By Ken Redekop, director, customer experience management solutions, Telus

With the holidays around the corner, many are looking forward to spreading holiday cheer with families and friends. But, the period leading up to the holidays often brings less than good tidings when a flood of stressed-out shoppers start making their holiday purchases en masse. The crowds. The lines. The staff shortages. All of these experiences prove frustrating to customers and can even impact a company’s bottom line.

As the busy holiday season draws near, companies would be wise to take stock of their customer experience programs. This involves listening to customers in a multifaceted way, including in-person, online, and over the phone, to provide personalized service and educated answers.

[Editor's note: Check out the December issue of CRM magazine for more on the customer experience.]

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The harder retailers work to get us to buy on their products, it seems, the lazier we can be.

Who needs to go into the store now that product recommendation engine RichRelevance and interactive marketing firm, and member of the Augmented Reality (AR) Consortium, Zugara just unveiled Fashionista, a solution that allows shoppers to try on items using a computer and Webcam.

I met with RichRelevance’s CEO David Selinger when he came down to our offices last week and I was seriously impressed by the solution. Sure, there were a few bugs to work out around oversensitivity and stuff like that, and when I tried out the solution, the size of the sleeveless dress didn’t quite “fit,” making it seem more like I was a plus-sized paper doll and all that was left were petites. Anyway, Selinger assured me the various bugs would be addressed. The product just launched yesterday with its first customer online retailer Tobi.com.

As stated in the company press release, here’s a brief description of how Fashionista works:

Fashionista creates a totally individualized and engaging customer experience from three core components of emerging media, technology, and eCommerce:

Augmented reality combines real-world and computer-generated data where computer graphics or objects are blended into real-time footage.

Motion capture recognizes and records an individual’s movements and integrates them into an on-screen model. Hand motions enable the user to virtually navigate backward or forward on screen to select clothing, indicate preference, and take a photo.

Personalized clothing recommendations deliver a highly engaging and individualized shopping experience based on the current shopper’s session as well as “wisdom of the crowds.” Recommendations are displayed and updated based on immediate user feedback on preference.

Here are a few screenshots of the solution:

Or, watch the video on how to use the solution here.

The product is available on RichRelevance’s enRich personalization platform. Learn more about the product on RichRelevance’s site here.

At today’s Social Ad Summit in New York City, Wikipedia founder co-founder Jimmy Wales gave a keynote presentation on the art of community — how to term it, time it, tame it, and trust it. Wales is in the midst of a new project called Wikia and said that its growth has followed that of Wikipedia. He described Wikia as a consumer publishing platform where millions of passionate fans come to discover, create and share a shocking abundance of information on thousands of topics. The man knows a thing or two about wikis.

Here are Wales’ five community commandments:

1. It isn’t about crowdsourcing.

Wales rejects the term made popular by Wired magazine editor Jeff Howe. The term, crowdsourcing, Wales said, misidentifies what’s going on on the Internet. The word is drawn from the term “outsourcing” which generally involves cheap labor. This, Wales stated, associates the community with forced labor. People don’t participate in online communities if they don’t want to. It’s more like a bowling alley, Wales suggested. People come to the community to do what they want to do — there’s nothing forced about it.

2. Growth takes time.

On average, Wikipedia entries, grow at a rate of 6-8 percent every month. It’s not like Facebook because Facebook isn’t a community, Wales said. Facebook is a tool that connects already connected communities. Communities, which are building blocks of social networks, take much longer.

The term “wiki,” however, is flourishing. Wales said that “wiki” has surpassed “blog” in search terms.

3. The world is becoming more information dense.

And, Wales stated, culture is getting smarter. Just look at the evolution of popular television shows. I Love Lucy –> Mary Tyler Moore –> Seinfeld. Storylines have become more complex. Take the show Lost, for example, fans gather in Lostpedia to learn more and try to understand the intricate details of the plot and characters. “Shows are now too complicated to watch,” Wales said. Viewers must look to superfans (like the participants in the Lostpedia network) to help them understand what’s happening.

Products are smarter, too — Just look at televisions and recording systems today.

4. Openness is not the enemy of quality.

Wales referenced a study a few years back that showed that, on average, there are four errors in a Wikipedia post. However, the same study found that there are, on average, three errors in each Encyclopedia Britannica post. The speaker said he doubts as many errors are live today; however, he admits that its not perfect. To address misuse and tampering of entries, the Wikipedia team will temporarily protect posts. “But we don’t like it,” Wales said.

Openness is of utmost important with online communities. He then mentioned Canon’s Hacker site in which the company allows a wiki site to educate consumers on how to hack into their Canon cameras and change the hardware. For the most part, though, Wales said, “We haven’t reached the point where companies are embracing this idea.”

5. The world is global.

Wikipedia is converted into more than 175 languages and Wikia is headed down the same path. Wales used superstore Wal-Mart as a comparison. Wal-Mart although dually criticized for this strategy, tapped into the power of business in small towns. The retail giant went into towns deemed too small for most other chains, and found great success.

According to a recent study by Channel Advisor, consumers are getting more savvy when it comes to researching products before making a purchase. That’s not exactly new news. But consumer activity in finding promotions, coupons, and viral codes is increasing — much to the chagrin of online retails. Sites such as CouponCabin.com and RetailMeNot.com are making it easy for consumers to search out brands, retailers, and even general products. The deals, promotions, and coupon codes are all user generated and encourage users to vote on the effectiveness of promotions. Great deal for consumers — Perhaps a lousy deal for retails.

Charles Nicholls, founder of SeeWhy, says that this doesn’t have to be a losing game for retailers. Nicholls suggests that e-commerce sites follow the lead of retailers such as Macy’s and OfficeMax in preventing consumers for posting such codes on third-party sites. Instead, he suggests that retailers use their own voucher sites to avoid consumers going outside of the domain.  He says that department store retailer Macy’s does this well. By creating its own voucher site, Macy’s makes their codes public and stays in control of their promotions.

Additionally, Nicholls lauds OfficeMax’s approach in which the retailers has added a hyperlink under the Promotion Code box so that visitor’s can sign up for an Office Max newsletter to get deals. By doing so, OfficeMax avoids users searching elsewhere, and also adds consumers to its regular correspondence.

Nicholls does say, however, that the newsletter is a nice approach, but probably won’t stop some shoppers from searching out promo codes, anyway.

What is your experience with online coupons from sites such as RetailMeNot.com? Do they work for you? Are you finding it more difficult than before to find coupons? If a company prohibits such sites from sharing promotions, how does that make you feel about that particular retailer?

So, really now:

I know American Apparel founder Dov Charney’s in no position to get pissed (let alone struggle to locate the moral high ground) over an apparel company’s ad campaign — just ask Woody Allen — but I think he might actually be justified if he’s got his skimpy knickers in a twist over the style and format of Gap Inc.’s new “Born to Fit” campaign:

Now compare that to a typical American Apparel ad:

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Now, I know Helvetica is the world’s workhorse when it comes to typefaces, but am I really the only one who thinks this is over the line?

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In keeping with the times, electronics retailer RadioShack has taken on a new identity, or rather a new nickname. Now marketing itself as “The Shack,” the retail chain is ditching its corporate title in new advertisements and social media efforts.

Monday’s press release reveals that the branding and campaign will run in conjunction with a three-day launch event taking place in New York and San Francisco called “The Shack Summer Netogether.”

In the press release, Lee Applbaum, RadioShack’s chief marketing officer states:  ”Trust is a critical attribute of any successful retailer, and the reality is that most people trust friends, not corporations. When a brand becomes a friend, it often gets a nickname — take FedEx or Coke, for example. Our customers, associates and even the investor community have long referred to RadioShack as ‘THE SHACK,’ so we decided to embrace that fact and share it with the world.”

Whether or not “The Shack” branding will stick is yet to be known. However, it’s apparent that RadioShack is investing a lot of time and money in promoting the message and in connecting with consumers. To illustrate, yesterday I twittered a link to RadioShack’s branding effort. Within seconds, I was being followed by a Twitter Handle, @The_Shack. Here’s what the Twitterer replied to me:

laurenmizzou: Radio Shack alters branding — Now its just the “Shack.” Sounds like a beach bar

The_Shack: @laurenmizzou Yeah, like THE BEST BEACH BAR EVER!

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I received an email invitation today to a view a recorded Webinar about mobile commerce hosted by  San Diego-based cross-channel commerce solutions provider Escalate Retail. The Webinar, “m-Commerce: The Gateway to Buy Anywhere, Fulfill Anywhere Commerce,” demonstrates how retailers are able to enhance the consumer shopping experience by incorporating the mobile channel (You can listen to the recorded Webinar here, free with registration.). Mobile commerce is already highly popularized in Europe and Asia. Why North America is slow to adopt is anyone’s guess — excuses are certainly running out, especially now that there are 68 million smartphone subscribers, a rate that’s growing 80 percent annually, Escalate reports.

According to Escalate Retail,the cross-channel consumer is hands down your most valuable. In a survey that asked whether consumers “shop across multiple channels,” 49 percent said no while 51 percent said yes. I was pretty surprised by how close these numbers were, but I often forget that most people aren’t tied to their computers for 90 percent of their waking hours — right?

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Lauren and I just walked a couple blocks to Spinelli’s Pizza on 7th Ave between W. 33rd and 34th Street. We had heard there would be free pizza.Unfortunately, we were 20 minutes too late.

Apparently, Snapple is doing its tour of New York and giving away samples of Snapple beverages and on top of that, free slices of pizza to the first 500 guests. The promotion starts at 10:30 AM every day this week until that lucky 500th person is served. The company had been advertising the event on the radio and various news outlets. We only just found out about it this morning–a friend who works in White Plains, NY had sent me the link–and given that we’re usually pretty on top of anything “free” and “pizza” related, we hadn’t expected that 500 people would be there before us munching on pizza at 10:30 AM, even if it is New York.

I’m pretty sure, however, that Snapple probably didn’t even need to pay for radio ads–leak the news onto a few blogs and say the magic words, i.e., “free pizza,” and you can pretty much guarantee an audience. Expectations are up and consumers want something more for their effort and their business (especially in this annoying rain!). Retailers are saying that 30% off is the new list price (Read more about the state of retail in this month’s feature article Selling Out). Knowing that the economy is bad, consumers are taking advantage. It’s a buyer’s market and consumer’s know it–now it’s up to you to give them that deal they’re looking for,whether it’s a temporary discount, or the more lasting solution, better customer service.

So why pizza? “It’s a very New York thing,” explains a Snapple representative, who we spotted pretty easily–she was wearing a Snapple t-shirt. Not bad, knowing your audience is certainly the first step.

After this week’s over, we’ll be on the lookout for reports on how the promotion turned out.

As I’m sure you have noticed from various media outlets, promotions, events, etc, that today is Earth Today. It’s a nice chance to raise awareness about our environment and what we could be doing to live more sustainably. It’s also interesting to see how various retailers are using the day to promote their green or natural products.

For example, The Polish Bar of Brooklyn ( a salon in my Brooklyn neighborhood) today sent out a e-newsletter introducing its new line of eco-friendly cosmetics. The text reads: “By educating ourselves and our customers, we are doing our part to create a healthy environment for our Glamour Gals.”

Other Earth Day marketing messages include:

A local IKEA store in Canton Township is giving away 1,000 blue spruce saplings in honor of Earth Day. The giveaway is not a companywide initiative.

Department store chain Macy’s today is selling reusable shopping bags for $1.95. They are then giving $1 from each sale to the National Park Foundation.

Some larger retailers are making Earth Day headlines with corporate-wide initiatives:

Today super retailer Wal-Mart announced it will increase its use of solar power. According to a USA Today article, Wal-Mart plans to double its usage of solar power energy by adding rooftop solar arrays to as many as 20 stores and distribution centers in California.

Today Delta Airlines sent its mile counters this an email newsletter with this message: “To celebrate Earth Day, we will match all carbon offset donations made April 22 through May 22 at delta.com. Together, our efforts will help The Conservation Fund’s Go Zero® program plant trees and restore habitats for wildlife.”

Let it be known – I might have the teeniest, tiniest addiction to shopping. My location in Manhattan does little to curb this obsession. However, I am picky about where I will shop. If I receive poor service somewhere or purchase an inferior product, I am not likely to return. However, if a store consistently does me right, I’m loyal.

One particular store, I feel gets me. It doesn’t exactly fit my budget, but the customer service is phenomenal, the clothing is original and well-made, and I tend to arrive to and leave from the store with a smile on my face. So, when shopping at Anthropologie last week I was asked if I’d like to sign up for a store loyalty card, you can imagine I was beyond eager. It’s not a card that racks up points like Duane Reade, the cashier told me, and unlike loyalty memberships at stores like Barnes & Noble, there’s no fee to join. Basically, the card entitles you to a few in-store perks, a seasonal catalog in the mail, and email updates about sales. When you use the card with purchases, you become known in the computer system. The store tracks what you buy and offers you promotions based on your tendencies and history.

Although the advantages aren’t anything to write home about, the adorable packaging and presentation of the loyalty membership caught my attention. It’s so on par with what I would expect from the company – tasteful and stylish with a hint of retro. The “Welcome to Anthro” note that pulls down in an accordion-fashion and reads:

We feel that the better we know you, the more we can do for you.

To put it quite simply, we want to offer you old-fashioned service –

No obligations,

No catch!

Let’s unfurl the possibilities.

Ease: Receipt-free returns

Point of view: we’ll share our likes and loves

Early Bird: see if first, buy it early

Sprout: shower us with suggestions and together and we’ll grow.

You better bet I will be armed with this lemon-yellow membership card next time I step into the Anthropologie clothing store. They might not be offering me a discount on prices, but I’m excited to “unfurl the possibilities.”