Like me and let the conversation continue

You buy a cup of coffee and the cashier hands you a receipt with an incentive to join the company’s Facebook page. You’re not completely sure if you should. What the cashier forgot was that your order was messed up, you waited for more than 10 minutes, and the manager was not in the store. So what do you do?

You like the brand on Facebook only to tell all your friends about your bad experience. Isn’t it ironic that you have to like them to tell them that you really do not like them!

A complete stranger walks up to you in the parking lot and hands you a flyer. It is a coupon to your favorite store, plus a chance to win a digital reader. Would you give this stranger your phone number? Would you introduce the stranger to your family and friends? Would you invite the stranger into your home?

Yet the same thing happens online and you willingly become friends via an unknown brand ambassador – perhaps a sponsored story via a friend of a friend.

Soon, both brands, the coffee company and your favorite store start communicating with you as if they are your best friend. Offers pour in, they are personalized as if they know you, and they touch you more times in one week than you call your best friend Jill in one month!

Let’s bring this closer to home. Our consumer walks up to an ATM, we ask them to choose their language, next we ask them what they want to do, now while the cash is being counted we tell them that we an awesome offer for them. Really! You do not know that I speak English, you do not remember my favorite transaction, and suddenly you pretend like you know what is best for me!

Financial institutions have an incredible opportunity to leverage data, consumer trust, and mobility to build interactive relationships with the consumer in both the real and the virtual world.

Imagine a transaction that started an ATM with, “Hello Kate” (she speaks English). “Do you still want $120?” (They remembered.) Now, while the transaction is being “readied,” the financial institution can leverage the warmth to make a targeted offer. If you do this well, you can continue the conversation on social media.

Rather than asking Kate to like your institution, why not ask Kate about her experience or remind her about something important – like a bill that needs to be paid or an upcoming renewal of a certificate of deposit. Or, even think about prompting her to visit your social media site.

“How much does a family of four spend on drinks if they were to eat out every week of the year?” Check out our Facebook page to see how much we spend (leads to a like), download a budget calculator (could be an app), and pick up a coupon for appetizers at one of five restaurants (you start building up their preferences).

This same transaction can take place on online banking, at a branch, or even at the call center. The key is that the institution should recognize the consumer, know what they want, and try their best to help the consumer along.

Successful consumer engagement is driven less by likes and more by what happens after the like – both in the real and the virtual world.

Successful social media brands have used social media to do five things –

1 – Find compatible consumers
2 – Know more about their consumers
3 – Inspire their consumers to become brand ambassadors
4 – Listen to learn about their consumers, and
5 – Look for ways to quantify the return on effort and investment.

You can do even better if you look for ways to merge real world and virtual transactions – social integration is a key mantra for success. It pays to integrate your marketing efforts to show your consumer that you know what is going on.

Financial institutions need to look for ways to leverage consumer trust, consumer preferences, and consumer interaction to build long term mutually profitable relationships. Integrated marketing is the key mantra to driving consumer engagement.

- See more at: http://blogs.ncr.com/ncr-banking/consumer_experience/emarketing/like-me-and-let-the-conversation-continue/

The Future of Grocery Shopping Comes to Wisconsin

This winter, shoppers at the Woodman’s Food Markets Gammon Road location in Madison, Wis., got a look at the future of grocery shopping when the store unveiled and conducted demos for customers of the Woodman’s Mobile Shopper, powered by NCR Corporation.  The app is currently available on the Apple App Store.

With Mobile Shopper, shoppers can:

• Save time and make shopping easier by using their own iPhones to scan items in the aisles as they shop;
• Use the app to create virtual shopping lists before going to the store, further increasing the speed, efficiency and ease of shopping trips;
• Checkout at the Woodman’s self-checkout (SCO) stations with a QR code on their phones that transfers their mobile shopping information to the SCO.  The SCO station confirms the weight of the items scanned with the phone against the items being bagged at the SCO station;
• Pay with their preferred method of payment;
• Quickly be on their way. 

During the checkout process, attendants can quickly help customers reconcile any discrepancies the system identifies and answer any other questions they may have.  Produce, other non-barcoded items and impulse items can also be added at the self-checkout.  The store also features free WIFI throughout so shoppers do not have to use their own data plan while using the Mobile Shopper app.

“NCR brings unique and powerful technology that helps Woodman’s achieve our goals of customer service and convenience,” said Chad Greenwald at Woodman’s.  “We’re excited about launching this Mobile Shopper solution with NCR and look forward to delighting our customers with this new, high-tech shopping and check-out option.”

“With this launch, Woodman’s is moving toward making the shopping experience faster and more convenient for their shoppers,” said Chris Lybeer, vice president and general manager of retail marketing and mobile solutions at NCR.   “Launching mobile checkout takes Woodman’s to the forefront of the 21^st Century and creates additional opportunities in the future for Woodman’s to interact with their customers in real time during the shopping experience.”

Following deployment at the Madison location, Woodman’s will explore deploying Mobile Shopper at their other 13 stores in Wisconsin and Illinois.

For more information about the Woodman’s Mobile Shopper, follow the feed on Twitter, @WoodmansApp.  Or, check out this Mobile Payments Today video that shows how this great shopping tool works!

See more at: http://blogs.ncr.com/converged-multi-channel-retailing/point-of-sale/the-future-grocery-shopping-comes-wisconsin/

Lessons of Innovation: Keeping Passion Alive

A few years ago, I had a chance to hear Ray Kurzweil give a talk. Ray is a really amazing guy with a resume a mile long, going back half a century and always at the center of technology.  His thesis that day, with profound significance for NCR, is that technology is accelerating at a rapid rate.  He said that no matter how far you think we’ve come, there are always more advances just around the corner!  The funny thing is that he said this before the smartphone, tablet computer or WiFi… before Groupon or OpenTable… before Facebook and well before Angry Birds.  He was, is and will continue to be right!

But another amazing guy knew all that long before Kurzweil.  His friends called him Alec, and he just might be the original ‘Smart Alec’.  He did not know much about technology, but he knew about problems.  You see, his father and grandfather both worked on problems with sound.  Alec wanted to do something amazing in this field.  He studied physiology and mechanics, electricity and magnetism.  He had ideas but he did not know how to put them to use.  So he went to see Joseph Henry, a famous physicist of his time, for inspiration.  Like the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz, the wise Henry recognized a motivated intellect in young Alec and told him that all he needed was knowledge.  The solution offered by Henry?  ”Go get it!”

And that, as they say, was all it took.  Alec’s full name was Alexander.  And you might recognize him if I told you his last name, which was Bell.  From his humble start exploring sound, Alexander Graham Bell went on to figure out, patent, and commercialize the telephone.  March 10 is the 137^th anniversary of the first time those famous words were uttered… “Can you hear me now?” (Just kidding) of course the first words were “Mr. Watson, come here,” immortalized in memoirs that date back to before NCR was even founded.  Thomas Watson, a brilliant engineer in his own right, was a close associate and partner to Bell.  Their work changed the world, serving as the foundation for thousands of patents, millions of applications and billions of smartphones today.

So many amazing lessons in this story of invention.  Bell started by understanding problems, not technology. He worked persistently with many partners to solve those problems, adapting and advancing technology along the way.  He persevered through doubters and set-backs.  He transformed himself at each step in order to become the person that his vision most needed at that time.  I don’t know if it was easy, but I doubt it; nothing great ever is!

What problems do you think about?  Are they the problems given to you, or problems that you discover, learn about and build a passion to explore?  What technologies do you use?  Are they the ones someone told you about or things you chose to learn on your own?  How have you transformed yourself when your needs changed?  We all have the curiosity of small children inside us – are we smart enough to keep that curiosity alive every day like Kurzweil and Bell?  I know that’s hard – life and deadlines have a way of interfering with passion.

For me, customers keep the passion alive.  They are a font of unique and amazing problems to solve. Sometimes, I can pull an NCR product off the shelf and deliver what they need.  But other times, if I am lucky, the problem is new and the solution does not yet exist.  That’s when I know that NCR’s creative design team, crushing engineering capability and global service team all go in to action, above and beyond the customer’s wildest dreams.  That’s when I connect with Bell, Kurzweil, Jobs and Lovelace and the rest of the stars of technological history.  That’s when NCR makes its mark.

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See more at: http://blogs.ncr.com/ncr-innovation/innovation/lessons-innovation-keeping-passion-alive-2