Last year’s annual team retreat was already off the charts, but this year’s Worldwide Kickoff exceeded our wildest expectations. First off, this commencement was double the size of last year’s (580 people!), coalescing workers old and new, including those from our vitalizing acquisition of 2019.

Our lively lot metaphorically set sail to the company’s country of origin: France. After briefly staying at the very first Contentsquare office (in Paris), we sojourned on the Lac d’Ailette, in the heart of the French countryside to the northeast of Paris.

Secondly, we stayed true to our work ethic of working hard and playing hard, with jam-packed days of games and parties, balanced by meetings and workshops. Lastly, WWKO 2020 was a memorable event; for some, it was a fresh dive into the world of Contentsquare, for others, it was a chance to reconnect with the growing force that is our team.

We spoke with our team members from across the globe to get their perspective on this year’s kickoff.

Worldwide Kickoff 2020: Best Moments & Other Reflections

“The 2020 WWKO was amazing, the atmosphere of our close to 600 employees arriving from all countries was outstanding! I am sure we managed to provide them with the full update on where the company is, how we ended 2019 and our plans for 2020 and the years ahead.”
– Shlomi Hagai, Global CFO, Israel

“Kickoff was a really cool opportunity to get the US, French, and Israeli support team members together in the same room for the first time.”
– Steven Rayl, Support Engineer, Customer Support, US West Coast

“This was my first year at the Contentsquare WWKO and it was insane, very well organised you can tell how much hard work had been put in to get it put together. I have never experienced anything like the hype and camaraderie on the first day. It makes you very proud to work for a company that is doing great things but still cares and looks after the employees.” –
– Daniella Sykes, Sales Development Representative, UK

“My favorite moment was when we saw the brand video about the teams during the keynote presentation. It was so impressive, it gave me thrills. You really feel you’re part of one family. It’s so important because it’s part of our DNA.”
– Julien Crevel, Customer Success Manager, Paris

“WWKO 2020 was a great way to connect with team members that you Slack every day but don’t get to see in person. The same way that I love meeting clients in person so that they feel understood and heard, I really enjoyed meeting and seeing the rest of the global team during our team breakouts.”
– Monique Fan, Product Experience Manager, New York

“WWKO 2020 was a great opportunity to finally meet in person a lot of the people I’ve been interacting with from the different teams and locales.
– Sergei Shenderovich, Senior Technical Solution Architect in Sales Excellence, Israel

CEO Jonathan Cherki and CFO Shlomi Hagai were all smiles as they took the stage at WWKO 2020

“My favorite moment in WWKO 2020  has got to be riding the inflatable unicorn in the ball pit… my 6-year-old self came back out and had a blast! On a more serious note, it was great to hear about the company’s vision and where we’re headed, especially sinceI’m new to the business.
– Louise Duseigneur, Customer Success Manager, UK

“WWKO 2020 is, with Hackathon, definitely one of the highlights of the year for me. It somehow managed to keep a small startup atmosphere while constantly improving the level and quality of the event throughout the years.
– Antoine Auffret, Lead Customer Success Manager, Paris

“This WWKO 2020 was definitely one of my top three kickoffs. I’m so glad to see that after 8 years at Contentsquare, we are able to go beyond ourselves and make it even better!
– Fanny Pourcenoux, Head of Global Design, Paris

“My first WWKO at Contentsquare, and I am blown away! I’ve been to kickoff events with some of the biggest SaaS companies in the US, and they don’t even come close to capturing the energy and connection at the Contentsquare WWKO.”
– Derek Webb, VP New Business East Coast in Sales North America, New York

Some of our team members striking poses during a WWKO 2020 party.

“On the heels of what we’ve done last year with the two acquisitions and amazing growth, I think this WWKO 2020 contributed to building trust, the vision of the company, sharing enthusiasm, encouraging communication, and increasing collaboration.”
– Joaquim De Sa Alves, Chief Financial Officer, Paris

“Overall it was a very fulfilling experience interacting with teams across the organization and “visualizing” who is who and the organizational structure. Another would be the Customer panel sharing insights into how they are using and benefiting from Contentsquare.”
– Jace Dicker, Sales Director in Sales North America, US East Coast, New Business North America – West

“This was my 3rd WWKO and easily the best one yet. We upped the ante in every aspect; the content, the strategy, the presenters, the client involvement, the location, the atmosphere, the parties, the food…?!”
– Gareth Drabble, Head of Customer Success, Northern Europe, UK

“This WWKO has been just great! It truly embraced our values of team-building and enthusiasm, bringing together people from around the world, who have worked hard and proven their value to the business for an entire year, to have fun and build memories together during these wild 3 days.”
– Alessandro Boschi, Inside Sales Executive – Italian Market, Paris

Pierre Casanova, our Chief Revenue Officer delivers a speech to all attendees of the Kickoff.

“The first day of WWKO 2020 was also my first day at Contentsquare. To me, it was incredible to see how the company is sticking together, how each individual is following the same goal (to make Contentsquare great) and how transparent and honest the management team is with regards to the current situation and vision of Contentsquare.”
– Benjamin Gruber, Sales Executive in Sales Europe + ROW, Denmark

“Those three days of kickoff were awesome. Lots of great announcements and reflections to celebrate our common successes and ambitions. The parties were just crazy, with a ton of epic costumes and people full of energy and enthusiasm. It was impressive to see so many people from different cultures and countries, often meeting for the first time, working, chilling and having fun as one.”
– Fanny Rousell, Innovation Project Manager in Product, Paris

“This Kickoff was an amazing experience which started from booking half of the plane, and flying all together – the journey to the venue itself was an exciting experience since our drive from the office took 3.5 hours. The venue looked great, with stunning views, a cool countryside atmosphere and stunning sunsets.”
– Daniel Kanevsky, DevOps Engineer in R&D, Israel

“I joined the company back in June 2019, so this was my first WWKO. It was a great experience for many reasons. It gave me the chance to get to know my London colleagues better, but also connect with people across the organization, especially the people in SDR from different regions. I really found the presentations interesting and motivational — to see how the company is doing, and what to look forward to in the future!”
– Gabriel Andersson, Inside Sales Intern Nordics, UK

“ The WWKO was a brilliant and rare opportunity to spend time with employees from all around the world, build relationships that cross oceans and help us work together as one giant team — we are incredibly fortunate to be part of such a global and diverse organization and that deserves to be celebrated!”
– Kirsty Champion, Customer Success Manager, UK

“I’ve been attending kickoffs in 5 different companies almost every year for 20 years. The 2020 WWKO at Contentsquare was, without any doubt, the best I’ve ever attended. I’m a newbie and I really felt that I’m part of an awesome team in an amazing company. I loved Jon’s presentation about our history and where we come from.”
– Pierre Bancelin, Product Marketing Manager in Product, Paris

Celebrating some of the winners of our WWKO Yearly Awards

“The music, the words, the pictures have strengthened the sense of belonging to the Contentsquare family. We are big, unique, professional and the presentations were very clear at the same time. Best kickoff ever.”
– Frederic Kingue Johnson, VP Sales Western Europe, Paris

“The 2020 Kickoff was my first at Contentsquare but definitely not my last. Kickoff is not just a word. It’s a statement. It’s the embodiment of team building, team spirit and of course, lots of fun. It’s the perfect opportunity for the Contentsquare family to get together, share ideas, philosophies and opinions. It’s unique. it’s us.”
– Kristian Kramp, Business Development Representative in Sales Europe + ROW, UK

“My first day was January 13th, so being super new to the company I was pretty nervous and shy to meet not only my London office but the whole global team. Everybody I met made me feel incredibly welcomed from the beginning, and going to WWKO was a special way to feel a part of the team, very early on.”
– Matt Christie, UX/UI Designer in Product, UK

“It was my first kickoff and it was a big pleasure for me to be there. I was impatient to meet my colleagues from other countries.  My favorite moments were when we were all reunited in the big room for the presentation of 2019 by Jonathan Cherki.”
– Sonia Ghodbane Lamraoui, Senior Accountant in Finance, Paris

“It’s so mind-blowing to see that Contentsquare has doubled its size, while still keeping the on-fire spirit as usual.I loved the strategy presentation most showing realistically where we are at in the market, and the huge opportunities ahead in different continents. Love to contribute to that! Parties are always so crazy, and they were during our WWKO 2020.”
– Yefei Mao, Senior Product Manager, Paris

“I love attending the WWKO each year, as it’s an opportunity to meet people I regularly work with around the world, and reconnect with friends I made last year. My favorite moments were the unexpected ones – impromptu games sessions in our cottage. WWKO was also an important week to strengthen existing bonds and form new ones – talking face to face is much more natural then virtually, and can often uncover hidden opportunities to collaborate and help each other out.”
– Georgiana Hunter Cozens, CEM, UK

Our parties are always a blast, and the superstar one at the 2020 Kickoff was no exception.

The Salesforce B2C Commerce Partner Demo Jam is going down tomorrow, and we’ve been busy polishing our own live demo performance, and figuring out the best way to showcase our new and improved digital experience analytics platform.  

Here’s a look at how we’ve been preparing to take home the Demo Jam crown…

What Sets the B2C Commerce Partner Demo Jam Apart

With participants having to do away with slideshows, presentations and videos, the challenge was how to create a condensed, 3-minute, to-the-point live demo of our solution.

If that doesn’t set the event apart, its setting and rules will. That’s because the Demo Jam is set up like a game show, meaning one team will walk away the winner.

The visitors are a live audience of approximately 80-100 spectators, as hungry for the next best thing as we are. We’re also in it to win it, so we can’t wait to square off with the five other partners, execution style. 

Joking aside, we’ve been working up a storm in preparation for the Demo Jam.

How Contentsquare Prepared for the B2C Commerce Partner Demo Jam 

We made sure key stakeholders from Marketing, Product and Sales were involved in prepping our performance. 

At a tactical level, we launched an internal brainstorm, inviting the entire Contentsquare US team to ideate over pizza and booze — the best possible stimuli, of course. With so many great minds in one room, our brilliant Content Director recommended breakout sessions with 3 separate teams to streamline the collaboration. 

What surfaced were 3 easily applicable concepts, and 1 winning idea that inspired a theme, script and the tapping of members from our Solutions Engineers, Digital Marketing and Client Success teams to creatively present the idea. 

Building on Our Partnership with Salesforce

This event is critical to our partnership success with Salesforce, because it enables 3 key opportunities:

Exposure: elevating the visibility of Contentsquare to prime stakeholders is an evolving challenge, and Demo Jam is an event that is promoted by Salesforce to and by their teams, who strategically promote partner solutions to clients and prospects.

Competitive benchmarks: Demo Jam feedback and consensus are instant, relatively speaking. The Insight Link Partners ascertain from the event hosts and audience questions, and ultimately the voting results, is a useful indication of whether or not your presentation and use case value mapping is resonating with attendees and prospects.

Demand generation: Customers who watch the performance and are interested in learning more about partner solutions opt-in to receive info. Need we say more?

Our Unique Demo Jam Take

Our singularity springs forth from our platform. The Contentsquare solution visualizes data in a unique way, and can show any brand directly from its website view where customers are getting frustrated or stuck across the acquisition funnel and which content is encouraging conversions. 

We display unique behavior and revenue attribution metrics directly onto the web page — which elements of content have a high Attractiveness rate, where visitors Hover and hesitate, what sections of the page drive revenue etc… Demonstrating this always brings the “oohs and ahhs.”

Why We’re in It To Win It

Aside from the fact that winning is universally fun, Contentsquare has powered Customer Experience insights for Salesforce customers like GoPro, L’Occitane, Crocs and the Gap, helping their team make data-driven decisions, innovate the experience and increase revenue. Winning the demo jam helps publicize how we can prove similar results for more of Salesforce customers who haven’t heard of us yet or are still considering how to best invest in their digital CX.

Closing Off on the Demo Jam

The Demo Jam prep was great fun, and helped align the entire team around a common goal. Everyone on the team has a unique take on how to best tell the Contentsquare story, and we wanted to bring all these perspectives together for this exercise. We also discovered hidden talents across the team — turns out we have a bunch of thespians and scriptwriters in the office! (As ever, we’re reminded that when good people come together, great things can happen.

Tune in to watch us go head to head with 5 other Salesforce partners during the webinar at 11 am.

In retrospect, my first time at Dreamforce —  a summit for innovation and cutting-edge technology —  was much how I imagined it would be: a three-day techy delight party. Within an hour of landing, I noticed the groundswell badge-carrying, intentional session trekkers and got to key-note crashing. 

Salesforce knows how to set a conference vibe with the ukulele opening performance, with horn shell blowing duos wishing attendees “a wonderful and blessed Dreamforce event.” 

Salesforce Product Previews 

Amid the sensory overload of DJspinning, Obama-stanning, and expo hall cacophony were some of the most exciting Salesforce product previews I’ve seen to date. Starting with enhanced capabilities to Einstein, a service cloud, the A.I. algorithm is now powering customer call centers with natural language processing to understand the context of the conversation, and surface the most relevant knowledge-article for the associate. 

The pain this solves is reducing the hold time and consumer policy referencing, which enables Einstein to close customer cases 31% times faster. This cuts out 10 minutes in operation, making for workflow efficiency and overall better and faster work. 

I was left most curious about the future of Salesforce’s new, custom-built, multi-channel CMS, as it highlights agility for digital teams to organize and sustain every aspect of their asset creation. This allows them to hone in on their viable potential to tailor connector integrations to bolster their capabilities. 

Also exciting was the news rollout from Salesforce B2C Commerce LINK Marketplace,  confirming that LINKpartners like Contentsquare would be transitioning to the AppExchange, an online marketplace for Salesforce apps, components and services that connects customers with a business’s solutions. 

This will enable a deeper, more seamless deployment for customers, including ours. It is well in line with the Customer 360 mission, and underscores the substantial partner ecosystem investment they’ve made this year. 

3 Tips for Future Dreamforce Attendees

Interested in attending Dreamforce? Here are the three  tips I would give to Dreamforce novices moving forward to maximize time and energy onsite:

1. Map your business and product objectives to the right internal Salesforce teams, stakeholders and sessions. There’s an app for that, which was fairly effortless to navigate and use to schedule meetups 4-6 weeks prior to attending. San Francisco has phenomenal eateries and coffee shops; take advantage of the opportunity to treat stakeholders for 30-minute syncs away from the pandemonium.
2. (Dual) partner up: connect with mutual partner customer success teams to align on scaling integrations and for the best ways to measure and amplify results with joint-compelling narratives.
3. Double down: Salesforce soldiers and their respective trailblazers are in full-effect at Dreamforce. Therefore,  the best way to gain face time and address challenges live and direct is during the event where they are projecting motivation and building new-year momentum. 

All in all, I left Dreamforce too blessed to be stressed, and easily more informed on how Contentsquare can extend the value of Salesforce solutions than when I arrived.

Customer Experience (CX) school is back in session and what better way to get ready for a new season of A+ experiences than by attending  Optimizely’s Opticon19?

Centered on digital experience optimization, the conference will feature experts in the fields of CX experimentation and personalization to help you create standout experiences and steer your business towards digital Nirvana.

Taking place on September 11-13th at the Marriott Marquis hotel in San Francisco, Opticon19 is not to be missed.

Optimizely & Contentsquare

We at Contentsquare are quite fond of events — we don’t just boast of experiments, we help create them. So you’re probably wondering why we’re going to this conference, given that we’re fresh off of our Digital Happiness Summer Roadshow, which hit up several states in a multi-day event.

Additionally, you’re probably wondering why we chose to team up with Optimizely, of all the brands hosting regional events surrounding the topic of UX.

Optimizely is one of our premier partners, delivering a world-class experimentation platform that equips digital teams with a scientific approach to optimizing digital experiences. 

Our integration with Optimizely adds a critical layer of behavioral understanding to experiments for faster results and a bigger lift in conversions. We tell brands why some tests and personalization campaigns win, and help digital teams fine-tune variations and focus experimentation efforts.

Optimizely seeks to help brands obtain the highest ROI based on its SaaS and so do we. You could say we are a partnership made in heaven and Opticon provides the perfect setting for us to show you this partnership in action. 

Opticon19: What to Expect

A three-day event, Opticon19 will kickstart the conference with a day of training on the 11th of September. 

The other two days will feature sessions, networking events and a conference party. You will get to hear from some of the best and brightest in the digital space, including leaders from IBM, Salesforce and Mailchimp.

Opticon19 will include an impressive roster of keynote speakers, including actor, investor and entrepreneur Ashton Kutcher, astronaut and engineer Dr. Mae Jemison, Optimizely’s CEO Jay Larson and a host of other digital leaders.

The event will present over 20 sessions across 3 “tracks” — critical areas to learn and optimize for a superb experience that helps raise conversions. The three tracks are those of: culture and growth, strategy and process and platform and technology, each highlighting crucial nuances for your brand to digitally outperform.

Contentsquare is hosting its own cocktail event at the Everdene Bar, a rooftop bar atop the Virgin Hotel in San Francisco.

Contentsquare: Our Own Event & Booth at Opticon19

We won’t be sitting idly at the conference and our experts will be on hand at Booth G11 in the Yerba Buena Ballroom to share tips and best practices on how to power up your experimentation strategy and improve your digital CX.

We’ll be happy to show you how some of our 600+ clients have successfully put our software to use and improved on a number of KPIs and show off the newly instituted benefits from our coalescence with Clicktale.

We’re also going to host our own surrounding event just before the conference, in tandem with our friends at Tealium. Join us for an evening of drinks, fare and networking at the Virgin Hotel’s Everdene Rooftop Bar, which comes with sweeping views of the city.

So swing on over to Opticon19, meet with us at our booth, party with us at Everdene and absorb all the enlightening, up-to-date trends on experimentation and having your brand the upper hand in digital experience.

Book a Meeting

On Thursday sixty people from our Paris-based team headed out to La Prairie du Canal — an urban farm northeast of Paris run by the French environmental nonprofit La Sauge. 

This day of urban farming was part of Contentsquare’s first-ever week of giving back — a global set of events that saw different teams volunteering for their chosen charity. 

After a day of getting their hands dirty for a good cause, the team spent the evening playing mölkky (yep — we had to look that up too), pétanque (the French version of the lawn game bocce) and perfecting the art of the apéritif. 

We caught up with Fanny Pourcenoux, our Head of UX/UI Design who helped organize the Paris Charity Week outing, to find out whether our French colleagues really do have a green thumb.

Give us a bit of background on Charity Week.

Fanny: Our various culture crews had been wanting to work on a global project for quite some time. We explored several ideas but everyone agreed that to schedule a week in which each office could volunteer for a group and give back to the community would be a great initiative.

Why did you choose to volunteer for La Sauge, in particular?

Fanny: There are so many great organizations out there to choose from. We worked on this project with Wenabi, a group that pairs companies with nonprofits, and helps facilitate these sort of team-wide volunteer initiatives. They were the ones who suggested we partner with La Sauge and spend a day helping out on the farm. It’s interesting to see that our friends in New York also went with an organization with a mission around sustainability — raising environmental awareness has been a big focus at Contentsquare recently.

So what happens when 60 Contentsquare team members spend a half-day on a farm?

Fanny: We worked hard! We did some gardening, of course, but we also learned how to make eco-friendly, plant-based products like shampoo and deodorant. All in all we planted more than 80 bean plants, learned about mushroom farming, prepared a plot of land for new crops, constructed 6 planters, and made over 40 of our own, completely sustainable cosmetics. But as well as improving our gardening and building skills, we also learned a lot about how to reduce our ecological footprint and make better everyday decisions as consumers.

Any other highlights?

Fanny: The team had a great time, and no summer Contentsquare outing is complete without an evening pétanque tournament (at least not in France!). We do a lot of team building activities in this company, and it was really nice to change the focus and work together on something completely unrelated to analytics while helping raise awareness about such a terrific organization and cause.

Last Friday, our team from the New York office headed to the Rockaways in the borough of Queens, for a beach cleanup day, as part of Contentsquare’s first-ever week of giving back — a global event that saw different teams volunteering for their chosen charity. 

Organized by the culture crew, these events serve a dual purpose; they allow us to give back to our local communities, as well as take some meaningful, communal-based downtime from the office. We teamed up with Surfrider Foundation.

Charity Day was a great success, as we left the beach a cleaner space, having removed 293 pieces of plastic, 474 cigarette butts, 265 plastic bottle caps, 88 plastic straws, 562 miscellaneous items and much more.

We caught up with two members of our culture crew: Michelle Lee, our UX/UI designer and Katie Wallshein, our CEM, to get the full beach cleanup story — from how the idea was born to how we managed to pick up a total 1,500 pieces of garbage from the beach.

Tell us a bit about Global Charity Week — how did the idea come about?

Michelle: The idea to schedule a week of giving back was born in the spring after several quarters of culture crew activities focused mainly on team-building activities. We decided we wanted to find new team-building projects that would also give us the opportunity to volunteer for a grassroots organization we all felt passionate about.

Katie: One of the projects that got a special mention during the 2019 Hackathon was a project focused on promoting green practices in the office and taking initiatives to limit the company’s impact on the environment. I think in a way that collective interest and awareness are what made us pick an organization with an environmental agenda.

Our NYC team was busy sorting our pickups so that we kept track of all the garbage we removed.

There are plenty of environmental programs out there — why did you pick Surfrider Foundation?

Michelle: New York in the summer can be brutal, and having these beautiful beaches on our doorstep makes the heat tolerable. Surfrider Foundation is a group with chapters all over the country, that is dedicated to protecting the ocean and beaches. They do a lot of campaigning and advocacy work around plastic pollution and organize beach cleanups around the country.

Katie: When we first arrived at the beach, we were met by the chair of Surfrider’s New York chapter, who gave us an intro to the group and to their work in the Rockaway. It’s a coastal neighborhood and it’s already an area at huge risk from climate change so protecting an area like this one is extremely important.

So what did you find along the beach during cleanup?

Michelle: When we got there, we were given gloves and trash bags. When you first start walking along the beach it looks pristine, but once you start paying close attention you notice all the pollution. We found everything from plastic cutlery to candy wrappers, plastic bags, bottles, etc.

Katie: At the end of the cleanup we put all the trash together and sorted it in teams. We made an inventory of all the garbage we found because the foundation uses this information when it’s advocating for new legislation to help protect the beaches. And also because without data, it’s just another opinion…

Michelle: We have a pretty comprehensive list of everything we collected from the beach that day: 

13 aluminum cans
12 Balloons
474 cigarette butts
3 glass bottles
54 plastic bottles
265 plastic bottle caps
88 plastic straws
562 miscellaneous items
1 rope
10 glass fragments
293 plastic fragments

The team made sure that our cleanup was an orderly operation.

What were some of the highlights from the day?

Katie: Getting the ferry to the beach together was fun. We had a few team members visiting from other offices and countries so it was nice to be able to give them a bit of a city tour from the water and to show them the Statue of Liberty, Coney Island, etc.

Michelle: No beach day is complete without a visit to Rippers, so we rewarded ourselves with burgers and beer. And since it was one of our Summer Fridays, we spent the afternoon on the (clean) beach and in the waves.

Katie: And we saw dolphins, which was definitely a highlight.

After some 5 hours of cleaning, we headed to Rippers.

Do you foresee more volunteering opportunities for the team in the future?

Michelle: Yes, definitely. We’re already thinking of what activities and projects we can organize around the winter holidays — including food and coat drives, etc

Katie: As part of our beach cleanup project we were also given Surfrider Foundation memberships, and hopefully the team will continue to engage with the group in the future. For some team members, it was their first time at Rockaway, and they were already planning their next beach day…

Stay tuned to find out what the Paris team was up to when it spent the day volunteering on an urban farm northeast of the city.

We set up shop to ensure we picked up and sorted all the trash that came into our sight.

Summer is officially upon us and — never ones to skip a beat, we’re taking to the road to spread our UX-pertise far and wide. Our team of experts is hitting the road to a city near you to help improve your digital strategy to the max. Our roadshows take a results-oriented approach to digital experience, with a focus on Digital Happiness (which, by the way, you can measure). 

Why? Because we live in an age of experience, and brands today are competing on their ability to deliver experiences that meet (and exceed) the needs and expectations of their customers.

Disjointed experiences, counter-intuitive navigation, in-page frustration, a lack of transparency — a poor site experience is bad news for brands in a world where there are no second “digital” chances. On the other hand, seamless journeys, headache-free paths to conversion and value-adding content are the hallmarks of a successful customer experience. 

So — how exactly do you build standout digital experiences that keep visitors happy (and converting)? How can you make your site or app work harder for you? What tools can digital teams use to gauge customer bliss and encourage engagement? 

We’ll be discussing all this and more. But we don’t just speak on creating amazing experiences — we put our money where our mouth is —  we create them. 

So join us in one of four fabulous locations for insights, happy hour, networking and advice customized for your vertical.

Let’s take a look at what’s in store:

Digital Happiness Roadshow: Dates, Info & Why You Should Attend

Denver 

July 18th, 6:30 – 8:30 pm

The show in Denver (along with the one in Philadelphia) kicks off the Roadshow. We’re starting with a bang, with the show set for Mile High Spirits, a lounge best known for its live music and patio games. If the craft cocktails and light fare don’t fill you up as much as you’d like them to, you won’t even need to walk far, as food trucks line this trendy space. Also, if you love modern distillery and spirits, stay around for some info on how to snag a spot at their distillery tours.

Philadelphia

July 18th, 6:30 – 8:30 pm

In Philadelphia, our roadshow will take place in a historic meeting place — the Philidelphia Distillery, which is the state’s first spirit distillery since the end of prohibition. The meeting place itself was once a factory, a key marker during the state’s industrial revolution. The transformed the 13,00 square foot space was later transformed into a retail store, bar and tasting room. Come for the UX teachings. Stay for the spirit craftsmanship.

Atlanta

July 23rd, 6:30 – 8:30 pm

In Atlanta, our roadshow will leave you shouting from the rooftops — perhaps literally, as it’ll take place in SkyLounge, a world famous rooftop lounge and event space. Here you’ll get to enjoy craft cocktails and gander at incredible views of the ATL. The lounge sits atop the historic Glenn Hotel, situated in the heart of the Centennial Park District, known for being a hub for business and entertainment. There’s no better place to imbibe the sprightliness of the downtown district.

Austin

July 25th, 6:30 – 8:30 pm

We’re hosting our Austin roadshow at Maggie Mae’s, an iconic “bar” that screams Austin. As you can see, we use the word “bar” loosely, as the venue boasts over 15,000 square feet of event space, 7 bars, 3 stages and is steps away from major hotels. It’s anything but boring — the perfect space for a memorable UX lesson. 

In this iteration, we’re partnering with Brooks Bell, a provider of analytics, A/B testing and personalization consulting for enterprise brands. Like yours truly, this company helps with website optimization and has a unique approach to obtaining it.

See you there!

The third week of June marked the annual Salesforce Connections, a 3-day event centered on building potent customer experiences using the Salesforce platform. It was the perfect timing since one week before, we announced our integration with Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud — a partnership that allows Salesforce Cloud clients to access Contentsquare insights in an enriched eCommerce management experience.

Besides running our own booth and sharing our customer experience tips with digital leaders from every vertical, we soaked up a wealth of insights from trailblazers in retail and walked away with some learnings of our own.

Here is what we learned at Connections 2019.

Strategizing the Lifetime Value of Customers

Our first takeaway from the customer experience event is one of the most important things any e-tail player should know, and any business owner for that matter: the maintenance of the lifetime value of customers. Ecommerce platforms can particularly capitalize on this, having the digital space at the core of their communication and access to a wealth of data about the preferences and shopping habits of their audience. 

The lifetime value of customers, as its name suggests, refers to the continuous value that a select customer base can bring you. These customers are more than one-time buyers; rather they are those that have established something of a loyalty-based relationship with your brand, and as such are the best candidates for cross and upsells.

The idea behind lifetime customers involves positing a strong grip on customer retention — and beyond. The latter point of “beyond” refers to creating unique customer experiences set to distinguish you from other e-tailers, and by providing friction-free customer journeys across all channels. 

With personalization now one of the standards of a good customer experience, being able to deliver highly customized, intent-based experiences to your audience will go a long way in securing their loyalty. And we’re not simply talking of personalized emails or product recommendations — understanding the nuances of customer behavior and navigation patterns is key to creating journeys that speak to what your customers are trying to achieve and how they wish to go about it. 

Taking the 360° Approach to Customer Experience

There was also much talk about how marketing tactics can best benefit from a 360-degree approach, i.e., one that adds value for customers in every channel and at every touchpoint. 

Consumers today expect to integrate multiple digital — and offline — touchpoints into their shopping routine. This omnichannel approach gives brands access to more consumer behavior data than ever before, and digital leaders have already been leveraging this wealth of data to fine-tune the experience for their most profitable segments.

Brands today cannot be successful unless they understand what is engaging your customers and where they’re struggling. You can begin this on digital, since some aspects of digital experience (DX) can be transitioned into other marketing channels — even the nondigital variety. For example, some images perform better than others; some copy engages better than others. You can measure it on digital first before going forward.

We set up shop at Salesforce Connections 2019.

Automating the Digital Experience

Customer expectations of a streamlined experience have pushed brands to experiment with automated solutions across channels. Implementing automation in transmission strategies (think MailChimp and other mass email platforms, social media and text messages) has been the dominating  automation technique and has helped brands deliver individualized messaging to consumers. 

But aside from automation that facilitates content transmissions brands are also investing in tools to automate processes, such as conversational bots that guide navigation and replicate a level of customer service and guidance more often found in-store.

And the impact of automation is not just client-facing. As the volume of customer behavioral data increases, so does a brand’s capacity to predict behavioral patterns and UX performance trends.

This ties into the idea of artificial intelligence (AI), where machines can take automatic actions based on their own programming, rather than that of human command. AI can extend to the analytics space, granting you crucial alerts on customer behavior deviations or unusual happenings on your site. 

Creating an Optimal Customer Experience

Marketers and ecommerce professionals should always be on the lookout for methods to deliver an exceptional customer experience. While you can’t read your customers’ minds, you can always theorize their intentions with concentrated behavioral data. Customers are communicating with your brand with every digital interaction — analyzing their journeys and in-page behavior is the best way to learn what they are trying to achieve and what is preventing them from completing an experience or transaction. 

Aside from our learnings from Connections, we want to point out that we don’t only boast about building fantastic customer experiences; experience runs deep in our blood. During Connections, we brought out our friends from GoPro, whose bold, unique approach to digital content creation is a true inspiration. If you didn’t get a chance to pick up one of our “Golden Tickets” and chat with our team of UX-perts, don’t forget we’re always on hand to answer your customer experience questions!