Why you should care about your customer connection PIE — Physical Intellectual and Emotional
This morning presented itself as a day for reminiscence, I had just received a reminder to check the status of my favorite prediction for which I had made 5 years ago: Tomorrow the Internet of the Machines Will use Prescriptive Workflows to drive businesses
I had written this well-regarded article while CIO at Palms Casino Resort and believe that within 5 years humans would have exceed what amounted to a rather simple prediction for which came to light due to the many challenges most CIOs encounter in the day-to-day management of a Casino for which essentially resembles a small city in terms of infrastructure and activities.
Fast forward to 2021 and what do we have? At first glance, automation and AI driven workflows have established themselves as primary drivers for business activities, from chatbot that answer questions related to your bank account status or when your next bill will come due, to countless virtual assistants (Siri, Alexa, Google, Cortana) that attempt to predict next-steps for which can help you navigate heavy traffic on your morning commute. In addition the proliferation of APIs (Application Interface Program) have helped accelerate the distribution of data points and connectors across a vast swath of interconnected digital highways. We have reached an era for which the availability of human factored data used to establish a theoretical probability of what next steps an human will take might surprise you. Look no further than Tik-Tok for which already knows what crazy story will go viral to drive “Your” engagement. In addition IoT (Internet of Things) has made great stride as well but has not reached the maturity level that I had hoped for as the correlation of data, AI (Artificial Intelligence) and the prescriptive nature of workflows have just entered infancy. I believe that privacy and digital security have restrained some of the insights we could acquire as we correlate location, decision, action(s) and result(s) simply based on your Phone (IoT), a location Beacon (IoT), sensor (IoT) and last purchases. Big retailers like Apple, Target and Walmart already use the aforementioned data point to coral you “nicely” along towards your next purchase. You might not realize it but we may soon no longer have control of our own behaviors.
So did my prediction come true. In some parts, I would tend to agree. Inherently, like most Tech driven individual I just look for insights to ensure that I can provide my clients with the actionable data points they require so such clients can deliver an exceptional customer experience. As an example should we impact the guest experience due to a failure related to the delivery of products and goods?At this point, we still do not have an universal engine for workflows from which “Alerts” and “Prescribe” next steps. Think of John and his lovely wife Ann for which had decided to celebrate their 30 years anniversary and selected New Zealand Veal on the restaurant 5 stars menu, Ann loves veal as it does bring some wonderful memories of the first moments that they shared. Well, the truck never arrived, I will let you imagine the exhilarating exchange that took place between John and the restaurant manager. Although simple in nature, this example ask the question of how do you recover from the lost of trust from one of your VIP customer due to the lack of insights. Actually, any customer for that matter.
“I have the firm believe that you cannot manage, what you cannot measure”
How about we extend the thought process. We may think about what options do we have available to us to reduce friction and ensure we meet the expected outcome. Loyal customers tend to forgive but what to do next? Also, how do you measure a customer sentiment towards your business. How do you prescribe the next steps?
“How do you measure your customer connection PIE?
Before I expand on measurement, I will add some background behind the coinage “ Customer Connection PIE (Physical, Intellectual, Emotional)” or CCPIE for short. Feel free to use the term as you see fit but please give credit to the French Man when you do so. I believe that to mention Apple will also bring context. Apple differentiates itself from other Personal Computers Vendors by the simple fact that customers absolutely love the products and have a deep physical connection to their devices, they simply love them, Apple finished first again in 2020 in the American Consumers Index. The Intellectual and Emotional connection respectively come second and third due to Apple relentless commitment to ESG (Environment, Social and Corporate Governance) and privacy. I would also add Tesla as another company with great high CCPIE rating.
From a business stand point, I see nothing as more important than to have the ability to measure the CCPIE towards the business. As a rule of thumb I always focus on the negative outlay first and then walk back and derive quantitative engagements. This past autumn a client of mine saw her business activities fall 70% year-over-year, obviously the pandemic as a primary culprit made it difficult for most businesses especially within the Travel and Hospitality industries. Fittingly, the client wanted me to help her research and build a list to reach out to proven and good paying customers that had not made any reservations in the last 3 years. The question took me aback as I wondered why would you not have the list readily available? I decided to first create 4 primary datasets across databases, chat messages, SMS and emails. Then I created a couple of algorithms to derive actions vs engagements. I then added a few filtering queries to target keywords and follow-up activities. Within 48 hours I had built a list of 3000 customers and provided the following results. Believe it or not, all 3000 customers did experience an issue at one point in time. I categorized the issues across 30 categories and then summarized against the PIE. About 26% had a physical issue with the property, 24% had an intellectual issue and then well over 50% had an emotional issue. From my perspective I quickly realized that the main issue for those customers simply related to the lack of engagement and more importantly follow-up.
I believe that we will soon see smart businesses dedicate a large portion of their budget to better understand their customers. In this case I do not talk about surveys, I refer to Contextual Aware Engines for which sit at the intersection of your omni-channels and timely “prescribe” the correct course of action based on a set of pre-define keywords (negative) or triggers (customer unexpected action).
Sincerely,
Eric Saint-Marc
You can also find me on twitter @thinkahead or on medium thinkahead.medium.com
I’m currently hard at work on the next generation of contextual aware Technologies but I”m always available to help businesses, startups and entrepreneurs. Feel free to reach out.
