Augmented Customer Strategy

11The Firm’s Empathic Capacity: a Social Neuroscience Perspective for Managing Customer Engagement in the Digital Era

11.1. Introduction: the dilemma of digital transformation in customer relationship management

The rapid development of the digital economy and its technological substrates – very high-speed Internet, Internet of Things, big data and artificial intelligence – poses an additional challenge to firms already operating in a globalized and hypercompetitive market. In particular, it requires the adaptation of procedures for managing customer relationships – ubiquity, ease of access, integrated experience, instantaneous responses – all while maintaining a personalized and authentic discussion with the customer. Faced with these new challenges, the digital transformation of customer relations is gradually becoming an essential strategy. However, it also presents firms with a major dilemma.

On the one hand, digital transformation is based on a method of cost control and relies on automated interactions to improve profitability. Firms can thus transfer to the customer the economic burden of management operations deemed unprofitable: booking an airline ticket or hotel room while automating interaction procedures to reduce the size of the workforce. This “putting the consumer to work” [DUJ 14], combined with the automation of service interactions, significantly reduces costs. In the United States, for example, the cost of contact between a manager and the customer was estimated ...