After two days, I resolved that Canberra is the world's most boring city. That is why I went back to Sydney.
I had flown to Sydney and stayed one night at the Four Seasons hotel before driving to Canberra. I had a vague notion about seeing the Australian countryside. Once my obligations in Canberra were over, I sped back to Sydney, dropped my rental car at its home base and took a taxi to the Four Seasons. When I stopped at the entrance, the bellman said "Welcome back, Dr. Zak. Your room is ready for you."
I stared at the bellman as the words bounced around my brain. Searching for a reply, I smiled and walked into the lobby where the desk clerk greeted me by name and handed me my room key. This happened 15 years ago and ranks as one of the outstanding customer experiences of my life. Do I love the Four Seasons? No doubt about it. I stay there whenever possible, most recently in Denver, Colorado, and the experience is always extraordinary.
Companies have known for eons that an amazing customer experience (CX) is a serious competitive advantage. Great CX sustains brand loyalty and produces raving fans. Great. How is it measured? Usually it is retrospective surveys that poorly capture the emotions one felt during the experience. Survey data can be used to create a net promoter score (NPS) that advocates claim predict customer loyalty but academic research does not support this. A few companies have created immediate feedback survey apps but again these presume that customers can and will accurately reveal the emotions felt during CX.
The solution? The Immersion platform allows our clients to passively measure the neurologic responses of customers in real-time. This generates second-by-second data that allows clients to identify exactly what made the CX fabulous or a failure.
There are two ways that Immersion enables direct CX measurement. The first is to invite customers to participate. They could be incentivized with a coupon or cash payment to do this. The customer only needs to download the Immersion app on his or her smart watch. Clients will do this if they want a customized experience and especially if they are regular customers.
There is even an easier way to measure CX. Here's the secret: immersion is contagious. Immersion's scientists have shown that immersion of sales associates predicts whether a customer will purchase with 83% accuracy. And it gets even better: The amount of money spent increases linearly with immersion. Data from a high-fashion clothing client showed that a 50% increase in immersion would result in an additional $43 of sales for a typical customer.
The increase in purchases shows how immersion tracks extraordinary CX. CX includes all aspects of the the customer journey, including the physical and online environments and brand touchpoints. The immersion of each of these components can be measured and improved to create an amazing customer experience, higher sales, and raucously loyal customers. It all depends on immersion.