Using online community to optimize the customer experience provides some of the most innovative and collaborative ways organizations can leverage their consumers to meet business goals.

2. Using Online
Communities to Optimize
the Customer Experience
The innovative and collaborative
ways organization can leverage
online communities to inform and
enhance the customer experience.

3. PRESENTED BY
Whitney Miller, Ph.D.
Director, Insights at Passenger
Whitney is a corporate anthropologist & digital strategist
and applies her craft to help organizations obtain the
community engagement necessary for generating
actionable insights, accelerating innovation and inspiring
advocacy from customers and employees.
Since receiving her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from
Harvard, Miller has worked in the communications and
insights space in various capacities – Communications
Consultant at Hall & Partners, Senior Manager of
Insights at Viacom, and most recently as a Brand
Futurist and Senior Director of Consumer Insights at an
agency focused on luxury brands including automotive
clients Ford and Lincoln Mercury.
At Passenger, Whitney is responsible for working with all
teams to provide strategic insights to help address
client’s business objectives.
Michael Lowenstein, Ph.D., CMC
Thought Leadership Principal for Beyond Philosophy
Michael is Thought Leadership Principal for Beyond
Philosophy, an international customer-centricity and
customer experience training, planning and research
consultancy, a member of the Advisory Council of
Villanova University’s Center for Business Analytics,
and Adjunct Marketing Instructor at Rutgers University
School of Business’ Executive Education Program.
He specializes in customer life cycle management,
strategic/profitable customer relationships, customer
behavior research, customer-centric enterprise
design, and employee performance research,
consulting, and training.
He is the author of six customer-centric strategy
books and over 200 white papers and articles.

4. USING ONLINE COMMUNITIES TO OPTIMIZE
THE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
why are we talking about the customer experience?
what drives positive and negative customer experiences?
what impact does the customer experience have on brands?
how does it impact brands?
how to create a more ‘human’ experience?

5. THERE IS A NEW NORMAL
Customers are more empowered than ever before and they expect you
to ask for their opinion … then, they expect you to listen and respond
To adapt to these market changes, brands must adopt a collaborative
approach where customers are integrated into every business unit
from marketing to sales to innovation
Online communities can help facilitate this new
relationship between you and your customers

6. WHY ARE WE TALKING
ABOUT THIS?

7. of buying experiences are based on how the
customer feels they are being treated.
(McKinsey)
or sooner, customer experience will overtake price
and product as the key brand differentiator.
(Customers 2020 Report)
of companies expect to increase their focus on
customer experience measurements and metrics.
(Temkin Group)
reduction in your customer defection rate can
increase your profitability by 25 to 125%.
(Leading on the Edge of Chaos, Emmet Murphy and Mark Murphy)5%
70%
2020
84%

8. How Beyond Philosophy
defines customer experience:
A customer experience is an interaction between an
organization and a customer as perceived through a customer’s
conscious and subconscious mind. It is a blend of an
organization’s rational performance, the senses stimulated and
emotions evoked, and it is intuitively measured against
customer expectations across all moments of contact.

9. ROLE OF ONLINE COMMUNITY
Online communities allow companies to connect customers
with employees and each other, provide customers with valuable
content, insight and advice, and provide platforms for them to
express their opinions and be heard
Use qualitative tools such as live chats, surveys, login polls
to ask your customers questions to find attributes that are
associated with satisfaction or dissatisfaction.
These hubs help companies improve the customer experience,
increase sales, augment customer loyalty and generate
increased company awareness
HOW?

10. WHAT DRIVES
POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE?

11. CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE DRIVERS
Keeping
Promises
Trend-
Setting
Overall
Perceived
Value
Speed of
Problem
Resolution
Clarity of
Commun-
ication
Positive
Reputation
Products/
Services That
Meet Needs
Customer
Care
Simplicity
Innovative
Products
Product/
Service
Quality
Product
Reliability
Treatment
as a Valued
Customer
Honesty
Multi
Channel
Authenticity
&
Transparency
Time-
liness
Billing
Accuracy
Knowledge
Of Staff
Service
Proaction

12. WHAT IMPACT
DOES IT HAVE?

13. A DOMINO EFFECT
1 person will share a
negative experience with
between 10 and 20 people*
* White House Office of Consumer Affairs
The consumer shares
their experiences to their
networks, both online and
offline, which shapes future
customer behavior.

14. Corporate and brand image is as important as
product and service performance.
Communities offer the opportunity to understand
and leverage what elements of the customer experience
most contribute to brand image and reputation.
All contribute to trust building, which is
central to customer behavior.
ON CORPORATE AND BRAND IMAGE

15. HOW?

16. ONLINE COMMUNITIES CAN…
Build customer brand familiarity
Enhance brand within the consideration set
Understand customer experience and value delivery
relative to promises and expectations
Assess brand credibility, image, and reputation,
expressed from an emotional/trust perspective
Gauge customer likelihood to understand the
brand message, and share it in a positive manner
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

17. TO…
Give your customer’s a personal
investment in your brand and it’s success
Become more transparent and open
Connect with customers through branded
emotional experiences
Sustain value delivery in being seen as
a conscious capitalist
1.
2.
3.
4.

18. CONNECT WITH CUSTOMERS
The most valuable customers appreciate and
want more personalization, a relationship,
and an emotional connection.
a) identify the strongest emotional drivers and
b) effectively leverage them
IT’S UP TO
ORGANIZATIONS TO…

19. HOW TO CREATE A MORE
“HUMAN” EXPERIENCE AND
PERCEPTION

20. PROVIDE A TRUST-BASED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
Branding, and connection to the
organization, is always a personal
response. Companies have begun to
understand this on a more fundamental
level. Especially in terms of how they
need to become less institutional and
more accessible and social, transparent,
and trustworthy in the minds of
customers. Community is a key way they
can both understand this, and also
explore concepts for making the
enterprise more socially conscious.
Online communities represent a tool and
an environment for helping brands be
more open, authentic, collaborative,
transparent, and innovative.
trust
a firm belief in the
reliability, truth, ability
or strength of someone
or something
“
”

21. BOTTOM-LINE BENEFITS
1. Lower customer service costs
2. Product/concept beta testing
3. Customer value research
4. Discovery, Innovation, and Advocacy

22. THANK YOU!
Whitney Miller, Ph.D.
Director, Insights at Passenger
wmiller@thinkpassenger.com
Michael Lowenstein, Ph.D., CMC
Thought Leadership Principle for Beyond
Philosophy
mwlowenstein@gmail.com