The 2019 Tendances de la Relation Client

On thursday 13 December, the Tendances de la Relation Client 2019 took place in Paris. During this event, Thierry Spencer, speaker and author of the Sens du Client blog unveiled a list of Customer Relationship innovations and trends to follow.

ERDIL was a partner of this event along with the Académie du Service and Elioz. As the morning was punctuated by the skits and songs of improvising actors, we offer you to look back at the event’s highlights through a list of songs…

And signs there were as Elioz is indeed a company specialising in communication devices and services for deaf and hearing-impaired people. Christophe Ricono, Managing Director and Vincent Castel, Operations Director presented Elioz’s solutions through an interview and a customer case.

They then taught all the attendees to translate “customer relationship” into French Sign Language and everybody was pleased to do so!

Our hats off to the two interpreters who took it in turns to translate the whole event into French Sign Language (including the comedians’ skits!).

Our hats off to the two interpreters who took it in turns to translate the whole event into sign language (including comedians skits!). 👏

Just like Elioz, we had a few minutes to describe our activity. We chose a brand new and animated presentation of the 2019 ERDIL Trends: a sketch of what the next-year ERDIL client will look like.

And the participants (and comedians) did deduce correctly: ERDIL is located in Besançon, Franche-Comté, a region where people like good food (especially cheese). 😉

This was the first trend unveiled by Thierry Spencer: in 2019, customers will be “enquiring”. A not commonly encountered term, meaning that customers know more and more about brands and are thus becoming more conscious towards brand values and now require genuine transparency from their part.

This first trend was strikingly illustrated by the use of the (widely adopted by the audience) Yuka app and its defining Nutri-score, opposing two French classics: Buitoni ravioli and Président camembert. Which one of these products has got the best Nutri-score? The result was quite surprising!

A second trend presented by Thierry Spencer: customers will be “gamers”. There is no denying it, customers are constantly connected for entertainment purposes, whether at home, on public transports or even at work! There is thus a growing expectation from customers to have brands provide them with a genuine experience where gaming holds a prominent position.

Candy Crush is (obviously) the greatest example to illustrate this second trend as the landmark casual gaming app is used everywhere. Once again, high adoption rate in the attendance!

Customers will be “moment”, the third major trend unveiled during the morning. Customers are constantly solicited and it is more and more difficult to capture their attention.

It is thus becoming essential for brands to take advantage of all contact points with customers in order to entice (positive) emotions in the shortest possible time.

Thierry Spencer took advantage of the third trend to look back at the results of the questionnaire displayed in his Sens du Client blog. The survey aimed to determine the emotion level customers would experience during some key moments such as entering a taxi, meeting a banking advisor, getting a new car in a dealership…

The various emotion levels were as a matter of fact staged by the comedians and improvisation experts (and signed by the interpreters) during a funny, animated and rich with instruments interlude!

The main topic of the fourth 2019 customer relationship trend was customer experience during delivery: customers will be “delivered”. Delivery indeed became one of the most important contact point of customer journeys. Brands excel in creativity to make this step a moment to remember.

The most successful companies in this field are even defining new standards for other brands.

Fifth trend: customers will be “visage”. Facial recognition is integrated in a lot of fields and its uses are various, ranging from video surveillance to payment as well as unlocking devices or vehicles.

This process is already widely used in certain regions (such as China) and should gain even more ground next year and in the future, even if the ethical issues it raises remain numerous.

Customers will be “candidate”! This is the sixth and final trend unveiled during the event. Thierry Spencer highlighted the gap that often exists between what is “promised by the candidate” and what is “brought to the table by the collaborator”. A difference which can lead to negative consequences, especially in terms of management.

After an offbeat debrief by the comedians, the morning ended with the presentation of Prix des Prix, rewarding the company with the most Customer Relationship awards in 2018. Often mentioned in the Customer Relationship charts and already a winner twice in the last ten years, Nespresso has won the Prix des Prix.

Nathalie Gonzalez, Marketing and Communications Director at Nespresso (and born in Franche-Comté!) used the award to highlight the commitment of the brand to the « Symétrie des Attentions™ » (defined by l’Académie du Service) and the importance of taking risks and trying new things to improve customer satisfaction.

Once again, we would like to thank Thierry Spencer for this event full of insights, and all the members of Académie du Service and Elioz for their contribution to the (excellent) organisation of the event!

For the music lovers who would like to find out about the songs and listen to them, you can find the playlist here: Customer Relationship Trends in song !!*

* The lyrics or video clips of the songs do not illustrate this report and could not be associated with a point of view shared by ERDIL. Only the titles have been used to illustrate the highlights of the event 😉