Delivering cooperative customer experiences: 8 traits marketers need to step up their game

At the start of every year, I always make time to reflect on the past and look ahead to the future. Last year was particularly challenging, testing us both personally and professionally, with one common theme: change. The field of marketing has probably changed more in the last two years than the last 10. And, frankly, it has probably changed more in 2020 than ever before. As marketers, it is not enough to adapt to change as it happens. We must invite it, instigate it. Disrupt or be disrupted.

The isolating experience of the pandemic has shown us that customers are in greater need of a more personal, tailored experience – and many are suddenly open to new ways of engaging in that experience. SAS worked with Accenture to bring this trend to life in the latest Technology Vision report and provide guideposts for the road ahead. Let me introduce the cooperative experience – in an all-digital world, customers actively participate in the creation and ongoing refinement of their own experiences. We can achieve this by combining direct input from customers with a foundation of data from previous experiences, habits and preferences.

Marketers play an important role in guiding this shift and managing the customer experience. But are they up to the challenge? If they’re going to be successful, I believe today’s, and tomorrow’s, modern marketer must have eight core competencies, above and beyond the hard skills they need to do their jobs:

• Customer-centric: Today’s marketers must think beyond the tactic, channel or campaign. They must be customer-centric – no… customer-obsessed. What are the customers’ motivations, aspirations, challenges? What are their watering holes at work – and outside of work? Today’s buyers have a wealth of information about potential purchases at their fingertips, making it easier for them to gather information independently and harder for sellers to influence these decisions. At the same time, marketers have extensive knowledge about their customers through research, forensics and digital body language evaluation. We must use this knowledge to build trust, not only respecting privacy legislation, but also honoring the gift of customer data with enhanced experiences.
• Digital mindset: In order to reach customers in an increasingly all-digital world, it’s imperative that modern marketers have a strategic understanding of the broad digital landscape, including web, search, social, design and content. As this landscape continues to grow and evolve, so do the trends at the forefront of customers’ minds, like privacy and tracking. When marketers understand how a customer moves through these digital journeys, they can anticipate key questions, concerns and frustrations – helping simplify and enhance the overall customer experience.
• Growth mindset: Our industry needs active learners who stay current as marketing evolves and can maintain a global perspective. Think for a moment about the rate of change of the entire field of marketing in 2020 alone. It’s a given the entire playing field has changed, but have marketers changed along with it at the same rate? It takes a growth mindset – a proactive, adaptable, open-minded approach to sharpening skills and learning new ones – to deliver next-level customer experiences. In this landscape, an individual's belief that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work – the hallmark of a growth mindset – is absolutely critical. We are in a defining moment to elevate the profession of marketing.
• Innovative and creative: Digital fatigue is setting in. There’s a good chance that what worked in 2019 and 2020 isn’t possible moving forward. In order to create customer solutions with measurable value, marketers must break through the noise. We have to experiment with new ways to solve problems and seize opportunities that result in unique and differentiated solutions. Competing through creativity and innovation is essential.
• Analytically curious: Think back to the meetings you attended a year ago where customer-focused research and insights were presented. Did you use that analysis to see the world in the way your customers or prospects do? Did you action those insights in a way your customer would notice? In the world of cooperative experience making, analysis is more important than ever. Marketers need to flex their analytics curiosity, using data-driven insights to track, interpret, measure and report on their marketing activities and levels of engagement with consumers. The questions, “How are we doing?” and “What could we be doing better?” are good places to start.
• Storyteller: Marketers must have the ability to craft unique, compelling stories that reach and connect with their audiences. We must balance establishing credibility and trust, while tapping into our audiences’ emotions. Through memorable and inspiring stories, we can help create unforgettable customer experiences.
• Emotional intelligence: Of course, we can’t tell compelling stories without recognizing and managing our own emotions and those of others. Modern marketers have exceptional emotional intelligence, allowing them to authentically connect, communicate and empathize with people across industries, cultures and generations – effectively resonating with any audience that comes their way.  
• Collaborator: None of our lofty goals as marketers can be achieved alone. In addition to working within the marketing ecosystem and with our customers, we must collaborate and build relationships across our businesses – in IT, Finance, HR, Sales, Product Management and the C-suite. Luckily, marketers are uniquely qualified to build these bridges and establish lasting relationships.

As we look ahead, it’s clear that companies must ditch one-way selling in favor of using human input and choices to shape each customer experience. It’s bold and collaborative. And I’m confident that our modern marketers will lead the way. 

Want to dig deeper? Check out the full report for more – and look for the “I in Experience” section, which includes great insights from Wilson Raj and Mike Blanchard from SAS, as well as Accenture’s Monika Maluch and Georgios Passalis.