eSuite London
Thoughts from the day
Yesterday, I attended an exclusive one-day event, eSuite London at the Village Underground Shoreditch – and I must say that it was a very cool venue, perfect for taking some time to reflect and learn from the experience of some truly great speakers.
The day was hosted by Klarna and offered discussions on the challenges and successes of industry leading brands. I wanted to take the opportunity to note the best sound bites from the fantastic lineup and share a couple of thoughts on the day.
Antique Tech
Michael Rouse from Klarna, welcomed us with an interesting point; ‘who is carrying some antique tech in their pocket today?’
You don’t think of the magnetic strip on a Credit card as antique tech but as a child of the seventies, it was interesting to learn that this tech has been around since the 1950s, yet we all trust it implicitly for making major purchases. The concept of credit has been around for far longer than that (think about the times people bought things on account) so it is interesting that companies like Klarna are re-writing credit for the digital age. There is a lot of scepticism around this but we are only really talking about dropping the ‘card’.
A gripping statistic from the day was the $4trillion that was lost last year due to abandoned transactions, showing the extent of the opportunity that payment methods can fulfil and I have to say, I think that Klarna have a great product.
Driving Business With Music
Ola Sars from Spotify Business covered a vital yet often overlooked way to optimise your user shopping experience and drive business. And the statistics certainly supported this idea; ‘physical stores playing music see 53% longer shopping sessions and a 31.7% increase in basket size’. That said, get the music wrong and 41% of customers will leave. A stand out for me was Spotify’s ability to pick the most popular music for your audience in any given locality and how much impact this data-driven tech can have on retail.
Customer Service Is The New Loyalty
The panel consisted of representatives from AirBnB, Appear Here, Missguided & Ticketmaster. Ross Bailey from Appear Here (a similar concept to AirBnB but for retail space and pop-up shops) summed up the current state of affairs ‘Good is no longer good enough. You need to ask how do we keep things wow?’
Phil Rubin also quoted a Forrester report from early 2015 “What’s the top imperative at your company? If it’s not a transformation to make the company more customer-focused, you’re making a mistake.” Enforcing the keynote of this talk, become customer-obsessed or fail.
The day ended on a high, excited by the day’s discussions we headed over to the after-party at the Gherkin for some amazing views, great music & interesting conversation!
Header image courtesy of @deepflyingpig
