How predictive analytics and design thinking will merge to create 21st century customer experiences and help connect business ecosystems.
The saying “You cannot not communicate” takes on new meaning for CMOs who are now responsible for driving the customer experience (CX) strategy. The same sentiment is true for CX as well – you cannot not create experiences for your customers. Although this seems like common knowledge, for decades only a few companies thought about managing the customer experience.
From customer journeys to business ecosystems
Executives are now beginning to think about the holistic CX, bringing about the evolution of the customer journey concept as a means to look at customer interactions. It offers a way to map and understand the relationships with customers, as well as the role of and relationships between different touchpoints along that journey. Once documented, companies are able to look deeper into what works and what doesn’t, as well as where journeys are broken. They can also identify pain points, un-met needs and moments of truth. Once they have a deeper understanding of customer interactions they will gain a more inclusive view of the business ecosystem – where every touchpoint is driven by a complex mix of people, processes, platforms, and technologies.
Forced-linearization of average behavior
Customer journey maps build on sales funnel concepts to bring touchpoints into a sequence. They are limited to certain segments and personas, and as such, are a ‘forced-linearization of average behavior’. Unfortunately, customer journey maps are far from delivering on the vision of looking at customers as a ‘segment of one’.
We’ve outlined the following 3 hypotheses to showcase the role of big data and design in developing your customer experience strategy:
Hypothesis #1: Given the data available today, we should look at customer journeys as behaviors that can be shaped.
The reality of a consumers’ buying process is more complex than any traditional journey map leads us to believe. Consumers’ behaviors are not static, yet when analyzing a traditional journey map, the touchpoints are typically visualized as a string of pearls; giving the impression that the journey and sequence of interactions are set in stone. When in fact customers often jump between different stages of the cycle and behave in different ways. This variety of interactions creates a ‘behavioral log’, unique for each customer. And along with it comes data – and lots of it. The goal shouldn’t be to model your offer around existing customers’ behavior, but to use this data to influence and shape it.
The impact of the digital revolution and the age of data
Digital created many new channels and touchpoints – making CX management more complex, but at the same time creating unprecedented opportunity. Many companies struggle with this (r)evolution as they try to make social media, mobile, Internet of Things (IoT), etc. work for them. From a business asset perspective, IoT will continue to exponentially expand the number of available data points. More than 30 years into Moore’s law we still haven’t reached the limits and are only at the middle of the chessboard.
Finally, the ‘segment of one’
With this influx of data, we are in the process of transitioning from old school segmentation into an age where the sheer vastness of behavioral data will enable us to realize the vision of ‘segments of one‘. Companies now know how people interact with their brands, and how they use their products and services, enabling them to predict customer behavior and create a fully personalized and individual experience for each and every one of them.
A brave new marketing universe
Managing all of this data creates huge challenges but it also paves the way for new opportunities for companies go to market and do business. From a function that was driven mostly by intuition, a la ‘Mad Men’, marketing is transforming more and more into a technology function, hitting a hugely complex landscape of potential solutions that are evolving to address growing demand.
Hypothesis #2: Branding, marketing, design and innovation will transform and become data-driven disciplines.
MarTech and Big Data are driving dramatic shifts that are forcing marketers to re-think the way they understand customers’ needs and behaviors. The evolution of customer research and how we drive innovation has already witnessed a shift from traditional qual and quant approaches, to design-thinking methodologies like ethno and co-creation. In the future, we might see behavioral data (at least partially) replace those approaches, as behavioral data is much more precise and can be modeled and analyzed to also predict future behavior and how to influence it. In other words, big data might become the ‘re-birth of quant’ in a totally new dimension, as we will no longer analyze what people say they do, but what they actually do. However, we will still need to leverage qual approaches like ethnography not just to understand what people are doing, but also why they are doing it.
Hypothesis #3: Data cannot replace human creativity, but marrying creativity with operational excellence will be a key to winning.
Data can help marketers develop new solutions to problems and challenges, but (for the foreseeable future) it will still be a means to an end. An input to a creative process of problem solving that will still be based on human intuition, creativity and brain power.
Are we entering the machine age?
However powerful technology becomes, companies should still follow a people-first, technology-second approach. In other words, technology should be an enabler to improve people’s lives. Even if one thinks about artificial intelligence and nano-robots crawling into our blood system to keep us healthy (which might be too Orwell-esque for some), this principle should stay the same.
A new way of working
Designing and delivering 21st century customer experiences fundamentally changes the way companies are doing business in two ways: First, digital transformation puts into question existing working principles, organizational structures and governance models. And, if we simply cannot bear to hear the D-word anymore (disruption), any large-scale transformation brings along the need for cultural change, different capabilities and new skills. With it, it’s seemingly impossible to empower people to become part of that transformation and actively drive it.
Second, most businesses are not set up in a way that makes it easy to deliver seamless and inclusive experiences to customers. Different departments, responsibilities and egos get into the way. It’s important to break down existing silos in order to truly deliver against customer needs as well as their own corporate ambitions.
The virtual, agile and connected organization
In many cases it’s not possible to change an entire organization and its structure overnight. That’s why multi-disciplinary collaboration across and beyond traditional borders becomes a must. Again, technology can be an enabler to meet this challenge through sharing data, platforms, processes, technologies, etc. with data stitching together an otherwise disconnected business in a way that was not possible before.
Organizations need to adopt new, agile and connected ways of working to create and deliver outstanding customer experiences and succeed in the digital age. It becomes quite clear that data-driven analytics cannot be leveraged efficiently without human creativity, and vice versa. Thus ‘Designalytics’ should be the paradigm used to create 21st century experiences for today’s demanding customers – while enabling organizations to meet customers’ expectations, needs and dreams while creating competitive advantage and driving profitable growth.