I took some time off from blogging. I put a moratorium on it in fact because I thought it would help me focus on writing Location-based Marketing for Dummies (with Aaron Strout). It actually did quite the opposite. It created a log jam of ideas and I was forced to throw out fragments of them on a twitter and Facebook. Ann Handley, the co-author of Content Rules reminded me that writing is like a muscle that needs to be flexed or it weakens. So I am back to blogging on my regular schedule which is – “when I have something to say”.

Customer Experience Improvement
This is a buzzword that I have been talking to people about since 2001. I guess it is unfair to call it a buzzword because it is more like a dull hum. And I think I’m the only one who hears the humming. Who ever heard of a humword? The ideas behind Customer Experience Improvement are:

• A uniform experience for customers across each place within a business.

• A richer, more engaging experience for both customers and for the people who serve the customers.

• A template for how to interact with a customer.

• A decision for a customer to be able to interact with a human or decide that they do not want to.

• More information for the customer about menu choices.

• Efficiency for the customer if desired.

• Better offers for customers and prospects

• Online style analytics for online behavior.

The way I drew it up originally was that someone carries an RFID and they scan it when they go into a store, say a Starbucks or a Dunkin Donuts. The card knows their “usual” order and the customer can set that up as a default online if they want. This way when they go in, they do not have to tell anyone what they want, it just happens, their name gets called and they go on their way. Of course they can also have it hooked up to their credit card so they can enable automatic payment. Remember, I drew this sucker up before smart phones. The other thing a person could do was go to a kiosk where they could see the menu. They could scan their RFID (I called it the WAND) and that would let them access the entire menu, similar to the experience on the web. They can order items and the Dunkin or Starbucks can feed them special offers based on what other people with similar tastes like or based on whatever the company feels like pushing.

So Starbucks seems to have this, now but for some unknown reason, they have it in 2 disparate applications that do not talk to one another. It’s possible that two different groups have put applications together or that they are just testing into two different ideas at once fueled by two different teams. At any rate, one application is peanut butter and the other is chocolate. You see where I’m heading with this?

Peanut Butter: Starbucks App

This application allows a user to build and save the ultimate coffee. All of the known options are spelled out in detail. Starbucks cofffee options are sort of unknowns. Sure, people often dream them up, but things like double blend and upside down are not very widely known and might be varieties that people would enjoy. And more importantly something that Starbucks would very much like to measure. I am told that each of these options is available at the register and that they are “supposed” to be entered, but that does not mean that they are. If only there was a way to look at:

* The options I looked at on a menu
* The options I chose to save
* The things I actually ordered
* Popular options by Region, Season, Segment, Customer Lifetime Value

Segment of course is based on things that we can discern from linking twitter and Facebook accounts and mining stream of consciousness data that is collected from them. Everything from age and brands we like to converse with to music and movie preferences could be collected and used to provide a better experience for customers.

Chocolate: Mobile Card

This is where I am confused. This application is essentially just a way to keep your loyalty card on your phone versus having to have it on your key chain or in your wallet. Put these two applications together and you give someone the ability to order and pay before they even get to the Starbucks. Starbucks doesn’t need to worry. They know the person is not in the store. So what if they have to write the person’s name on the cup? If the cup goes to waste, it’s not their problem because they have already been paid. By the way, I got a five dollar bonus for charging my card using the application. That made me happy. That is a free fancy coffee for me.

What I do know is that if they combined these applications and built a simple monitoring screen for the iPad or web, Starbucks could have a very compelling mobile commerce model. I can see that there are a few steps to go in order for it to seamlessly hook into their point of sale system, but they seem to be closer than anyone that isn’t using Aislebuyer to do their mobile e-commerce stuff.

What do you think?