2021 DXSummit | Venisha Henry

 This week DXsummit hosted their quarterly virtual conference series, aimed at conquering the digital chaos and delivering game-changing customer experiences.  I was lucky enough to attend the event hosted by Rich Hein, the editor-in-chief of CMSwire and Simpler Media. As an Experience Researcher, this conference is important to me because all of the keynotes are centered around improving the customer’s experience with brands. 

I must say DXsummit’s virtual conference is genuinely one of the best UI experiences I’ve had since the world transfered over to virtual conferences. There was so much to do, from networking in their personal slack page to visiting the virtual sponsors’ booth, and of course tuning in for the Keynote speakers, having all these activities placed on one simple to use dashboard was helpful. 

 

As I traveled through the dashboard three Keynote speakers really grabbed my attention. The first was Telisa Yancy, the chief operating officer of American Family Insurance who presented “Seizing the Moment: Creating a Customer Engagement Movement”. Telisa told the story of how American Family Insurance was able to lead an entire movement by having access to the right information and trusting everyone on her team. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the company wanted to help its customers. So  her team gathered some data and realized that people weren’t driving as much since they were working from home. As a team, they came to the decision to give 500 million dollars to customers who had car insurance with them. COVID-19 has changed the way people navigate their lives and I think it was amazing that during a time when many companies are cutting spending/jobs, America Family Insurance instead saw this as an opportunity to create value in their customers’ lives. Telisa accredited this to the company’s ability to “understand their data, ability to work across departments and allowing teams to lead from the front”. This is admirable work from American Family Insurance, that can only be possible when you trust your team.

Taming the New Digital Frontier: 3 Ways To Supercharge Your CX from Matthew Crocker and Cristian Petschen  from TABLE was another presentation that intrigued my interest. Matt Petschen the CEO of TABLE shared his unique experience of purchasing a doorknob with a company that uses the power of artificial intelligence and chatbots to create a seamless customer experience. As Matt took us through his journey, he explained how this chatbot was able to elevate the consumers’ experience because it incorporates certain features into the design. For example, Matt’s Chatbot was able to remember previous conversations they had about the doorknob, get him human assistance upon his arrival in the store, and provide installation instructions after his purchase. It’s amazing how this design created a seamless interaction that went beyond the application. As Petschen mentioned, “Understanding the Customers journey from their point of view vs viewing from the businesses point of view” is what lead this company to create such an innovative way to have robots interact with consumers.
 
Finally, my absolute favorite presenter Americus Reed II presented The Identity Loyalty Imperative: Understanding How to Create True Loyalty. Americus brought a new perspective to a topic that I was familiar with thanks to Micheal Doody’s Consumer’s Behavior and Persuasion class.  Similar to what I have learned in class, Americus stated, “Great  branding connects in a way that your consumers in digital experience internalize as an expression of who they are”. Consumers feel a connection to brands that express the same values as them. Americus took his explanation a bit further by pointing out how deep the connection between a brand and a consumer can be, “if your brand values align with the consumers they will feel a connection that is so deep that the brand becomes an extension of themselves”. He explained this as   identity loyalty, when brand values are in line with the core values of the consumer to the extent that the brand represents who they are. Here is what I found to be most shocking, if identity loyalty is established then the consumer will feel as though the brand is embedded in their personality. This creates a consumer that will be devoted to your brand if it is under attack; they are going to protect it as if they themselves were being attacked. 

In all, I found this conference so valuable I was able to gain so much useful knowledge from Telisa, Matt, and Americus’ keynotes. This was the second DXsummit I have attended, that how I was able to take a photo wearing their branded tee-shirt in their photo booth this year. As usual, I had such a great time this quarter  and I can’t wait for the next.