Face the F.A.C.E.S. for Your Customers

Customers expect a lot these days. And their expectations are growing.

Campus stores can rise to those expectations by focusing on F.A.C.E.S., five specific areas related to elevating service and connections to your customers: Familiarity, Anticipation, Convenience, Experience, and Stance. Speaker, author, and podcaster Joey Coleman explained how in his opening keynote at CAMEX22 in Louisville, The Changing F.A.C.E.S. of the Customer.

“The impact of innovation, of changes, of enhancements and customer experience,” noted Coleman, “these are going to creep into our lives more.” Campus stores need to figure out where changes are heading in order to be able to shift with the change.

“There’s entrenched change on your campus. Your customers are constantly cycling, you’re getting new customers all the time,” he pointed out. Each arriving class of freshmen brings new expectations.

To put even more pressure on campus stores, innovative retailers around the globe are coming up with creative ways to meet and beat customers’ expanding expectations for shopping. A New Zealand company developed an edible (or compostable) coffee cup made from flour, eggs, and sugar to replace the takeout paper cup, of which billions are discarded each year. The edible cup can hold hot liquids for 24 hours before starting to dissolve.

A bank in Poland decided to improve on the efficiency of the 24-hour ATM by installing the machine in a car. Using an app, a customer can hail the mobile ATM to come to them instead of going to an ATM location, which can sometimes be unsafe. The ATM-in-a-car has proven particularly popular with bars and restaurants that need to deposit cash at the end of the night.

Similarly, a Chinese company put grocery items on a truck. Customers find the nearest Moby Mart on the app, schedule a visit, and select their items when the truck arrives. It’s all cashless; the purchase is charged to the customer’s account. Theft isn’t a concern because cameras are on board, too.

“So what happens when your store goes to the students instead of the students coming to your store?” Coleman asked.

These innovations show how some retailers are responding to Convenience, Experience, and Stance (three parts of the F.A.C.E.S. model), but Coleman explained how campus stores can scale the model by taking five steps, one for each part: research, watch, try, journey, and expand.

Familiarity

Getting to know your customers is the first place to start, according to Coleman. Social media uses algorithms to track customers’ preferences and behaviors; many companies, such as Uber, ask customers to rate their experiences. Campus stores can research their customer base with similar tactics.

“Look at students, alums, and other people coming in. Look at social media,” he suggested. It’s now a thing for newly accepted students to decorate their room at home with swag from the school and then post photos on Instagram. Look for those images and see what else the incoming freshman class may be interested in. What do they have in common?

Anticipation

Gaining a better understanding of the customer enables the store to anticipate what the customer will need and want, and get products, services, and operations in place to serve those. In tandem with your research on customers, Coleman recommended watching how customers interact with the store.

Encourage employees to pay attention to customer reaction and possibly keep some kind of record so the observations can be shared with other staff. Employees should also be empowered to help customers in whatever way is needed, as part of building “a culture of care of service.”

Convenience

How can your store make things easier for students?

By trying new technology or new practices, Coleman said. First identify a customer pain point or some interaction that could be improved. Set up a pilot to test a new service, automated process, or technological improvement. Start with something small and if it doesn’t work, try something else.

Experience

Disney World visitors wear arm bands to access rides, unlock their hotel rooms, and even pay for purchases on the premises. Not needing to tote tickets, room keys, credit cards, or cash allows guests to focus on having a wonderful time at the park. But first Disney had to recognize how small things like ride tickets were bogging down the experience.

Think about the journey your customers take when they visit your store, including all of the physical and emotional touchpoints along the way. “By mapping the customer journey, you can easily identify ways to create remarkable interactions,” Coleman said.

Stance

“What is your stand or attitude about something? This is potentially the most interesting and challenging part,” Coleman noted. Customers increasingly expect to shop with brands that actively and openly support issues of importance to them, such as the environment, diversity and equity, criminal justice reform, social issues, and income disparity.

“We see a lot of this on college campuses,” Coleman said. “Students and alumni want to know what’s your stance.” The store must expand its understanding of topics, evaluate what position to take, and determine how to express that stance.