Magic Brand Moments
An important part of The Experience Blog is highlighting the great work and thoughts of senior CX professionals, Founders, Managers and CEO’s. I’m so excited to share this post with you as it’s the first of many Spotlight Interviews coming up!
Pascal Haider is the CEO of RIX Rewards. Experienced manager, passionate entrepreneur, world traveller and father of four children. In this post you’ll learn from a truly seasoned CEO who has worked directly with companies like Maserati, Harley Davidson and Samsung to create customer focussed sales promotions.
Pascal also has a master’s degree in Business Administration and International Management. During his studies, Pascal focused his research on customer behaviour in charitable giving. This sparked his interest on the topic of customer- centricity and the question of how we can best interact with consumers.
During this spotlight interview we cover off:
- What it takes to create a truly Magic Brand Moment
- What makes a great customer experience
- How companies can swap out traditional sales discounts for a new winning strategy
RIX Rewards
Pascal is the CEO at RIX Rewards which is a Sales Promotion Agency based in Switzerland. The company serves Fortune 1000 companies globally with Creative Sales Promotions also known as “Magic Brand Moments.”
The company’s creative sales rewards programs help their clients to put the customer at the centre of sales promotions. This form of consumer-centric selling taps into people’s emotions, which not only boosts sales, but also enables companies to build stronger relationships with their customers.
I asked Pascal 6 key questions about customer experience and was truly inspired by his answers:
Who are your customers and how do you serve them?
As a Creative Reward Agency we provide consumer facing brands such as Samsung, Harley Davidson, Maserati, Citibank etc. around the world with creative reward solutions. Reality is that many companies are so much in love with their own brands, products and services that they often forget about their customers.
Sounds funny, but that is the reality. This is where we come in and specifically support them with customer-centred sales promotions. Based on a 3-step process, we first highlight the opportunity and guide brands through that process of customers- centricity and develop together appealing sales promotions as an alternative to discounts.
We are always happy to initially go through that process and design promotions free of charge. As we identify the perfect promotion, we use part or the full budget brands normally spend on discounts to offer customers great experiences.
How do you provide great customer experiences for your customers?
A key element for us is that whatever we sell, we first have to live internally as an organization. If “our customers” are the brands / clients we work with, it’s important to first acknowledge that every single manager, director or even CEO is in a unique situation, with specific requirements when it comes to their brands and promotions.
Instead of highlighting the benefits of working with us, we like to take these people on a journey, to show directly the positive effects of a different experience. This marks the starting point of our journey together, which finally results in an exciting promotion we design together. We work on leveraging their market experience and our expertise from running promotions with brands around the world.
In your opinion what do you think makes a great customer experience?
As a company we have defined a few elements that define a magic brand moment, which could also be translated as a great customer experience.
On the customer side it is all about enrichment, where we focus on lifestyle relevance, active engagement, and a memorable post-purchase experience. On the brand side we think it is important to nurture brand attributes, highlight a specific product feature and stand out from the competition.
When these things come together, it almost always naturally leads to a great customer experience.
Can you give us an example of when you provided excellent CX to a customer or client?
Let me give you a very simple example of how this is put into practice. Let’s imagine a typical sales promotion for a fridge: “Buy a fridge and receive $100 Cashback”. While the discount might be appealing and offers a competitive edge towards the competition, it is purely product-centred and essentially limited.
With the same $100 we could tell a whole different customer-centred story. Under the claim “A fridge is not a fridge, when it is empty.” These 100$ could be offered as a grocery voucher to fill up the fridge with the food you love, highlighting elements of lifestyle, active engagement and post-purchase momentum.
At the same time, it highlights product attributes and features (storing food) and stands out from the competition. Same budget but a whole different story. This is just a simple example but the effect this can have on the performance is remarkable.
Do you have any plans to improve customer experience in your company? If you do, how are you planning to do this?
100%. We are always in the process of fine-tuning our processes and come up with greater experiences and campaign ideas for our clients. I think it is important to notice again that all great things start within the organization and the collaboration between all of us to learn from and support each other.
Our passion and creativity is then transported to the decision makers within organizations and finally ends up directly or indirectly at the end-consumer. We want to be the spark of excitement and the start of a great story, that leads companies to achieve their objectives and bond in greater relationship with their customers.
Is there is anything else you’d like to add about customer experience?
We all know customer centricity is a winning strategy for any business. However, many brands stop putting the customer at the centre when it comes to their sales promotions. Instead of thinking about what would move the customer the most to buy a product, companies often simply run a discount campaign and hope for the best.
It is quite surprising how a change of perspective can do miracles to sales promotions and I can only encourage brands to try new things, think outside the box and engage customers differently. It really pays off.