As the Director of Experience Architecture at Whereoware, Nate Ginesi leads a talented team of designers and experience architects to create user-centered digital solutions. Together, they design websites, portals, digital products, Salesforce UIs, and more, for complex, business-critical applications across industries, including e-commerce, healthcare, hospitality, government, and financial services sectors. From requirement gathering, user research, rapid prototyping, user experience architecture, and interaction design, his team delivers comprehensive design solutions to drive meaningful client outcomes.
TheCustomer
Nate, as someone who covers a pretty broad universe of marketing & customer engagement technologies (Martech space is 9000+ at last count), I’m intrigued by your statement: “businesses should stop chasing popular tech trends and instead strategically adopt tried and true CX technology and tactics that meet the needs for targeted audiences.” That’s provocative, to say the least. Give us some context here – what’s behind that statement?
Nate Ginesi
Tech trends are always changing, and their popularity or buzz factor doesn’t mean they are helpful or important for all businesses and audiences.
Businesses chasing one trend after the other will lose a lot of time, focus, and money on the chase – and may not have much to show for it.
Customer experience is all that matters, at the end of the day. It’s how businesses breed loyalty, recurring revenue, and deeper relationships. Businesses must be laser focused on creating easy and enjoyable experiences for their customers.
TheCustomer
It would be an understatement to suggest that marketers, in general, have a strong tendency toward “shiny objects”. Not many people would argue that point. But you’re suggesting that “brands must consider customer experience basics to guide technology decisions and meet customers where they are.”
Can you break that down into practical measures and concepts?
Nate Ginesi
Creating that “best” customer experience will look different for every audience, but you need to get the basics right –
- websites that are easy to browse
- checkouts that make it easy to buy
- rich product content and information to guide users’ buying decision
- optimized conversion points (ex: webforms) and mobile experience
- fast website speed
- omni channel marketing strategy
- accessibility, data compliance, and security
The process is typically:
- setting goals
- identifying benchmarks and KPIs
- reviewing existing data and talking to customers to understand pain points and opportunities
- identifying improvements to remove friction and reduce pain points
- creating an omni channel marketing and website optimization plan to improve the customer experience and engage customers across channels
- measuring performance
- testing and experimenting to see what works best
TheCustomer
Tell us about LookThink and your recent acquisition by Whereoware. How does this new entity solve these kinds of problems?
Nate Ginesi
Whereoware is a digital experience agency, with development, digital strategy, design, UX, SEO, marketing, and PPC/social advertising teams in-house.
We design, build, optimize, and personalize your website or Salesforce, and integrate your earned/paid marketing strategy to achieve customer acquisition, retention, and maximization goals. We have a wide variety of clients across industries and expertise across technology platforms, like Optimizely, Acquia, Salesforce, and more.
This broad expertise and in-house capabilities uniquely position us to help clients create more meaningful and impactful digital experiences. We don’t look at each channel in a silo – we look at the full customer journey holistically to reveal pain points and tap into every opportunity to make it better.
