Connect

Foreword

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it.

—Albert Camus

Many strategists realize that the world is only becoming more connected, not less. Yet many executives still wonder when all of these crazy texting, selfie-taking, snapchatting, lunch-tweeting shenanigans are going to finally fizzle out. I don't know about you, but I'm already dusting off my rotary phone and digging out my floppy disk collection just in case we do decide to go backward.

Not really.

You get it. I get it. Do we really need yet another pep rally to celebrate our like-minded perspectives and passion to bring about change? Yes. In fact, we need to ready ourselves to march the significance of the changing customer right on up to the C-suite to drive home the importance of customer-centricity not only for the benefit of people but also for the future of our business as well as our place in the market.

See, customers in all of their connected glory are evolving with or without us. At the same time there's a mind-boggling lack of urgency and a resulting sparsity of support, resources, and budget to understand and engage this rising connected customer.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have ourselves a customer experience (CX) imperative. But before we go any further, I must press pause for a moment to share something stark yet common-sensical: technology alone isn't the answer. That's right. Even though we're faced with radical changes in customer behaviors, expectations, and preferences as a result of ...