Customer Experiences

To begin to describe my ultimate consumer experience, it would be helpful to reflect on what I have read and learned in class. From Schmitt’s article, “A Framework for Managing Customer Experiences,” he describes the five basic senses (sense, feel, think, act, and relate) that experiential marketing should appeal to. Wall’s in class lecture sums up these five senses in a way that makes more sense from a first glance. He describes those senses with relations to sensory, emotional, intellectual, behavioral, and relational elements. The author also goes on to mention ExPros which are experience providers that are implementation components at the disposal of the marketer for creating a sense, feel, think, act, or relate campaign. That means people, logos, advertising, etc. all add to this experience.

My best consumer experience is not related to one shopping experience but to everyone I have when I am at IKEA. If I really think about, why do I even need furniture? I have never stayed in one apartment for more than a year. As a nomad, furniture would actually cause me a great inconvenience every time I move. Not to mention it takes 40 minutes to even get there. However when I do arrive, I am always excited when I see the huge IKEA flags flowing through the air like I am their selected royalty but not really because almost everyone on I-35 suddenly starts to exit towards 1 IKEA Way. The congestion in the IKEA parking lot is not like at Wal-Mart where I waste all my time looking for the closest parking space and give up in frustration. At the IKEA lot, I am happy to just be there and to get a spot even though it is the farthest from the store.

When I shop at IKEA, I feel like I am in a giant maze. However, the placement of various designed rooms provides a sense of random coziness in the middle of cluttered furniture and people. It is also a nice aid for decoration tips at home. As I feel like I am nearing the end, it turns out I have been walking in circles. I swear the signs that claim you are approaching the check-out lie so that consumers end up lingering longer and purchasing more. Yet I have to admit sometimes I do not tell my friends when I find the exit because I want to wander around a bit longer, oops. When I do manage to get to the check-out area, I pass the children’s section. Even the kids are happy to be at IKEA. Heck if they can run around the store and have fun than taking another round through the store wouldn’t hurt. Watching those kids made me realize that IKEA was like a playground for adults. With a more mature sense of enjoyment, adults begin to derive a satisfaction when purchasing products to improve their home whether for purposes just as simple as utility or to impress guests with their designing skills they secretly stole from IKEA.

To further break down this experience I consistently have with IKEA, I will use the categories described by Walls and Schmidt.

Sensory- The greatest sensory experience that I think is most worthy of noting is the restaurant at the end of the store. It is a clever location to stick a restaurant because it stops consumers from immediately leaving the store by attracting them with the aromas of their cooking.

Emotional- With IKEA’s limited commercials in the U.S., I feel they actually cheapen the brand for me. The “twice a year sale” shows me that for price, their products lack in quality. The Spike Jonze lamp commercial shown in class seems to portray furniture is just furniture. There is no emotional attachment. You just keep moving on to better furniture which is exactly what I feel I will do in the future but only with products that I really want to last for a long time like a leather coach. However, assuming I would abandon IKEA would be underestimating the power of consumer experiences. I am loyal to the brand and would still do a majority of my shopping there.

Intellectual- In my opinion, the designed rooms were not meant to be emulated but to spark innovation and ideas as to how I can mesh different products together to create a room that I like with the right nudge from the IKEA designers.

Behavioral- IKEA is progressively pushing their economical friendliness into their product designs. It was the first store that I know of to publicize a solar powered lamp. I think that many of their consumers would really enjoy these green products. IKEA places an emphasis on these products in their catalogue which finally allow consumers who have been riding the “going green wave” to so to speak “walk the talk,” by slowly converting their house into more energy efficient units.

Relational- When I look at the products IKEA sells, I usually think, “man when I finally settle down somewhere I want my apartment to have all these cool things.” I want to be perceived as stylish in a modern sense and be able to hang my kitchen knives on walls with magnets and have weird funky chairs everywhere.

ExPros- The website is an important ExPro because it allows me to create a shopping list. They do not ship items online which might be because they are trying to stay consistent with their cheap prices and the fact that this forces consumers to go to the store where the biggest customer experience lies. Another ExPro are the people who work there. To not overwhelm customers with all the clutter of products, they have store assistants there to search for items that customers are looking for. The staff is always friendly, and they always go out of their way to help you. When I went there, one of the employees was literally sweating from running around trying to find an item for me.

Overall going back to what we learned in class, I have to say that focusing on creating customer experiences can turn what seems trivial like shopping for kitchen utensils into something that can make a consumer loyal to a brand. These experiences can help differentiate a brand in a congested market which I believe IKEA has done very well.

Personas

Throughout the week there have been lectures and readings dealing with how to form a persona for a segmented target market. Karen, from P&G, and the readings on persona lifecycles both describe the steps taken to develop these insights by understanding the traditional factors of segmentation (behaviors, characteristics, and motivations) of a particular group. 

If a marketer would need to create a persona of me the first step would be to find fundamental data such as my demographics. Then after interviewing and observing me, data on psychographics, attitudes, behaviors, etc. should all be recorded to get a basic understanding of who I am. During class we did a project with photo collages and photo journals. Some of the key flaws with these research types are interviewer bias and interviewees portraying an ideal image of themselves instead of who they really are. Thus, I would recommend that the marketer interview the people in my life to avoid those types of errors. With the collected information, marketers can begin to develop insights that would cater to my brand. 

To begin exploring what would make up my persona, here is some information about myself that would be useful. 

Family

I was raised by my brother, Alexander, which is why I fault him for my manliness. His interests became mine and sadly I began to realize I was turning into an Alexandra. My parents were never home and did not support me financially. Thus when I turned sixteen, I began to work legally. As for my sister, she was never home because she was always doing gymnastics. As you can see from my family history, one may have concern for the emotional development of the children. Despite this oddly functioning family, after college, we have all learned to appreciate one another and we are now a very close knit family.

Student

I am a college student that supports herself through college. Since I am paying for my education, I value it and want to get the most out of UT. I would even like to go to gradate school after working for a few years.

Buying behavior

I am obsessed with technology. My purchases tend to gravitate towards products that make my life easier because my schedule is filled with school and work. Also since I support myself, I feel the products I buy should be worth the money I earned. I always read reviews for almost everything I purchase because quite frankly I use the internet way too much, so why not? Also, everything I purchase must have some sort of justifiable utility that will appease the cognitive dissonance of blowing all my paycheck on something. This also shows that I make few purchases, but they are usually expensive items.

Leisure

Looking back at Freshman year, I think I have beaten myself dry with the “typical college life,” which in UT terms means partying all weekend. I like to say I have gotten over that time in my life and no longer find the "typical college life" as hyped up as it seems. Thus, for my leisure time I like to spend it at home hanging out with my friends or eating out with them. I try to steer away from downtown because I do not need that drama in my life anymore, and if you think about it how fun is it really dealing with a hangover everyday?