Customer Perspective: An Ipsos Podcast Ipsos

Ipsos’ Channel Performance teams partner with clients across the world to understand and measure channels and shoppers, to drive sales conversion.  In our world of ‘convergent commerce’, they help improve performance across all sales and service channels – physical, contact centre, and digital – to deliver
profitable growth.

We’re joined by Craig Bradley, who leads Channel Performance, and Stuart Wood, product leader for ‘Shopper’. At the start of 2023, Ipsos’ Shopper Insights and Virtual Testing teams joined our Channel Performance business.  Virtual Testing offers simulated physical and digital retail environments to measure
shopper decision making, and test different activation scenarios.  Craig and Stuart tell us why these businesses came together, focusing on the benefits for clients, the business challenges addressed and, of course, the impact of so doing – with plenty of example cases. They delve into each aspect of Channel Performance: Channel Sizing, including Retail Census, Retail Audit and Illicit Trade Assessment, to inform channel entry and growth strategy; Execution Measurement to ensure compliance; Mystery Shopping with the end goal of driving the right customer behaviours; as well as Shopper Insights, with a behavioural science lens, to optimise marketing ROI; and Virtual Testing to win at the point of purchase. Craig and Stuart give a shout out to best practice organisations and share their predictions for the future.

Check out Ipsos’ latest Channel Performance, CX and omnichannel/convergent commerce thinking.

Many financial services businesses deploy external intermediaries in one form or another. These B2B (business to business) relationships are typically between the financial institution and external salespeople, advisors, agents, brokers, wholesalers and such like.   In many cases, these businesses are then selling to
other businesses, rather than the end consumer.

Unfortunately, it can be easy to overlook people who don’t work directly for your firm, because you may not ‘see’ or have regular contact with them. However, as an extension of your firm, they represent your brand, products, and services. More importantly, their success has a significant impact on the success of your firm during challenging economic times.

Mary DeBisschop and Jeff Repace, Senior Vice Presidents in our Ipsos US Customer Experience team, have recently published a paper called ‘Why
empowering intermediaries can help financial services companies in a challenging economy’.  They join us on our Customer Perspective podcast to talk about helping businesses understand what it takes to maintain successful B2B relationships with their intermediaries.

And if you’d like to hear more from Mary and Jeff, sign-up for their upcoming webinar on 7th June: [WEBINAR] Empowering B2B Intermediaries through Customer Experience | Ipsos.

Ipsos’ latest CX and Channel Performance thinking may be found via these links.

We’re delighted to welcome Emma Dark, Director of Customer Service at Estée Lauder, along with one of our favourite podcast co-hosts, Jamie Thorpe, Head of Experience Management at Ipsos in the UK.  Emma and her team have recently been crowned the Best Small Customer Contact Centre of the year, in the highly prestigious European Contact Centre and Customer Service Awards (ECCCSAs).  Our own Helen Wilson, CX and Channel Performance CXO and Customer Perspective host, is the ECCCSAs’ Chair of Judges, and she certainly knows a great gold winner when she sees one! 

Emma takes us on her career journey, with signs of success evident early on; at just 17 years old, she opened her first store as a manager.  She moved up the customer service ladder in leading global brands and start-ups, but with CX and EX always at the heart of her roles.   As such, she’s exceptionally well-placed to share her take on some of our top topics including the role of Customer Experience measurement and management in CPG organisations, the importance of embedding ESG in experience, challenges when operating in our convergent commerce world, and, of course, delivering that Return on CX Investment (ROCXI). If you’re new to CX or looking to improve your CX focus, be sure to listen to Emma’s guidance on the three CX ‘must dos’!

If you want to hear more from Estée Lauder, take a trip back to Season 2, Episode 9, when we were joined by Kate Fannin, Executive Director, Retail Experience & Insights, North America Corporate Marketing.

For more information about Ipsos’ point of view, check out our latest Ipsos CX and Channel Performance thinking. Read ‘Embedding ESG in Experience’ to find out how organisations can derive value from ESG.

In some of our Customer Perspective podcasts over the past year or so, you may have heard us talking about Convergent Commerce – the blurring of
physical and digital commerce environments and touchpoints. In this episode, we’re continuing our Convergent Commerce journey, but from the angle of the
bricks and mortar store.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that with all the talk about digital channels, the physical store is dead. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Its roles are expanding not contracting. And depending on the category, often a majority of shopping task time and purchases are made in physical stores.

We’re joined by Norrelle Goldring, one of the authors of our recently published paper, ‘The Morphing Store: bricks and
mortar evolution in a convergent commerce world’. We’re discussing how the physical store is changing, how its roles are expanding, and, of course, what this means in terms of designing for, delivering, and measuring success.

Ipsos’ latest CX and Channel Performance and thinking may be found via these links, along with ways in which our CX – including Service Design,
Shopper Insights, Mystery Shopping, and  Execution Measurement experts can support organisations as they face the challenges and opportunities posed by
the ‘morphing store’.

We’re delighted to welcome Sybil Nicolson and Kristian Green to the first episode of our sixth season of Customer Perspective.  Sybil is an Insights Executive for Transport for London, which many of you will know as TfL.  Kristian is a Director in Ipsos’ UK Channel Performance – Mystery Shopping team, and a transport and tourism sector expert.

For those of you not familiar with TfL, this is the organisation which runs the operation of London’s public transport network and manages London's main roads – no small task given we’re talking the likes of 1.4bn tube travellers every year, 2.3 bn bus passengers – when every journey matters… that’s quite the organisational challenge!

Sybil and Kristian describe some of TfL’s research activities, including their large-scale, long-term Mystery Shopping programme: London Underground Customer Care Monitor (CCM).  They explain how it remains fresh after more than 10 years, the research and logistical challenges associated with such a major initiative and how to overcome, and, most importantly, how TfL puts this to work, to drive positive change across the organisation and improvements for customers.

For more information about how to build a successful mystery shopping programme, head to Designing a ‘Smarter’ Mystery Shopping Programme | Ipsos. And do check out our latest Ipsos CX and Channel Performance thinking.

We live in volatile times that are influencing customers’ expectations, needs and opinions. Understanding and empathising with customers and the context of ‘their world’ needs to be at the heart of experience design.

We welcome experience design experts, Helen Bywater-Smith, Ipsos’ Global Head of CX Service Design and author of our latest Ipsos whitepaper, CX Service Design: Creating emotional attachment and driving brand growth, and Jean-Francois (JF) Damais, Global CX Chief Research Officer.

Helen and JF share best practice and service design guidelines for brands to create emotional attachment and drive the right behaviours, leading to increased retention, share of spend, advocacy, operational efficiency, and, ultimately, an improved Return on CX Investment: ROCXI … and, yes, the line “designers of memories, expressers of brands, impacters of bottom lines” may have been uttered!

Check out the paper for a more in-depth look at CX Service Design case studies and actionable frameworks. And when you’re reading it, think about a specific journey or experience that you would like to design, refresh or repair, to improve your relationship with your customers. Consider it a ‘mini CX design clinic’!

Head to these links to find out about more Ipsos  CX and Channel Performance thinking.