For Customer Experience Professionals

How Chief Customer Experience Officers Gain Active Executive Support

by Megan Burns, October 23, 2009

To be successful, chief customer experience officers (CC/EOs) need a coalition of top executives who take an active role in transforming the organization. While most executives support the idea of customer-centricity, many fail to act because they don't . . .

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

How To Organize Your Company For Social Computing

Brands Must Organize Using A Hub-And-Spoke Model

by Jeremiah K. Owyang, June 24, 2009

The biggest challenge brands often have to overcome isn't technology but managing cultural change within the enterprise. With an ever-increasing number of brands engaging in social media marketing in recent years, companies need to not only be properly . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

3M's Global Home Page Redesign: Collaboration That Delivered Business Results

by Ron Rogowski, June 1, 2009

3M recently deployed 84 regional home pages based on a single, customizable design. To create a design that would suit diverse markets, 3M established a global committee focused on supporting business and user requirements, created flexible design guidelines, . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Case Study: Customer Centricity Drives Esurance's eBusiness Strategy

by Chad Mitchell, March 23, 2009

Over the past decade, US direct insurer Esurance has survived the dot-com bubble while carving out a growing share of the auto insurance market. The firm established itself as a viable challenger brand to direct insurance Goliaths GEICO and Progressive . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

Customer Experience Best Practices From 2008 Finance And Consumer Marketing Forums EMEA

by Jonathan Browne, February 3, 2009

In November 2008, Forrester held concurrent forums in London for consumer marketing and financial services professionals. Leading companies and their design agencies offered insight into their best customer experience practices. Mike Thompson of Barclays . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

UI13: User Experience Misconceptions Debunked

by Vidya L. Drego, November 19, 2008

Forrester recently attended the UI13 Conference for customer experience professionals. At the conference, leading practitioners and researchers discussed the latest tools and techniques that help companies improve their design and customer experience. . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

The Customer Experience Journey

Customer-Centric DNA Propels Firms Through Five Levels Of Maturity

by Bruce D. Temkin, September 17, 2008

Why is customer experience such a hot topic? Because it's important, complex, and broken. That's why firms should head toward Experience-Based Differentiation (EBD), a blueprint for customer experience excellence. But EBD can't be mastered overnight. . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

Top Five Business Challenges For European Usability Vendors

by Marta Baigorri, September 3, 2008

European usability vendors are benefiting from high demand for their services around the globe. But with prosperity come challenges. To keep up with growing market demand while delivering quality results, vendors need to overcome five main business challenges: . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

Case Study: How Monster Puts UX At The Heart Of Its New Global Product Development Strategy

by Marta Baigorri, August 26, 2008

In the past eight years, Monster has expanded into more than 50 countries on four continents through an aggressive acquisition program. Even as Monster focused on platform integration, go-to-market strategies, and infrastructure, it neglected user experience . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

Is Your eBusiness Team Ready For Prime Time?

Introducing Forrester's eBusiness Maturity Model

by Carlton A. Doty, Elizabeth Davis, August 21, 2008

How does your eBusiness team stack up against others? How mature is the average eBusiness team? What characteristics should an eBusiness team exhibit — and excel at? To answer these and other common questions we're hearing from our eBusiness and channel . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

Customer Experience Thrives With Executive Leadership

by Bruce D. Temkin, April 24, 2008

In our Q4 2007 Customer Experience Peer Research Panel survey, we found that 45% of the firms had a senior executive in charge of improving customer experience across products and channels. To find out what type of an effect these execs had on their companies' . . .

For Marketing Leadership Professionals

Staffing for Globalization

Balancing Control with Local Input

by Sonal Gandhi, April 8, 2008

Staffing global online efforts remains a challenge as companies expand their global Web presence.

For Interactive Marketing Professionals

How To Staff For Social Computing

Two Key Hires: A Social Computing Strategist And A Community Manager

by Jeremiah K. Owyang, February 28, 2008

Don't try to build and run social applications without the right staff. We've identified two key new roles needed for success: 1) the Social Computing strategist, who'll lead the internal charge, and 2) the community manager, an external customer advocate. . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

Obstacles To Customer Experience Success, 2008

Survey Of 287 Large US Companies Highlights Key Obstacles

by Bruce D. Temkin, February 7, 2008

In a survey of 287 customer experience decision-makers from large US firms, 91% said that customer experience would be either very important or critical to their 2008 efforts — a significant jump over results in a similar survey last year. We also found . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

Camp Organic: How One Top Agency Builds A Culture Of Customer Empathy

by Kerry Bodine, November 28, 2007

Organic, one of North America's top digital marketing agencies, knows that exceptional experiences are grounded in a deep understanding of customers. But the firm doesn't just pay lip service to this idea. It's developed a three-day ethnographic exercise . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

Why Shell's Global Web Standards Work

Communication, Support, And Transparency Protect Shell's Global Brand

by Ron Rogowski, August 15, 2007

Companies strive to create and enforce a single set of global Web standards that ensures an appropriately branded experience for their customers worldwide. While most companies fail, Shell succeeds in this effort because it supports a well-documented . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

Learning From Wal-Mart's Web Site Redesign

How The Walmart.com Team Managed The Redesign Process

by Moira Dorsey, March 13, 2007

Walmart.com recently launched a major redesign. To understand how they went through the process, we spoke with Walmart.com's marketing director and vice president of user experience. These execs answered the following questions: What were the goals of . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

Customer Experience Leadership Matters

A Survey Of Customer Experience Execs

by Bruce D. Temkin, March 2, 2007

Less than one-third of our Customer Experience Peer Research Panel participants have an executive in charge of their company's customer experience efforts. We examined how these firms with clear customer experience leadership differ from their peers. . . .

Considering A Chief Customer/Experience Officer?

Don't Do It Unless The Role Is Set Up For Success

by Bruce D. Temkin, November 2, 2006

Companies are increasingly trying to improve the experiences that they deliver to customers. So should they turn to a chief customer/experience officer (CC/EO) as part of the effort? These execs can be very valuable, but only if they are charged with . . .

For Customer Experience Professionals

The People Who Make Great Web Sites

The Organizations, Skills, And Budgets Behind Today's Biggest Sites

by Kerry Bodine, September 13, 2006

Forrester surveyed our Customer Experience Peer Research Panel to reveal the inner workings of today's typical Web organization. We found an experienced boss with big responsibility but a relatively small budget, and centralized design resources — an . . .

Should Web Designers Report Into Marketing?

Wrong Question! Changing Reporting Relationships Won't Fix Design Flaws

by Harley Manning, September 13, 2006

Can moving control of site design to the marketing department improve today's poor online customer experience? It hasn't so far. So, instead of asking where Web organizations should report, companies would be better served by focusing on the real key . . .

What Should You Pay Your Usability Staff?

Results From The 2005 Usability Professionals Association Salary Survey

by Kerry Bodine, August 22, 2006

Nearly 900 US-based user experience (UX) professionals — including information architects, usability practitioners, interface designers, and usability managers — responded to the Usability Professionals' Association's (UPA) 2005 salary survey. The data . . .

Culture And Process Drive Better Customer Experiences

by Moira Dorsey, Kerry Bodine, March 31, 2006

Companies place a high priority on improving customer experience — and they cite a lack of organizational alignment as their top obstacle to making improvements. But our interviews with experts show that there is no single organizational structure that . . .