Join us on Tuesday, May 22nd, at Intuit to provide feedback to FitPass experience design

Company Overview

FitPass Network is a start-up company that offers a multi-studio fitness pass available in many metropolitan cities.  By partnering with multiple, mostly independent fitness providers such as yoga, Pilates, boot camps, and gyms we are able to offer one universal fitness pass without any contracts or commitments to give exercise enthusiasts more options that otherwise available.

The Product

A FitPass allows someone to exercise at any workout within the partner network (currently 32 inSan Diegoand 25 inSan Francisco), without needing separate membership at each place.  Without a FitPass, a person would either need to pay expensive one-time walk in rates or have multiple membership.  FitPass saves people money and saves them time while allowing them to stay motivated to exercise by switching up their workouts and being introduced to new ones.

The Customer

A typical fitpass customers is a female between the ages of 25-38.  She leads a busy yet active lifestyle and fitness and health are important aspects of her life.  She does most of her workouts at smaller fitness studios in instructor-led group classes.  She gets bored doing the same workouts all the time, and due to the structure of the fitness industry, she either has more than one fitness membership or rotates around town to different studios to keep the workouts interesting.

Objectives for User Experience

Most fitness passes and services are sold in a face to face manner, with many customers citing “the community” as the main draw to one fitness studio over another.  In a competitive industry where much business is done by building a relationship with the client, we must create an experience for the customer that makes them connect with FitPass and be encouraged to share it with their friends so they can get more benefit by exercising together.

Join us on Tuesday, April 24th, at Intuit to provide feedback to Social IQ experience design

Company Overview

Social IQ is an influence marketing and brand advocacy platform that enables businesses to connect with their most influential fans, recruit them as brand ambassadors, and reward them for driving W.O.M. The tool is unique in its integration of the 5 relevant functionalities marketers are looking for:
1- Influence measurement and influencer identification
2- Influencer engagement for loyalty & Ambassador recruitment.
3- Social advertising & promotion
4- Rewards management &
5- Performance reporting & Analytics.

Target customer
The payer: Our target customer, in this initial stage id the National and Global consumer brand.
The user: The active brand enthusiast Social media user. Who made it a habit to share her experience, and her passion or lack thereof for specific product or service experience(s).

Product
- Social IQ: Our landmark consumer product that measures user’s online influence, and qualifies the user for Perks or deep discounts.
- Social IQ iii: The brand advocacy solution that allows businesses to market on the Social web through its brand ambassadors.

Join us on Tuesday, March 27th, at Intuit to provide feedback on HubEdu’s educational technology platform experience

Company Overview
HubEdu is an educational technology platform that partners with colleges and their bookstores to increase store revenues and to enhance higher education affordability for students. Its goal is to transform partner stores into the dynamic hub of all purchases within a campus, be they on site or online.

Product
HubEdu has a software suite of 6 different elements. We would like to focus on our Pricing Analytics for the CX meeting. This system helps bookstores strategically optimize their pricing relative to online competitors to help them give students better deals with no sacrifice to their overall store margin. It is designed to:

Help stores optimize pricing: Many students are now comparing bookstore prices to those found online. HubEdu helps stores manage competitive pricing without sacrificing overall margins. We analyze store inventory and automatically show overpriced and under-priced items to help the store become more competitive.

Adjust inventory prices in real-time: Adjusting prices has never been easier. Stores can select their preferences, and HubEdu will automatically update their entire catalog to maximize their competitiveness. Stores can also hold margins to ensure they never lose money.

Book By Book Analysis: Certain books require special attention. Once a store has adjusted prices for its entire inventory, it can drill down to a particular ISBN, set an exact price, and hold that price moving forward.
Target Customer
Bookstore managers and textbook buyers.

Join us on Tuesday, February 28th, at Intuit to provide feedback on the social web application user experience of Rippoll

Company Overview

Rippoll – is an online public opinion community, that the world has never seen or experience before. Create a rippoll or a community and become a part of the rippoll effect.

Market Validation

Rippoll is an interest based social network that has a markedly different approach and focus than a Facebook, and all the other “polling” sites. Rippoll has conducted a couple of “controlled” focus groups on the site, and everyone’s reaction was extremely excited. Descriptions like; “Genius”, “Awesome”, “Can’t even begin to grasp how big it can become”, and other comments… Of course, none of this matters until we fully release the site – which will happen in Lawrence, Ks (Univ.of Kansas)- we’ll explain why at the meeting.

Problem

As mentioned earlier, there are a few social media web sites that run solely on the idea of user’s personal relationships. While that is not necessarily bad, and it has benefits to deepen social connectivity, but its only within a users personal relationship group. Little or no social relevance on topics, issues, or matters unless it is spread out over several social sites, media outlets, etc. Polling web sites and Polling Entities (like Rueters, Gallup, etc) – only reach a small mass of the general public, without touching on the connectivity with people or users outside of ones social sphere.

Solution

Rippoll enables users to reach the world, in new and engaging ways:

• High Value Connectivity with new people we don’t already know.

• Finally, relevant interest based connectivity, within one central location.

• See in real-time, the connections, comments and locations of people within a rippoll.

• Small and large business’s will finally have the opportunity to connect with their customer base.

• Users can monitor several rippolls, across several different categories all at the same time.

• Massive growth and engagement with a local community, city, state, nation or world.

• Huge Revenue models for advertisers, targeted towards demographics provided by users.

Business Model

No Rippoll Fee

Creating rippolls cost nothing to create for the user. Create as many as you want.

Advertising Revenue

If the creator of a rippoll would like to include advertising within their rippoll, there is a small fee.

Advertising will be throughout the site, in key locations based on demographics of the audience that is being reached.

Several different options for media outlets to use rippolls and communities for their advertising and connectivity to their audiences.

There are several different categories within rippoll that cross several different advertising mediums. (fashion, political, sports,health, entertainment, music, etc.)

Advertisers can target their marketing to locations, and across several different demographics

Small business’s will finally have an opportunity to connect with their local customer base, at a very reasonable cost.

Potential Additional Sources of Revenue

• Deep User Analytics to political and marketing outlets.

• Aggregating and selling usage data to third parties

Market Opportunity

Rippoll will touch users through a “rippoll effect”. We honestly have no idea how big or fast it can grow. We have heard some pretty huge numbers thrown out , and compared to how other interest based web sites are doing, and combining a relevant factor with rippoll.com – the opportunities are huge.

2012 Calendar!

A few things worth sharing…

Our 2012 calendar has been finalized! As always, the calendar is subject to change – so pay attention to the monthly email meeting announcements.

Oh yeah… We’ve changed this from the User Experience  Special Interest Group (UX SIG) to the Customer Experience  Special Interest Group (CX SIG). Larry Marine started the User Interface Special Interest Group (UI SIG) in 1996. In 2003, I took it over and changed the focus to UX. Now, I am changing the focus a little more. Where Larry was focused on the user interface design, I broadened the focus to user experience design and now I am broadening it more to customer experience design. The format will stay pretty much the same but with more emphasis on how organizations determine, develop, and deliver their experience to their customers.

One more thing… The Customer Experience Revolution is out! Buy your copies now for the holidays.

Happy 2012!

Sean

Join us on Tuesday, October 25, at 5:30 pm at Intuit to review Suddenly Smart’s SmartBuilder

Company Overview

Suddenly Smart has been providing e-learning solutions since 1999. In the e-learning industry, there has been substantial interest in rapid authoring tools that enable non-technical users to create e-learning content. While many practitioners realize that the type of e-learning produced by these tools is often boring and ineffective, they are frustrated by the difficulty of making their e-learning engaging, interactive, and thought-provoking. Suddenly Smart’s goal is to make it faster and easier to build effective e-learning by providing an innovative e-learning authoring platform, SmartBuilder. Customers include Google, Qualcomm, Red Hat, YMCA of the USA and numerous small and medium-sized enterprises.

The Product

Suddenly Smart is in the process of redesigning and rebranding their website. The website is the main channel for providing information to prospective customers and for encouraging customers to take the first step in the sales process – signing up for a free SmartBuilder account.

Suddenly Smart objectives for the new website:

• Convince prospects that SmartBuilder is a valuable and unique tool for creating e-learning

• Help build a brand image that the company is a partner in helping organizations create effective e-learning; not just a tool provider.

• Entice prospects to sign up for the free version of SmartBuilder, and ultimately to convert to the Pro version (paid version) of the tool.

Suddenly Smart will present draft versions of the home page plus other key pages.

The User

• Training professionals who create e-learning as a part of their job.

• The majority of these have experience with existing e-learning tools and technologies.

• Most are not programmers.

SDSIC UX BIG: Creating Cutting-Edge Mobile Apps

Almost 800,000 apps have been developed for the Apple and Android app stores. Of these, 1 in 4 were downloaded and used just once. With so many apps out there, how do you make sure your app stands out and is used regularly? Our panelists will discuss three key areas to ensure that your application provides a great user experience and stands out from your competitors.

Register at http://www.sdsic.org/events.aspx

The Customer Experience Revolution

Jeofrey Bean of Del Mar Research and I are putting the final edits on our new book, The Customer Experience Revolution. It will be available January 2012. Jeof and I have interviewed folks who have shared their talents with Apple, Google, Yahoo!, Amazon.com, JD Powers and more to gain insights into how great companies create great experiences. The book is being published by Brigantine Media and Waterside Productions for international publication rights.

We sold our first order of The Customer Experience Revolution to a UX SIG member after announcing it at our last meeting! I am happy that it was one of our own UXers that bought the first book! You can order yours at www.cxrevolution.com.

Join us on Tuesday, September 27, at 5:30 pm at Intuit to review Extrabux.com

Company Overview

Before Extrabux built its unique comparison shopping engine, consumers needed to visit multiple websites to get the lowest prices online.  First they must go to a standard comparison shopping site to find which retailers sell a product and their corresponding prices. Next, they need to scour the web for the best available coupon, testing each offer to make sure it actually works on their item. After that, they need to visit a cash back site to see which retailers on their list offer cash back and how much they can earn.  Lastly they must pull out their calculator, factor in all the discounts, calculate the varying tax and shipping rates and hope it all works properly, because even if they did all that right, the coupon they used could invalidate the cash back, wasting all the work they put in.

Extrabux.com saves consumers time and money by smoothly combining comparison shopping with coupons, cash back and tax & shipping charges to find the lowest price on nearly every product sold online.  Extrabux works with over 2,000 merchants, 1,300 of whom are among top 2,000 retailers online, ensuring that shoppers buy only from reputable online retailers. According to a Webcredible poll, price and retailer reputation are the two most important factors when consumers make an online buying decision; Extrabux works to address both.  Consumers can save by combining discounts to find the lowest prices on the over 8MM products in Extrabux’s database, or they can simply browse Extrabux’s list of over 4,000 coupons and earn cash back on top of those great deals to save every time they shop online.

Extrabux is cash flow positive, has grown 250% over last year and is nearing a $1MM annualized revenue run rate.

Current Project

Extrabux is constructing a full redesign of its site in time for the holiday season.  The goals are to give Extrabux a fresh look, while solving problems identified with the old design.  Extrabux’s metrics focus on creating user sign ups, getting users to click-through to merchant websites, and having users complete purchases as that is when Extrabux gets paid (Extrabux receives a commission on every order it helps generate at one of its merchant sites).

Target Customer

Extrabux’s primary demographic is female 24-54.  Extrabux’s customer ranges widely in income, but generally they are savvy online shoppers who are aware of all the different way to save online, but would rather save time by having Extrabux do the leg work for them. Consumers can use Extrabux to shop any category including: Electronics, Books, Health & Beauty, Apparel, Travel, Toys & Gifts, etc.

Join us on Tuesday, August 23, at 5:30 pm at Intuit to review Antengo iPhone app

Company Overview

Antengo is reinventing classified listings for the mobile space. Rather than trying to cram a clunky web-based classifieds model onto a mobile phone, they design for mobile from the ground-up. This is done by making the listings 140 characters or less, geo-tagging each one, and providing real-time chat between buyers and sellers without them having to disclose personal contact information. Imagine standing outside of a Cricket Wireless in need of a ticket. Rather than walking around with your finger the air, you can open Antengo on your phone, find a nearby seller, message back and forth, and coordinate the meetup. But it’s not just for tickets – with 32 categories Antengo strives to be the new standard for “real-time classifieds.”

Antengo was recently accepted into CommNexus’ incubator, EvoNexus, received funding from the venture arm of a top strategic partner, and has roughly 27,000 users of their current iPhone app.

Current Project

The Antengo Beta2 project represents a complete UI and UX redesign based on the functionality in the current iPhone app and user feedback. Core functionality includes: post a classified listings, search/browse/filter listings results, communication between buyers and sellers, and facilitating the meetup to exchange goods/services.

The two most important metrics that we measure today are downloads and posts. As such, encouraging users to share on platforms outside of the app (like Facebook and Twitter) are crucial. In addition, making the post process as quick and painless as possible is critical. A close third in metrics that we measure is the number of communications sent between users. This can be a call, text, email, or preferably our soon-to-be cross-platform messaging service.

Target Customer

Antengo’s demographic spans a wide cross-section of smart-phone users. There are a total of 32 categories, including: Tickets, Clothing/Accessories, Volunteer, Donate, Carpool, Sports & Activities, Tech Gadgets, Temp Jobs, Yard Sales and more. While this provides for a wide variety of target demographics, Antengo is launching the bulk of its marketing efforts at live events and on college campuses.