This article and the accompanying presentation will introduce you to a philosophy that makes it possible for people and organizations to re-invent themselves. The objective is learning how to be relevant and successful in a tumultuous market.

2013 made it clear how fast things are evolving nowadays!

Last year the world reached the tipping point. For the first time in history we spent more time in front of small screens (smartphones and tablets) than large ones (desktop and TV). The next two years will undoubtedly see the breakthrough of wearable devices (smartwatch, Google Glass…) and the ‘internet of things’ (from smart cars to smart toothbrushes). You might say technology will become the consumer’s sixth sense.

2013 also illustrated how uncertain the fate of a company really is. Nokia was sold for $5 billion when a few years earlier it was worth a multiple of that sum. Blackberry also fell by the wayside.

Companies face three new types of competitors

Most companies use competitor analysis to analyze their direct competitors. While such analysis is obviously important, it is no less crucial to take a closer look at three new types of competitors.

• Start-ups: small, sharp players are undermining quite a few of the traditional business models used by established companies. Smaller players are looking for new and efficient ways to enter the market. In spite of their limited initial market it is still crucial to monitor their activities. This is the type of player that revolutionizes the market.
• Major digital players: every company should start from the assumption that organizations like Google, Amazon and Apple may one day become their competitor. These big players have lots of clout, money to burn and a wealth of data and top technology, enabling them to enter any market they choose with a fair degree of creativity.
• Consumers themselves: technology is becoming ever cheaper and better and in many markets this has already resulted in competition by consumers themselves. The introduction of cheap and high-quality digital cameras destroyed the independent photography business. Modern consumers have no use for a photographer anymore; they take their own pictures. The taxi industry is under attack by Uber and the travel industry is struggling with AirBnB. More and more often, companies find themselves competing with their consumers’ hobbies.

There’s only one answer: re-inventing your company

Markets are unpredictable and in a constant state of flux. While a long-term strategy is still indispensable, it may be a good idea to evaluate that strategy every three months. In order not to become obsolete, you need to self-evaluate thoroughly and prepare for the future using a different approach than the one that has proven successful in the past.

Step 1: Re-inventing your business model

If you’re afraid to disrupt or ‘eat’ your own business model then you’ll find your head on a plate someday. As a player in an ever-changing market you must have the courage to let go of what you have and opt for something new, even if that means cannibalizing your own market. A recent example would be the Blockbuster versus Netflix story. Blockbuster was one of the biggest video rental businesses in the world. At one point there was a Blockbuster branch within ten minutes of every American’s home. And then Netflix came onto the scene. They initially offered a subscription for ordering DVDs. The DVDs were shipped via regular mail and the customer simply sent them back afterwards. When Netflix and VOD eventually killed Blockbuster’s business model, they started taking over other companies. Blockbuster wasn’t willing to adjust its existing business model whereas Netflix immediately jumped on the streaming trend. By offering streaming services, the company lost some of its post order customers to its new service. Just a few years later, Netflix abandoned its post order activities altogether to focus completely on streaming. They weren’t afraid to eat their own business model and as a result they didn’t end up on someone else’s plate.

During a recent visit to Stanford, professor Baba Shiv advised his listeners to carry out a ‘pre-mortem’. Companies and people are usually good at performing a post-mortem. Once it’s too late, we analyze the causes of the disaster and determine how it could have been averted. A pre-mortem aims to identify possible future causes of death in advance, thereby enabling a company to take proactive steps to ensure its survival. This is a golden tip for any organization. The key is to plan the pre-mortem while your company is still in top form.

Step 2: Re-inventing the customer relationship

A traditional customer relationship typically consisted of a marketing or sales funnel. Nowadays that relationship is a perpetual loop. Decisions are influenced by a great many sources and channels. The customer remains involved after the purchase and he remains part of the loop.

Companies must realize they only have one customer relationship per consumer. The consumer who visits the site and the one in the store, on Facebook and in front of the TV are one and the same. There’s little sense in implementing both an online and an offline strategy. Your company just needs a customer strategy, period. The Apple account is probably the textbook example of what a single customer relationship should look like. I still can’t get over the fact that a credit card purchase in London or Chicago is enough to be recognized as an Apple customer. They always find my customer data with no trouble at all. A modern customer relationship is primarily based on an attitude of extreme customer centricity. The elaboration of this relationship is often most apparent in the details. A McKinsey study has found that satisfaction in a customer relationship is mainly dictated by details.

Step 3: Re-inventing the company structure

The final step is implementing the new approach, which is pretty difficult within the existing company structure. A touchpoint-based organization makes for a fragmented customer relationship. The trick is to infuse an organization with speed and flexibility. Most of all this requires mental agility. We often think about adopting new structures but these do not work without a mental adjustment. Adam Pisone, co-founder of Yammer, made a strong statement on the subject. He claims that ‘you don’t have to change the structure of a company to become flexible; you just have to stop using the company structure’. Peter Hinssen’s latest book, ‘The Network Always Wins’, examines the use of internal networks. If the market has become a network then your organization has no choice but to also operate as one. ‘It takes a network to serve a network’ is one of the most remarkable quotes in his new book.

There’s also a personal challenge for each and every one of us

It’s not just about re-inventing companies. It is even more important to re-invent ourselves. There’s much talk about the need for change in organizations. Well, when you think about it, this boils down to changing the individuals that work for those organizations. We all know how hard it is to change others but when it comes to ourselves, we are completely in control. This is a story about changing ourselves, about having the courage to stand in front of a mirror and truly ask ourselves on what level we need to up our game so we can still make a relevant contribution to the organization in a few years’ time. The battle between man and machine will intensify in the years to come. As humans we will have to prove our added value. The hard truth is that robots will probably replace humans in many cases. Whereas in the past we would bring in cheap labor from low wage countries, robots may be the solution of the future. If and when that happens, we humans must bring something extra to the table. The answer is not being afraid of re-inventing yourself instead of only looking to others for change.

Satisfied customers may be the beginning of the end

Many companies aim to keep their customers happy. Small companies understand that their only chance to conquer the market lies in offering a fantastic customer service. It’s in their DNA to go the extra mile for their customers. This approach works in many cases. Success leads to a bigger organization, more procedures, less motivated employees and a deteriorating customer-first attitude. Of course, there are exceptions but I’m sure you’re familiar with this vicious cycle. In other words, the end goal should not be to increase market share. The end goal should be to keep the client-first DNA in your organization, even with an increase in market share.

The satisfied customer paradox is the biggest threat for incumbents

More than ever, incumbents are under attack from agile start-ups. It’s becoming increasingly hard to defend themselves against the rate of change those smaller companies bring. In addition, compared to a decade ago, the market is more open to welcoming new players. Too many incumbents settle for an average customer relationship. Their key focus is on managing financial indicators and customer relationship indicators often come second. Making the customer relationship your priority is the only way of averting the danger of a growing market share based on satisfied customers from the past.

Stay small, even if you are big

How to break the satisfied customer paradox? Well, there is only one way to do it: stay small, even if you are getting bigger. Try to organize your company in such a way that employees are willing to keep going the extra mile for your customers. It’s about having a back end that is aware of this approach, it’s about giving your front end staff the freedom to help customers even if this means a short term financial loss and it is also about installing a reward system based on customer satisfaction.

In this post, I would like to share four approaches that can help companies restore the emotional relationship that may result in loyalty.

1. Customer involvement

When people feel involved, they feel part of a team. The moment people start to think about a certain group, organization or company in terms of ‘we’ and ‘us’, it implies they view themselves as members of this group. Speaking in terms of ‘we’ is always a sign of commitment. Too many people think customer involvement is only about the co-creation of advertising or products, but it goes a lot deeper than that.

Customer involvement can come about in several ways:

• Crowd funding: when people are co-investors in a certain company, there is a greater sense of belonging from the get-go. It is a form of financial customer involvement.
• Crowd service: customers can become service agents for other customers. It allows companies to increase the service offering at a lower cost. At the same time, it creates a sense of belonging and this, in turn, inspires loyalty among the participants.
• Crowd sourcing: customers are actively involved in creating new insights for the company’s management. This can lead to the optimization of existing products or it may prove helpful in the creation of new products. Crowd sourcing is not just interesting for optimizing products and service, it may also help create content for other customers.

2. The element of surprise

In general, loyalty programs use a very traditional approach. Most of them still implement the ‘buy 10 get 1 for free’ idea. If customers spend enough money they receive a financial reward. As mentioned above, this doesn’t lead to loyalty but to bargain hunting. Panera Bread uses a different approach. In fact, Panera Bread has one of the more successful loyalty programs in the US. Their approach is based on the element of surprise. With the Panera loyalty program you never know what you’ll get. It could be a small present during your next visit to a store but it could also be a hefty discount on a new product. Their consumers really appreciate the serendipity effect. In a recent blog post, Gen Y expert Joeri Van den Bergh wrote about this trend. He concluded that Gen Y consumers are really getting into the serendipity aspect of the relationship. As a brand, we need to surprise our consumers on a regular basis.

3. Excellence in details

Customer loyalty is related to the level of customer satisfaction. Too many companies have to settle for 7.2/10 in their satisfaction scores. Companies still manage their customer relationships in silos. The polite word for silos is touch points. Companies manage the various touch points but forget to do the same with the interaction between touch points. A recent McKinsey study showed that the lack of interaction and consistency between channels leads to dissatisfaction. Loyalty is the result of excellence in details. Most companies manage their basic product or service well but they lack control of what lies in between.

4. True relevance

The new loyalty will come from real value. Customers will be drawn to companies that are able to offer personalized and real-time products and services. Just think of the current hype around Uber. Uber offers a new and highly personalized real-time service.

2014 is the year we will distinguish between two types of customer relationships. We will treat our customers as a good friend, but we will also find that some customers have become fierce competitors.

The customer as our best friend

There is no alternative to the customer-centric approach. The competition is cutthroat. Customer loyalty is melting like snow before the sun and differentiating through products is harder than ever. Customer centricity is key to keeping your business afloat.

Many companies have entered phase 1 of their customer centricity program. Phase 1 is convincing and changing the front-end employees of this need. Customer service employees, sales people, commercial people, general managers and the like are often easily convinced. These are the kind of people who meet clients and who understand the power of a positive customer relationship.

To become truly customer-centric, 2014 will have to be the year you convince the back office. Maximum customer centricity cannot be achieved without the support of your back office. Employees working on invoicing, facility management and ICT play a crucial role in this process. Once you obtain their buy-in, the road to customer centricity will become a lot smoother.

The customer as our worst enemy

There is no alternative to the customer-centric approach but beware: your customer may become your next competitor. Just look at what happened in the photography business. My parents had a small photography store so I had a front row seat to the drama. In the golden age of photography, most parents called upon a professional photographer to take pictures of their children’s first communion – certainly in Belgium. A few years down the road this tradition has gone out the window. Due to the improved quality of amateur cameras, the arrival of digital cameras and user-friendly programs like Photoshop, everybody is now a photographer. The golden age ended just like that. My parents were not losing business to competitors; it’s the customers that stole their business. The same process is taking place in the catering business. In the nineties, serving your guests catered food was considered trendy. It was fancy. Today it is a sign of incompetence in the kitchen. The catering business’s biggest competitor is the customer. And the same thing is happening in the travel industry (AirBnB), financial industry (eToro) and the media industry (YouTube). Think about what 3D printing could mean to your market. What will happen if all of your clients own a 3D printer?

Be vigilant

Chances are that every industry will soon face a new competitor: their own clients. Monitor small initiatives within your industry. Take small initiatives seriously. Five years ago, no one in the travel industry took AirBnB seriously. Today they fill more room nights than the Hilton Group. Big things have small beginnings, as they say. By following up on these small initiatives, you may be able to play a role in the initiative. Fighting the customer competitor is very difficult. The travel industry is trying to fight AirBnB through legal channels. History tells us the travel industry is fighting a losing battle. Remember what happened to the music industry? The industry was able to fight off the first wave of competitors in court before being annihilated by iTunes. Join and help the customer competitors instead of trying to fight them. Don’t fight them and live to fight another day.

As usual you are free to complete this overview with high or low points that made an impression on you.

As befitting any self-respecting annual overview there is also a video summary on ‘social media in 2013′.

JANUARY

The key event in January is undoubtedly the inauguration of president Obama. Some 1.1 million tweets are sent in the course of the event.

Users worldwide tweet one remarkable quote after another. The most striking aspect of the speech is that it’s clearly written for Twitter. Quite a few quotes are less than 120 characters long, making them eminently tweetable. The difference is in the details. By the way, the day after the inauguration the focus shifts to Beyonce’s lip synced version of the Star Spangled Banner.

January also gives us the perfectly orchestrated confession of Lance Armstrong on Oprah Winfrey’s couch. Before long, #Doprah becomes a trending topic on Twitter. Still, the interview also teaches us the difference between Twitter and Facebook. Twitter reactions are furious while some supportive remarks are posted on Facebook. There’s obviously a difference between Fans and Followers.

Also in January, Facebook presents its Social Graph. The graph proves yet again that the company’s stock market launch forced Facebook to take a more commercial approach. And then there are a few juicy anecdotes such as a picture of Justin Bieber flashing his rear, a snapshot that chalks up over 100,000 likes on Instagram.

FEBRUARY

The start of February is dominated by the sports and marketing event of the year: the Superbowl. Do you remember who won the Superbowl? Twitter! Twitter is the undisputed winner of this year’s Superbowl. Advertisers post noticeably more #tags and links to their brand site than links to Facebook pages. 75% of brands integrate social media in their TV ad. During the game, Twitter racks up 24 million tweets, or three times more than the preceding year. The conversations on Facebook are fewer in number and less entertaining. In the days that follow, the media focus primarily on the influence of and the conversations on Twitter. Taco Bell’s ad scores the highest number of tweets and also generates a high sentiment score.

Facebook also publishes some impressive figures: by February, the number of users has exceeded 1.06 billion people, or a 25% increase compared to twelve months earlier. More than 600 million people use Facebook on a daily basis. The turnover is 1.33 billion. Stockholders are a bit disappointed and the share depreciates slightly.

Other research draws optimistic conclusions on the intention of marketers to increase their investments in Facebook. 64% indicated their intention to increase their social advertising budget for 2013 and 80% claim they will invest more in Facebook. Satisfaction ratings on Facebook advertising are satisfactory but not excellent.

LinkedIn’s excellent results surprise the investment world. Early February, the company’s share is bumped 20%. Expectations are surpassed for the seventh quarter in a row, making LinkedIn the most successful share in the world of social media. LinkedIn’s small-scale but intelligent activation campaign is also worth mentioning. Active members receive an email telling them their profile is among the 1-5% most viewed profiles. Many people share the news on Twitter and Facebook, creating a welcome source of free advertising on the other networks.

February also reveals how vulnerable a Twitter account really is. It all starts with the hacking of Burger King’s Twitter account. The Burger King logo is replaced with a McDonald’s logo and this leads to some unusual tweets.

Other popular subjects on Twitter are the pope’s abdication and the Academy Awards. Late February @Pontifex sends a final tweet before the account is deleted altogether.

These are his last digital words: “Thank you for your love and support. May you always experience the joy that comes from putting Christ at the centre of your lives.” — Benedict XVI (@Pontifex) February 28, 2013

The Academy Awards also see a few digital novelties. For the first time, the entire show is streamed live on the internet. It is also the first time that a film (‘Inocente’) financed with Kickstarter funds wins an Oscar, viz. for best documentary. Through Kickstarter, $ 52,000 was collected to finance the documentary. All of a sudden, crowd funding is becoming very tangible. Incidentally, this time Facebook wipes the floor with Twitter: 65 million Facebook interactions during the award show eclipse 9 million tweets.

MARCH

In March a new pope is elected. The inauguration of the new church leader is obviously the hottest topic of conversation on Twitter and Facebook. During the ceremony it becomes obvious how fast the world has changed. The difference between the picture of St Peter’s Square in 2005 and the one from 2013 is nothing short of spectacular.

Francis I was already active on social media before he became pope. Prior to his inauguration, his Facebook page already has 40,000 fans.

The new pope is the topic of conversation on Twitter. At its peak, the news about the new church father generates 132,000 tweets per minute. That’s a respectable score but the record set by Obama’s re-election (over 250,000 tweets per minute) is never in danger.

Another hot topic in March is the end of Google Reader. The hard core of Google Reader users find it hard to conceal their disappointment and they go in search of an alternative. I imagine the demise of Google Reader certainly didn’t hurt Feedly.

April

In April Margaret Thatcher dies. While this is big news in the UK, the level of activity on Twitter is relatively low compared to the previous major events. In the first three hours following the announcement of her death, ‘just’ 900 tweets per minute are sent and it’s all downhill from there. It’s worth mentioning that 43% of those tweets have a negative content; conversely, only 19% of the Thatcher-related tweets share a positive sentiment.

The other big news item in April are the terrible Boston marathon bombings. Immediately after the attack, Twitter users try to assist the police in hunting down the perpetrators by sharing pictures of potential suspects. Many feel the person on the roof in the picture below is a viable suspect and while this person is soon eliminated as a suspect, it is still the first time that so much footage of a major attack is available to help find those responsible.

The Boston PD even goes so far as to actively request that people forward their pictures and videos.

May

When Dove launches its ‘real beauty sketches’ campaign, it becomes the most viewed campaign in history. In an age when consumers are said to be fed up with advertising, we apparently flock to YouTube in our thousands to watch good commercials.

YouTube is clearly fulfilling a more and more prominent role in the world of social media. In May, the company announces that 100 hours of video material is being uploaded every single minute as opposed to 24 hours per minute in 2009. One hundred hours per minute: it’s hard to grasp, really.

In May we also witness yet another mind-boggling takeover when Yahoo purchases Tumblr for $1.1 billion.

In May there is also bad news from the States when Oklahoma is hit by one of the worst tornadoes in recorded history, killing over fifty. Lots of horrible pictures and videos are posted online. The world almost gets to witness the victims’ terror live while the storm is raging in all its fury. The video below collects millions of views during that period and illustrates the awesome power of a tornado of this magnitude.

And then there’s also the global hype around the release of Daft Punk’s new album, ‘Random Access Memories’. It’s one thing to announce that an album will conquer the world but going out and effectively doing it is a remarkable feat. The album pulverizes the Spotify record in no time and with over 8 million listeners, the new CD becomes the most streamed album in history.

June

The month kicks off with big news when Justin Bieber becomes the first person on the planet to attract 40 million followers on Twitter. From a social media point of view I couldn’t help but mention this.

There is also breaking news from Turkey when Istanbul becomes the scene of a popular uprising against the Erdogan government. Once again social media play a pivotal role. During the initial protests, CNN’s Turkish affiliate airs a documentary about penguins instead of covering the uprising. They simply pretend nothing is wrong as the actual news is being broadcast via Twitter. Eventually, massive pressure forces CNN Turk to do its job and cover the events as they unfold.

The controversy surrounding NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden is also world news in June. It makes the debate on data, privacy and the internet more topical than ever. One of the most surprising conclusions is the fact that most Americans don’t really object to having their communications monitored by the NSA.

Also in June, Instagram launches Video in an attempt to counter the increasing popularity of Vine. On Vine you make 6-second videos that are inserted in a loop whereas Instagram makes it possible to record 15-second videos. Both concepts are similar yet still slightly different.

Several brands immediately jump on the bandwagon. Burberry is one of the first brands to make an Instagram video.

July

July is the month that Facebook decides to introduce TV commercials. The site now also makes it possible to embed messages on other sites. Facebook continues to grow in the first half of 2013. By July 2013, the site boasts 1.1 billion users, of which more than one in two use the mobile version. Revenue from mobile advertising is up 8% and now accounts for 31% of the total turnover.

Twitter is the fastest growing social network in the first half of the year. Twenty-one percent of the online population uses the popular tool. Twitter now totals 288 million active users.

LinkedIn also continues to grow with 20 million new users in the first six months of the year and good bottom-line numbers.

August

The use of media in the US reaches a historic milestone: for the first time in history, US adults spend more time using mobile devices than they do watching TV.

Other research shows that people are slowly but surely adjusting their internet behavior following the NSA revelations in June. Carefree surfers drop their carefree attitude and many feel they are unable to adequately protect their privacy.

The increasing number of smartphones and internet connections is turning internet access into a basic right for everyone on the planet. That is what the likes of Facebook, Samsung, Nokia, Qualcomm and Ericsson are saying. These companies forge a partnership in a bid to make the use of mobile internet affordable, especially in less prosperous regions. They need more internet users to sustain their own growth so they’re sparing no effort. The initiative is called Internet.org.

2013 is not only the year that Google retires the Google Reader. In August, they also abandon their famous 20% rule through which every Google employee could spend 20% of his or her time on innovation. The rule had always been one of the symbols that exemplified Google’s culture of innovation. In order to bring more focus to the innovations, the company now decides to implement a more targeted innovation policy.

And finally, August also illustrates the power of a tweet. One single tweet adds $17 billion to Apple’s value. When billionaire Carl Icahn sends a tweet about his investment in Apple, the company’s market cap jumps by $17 billion.

September

In September, the main social media news comes from Twitter when the company tweets (obviously) its intention to go public. The Twitter IPO is a fact and with the announcement the hype starts as well.

Twitter goes public but nearly explodes during the MTV awards. Miley Cyrus’ infamous performance generates more than 300,000 tweets per minute, putting her ‘show’ in the same category as the presidential elections or the final phase of the Superbowl.

Needless to say, Miley was very proud of her achievement!

September also sees the launch of ‘Grand Theft Auto 5’. The launch shows yet again how big the gaming industry has become. GTA5 breaks several world records. First-day sales for GTA5 exceed $800 million and it is the fastest game to gross $1 billion. More records: the largest turnover ever on the first day for any entertainment product, most viewed game trailer and best-selling video game in the first 24 hours of its release.

Also worth mentioning is Apple’s late September launch of iOS 7 to a mixed reception: many are disappointed, others are satisfied.

October

Following the announcement of the IPO, more details are published on Twitter’s financial situation. Last Thursday, the figures Twitter submitted to the American Securities and Exchange Commission in the run-up to the IPO were made public. While the microblog service realizes a sharp increase in turnover, the documents reveal that Twitter is still losing money. The company’s turnover nearly tripled last year to $316.9 million (€233.6 million). This is offset by a loss of $79.4 million (€58.5 million). The turnover in the first six months of 2013 amounts to $253.6 million (€186.9 million) as opposed to a negative result of $69.3 million (€51.1 million).

October is also the month of the ‘US government shutdown’. The government shuts down completely for several weeks. President Obama announces the shutdown on Twitter.

Meanwhile a symbiosis is clearly developing between Twitter and television. People like to tweet in front of the TV. The entire country watches live TV together nowadays. Comcast (US) capitalizes on this with the ‘see it’ app on Twitter. If someone posts a tweet on a fun show then you can watch that show live on the mobile device.

And finally, the digital age is also starting to affect traffic. In October 2013, the first driver is fined for wearing Google Glass behind the wheel.

November

Twitter’s IPO is probably the hottest social media topic in November. Contrary to Facebook, Twitter’s launch on Wall Street is a success. The share price soars 73% on the opening day. The initial share price is $26 but by the end of the day, one share is already worth $44.9, pushing the company’s value to some $25 billion. The course remains pretty stable over the next few days.

The euphoric reactions to Twitter’s IPO are abruptly silenced by typhoon Haiyan. The strongest typhoon ever to reach land wreaks havoc on the Philippines. The world rushes to the islands’ aid and Twitter is alight with declarations of support. The digital world wastes no time in launching support initiatives. Google launches a people finder, a tool to help friends and relatives locate potential victims and (hopefully) end the uncertainty.

Just a few more crazy figures for November: Facebook tries to buy Snapchat for $3 billion in an attempt to win back their youngest target group. Snapchat declines.

And gaming company King announces they’re going public. Their biggest hit is Candy Crush. By November 2013, the popular game has been downloaded a staggering 500 million times.

December

In December, we said goodbye to one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known. Nelson Mandela died on Thursday 5 December at 8.50pm. Like so many of you I heard the news on Twitter first. The news sites followed 15 minutes later. Practically every public figure on earth reacted on Twitter.

2013 is the year the world is introduced to a virtual currency: Bitcoin. Bitcoin becomes extremely popular due to the public’s growing distrust of the financial markets.

The value shoots up from next to nothing at the start of the year to more than $1,200 but the currency remains very volatile. On 7^th December, for instance, the currency lost over 40% of its value in a single day. It’ll be exciting to see how Bitcoin will fare in 2014.

This was 2013

And that concludes my 2013 overview from a social media perspective. Please feel free to add your own highlights and experiences. Thank you for the inspiration and the many conversations throughout the year and I wish everyone a great holiday season and a fantastic start to the New Year! Thank you for visiting my blog in 2013 and really hope to see you back in 2014!

Steven

Schoenen Torfs is known for its warm organizational culture, showing respect to people and putting them in the middle of its attention. Where does that philosophy come from and how did it unfold over time?
Being one of the most people-centric organizations has not really been a deliberate choice for us; it is and always has been part of our DNA. In our first shoe store in Lier in the ‘20s, my grandparents were already well-known in the area for their extreme level of friendliness, not only to customers but also to their ‘store daughters’. I think that is typically the strength of a lot of family-owned businesses: going back to the core roots of the business and keeping this relevant over time, adjusting to evolving needs and contexts, thereby adding to the credibility and authenticity of their brand. We very much realize that the product we are selling is not unique. We sell high-quality shoes and offer a broad range of well-known brands, but these shoes and brands can be found elsewhere as well. The service we offer is competitive, but not unique either.

Our prime differentiator and USP is customer friendliness, being driven to a very large extent by employee happiness and enthusiasm. Employees who are passionate about something naturally pass on their passion onto customers. But we want to go beyond mere client friendliness. A company should be more than a place which makes money and employs people. We believe companies should take up a societal responsibility, showing to different stakeholders ‘which side of the fence’ you are on. This reasoning is at the basis of our newly defined mission, moving from ‘People, planet, profits’ to what we call ‘360° care-taking’. The 360° refers to taking care of and being devoted not only to shareholders, but also to customers, employees and society at large.

Tweetaway: A company should be more than a place which makes money and employs people insit.es/HTyUX3 by @WouterTorfs #insites

In the meantime, you have grown your business to an impressive size. How challenging is it to keep your DNA vibrant and alive among 570 employees across more than 70 stores?
That is indeed a challenging task, especially if you realize that about 80% of our employees were not on our payroll 4 years ago, as we doubled the size of our business during that period. I am a fan of Peter Drucker’s quote “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” While making the right strategic choice is important, you make the ultimate difference through culture and mentality, especially in a context where you are growing fast. Getting the right people on the bus is our first priority, where we train our recruiters to “hire the smile”. People we hire are spontaneously friendly and do not need to force themselves to smile and act kindly. We are very demanding and strict about this. To us, the smile is far more important than the intelligence or capabilities people show. Our grandparents consistently invited new store personnel to have dinner at their place. If they did not turn out to be enjoyable and fun company, they would probably not generate enough value for clients.

Tweetaway: The smile of people is far more important than the intelligence or capabilities people show insit.es/HTyUX3 by @WouterTorfs #insites

Furthermore, we bring together all of our people at regular intervals, living and breathing our culture together, co-creating our future as one big family. By doing so, we create a kind of ‘IKEA effect’ in the sense that doing things together and having people involved in defining our strategy results in a deeper connection with and understanding of our culture. Finally, the fact that we communicate quite a lot about our values and that we participated in the ‘Best Belgian Employer’ competition for 8 years in a row also results in a natural attraction to the right people too. It also means we put our lives on the line by doing this, accepting that we cannot always win and that we need to work hard every single day to be and stay the best. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. Last year, we ended second after McDonald’s Belgium taking the award of ‘Best Belgian Employer’. Being consistent, open and truthful to our purpose is of key importance; next year we will again try and be number one.

Is that also the reason why you decided to write your first book “De ziel zit in een schoenendoos” (“The soul lives in a shoebox”) and why you are now in the process of writing a second one? Is that part of a deliberate strategy to build a stronger employer brand for the outside world to see?
Not really, it’s more of a personal passion. Personally I am totally convinced that a company should play a significant positive role in society, turning organizations into communities of people who think alike and work towards a common shared purpose. People are more than just economic agents who let a part of their available time; we need to look at them more holistically. That’s really my passion: to turn Schoenen Torfs into an exemplary company when it relates to this, to create an environment where work and fun are very much intertwined. I started thinking about structuring my ideas around this, pulling them apart into different building blocks, reading more about it; that is how the first book came about. It is also a great way of somehow taking some distance from one’s own day-to-day environment, looking at one’s own business in a more objective way and driving new insights from that to fuel the future.

Tweetaway: Companies should be communities of people who think alike and work towards a common shared purpose insit.es/HTyUX3 by @WouterTorfs #insites

Can you already tell us a bit more about the second book you are working on?
Sure! The overall topic will be about ‘great places to work’: why society is demanding this much more now than let’s say 10 years ago, what the different building blocks are of great places to work at, what type of (shared) leadership is required and expected, how this should be translated into vision, mission and corporate strategy, what role is taken up by values and personal development. The book will be based on what we have tried successfully (and less successfully) in the past and will comprise the different learning lessons we derived from that.

Schoenen Torfs recently decided to set up a structural collaboration with customers through its own ‘Consumer Consulting Board’. How does that initiative fit into the overall strategic goals of your company?
We would not take ourselves seriously if we kept saying we strive to become the most customer-centric retailer in Belgium without ‘hard listening’ to our customers. The Consumer Consulting Board is the perfect answer to our need to reinvent ourselves through collaborating with customers. The customer is a priority for everyone in our company. As the board enables us to connect people from different departments with the consumer in an ongoing way, we are able to better support our mission and goals. The following may give you an idea of how we measure our level of customer orientation: every store is confronted with a mystery shopper (phrased as ‘customer learning visit’) 6 times a year, who collects feedback on essential parameters which are underlying to customer centricity. Stores which get an average score of 8 out of 10 on their 6 visits are rewarded with a bonus.

The board allows us to go a step further as, next to validating how we are doing, we can tap into the co-creative power and inspiration customers can provide us with. In that respect, this is a very logical next move for us to take. It helps us move from just listening and being close to consumers to actually working together as a family, in the same way we do with our employees. As from now, we will literally leave a seat open in our board meetings to represent the consumer, taking this consumer seriously and making sure we deliberately take into account consumers when discussing strategic projects and challenges. For the first time, it is actually possible to start doing this through innovative solutions such as a Consumer Consulting Board. We are very excited about all of this and I am convinced our grandparents would have been as well.

Tweetaway: We leave a seat open in our board meetings to represent the consumer insit.es/HTyUX3 by @WouterTorfs #insites

Thanks, Wouter, for sharing your thoughts on how to build a consumer- and employee-centric community. I’m looking forward to reading your next book and seeing you take the next steps in this!

Want to find out more on our consumer centricity approach? Read our paper Why every company needs a Chief Consumer Officer and discover five steps to become a consumer-centric thinking company.

Apart from direct competition, there is also a second type: the unexpected flanking maneuver. Examples include the impact of Amazon on retailers or the rumor that Google was entering the financial world. Booking.com bowling over the hotel industry and immediately being put back into their place by AirBnB… More and more often, truly dangerous competition comes from unexpected sources and not from direct competitors.

Today’s fresh competition comes from the online world. In the financial world there’s a company like Lending Club that acts as a sort of eBay for personal loans. Last year they realized a turnover of $ 1.5 billion in personal loans and this year they’re expected to reach the $ 2.5 billion mark. There’s AirBnB, where consumers offer each other accommodations. In five years’ time, the company’s annual booking volume has surpassed that of the Hilton group. Uber, a digital taxi service, has already cornered 30% of the taxi market in San Francisco. Uber is a network of private drivers that offers nice cars and friendly drivers at half the usual rates. Care to venture a guess what the customer prefers? An expensive fare charged by an unfriendly driver in an ugly car or a cheaper fare paid to a friendly driver in a nice car? Talk about a no brainer! Sooner or later, every industry is outflanked. These attacks come hard and fast and are impossible to predict. Look for the competitor who upsets the standard business model in your industry. That is your most dangerous competitor right there.

And finally there’s also a third type of competition: competing for the customer’s attention. On an average day, consumers process anywhere between 3 to 8,000 commercial messages. We are bombarded with ads and commercials. This third type of competition is characterized by countless sources trying to win the customer’s attention. Research conducted by InSites Consulting and myself shows that consumers are willing to build a profound communication relationship with no more than 5 brands. This means that as a bank, you’re competing for the customer’s attention against Apple, Lego, Disney and other love brands. Today, every brand has to take into account the competition of love brands in their communications. The need to come up with excellent, relevant and inspiring stories has never been greater. Nowadays, the market tends to lose interest in companies that only communicate about their brand. The challenge is to wedge yourself between the love brands by telling a compelling story and by being relevant for the customer. A company like Maersk has been able to do just that. Maersk moves containers from point A to point B. Even though this is probably one of the most boring industries to work in, the company still boasts 1 million fans on Facebook and they have a fantastic reputation. They’ve done this not by talking about containers but by profiling themselves as the ‘experts of the ocean’. This is the challenge every modern company must meet. Think about how you can earn the customer’s attention because your competitors are the world’s most appealing brands.

Every company faces three types of competition: direct competition (the easiest to monitor), a flanking maneuver from an unexpected source (being prepared is crucial) and competing for the customer’s attention.

Since the target group is so clearly defined it’s easy for companies to form an opinion on Pinterest. Every company in the fashion and design industry is in a hurry to discover Pinterest. Women compile a wishlist and influence each other’s consumer behavior. The instant Pinterest adds an e-commerce option to their user interface all bets will be off. Companies from other sectors that are not (stereo)typically feminine will have nothing to do with Pinterest.

I have a different opinion and my point of view is pretty extreme.

I think every company can benefit from discovering Pinterest. My core argument doesn’t involve the platform as such; I find the visual aspect of the site more important. Pinterest is a lovely site. Pinterest is all about great design. I think it would be useful for any company to use Pinterest in order to learn how to think visually. Pinterest forces you to present matters in a visually attractive manner. The design of your content is more than half the battle. If good content is presented in a visually appealing way then your site will be successful. Pinterest forces you to do just that. For this reason alone it is extremely interesting to go down this path.

It is also interesting to boost your online ecosystem. Too many companies view the adoption of new social media channels as an additional cost. This is because most companies manage those channels as silos instead of as an integrated system. Every company incorporates pictures and images in their implementation of content marketing. You need to make use of these images somewhere so you may as well start a collection on Pinterest instead of simply storing them on your server. Consider Pinterest as a kind of ‘free software’ enabling you to park your images in a convenient place. This will make your own site/blog much more visual which, in turn, will heighten its impact. The fact that you’re building an attractive visual profile on a trendy new site is an added bonus.

This is the unique combination Pinterest offers:  it forces you to think visually and it helps you build a strong visual archive on a trendy site. A must for all companies across all sectors.

In the online world, the answer is simple: it is about both quality AND quantity.

The current state of your content marketing falls under one of four possible categories:

1. Non-existing: you don’t have a content marketing approach and as a result you’re in danger of fading from the memory of your market.
2. Degenerating: you’re risking your reputation by frequently posting low-quality content. This is the fast track to destroying your corporate reputation and credibility.
3. Untapped potential: this is the case when fantastic content fails to reach its target audience due to the low frequency with which that content is developed.
4. High impact: this is the case when a lot of high-quality content is produced.

The rise of micro-content

In order to succeed on both a quality and a quantity level, it is important to create large chunks of content in combination with micro-content. Especially micro-content is on the rise. Companies and private individuals use small bits of content in a smart way to boost interaction and the number of views.

Back in the day we would put out one large piece of content, for instance a 15-minute movie, a 30-page white paper or a virtual product demo. Today, we still need these large chunks but it is also interesting to derive smaller variations from them.

Imagine, for instance, that you’ve created a 15-minute video. Why not derive two or three 30-second excerpts with key quotes or the catchiest remarks?

Another example: when you make a large PowerPoint deck, why not create three of four key visuals as well? These can be shared on Flickr or Pinterest, whereas the slides can be posted on SlideShare. In other words, you can create additional micro-content and spread it through various online channels. This approach allows you to communicate with different audiences.

Your key target group, the people that really love your work, may receive more content from you than in the past but since they like you, that’s not really an issue. Besides, they’re probably glad to hear more from you anyway. What the additional micro-content will do is increase the number of opportunities to communicate with those on the fringes of your target group, which will enable you to reach a larger target audience.

Outsourcing (part of) your customer service to customers is obviously a drastic evolution. By taking this step, you’re really implying that customers have at least the same amount of product knowledge as the manufacturer.

The IT world was the first to make tentative strides in crowd service with organically constructed forums where ICT enthusiasts lend each other a helping hand. Today, the technological sector is still the most fertile ground for crowd service.

To read more about the evolution of customer service, feel free to read my paper ‘From personal, to self to crowd service’.

Giffgaff customer support

Giffgaff is a ‘SIM card only’ telecom player in the UK. The customer service is entirely in the hands of their community members. All members are customers. The more active their support for other customers, the bigger the rewards. There is no safety net and Giffgaff has no call center. In other words, the entire customer service consists of crowd service. In 2010, no fewer than 130,000 queries were posted on their forum and these questions elicited more than 1 million replies. 95% of all questions were answered within the hour. The average response time is three minutes.

Verizon

Telecom player Verizon uses a customer-helps-customer forum in support of their other service channels. The ratio on their forum is 1-9-90. One percent of their users are so-called super users. They spend between 20 to 30 hours a week on the forum helping others. These super users are not rewarded financially; instead they are rewarded with a digital status. They earn recognition instead of money. Nine percent of users frequently answer questions by other users. They don’t spend that much time on the forum but they do answer the questions they have personal experience with. Ninety percent of the community members are readers. They are just trying to find the answer to their queries. Crowd service only works when the super users are actively involved in a community. The presence of that one percent attracts the 90% of readers, which sparks the efficiency surge that companies are counting on.

Barclay Card

Barclay Card is a credit card built around a strong user community. On the one hand, Barclay’s online community helps the company brainstorm about the future of the product while on the other it acts as a crowd service platform. Customers discuss various financial topics and help each other with small operational questions about the credit card. The results are astounding. Customer retention is up 25%. The number of questions and complaints via traditional customer service channels dropped by 50%. Barclay Card puts the total return at 10 million dollars.

And this video contains some facts to show the evolution of crowd service and the openness consumers have towards this trend.