more than any other function, marketing would have been responsible for managing it across the customer life cycle, across channels from initial awareness through loyalty and advocacy and win back.

The best customer experience companies in the world emphasize the need for everyone in the organisation to play a role in customer experience delivery. Moreover, as responsibility for the customer experience looks as it’s shifting to marketing, it seems to be moving away from customer support and sales. The old distinction between sales and marketing (sales owns the relationship & marketing owns the message) has become less distinct. As consumers gain power and become less reliant on sales, the marketing function is increasingly orchestrating these relationships.

Dialogue believes that Marketing shouldn’t have sole accountability for customer experience delivery. CX involves the full enterprise. Marketing can take a central role but it doesn’t have to lead. What’s more important is that a framework is developed early across the customer emotional needs rather than company structures. This framework should allow companies to explore what the world’s best companies in other sectors do to deliver amazing customer experiences. Once the framework is in place you can then decide who is best to lead it.

Michael Killeen
Chairman

Another week of the latest stories featured in our  mash-up, once again. Pop on that kettle, kick up your feet and have a quick look at a few of the top stories from the past week–it’s mid-week mash-up time, again!

Nike Launches Largest Ever Women’s Initiative #BetterForIt

The latest spot from Nike features the honest thoughts that often enter the mind of any woman who has ever doubted her capabilities or compared herself to those around her during a gruelling workout (if I’m not mistaken, that’s nearly ALL of us ladies, right?).  The latest campaign from Nike, #BetterForIt, supports and motivates the athletic journeys of women across the globe and features short films that help motivate us all to keep up the hard work. Have a look…

Twitter Begins Testing New Search Layout

It was recently announced that Twitter is in the process of testing a revamped version of their search feature. While not available to everyone yet at this stage, the new features allow for top tweets, users, photos and videos to be featured under the search option. There is no word, as of yet, on a wider release of the redesign, but stay tuned for this new update on your Twitter page.

Hyundai Connects Father and Daughter With Latest Stunt Seen From Space

When typical communications between a daughter and her astronaut father aren’t a possibility, leave it up to the innovation of Hyundai to cleverly stage a stunt that leaves us smiling (and utterly in awe!). Have a look…

Old Spice Targets Gamers In Latest Nature Adventure Campaign

His actions are at your command! Targeting the gaming community (which no doubt overlaps with their key target audience), Old Spice is teaming up with social platform Twitch ( a live social video platform for gamers) in a campaign titled ‘Nature Man’. The chosen Nature Man will be dropped in a forest for 3 days, leaving his actions and activities up to participating gamers to decide. Curious to find out how he does? Tune in here to track his progress beginning April 16th…

Touching Social Experiment Makes A Painful Point In Bullying

Not sure about anyone else, but the video recording of a social experiment that took place in Lithuania left such an impression on us, it was impossible not to share this. Proving that it doesn’t necessarily take the intended recipient of bullying and hate speech to feel affected (and in this case inflicted), this powerful experiment involves unsuspecting people to translate a message that leaves several of them unwilling to do so, as the message is too hurtful to relay. Faith in humanity has been restored.

Customer Experience (CEX) is increasingly taking centre stage in Ireland as more companies realise that it is crucial for survival with rising customer expectations. While it is the best way for Irish brands to differentiate themselves, businesses are not clear on who owns the CEX brief internally. The London School of Economics reported that while  an amazing experience will be referred up to four times, a poor experience reaches up to 40 people. And all agree that when done brilliantly, it increases customer referrals amongst their tight group of friends, colleagues and family members.

Adobe launched a 2015 Digital Trends Report  trends report that supports the need for businesses to drive a CEX friendly culture (link here). The report supports the argument that CEX is the standout imperative for 2015, based on inputs from 6,000 global professionals. Strategy and culture are widely identified as the most important building blocks for successful integration of customer experience in any organisation.

It can be a complex process to deliver epic experiences that will impact positively on the bottom line. This is why Cexi.org, Ireland’s first customer experience initiative, was launched in Dublin last month. Cexi.org has partnered with international practitioners to deliver a unique tried-and-tested framework to help companies gain absolute control over the CEX challenge. It also allows Irish companies to benchmark their performance against world class brands in global markets and identify how to speed up their delivery with the most effective strategies.

Michael Killeen
Chairman

A business’s most effective acquisition approach will be driven by your happiest customers selling on your behalf. Sparking this amplification requires a consistent and amazing Customer Experience which customers gladly share with friends, family and colleagues.

Customer Experience management is misunderstood in Ireland and requires greater clarity. Dialogue define amazing Customer Experiences as giving customers ‘what, when and how they want it without having to ask for it’.  And finally, we now have a framework that any Irish Business can operate to deliver world-class CEX. We believe a company’s greatest asset is a thrilled customer.  Leveraged appropriately (reading your customers minds), customers will become your best acquisition sales personnel.

Dialogue is a founding partner of Cexi.org, which is part of an international group of leading Customer Experience practitioners including Nunwood, Stir and Amárach.  CEXi is Ireland’s first CEX subscription service, offering clients detailed research findings behind the annual ‘’Top 100 Customer Experience Brands In Ireland ‘’ survey. Other benefits include global comparisons against best practice and a workshop to discover how the findings can be accelerated within your own firm. Cexi is also delivering a national consumer conference  with opinionated Irish consumers taking the stage and talking to member clients, rather than the other way around.

Is anyone else basking in the glory of the long weekend ahead? Yes, we thought so! Well, before you head off for your holiday plans, take a look at some of the latest stories from the past week. It’s time, once again, for your midweek mashup!

OPI Launches New Campaign That Speaks The Language of Colour 

This latest campaign around the launch of mobile app OPI ColorChat is truly a thing of beauty. Featuring bright, eye-catching ads that are written in the ‘language of colour’ (and can handily be decoded using the newly-launched mobile app), we are encouraged to show our true colours, whatever they may be. Have a look at the campaign below.

Lord & Taylor Relies On Instagram Images To Sell (Out) On Their Behalf

 Promoting the debut of its Design Lab collection, retailer Lord & Taylor took to Instagram to do their advertising and selling for them–and boy, did it ever! Partnering with 50 influential fashion bloggers, each hand-picked based on aesthetic style and number of followers, the dress was featured in personal blogs, ultimately leading to the dress to sell-out in days. New patterns of the dress are due out in the coming months for all of those who may have missed their chance last week (insert giant sigh of relief to all those die-hard fashionistas out there).

American Greeting’s Multimedia Campaign Encourages Us To Make ThankLists

Stemming from the concept of a ‘bucket list’ comes the ‘ThankList’. American Greetings has launched a multimedia campaign that encourages us to reflect on those who deserve a simple and heartfelt “thank you”, something that is so simple to do, and yet means so much to those on the receiving end. Partnering with award-winning documentarian Barbara Kopple, several stories are featured in short films, all of which can be viewed on the website. “Creating more meaningful connections between people isn’t simply something we believe in,” explains client president and COO John Beeder. “It’s something we are actively doing, and ThankList is the perfect way to demonstrate that practicing gratitude is easy and impactful.” Take a look at the trailer and videos below, and don’t say we didn’t warn you, that you may find yourself digging around for some tissues after you do.

This Outdoor Billboard Produces Fresh Lettuce, Clean Air & Fresh Water For Local Residents

Billboards that simply display a message are becoming a thing of the past. Imagine a billboard that uses natural resources to produce food, fresh water and clean air simultaneously. Well, there is no need to imagine as this billboard located in Peru does exactly that. Dubbed the ‘Air Orchard’, this hydroponic billboard extracts water from the air to produce 2,800 heads of lettuce a week and 96 liters of drinking water daily, available for free to locals.

David Beckham’s H&M Spoof Might Be Better Than The Real Thing

We thought we would finish the week up with a fun spoof to keep you smiling. This parody of David Beckham’s H&M spot featuring James Cordon is nothing short of brilliant. Have a watch…