Smart Data

What is the main point of building the digital business and the customer experience? It is not to spend a fortune obsessing over every last detail and solving every single problem that a customer “might have”.

It is to look at the main goals that most customers have when they interact with your digital platform and make sure you meet those goals with simple and easy to use functionality. Priorities have to be set.

The main focus is taking an outside-in view and start with the customer.

• What is their goal?
• Can they do it quickly?
• Can they do it easily in the journey they will take to deciding to “buy something”?
• Will it help them become engaged?

Customers expect it to be like Amazon. Of course, that isn’t fair. That is a high bar but not impossible. It does take focus.

Given the many dimensions and elements in the overall customer experience it does require management, change and process optimization. It is about involving the customer on various levels, making intensive use of actionable data and information and removing obstacles and silo effects, taking into account  –  and involving – the customer and increasingly deploying connected technologies.

Mind you: it’s not just about data and technology, most certainly not. It’s still about good old but hard to achieve “putting yourself in the shoes of”, “having an outside-in view” and getting out there as customers are more than data and digital feedback, they also walk around and can speak.

And remember: emotions!