It is always interesting to see what the ICT industries’ top analysts are saying about the future, especially those brave enough to look past the next few quarters. For this reason, the good folks at Forrester Research’s annual perspectives on the top emerging technologies to watch, which in its latest iteration looks out to the year 2020, are more than food for thought.
In a blog about the analysis, Forrester analyst Brian Hopkins, notes the following:
“... Across the board, Forrester finds high expectations that emerging technology will help firms stay competitive amidst these changes. But which ones should you pay attention to? Cloud, mobile, social, big data? Are these even the right things to be looking at in 2015? Unfortunately, our survey data says that enterprise architects’ ability to anticipate business needs for emerging technology is trending in the wrong direction. Between 2012 and 2013, the number of businesses that were unhappy with their firm’s ability to introduce emerging technologies almost doubled. Now, in 2014-2015, we expect it to be even worse...”
Hopkins goes on to say that as a result of these trends he and his colleague Frank Gillett decided to overhaul their usual way of analyzing the markets to address the challenges of what they characterize as “the age of the customer.”
Below is the new taxonomy developed by the researchers who grouped their analysis into business solutions and three platform innovation groups which they explain, “most strongly support customers’ engagement across their life cycle.” Anyone in the customer experience business should find this way of thinking about the future of customer experience useful.
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The blog provides a nice summary of the above. What stands out in looking at the above is that we are entering what I would call a customer experience arms race. What the above highlights is the vendor perspective of driving to what futurist Alvin Toffler called many decades ago, “the market of one.”
Put simply, the notion is that as a seller I will know so much about your past transactional behavior/context—now combined with such things as location, demographics, other type of psychographics, etc.—that I will be able to completely personalize my offer to you. Better yet, I will be able to do so on a proactive as well as reactive basis, and with a high probability you will engage. In fact, combined with visibility gained from omni-channel interactions and things like real-time Big Data analytics on what is happening with competitors, I will be able to target you with a high probability of success.
The flip side for us customers is that we are also in an age of more perfect information regarding choices. As a result, we have become more fickle. What this is likely to translate into is increased pressure on sellers to be more responsive and overall provide us with a superior customer experience. As recent experiences by retailers have shown in regards to the consequences of bad experiences going wrong in minutes, despite the “predictability” of customer behavior from obtaining actionable insights from Big Data, the customer really is king and with better information will likely come more unpredictability.
The race as I noted is on when it comes to customer experience. And, what everyone needs to not forget when it comes to all of this, including brand stewardship, is that relationships matter. It will be more personal, but the people-to-people part of what is involved in providing a compelling customer experience will remain core to success and must not be overlooked. That is context that needs to be measured and nurtured now. It is likely to be just as important five years from now and may not be a technology to watch, but is the one that makes technology investment valuable.