A New Technology To Help Visually Impaired Shoppers Is Being Tested By IBM in Brazil

Imagine you are a tourist in a foreign country, with a different alphabet, in Japan, say. You see a vending machine, but you are not able to know which products are being sold, because you can’t read the names.

Or you’re in an airport or a train station in the same country, and you can’t read the board to know if your flight is late or is arriving on time. The same happens if you’re staying at home, but you are one of many visually impaired customers that have trouble accessing information displayed in public spaces.

So, what do these situations have in common? They deal with a context where a fixed layout is present (the vending machine or the airplane board), but the content changes dynamically and, for one reason or another, can’t be accessed the usual way. A solution could  be using QR codes to identify the products or use an iPhone app like VizWiz to identify the content, crowdsourcing the recognition to an online community. All of these approaches have their pros and cons: QR codes for instance, require connectivity, while the effectiveness of crowdsourcing  depends on how fast the community’s response is.

IBM IBM +0.16%’s researchers in Brazil are trying a different path: instead of focusing on the content, which could be too time consuming or require too much computational power, not to mention connectivity, they are focusing on the layout. The secret is using some identifying markers, placed around a display, and smooth the content’s identification process by using some training templates.

English: Snack Machine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

“It works like this – researcher Andrea Britto Mattos says – We add four markers to the scene in which we want to recognize image or textual content. Then, we take a picture, in the frontal position, where the four markers and the target container are visible, computing their position and storing the template model”.

When an image is provided as input by the user, through a smartphone app, instead of trying to locate the target objects, the algorithm locates the markers, which is easier. Based on their position, it is possible to infer the location of the target containers. Then, once the target objects are located, any recognition method can be applied.

The researchers propose one based on supervised learning, in which the target objects are matched to train­ing templates. “We can assign one unique set of four markers – Britto explains – to some fixed set of objects, reducing therefore the size of the training set. Hence, once the markers are identified, the matching operation can be done on a restrict universe, making the recognition problem computationally easier”.

In a test, 700 product images were evaluated this way, with a recognition rate of 88,85%.

An advantage of using this technique is that allows perspective correction. Unlike a QR code, which displays an error message if the image is not taken correctly, the IBM IBM +0.16% solution prompts the customer to retake the picture and provides verbal instructions on how to effectively capture the image.

“Since we use four markers – Britto Mattos says – it’s hard for a blind person  to take a picture in which all of them are visible. But can use the markers ID to help the visually‑impaired user to put their cameras in a proper position. For example, if you take a picture in which only the left markers are visible, we are able to get this information from the markers’ ID and we can output a message telling the user to move their camera to the right.”

Once the picture is taken correctly, back to the vending machine case, visually impaired users could  receive an audio playback of the item associated with each number on the keypad, allowing them to confidently identify and purchase the item they would like, without having to actually see it. This method it’s just a prototype, at the moment, but it does hold promise for the near future.

“Right now – the researcher says – We are trying to arrange experiments here in Brazil with some institutions that work with systems of blind people because there are some interface details about which we believe that they can give us some very useful inputs.”

And it’s not only blind people that could benefit from this technique: marketers could use it to optimize displays for all customers who enter their store and to gather information about the content of shelves with fixed layouts.

“In terms of commercial application – Britto Mattos tells me – we could use this for retail monitoring because another problem that we have here is that sometimes, the retail companies, they need to know what’s being displayed in their shelves for providing analytics of replenishment and avoiding products that should be out of shelf and this kind of thing”. There’s still some fine-tuning to be done, however, before turning this scenario into reality. And it’s still early to tell whether this method could really have a commercial future or not.

“We don’t really have a very fixed chronogram right now, so our next step is to do these experiments with the blind users. We are also arranging with a retail company here in Brazil to do some experiments in a real supermarket. We believe that next year, we will probably have some more interesting results with real scenarios and real users.”

Breathing New Life Into The American Mall

The changes happening at U.S. shopping malls are both a big topic of conversation and of concern. Is the internet killing the mall, or is it more adaptable? There are many who believe that online retailing is killing the physical store, others aren’t so sure.

Leases for physical stores will be expiring soon, as fellow Forbes contributor Barbara Thau points out, the number of storefronts from existing retailers are dwindling.  Older formats or banners, think Sears, will likely go away, malls will not.

The mall is evolving in some new and interesting ways that could transform that experience in some meaningful ways, thanks to digital technology.

Simon Property Group recently announced it would host mini-marketplaces in six of its U.S. malls. It’s a partnership with with Refinery29, an online site devoted to fashion. Refinery29 doesn’t sell merchandise, but its stamp of approval goes a long way toward furthering a brand or label.

Simon is also creating what it calls “smart malls” by adding iBeacons to roughly 75 properties. The technology, developed by Apple, allows for the placement of small transmitters inside spaces that communicate with smartphones over a version of Bluetooth called Bluetooth low energy (BLE).

In short, it creates a complete Wi-Fi network where signals are hard to get, has a low-drain on mobile devices’ batteries, and offers a seamless solution for shoppers and retailers alike.

Offering ubiquitous Wi-Fi in shopping centers is considered critical to wooing millennial shoppers and reaching them via their preferred form of communication, the smartphone. BLE networks are inexpensive, easy to install and allow retailers to communicate directly to shoppers in new and meaningful ways.

Westfield malls are testing mobile ordering that lets shoppers order food from their smartphones for pick-up or delivery. The goal is to extend the service to other retail tenants.

Westfield’s Labs division earlier this year, installed a life-size touch-screen mirror in a New Jersey mall that lets shoppers browse products offered by retail tenants. These types of digital storefronts are popping up in shopping centers as companies devise ways to bring in younger shoppers and create livelier, more exciting shopping environments.

Some stores may go away, but malls are changing as retailers and management companies breath new life into this American experience.

Customer Service, CRM, Customer Experience -- What's the Difference?

Customer service, strategic customer service, CRM, and customer experience: these terms are often used interchangeably. In fact, they imply very different concepts and roles within your company. As you move down the list of terms, an executive creates greater opportunities to take the lead in customer engagement while enhancing their status and career.  These are the major differences which set these terms apart.

Customer Service consists of contact handling and executing basic customer transactions. For better or worse, this is your basic call center, often viewed by executives as the complaint department and a necessary nuisance. Even this function is quite profitable in that it retains the revenue of customers that otherwise would take their business elsewhere. On average, the revenue retained from handling a complaint is two to five times the loaded cost of handling the contact alone.

Strategic Customer Service not only addresses basic service contacts and transactions but also includes three other activities within the contact center context:

• Gathering Voice of the Customer (VOC) information, quantify the revenue cost of inaction and inputting the VOC into other departments
• Creating customer engagement via microbursts of emotional connection (usually in 20-40 seconds)
• Preventing future contacts and delivering additional value via education

Strategic customer service allows you to become an internal consultant to the rest of the company.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is often viewed as a software system. Its impact goes far beyond software to include:

• Tracking and managing customer purchases and contact at major touch points including the phone, email, chat and social media
• Customer history and segmentation information is provided to the Customer Service Representative (CSR) to identify the most appropriate sales offer and manage the sales process
• Surveying customers (usually by email) after the contact. The results are included in the database for reference by the next CSR.

While customer history guides sales activities, almost all CRM activities are still reactive.

Customer Experience expands the traditional CRM activity to be anticipatory and proactive across the end-to-end customer lifetime. It uses technology to:

• Understand the customers’ experience across all silos, e.g. from sale to product delivery and onboarding, to use and billing via linkage to internal operational databases
• Identify opportunities for the company to be proactive. For instance, SoCal Edison used smart meter data to identify 30,000 customers whose bills were going to be higher and dispatched emails warning them and offering conservation tips. The response was very positive and less costly than waiting for customers to call.
• Expand the Voice of the Customer to include events that the customer often does not communicate. For instance, failed website searches and unused product features hurt satisfaction but are almost never identified.
• Create online communities to provide support, fun, content, and engagement and to gather ideas from the customer base
• Become preventive by identifying potential customer unpleasant surprises and needs and warning the customer on the website and via onboarding videos and literature

The CE function requires a much more sophisticated analytical capability and linkage of the CRM system to major databases across the company using a common identifier.  While both of these are challenging, the ability to enhance loyalty and word of mouth while reducing unnecessary cost will more than pay for the increased capability.

12 E-Commerce Strategies To Grow Your Business This Year

By Michael Evans and Jennifer Knight

Your plans for the New Year call for growing your company’s revenue in 2014, but where will your increased sales come from — a larger salesforce, new markets, or product innovation? The likely source of new customers will be e-commerce. Just look at the evidence: this past holiday season Black Friday was a bust while Cyber Monday hit the ball out of the park!

© freshidea – Fotolia.com

In the eMarketer latest forecast for U.S. retail e-commerce and mcommerce sales for the full year, it is estimated that U.S. e-commerce will have generated $262.3 billion in sales for 2013, an increase of 16.4 percent year over year and slightly higher than the 16.2 percent increase last year. By 2017 eMarketer estimates that there will be $440 billion in sales for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13.8 percent. The question is how small businesses can capture their share of the e-commerce explosion.

Here are 12 e-commerce strategies you should plan to implement in 2014:

1. Micro-Target an Online Audience. E-commerce is basically about establishing a “territory”: defining and designing a site to reach an audience with a common interest or characteristic. Whatever your product or service, define your company’s niche markets that you can penetrate online with specialized offerings.

2. Personalize. Site visitors are demanding one-of-a-kind experiences that cater to their needs and interests. Technology is available, even to smaller players, to capture individual shoppers’ interests and preferences and generate a product selection and shopping experience led by individualized promotions tailored to them.

3. Create Content to Build Stickiness. Winning e-commerce deploys crowd-sourced content to make a site “sticky” for potential buyers. Amazon attracted millions of consumers by encouraging them to share their opinions of items like books and CDs. What is your strategy to help potential customers for your products or services find you via Google? Use keywords and meta tags to raise your ranking in search results.

4. Tailor the Browsing Experience to Target Segments. Brand-appropriate site design and well-structured navigation remain key ingredients for attracting an audience and getting them to come back. Provide an enticing browsing experience across online platforms. If you want to sell backpacks to college students, for example, use vibrant colors with a flashy design to evoke a sense of youth and adventure.

5. Integrate Across Channels. Create multi-channel offerings, enabling your consumers to experience your brand consistently, whatever their shopping method of choice. But be sure that products you are selling via different channels are sufficiently differentiated to account for price differences.

6. Invest in Mobile. Mobile commerce is growing at a rate of over 130 percent annually. If you lack a robust mobile commerce platform, you will see a dramatic drop off in revenue over the next several years. To stay competitive, you need to offer mobile-accessible services such as delivery status, real-time notifications, click-to-call, maps, and product information.

7. Tap into Logistics. To accommodate growth, you may need to tap the capabilities of third-party logistics providers (3PLs) to manage a high volume of complex orders. Reverse logistics, the ability to handle returns and exchanges quickly and economically, is becoming a key differentiator. Same-day delivery and innovative fulfillment networks can be competitive advantages.

8. Consider Subscription Commerce.Subscription commerce takes several forms. In the replenishment model, a commodity item is sent to the customer every month. The discovery model is more promising. It offers a subscription to a curated experience that delivers new, hard-to-find, or customized items periodically to the customer’s doorstep.

9. Bypass the Middlemen. The Internet is enabling small companies to reach lots of consumers quickly. Manufacturers, includingfactories in China, are increasingly willing to work with small brands. They have discovered that small brands are more likely to introduce new products to market because they are less constrained by shelf space limitations and complex supply chains.

10. Offer a Seamless Experience Across Channels. Your sales will grow if you ensure that product availability, promotional strategies, and brand experience are consistent across all channels — whether online, in-store, or on a mobile device. Implement cloud-based supply chain technology to gain visibility into your performance across all channels.

11. Curate a Proprietary Selection. Proprietary selection is a strategy that focuses on “curating” a narrow and deep assortment of products in a particular segment. These sites make merchandise feel exclusive due to the depth and originality of the assortment, the difficulty in finding the products elsewhere, and the power of customer communities.

12. Sell Internet-Only Merchandise. This is a strategy that builds an exclusive brand — with ecommerce as the core distribution channel. By offering goods that are not available elsewhere and selling them directly to the consumer online, you maintain much greater control over your margins.

The Rise Of The Unicorns -- Why Marketing Technologists Will Rule Modern Marketing

This week in Boston the first MarTech conference was held to encourage and support the increasingly important but still rare professionals — those who are equally adept at marketing and technology. Sometimes labeled chief marketing technology officers (CMTO), and affectionately referred to as unicorns because they are so difficult to find, these are the individuals who help equip organizations with the tools of modern marketing needed to engage today’s always-on customers. They are the bridge builders between CMOs and CIOs and the Sherpas for brand marketers who need help navigating the digital world. They are becoming invaluable assets to any marketing team.

MarTech conference chair and author at chiefmartec.com Scott Brinker (@chiefmartec) showed why keeping up with the marketing technology landscape is so difficult and why the role of CMTO is so critical. He plots almost 1,000 companies into key functional categories. Here’s how he portrays the universe of options at one point in time:

Having trouble keeping up? Here is my advice for marketing leaders on how to deal with the discipline of marketing technology, which I picked up from the speakers at MarTech.

1. Accept that you are consciously incompetent. Mayur Gupta (@inspiremartech), head of global marketing technology for Kimberly-Clark KMB -0.13%, kicked off the conference with this advice. Key to his effectiveness at his company is “understanding the implications of what our CMO Clive Sirkin continually says: that it’s not about digital marketing but marketing in a digital world.” It is a fast changing world indeed and virtually impossible to know it all. So hiring resources, either internal or external advisors, who are dedicated to understanding the technologies needed to execute your marketing strategies and build better customer experiences is a prudent investment to make.

2. Don’t race against the machine, race with it. Erik Brynjolfsson (@ErikBryn), director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, is obsessed with understanding what machines can do better than humans (and vice versa). After studying examples from robotics to chess-champion computers and IBM IBM +0.16%’s Jeopardy-winning Watson, his conclusion is that the most effective performances come when humans work withtechnology. So don’t fight the new wave of digital tools, embrace them and learn how they make your organization more effective.

3. Collaborate and integrate. Laura McLellan (@LauraMcLellan), VP of marketing strategies at Gartner and the person behind the now infamous claim that CMOs will soon have bigger IT budgets than CIOs, called the rift between the two executives “garbage.” Why? Because 91% of marketing leaders believe that in two years they will be competing primarily on the basis of the customer experience. Astute marketing leaders know they can’t integrate the systems needed to deliver great experiences across all touch points without the collaboration of the CIOs’ teams. So get over your personality differences and work together to make your organization more responsive to your demanding customers.

4. Become customer-obsessed. Sheryl Pattek (@SherylPattek), VP and principal analyst in Forrester’s CMO practice, urged marketers to be disruptors because customer expectations have changed and marketers must catch up. “A customer-obsessed enterprise focuses its strategy, its energy and its budget on processes that enhance knowledge of and engagement with customers and prioritizes these over maintaining traditional competitive barriers.” According to the Q3 2013 Forrester/Heidrick & Struggles Evolved CMO Global Online Survey, only 18% of companies have a synchronized view of their customers across their organizations. So break down the silos and build a single unifying view that enables you to put end-customers at the center of your programs and engage with them seamlessly across all touch points.

5. Start building your own marketing cloud. Travis Wright (@teedubya) from Media Think Labs outlined the new Holy Grail of marketing (which will be the subject of my next book). “We have to move beyond integrated marketing and channel optimization to create omni-channel personalized experiences in real time.” To do that you must have ownership of the customer data and integrate the various applications needed for delivering 1:1 experiences across all touch points. Marketing cloud vendors such as Oracle ORCL +0.63%, IBM, Adobe and Salesforce are racing to get there but much work still needs to be done. So start architecting your marketing technology infrastructure and begin using the tools that can enhance your current customer experiences today.

6. Raise your own unicorns. Paul Roetzer (@PaulRoetzer), author of The Marketing Performance Blueprint, cited a scary statistic: “Only one of the top 10 university marketing programs requires a digital marketing class.” While I was proud to learn that one program was at Indiana’sKelley School of Business, my alma mater, I was dismayed that most of academia continues to lag the needs of real-world marketers. To address this problem, SapientNitro created an internal Chief Marketing Technology Academy. The executive director Sheldon Monteiro (@Sheldon_tm) acknowledged the program not only helps participants learn marketing fundamentals and technology skills, but also helps with communications and influence acumen so they can have a greater impact in their roles. Since the competition is intense for hiring the professionals who possess good foundations for becoming CMTOs, executive recruiting expert Erica Seidel (@erica-seidel) suggests you apply your customer acquisition methods to talent acquisition. Posting a job on LinkedIn (the Google AdWords of HR) results in only 3% of total hiring according CareerXRoads, so she suggests trying inbound marketing and social sharing techniques that start with compelling infographics of the positions you are trying to fill. Rishi Dave, CMO at D&B, believes having an inviting culture is also important. “What makes our marketing transformation exciting to recruits is that the executive team, including the CEO, supports and understands modern marketing. Here, they don’t have to swim against the tide. Here, marketing technologists will focus on driving big change immediately instead of trying to sell it to people who will never get it.”

5 Ways The Internet Of Things Will Make Marketing Smarter

The Internet of Things (IoT) may sound like a business buzzword. In reality, it’s a technological revolution that will impact everything we do—a gigantic wave of new possibility poised to alter the face of technology.

First, some background: IoT is the interconnectivity between things using wireless communication technology (each with their own unique identifiers) to connect objects, locations, animals, or people to the internet, thus allowing for the direct transmission of and seamless sharing of data.

In essence, it refers to everyday devices that are able to automatically exchange information over a network. IoT will also impact on our everyday lives by changing how we monitor traffic, weather, pollution, and the environment, and how we collect relevant data.

In an IoT world, common tasks will be outsourced. Sprinkler systems might automatically check local weather conditions before turning on, for instance, or a door lock might contacts you if someone opens it while you’re on vacation.

IoT is already among us with the Nike Fuelband, Google Glass, Fitbit, and the rumors of an iWatch from Apple—all popular examples of our increasingly connected lives.

As disruptive as they are, these technologies merely scrape the surface. IoT will soon mean more than just smart refrigerators, environmental alerts, and wearable technology; it will transform the way we do business, and specifically marketing. Here are 5 ways that IoT will improve marketing ROI:

1. Easy Exchange of Sales Data

One of the most valuable commodities to any business is its sales data. By having access to information regarding how, where, and why your products are being purchased and used, you’ll be able to better tailor your marketing efforts towards your specific clients.

Smart devices that can gather this data and supply it back to you in real time, without the need for IT professionals to direct or monitor the interaction, will allow businesses to create informed marketing strategies and improve ROI on future sales.

Perhaps even more importantly, your customers will be able to provide useful feedback instantaneously. So, if a specific product isn’t living up to expectations, you won’t have to wait very long at all to find out about it, which means that you’ll be able to cut your losses much sooner than later.

2. Smarter CRM: Instantaneous Customer Analysis

When used in conjunction with a dependable customer relationship management (CRM) tool, the IoT will be able to do more than simply gather and organize client data; it will be able to efficiently and accurately analyze that data as well, providing you with actionable results regarding your consumer base.

For marketers, this can be invaluable, given that the buyer’s chain of command is often long, and decisions take more time to be made. IoT devices can streamline this process by helping you understand where your prospect is in their buying journey, so that you’ll be able to make every second of every day count towards resolving issues and serving them the right information that will nurture them to ultimately close a deal.

3. Devices That Know They’re Dying

One of the more promising aspects of smart-enabled products is their potential ability to perform their own regular maintenance and diagnostics.

Automobiles have been self-diagnosing themselves for some time, but it was a clunky method that relied on inexact signals. With the power of IoT, every component is “smarter” so the ability to identify the problem, as well as the solution, will be lightning-fast.

When it comes to conventional items and devices, often the first sign that anything is wrong comes when the device abruptly stops functioning altogether. When this happens, there’s not much that can be done, aside from getting it repaired or ordering a whole new device and waiting for it to arrive.

IoT devices could eliminate that downtime by constantly monitoring their own functions and contacting technical support when necessary. And should a major, irreparable problem be detected, the IoT device could easily order a replacement for itself, so that when it finally does shut down, the new model will already have arrived and be ready to be put into service.

The same goes for upgrades. Many users put off upgrading their devices out of fear that the new upgrade will be buggy, time-consuming to implement, or that something will go wrong. Unfortunately, failing to upgrade software often leaves the devices open to security compromises or known problematic issues. IoT devices would take feet-dragging users out of the equation by searching for, downloading, and installing new upgrades completely on their own.

4. Predictive Social Media

When Facebook and Twitter first hit the scene several years ago, most marketers were less than convinced that these new “social media” sites would be worth targeting. We all know how well that turned out. Today, 74% of brand marketers report that they see a noticeableincrease in web traffic after investing a mere 6 hours a week in social media marketing efforts.

The IoT is already optimized for use with social media, allowing automated posts and shares to be regularly generated by the devices themselves, and preparing the way for new online communities to develop centered around users of particular devices.

Marketers who are able to predict the development of these social communities, and target their efforts towards these communities, will be able to reach potential customers that may not have previously been available. Likewise, IoT devices, when coupled with social media, will allow marketers to identify and take advantage of new emerging trends.

5. Imagine a 100% CTR (Click Through Rate)

Brought together, these factors all point towards one final goal: smarter, more relevant advertising.

As increasing numbers of our once-unconnected devices and objects are being fitted with sensors and given constant network accessibility, the face of advertising will change for both the marketer and the consumer.

No longer will marketers rely on banner ads or popups based off a website you visited on Tuesday; most IoT devices will be completely unable to process or even display such crude ploys.

As a result, the age of the interruptive commercial will finally come to an end for consumers. In its place will be a new world in which advertising must be beneficial and completely relevant—where no prospect is served an advertisement that doesn’t align perfectly with their interests, behaviors, and past purchases.

How is this possible? An example would be a light bulb going dark in your “smart” home. The connected home could not only make note of the need for a replacement, but could also provide the homeowner a digital coupon for a new bulb sent directly to their smartphone. Even better, the exact number of hours that the light bulb has been in use can be recorded and transmitted, letting you know that the light bulb is coming to the end of its life.

Not only will the consumer save time by only being served relevant ads, but marketing will no longer waste thousands of dollars on irrelevant advertising.

Marketers would need to have a detailed understanding of their consumers in order to take advantage of the new opportunities being made available, but those who are able to make the transition will find that the IoT allows them the opportunity to stop being marketers, and finally start being valued business resources.

Work Smarter with the Internet of Things

The Internet of Things isn’t going anywhere; in fact, it’s coming right at you fast; with an expected approximately 75 billion connections by 2020. So, with billions of new things becoming “smarter,” don’t let your marketing strategy remain dumb.

Think about how you currently interact with your products and apps. Think deeper into how your marketing can leverage smart devices now because the Internet of Things will give a whole new meaning to the adage “Work smarter, not harder.”