“More and more, the offline world is adjusting to and mirroring the increasingly dominant online world, from tone of voice to product development to business processes to customer relationships.”
- As customers spend more time online their behaviors and expectations are ever changing and as such the offline world needs to adapt to these.
- A new set of business practices and processes, as well as client involvement and marketing techniques, have emerged online, and the offline world is starting to mirror these.
- Features such as peer reviews and community commentary are becoming vital online tools for customers and as such they are demanding these same tools available to them in the real world.
- The online world has enabled a much greater customer engagement not only with companies but with other consumers. Both customer and business have seen the benefit of this changing relationship online and now it’s time to apply these techniques and tools offline.
- For example the Wall Street Journal reported on shops taking a page from the e-commerce world, featuring endorsements from shoppers on product displays in their physical stores.
- Another example is chocolate company TCHO.
- Product design through customer collaboration – The company’s dark chocolate is created in limited-run “beta editions” that are only available online and at its factory store. Continuous flavor development and customer feedback mean that varieties are constantly evolving, with new versions emerging as frequently as every 36 hours.
- Search and taxonomy – TCHO also aims to change the way people describe chocolate and has created a new taxonomy based on common-sense terms like “nutty”, “fruity” and “chocolatey” to help people find the types they like best. Products are named accordingly, such as the recent Beta C Ghana 0.2x release, for example, in which the “C” stands for chocolatey.
- Knowledge transfer – Finally, TCHO embraces a social mission that goes beyond Fair Trade to help farmers by transferring knowledge of how to grow and ferment better beans, allowing them to escape commodity production and become premium producers
- Product design through customer collaboration – The company’s dark chocolate is created in limited-run “beta editions” that are only available online and at its factory store. Continuous flavor development and customer feedback mean that varieties are constantly evolving, with new versions emerging as frequently as every 36 hours.
Original Article – http://trendwatching.com/trends/offon.htm
