Also at the live stream event were Rebecca Bezzina, R/GA London’s SVP MD, and Aaron Mitchell, IKEA’s global VP of customer engagement, who took questions from Contagious editorial director, Alex Jenkins, about post-purchase experiences.
Asked whether people really wanted relationships with brands, Bezzina responded that brands in different sectors have permission to enter customers’ lives to differing degrees, but she added that, in general, ‘I do think people want relationships where there is mutual value.’
As to which brands were getting post-purchase experiences right, Bezzina described Sephora as ‘the gold standard’. She had attended one of the beauty brand’s meet-ups where she got to meet with a founder and received a free consultation, which not only added value to her life but ‘made me want to purchase more’, she added.
Mitchell picked footwear brand Grenson, which he said makes customers feel valued by sending customers tips for taking care of their shoes and even going so far as to explain to customers how it was dealing with disruptions caused by Brexit. He also gave a shout out to his gym, which suspended all membership fees amid the pandemic lockdown but continued to send him home work-out plans every week, showing Mitchell that he was valued beyond his financial contribution to the company.
Asked about loyalty schemes, Mitchell said that, at IKEA, ‘we’re challenging ourselves to reverse the equation: not to ask how can people be loyal to IKEA to how we can be loyal to our customers. If you can solve problems for people we can play a meaningful role in their lives.’
On the question of what marketers can do right now to improve customers’ post-purchase experiences, Mitchell advised looking at the first post-purchase interaction you could change tomorrow by infusing it with some personality.
Bezzina meanwhile said that her one tip would be to start listening to customers and paying attention to the data, ‘because most of the clues come from there’.
