The Experience Strategy Podcast: Experience Strategy Predictions and Precautions for 2022

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The pandemic has influenced every aspect of how we deliver customer experiences. We are joined today by experience strategy pioneers Colin Shaw and Joseph D. Pine to make predictions about what the new normal will look like… and recommendations about what it should look like. Will 2022 be the year today’s companies step forward into the future or will they stay stuck in the past?

Voiceover: [00:00:00] Welcome to the experience strategy podcast, where we talk to customers and experts about how to create products and services that feel like time well spent. And now here are your hosts experienced nerds, Dave Norton and Aransas Savis

Aransas: with the experience that I had to do five tasks I'm Miranda saddles.

Can I am Dave Norton? We are thrilled to welcome Joe pine and Colin Shaw to. Pioneers of experience strategy to the show. Today, we are recording this episode on December 28th, 2021, just a few days shy of the end of, I don't know, the

Joseph: longest year in history. You're going to say civilization there for a

Colin: second.

Aransas: Maybe get it's been a profoundly tumultuous year and. I mean, really, there are no words left to describe how [00:01:00] much 20, 20 and 2021 have disrupted our normal flow of events. We've all gained master's degrees and change management, I think at this point, and to have the two of you in the room together today to share your perspective.

On what might be coming down the road as a result of all this change, you know, the past, you certainly know the present and we want to know what you see ahead in the future. Colin, of course, is, as I said, a pioneer of customer experience, like Dennis recognized him as one of the world's top 150 business influences.

290,000 folks paying on his, every word on LinkedIn. Uh, as the founder and CEO of beyond philosophy, LLC, his customer experience consulting company, they've been recognized by financial times as one of the leading [00:02:00] management consultancies for the last three years. Um, Colin's many know as the co-host of the wonderful, intuitive customer podcast, uh, top rated podcast and, uh, Joe pine, of course, you've heard here before, uh, one of my personal heroes and internationally acclaimed author, speaker and management advisors to countless fortune 500 times.

And entrepreneurial startups alike. He's co-founder of strategic horizons. LLP of course, the thinking studio dedicated to helping businesses concede and design new ways of adding value to their economic offerings. Um, in 2020, um, Joe and his partner, James Gilmore, re-released their absolutely groundbreaking book.

The experience economy. And, uh, other new books on the horizon. Another that I love the experience economy work is theater. Every business is a stage, my little, a theater nerd at heart [00:03:00] flutters at that one. Um, and, and through all of your work, you're really demonstrating how goods and serve. I said are no longer enough.

And th that companies really have to offer experiences in order to compete. Um, we are so honored to have you join us today and so excited. To hear more about what you're seeing from your seat to get a start at guys. You'll land of influence. A lot of people are listening to you. Why do you believe people are listening so closely to your message right now?

Let's start with you,

Joseph: Joe. Well, I mean, right now it's because you know, the, the physical experience economy has been decimated by the. Um, and, and still is great Lord, even though things are loosening up and what we realized when we couldn't have. Um, all the experiences that we got very much used to having that [00:04:00] we couldn't get together, we could, we could only have, you know, digital and virtual experiences that we realize how much we miss them.

We realize how important they are, you know, we could over the pandemic, you know, every company learned to be able to deliver at home or provide context, contactless delivery at the retail. Uh, and to interact with their customers online. But what we realized also is that, is that, you know, we don't need more stuff.

We we've got enough stuff in our lives. You know, what we, what we need are those shared experiences that we missed. And it's the shared experiences with our, uh, loved ones with our extended family, with our friends and even colleagues, even with strangers. Right. So shared experiences that give life meaning.

And so, um, um, they particularly are focused on that now and saying, you know, I need to get these experiences back into my life and live a meaningful life.

Aransas: The answer. How [00:05:00] about you call and why are people listening now?

Colin: Um, I, I think they're listening because they're confused and they they're looking for.

They're looking for some direction, I think, uh, because, you know, I don't mind you, but this is my first pandemic. I've not had a pandemic before. Um, and the implications of the pandemic clearly huge. Uh, and it's a huge shift in the way that people are going about things. So I think it's important that at the beginning here to sort of set out a difference here between, uh, Joe and.

Um, and the differences is, and Joe, and I've talked about this in the past, you know, the, the experiences that Joe we're talking just was just talking about there. I think he's still, I is still a fundamental market and I certainly have been [00:06:00] craving, you know, experiences. Um, I even at the weekend, um, my local soccer team, um, didn't play the, the, the, the game, uh, that we normally would play, uh, because of COVID.

And so, you know, it's another day staying at home, basically. Um, and, you know, we crave those experiences. The difference between where Joe and I are coming from is, uh, I tend to look at the experiences from going to the. Dealing with a utility company, you know, those more, let me call them practical every day experiences where Joe's looking more at that sort of immersive side of side of things.

And I think basically what people are looking for is, is answers. You know, w where are we, where where's it going? What's the implications of COVID? How has it changed, uh, people's patterns? What do I do next? Uh, and, and those types of. And I think the other thing that, [00:07:00] that I, the, why the people listening to people like Joe and I, well, because I think we're, we're talking a lot of sense, to be honest with you.

And, and, and what I mean by that is it's, it's practical. It's not, it's not. There's some type of left turn that we're going to be making up here. You know, it's, Joe has got a really good scale of, um, articulating patterns that he seeing now, you know, you know, when you have that feeling where you think, ah, bloody hell yeah, I wish I have thought of that because that's exactly what's there exactly what.

Joe's really got that. And let me also say and give Joe coop kudos, because I wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't for reading Joe's book, um, Josie and Jim's book back in 1998, or whenever it was launched, uh, because that changed what I was doing at the, at the time. [00:08:00] Um, but I think overall people are looking for some guidance and some insights to what they, what to do now.

Dave: You know, one of the, that was actually one of the questions that we were going to ask you, Colin and Joe is how do you define experiences? And I wonder if you could both talk about how you're defining experiences today? Um, we, the term CX is used everywhere. That means one thing experienced design means something different.

Uh, we like to focus on experience strategy. I'm interested in both of you describing your definition for these different terms. I call him. W what are your thoughts? How do you define experiences?

Colin: So, so for me, we are human beings and human beings have our [00:09:00] experiential animals. So anybody listening to this podcast now he's having an experience.

Driving down the road is having an, an experience, you know, uh, everything is an experience. Okay. Um, and for us, when we look at an experience it's sort of made up of four things it's made up of the rational. In other words, you know, that what you are physically doing, it's made up of emotional, which is how you are feeling.

Okay. Good. All bad. It's made up of subconscious messages. So these are the things that, that you are seeing subconsciously you're not aware of them. Uh, so for instance, you go into a bank and they put pens on chains, uh, which tells you they don't trust you. So the subconscious messages that affect how we feel and how we behave without really understanding it.

Uh, and then finally [00:10:00] it is the, is the psychological aspects of, of human being and human nature. Which effectively is how we make choices and, and all the heuristics and the biases that we have. And that's just sort of human traits basically. And all those things combine into us then having, uh, us then having an experience.

I think there's a word, or maybe this is a lead in for Joe to do. There's a word that the, uh, Joe deals with more than we do, which I really love. And that's immersive. So Joe's much more in the immersive end. I don't know if that helps you as a leading judge. You want to pick out,

Joseph: well, I'll say, I'll say first of all, that, that everything that Colin says is, is, is, is perfectly good and acceptable and, and, uh, how we often use the word experience.

One of the problems with the word. The, the term is that it is so [00:11:00] expansive, right? There's a sense in which we are always experiencing something, uh, if we are conscious at least, and, but even some would say, you know, Colin cocked about subconscious. We can, we can talk about dreams and things that are going on in our subconscious also when we're sleeping that.

So, so it is incredibly exciting. And what I mean by it. And, uh, you know, basically because of you thinking about the term of the experience economy is, I mean, experiences as a distinct economic offering, as distinct from services as services are from goods and goods are from commodities. That it is a fourth level of value in this progression of economic value that we've been, uh, experiencing as long as we, as, as long as we've had humans on this.

Uh, and, um, and it's one where experiences, right? Here's the definition, memorable events that engage each individual and inherently personal life. Right. And immersion is one of those key ways to be not the [00:12:00] only way, but one of those key ways to be able to engage people. So it is about engaging them. It's about reaching inside of.

Uh, and creating that memory and experiences happen inside of us. It's our, it's our reaction to the events that are staged in front of us. So that's what I mean by, uh, by experience, which is not to say that it's not an acceptable word in other contexts and everything. I remember having lunch with the Don peppers of the one-to-one future.

A number of years ago, it was in San Francisco and. And he talked about it as, as, uh, you know, there's small D and there's biggie right today, we'd say small acts and big X cause the letter X is taken over, uh, for experience everywhere. Uh, and, and that is true, that there is a lot of small Xs about how your bill from the utility about going to the store and, and, and, and all that sort of thing.

But in winter rises to the level of memorability. Uh, and engagement and being in there. I, personal being as, as [00:13:00] Dave, as long talked about time, well spent, then it is a distinct economic.

Dave: So if, if these are your definitions of the term experience, push me forward a little bit. What is experienced strategy calling?

You said that it's about the rational, emotional, subconscious, psychological, all of these elements combined. What is strategy when it comes to experiences, Joe, you talked about the small acts and the big X, the fact that it's a distinct economic offering, how do we do

Colin: strategy? So for me, it's a really simple thing.

Um, I, and this goes back to the days when I was in corporate life. Okay. And I'd read Joe's book and I was working for British telecom at the time, um, three and a half thousand people working on. And I asked myself a really simple question, which was, so if spirit, if [00:14:00] experiences are so important, then what is the experience that I'm trying to deliver to our customers?

Okay. Uh, and what I realized was, I didn't know. Okay. And so I'm running this enormous organization and I don't know what the experience is that I was trying to deliver to our customer. So I went away from that, went away from thinking that and went and asked all my team and loads of other people around the organization and nobody knew.

Okay. Um, what did that, the implications of that mean was, well, what it meant was that everyone started to do their own thing. So marketing would do what they thought was the right and create the right expense. Uh, customer service would do what they thought was the right experience sales, so on and so forth.

So, so for me, when you therefore say what's the experience strategy? Well, for me, that's the big picture bet, which is going [00:15:00] okay, well, what experience should we be delivering to our customers that drives value. So in other words, if we do this, and if we make our customers feel these things. Then they will come back to us.

Value is things like they will come back to you more, they will pay more money. They will give you an increased net promoter score makes it whatever you define as value. So the experience strategy is laying out what the experience is. Okay. And then defining how you're going to get that basically and how you're going to deliver value.

Uh, to, uh, uh, to your organization, because at the end of the day, the reason you're doing this is delivered is to deliver value. It's as simple as that organizations wouldn't be doing it, if they didn't think that was the case. So I guess my thoughts,

Joseph: yeah. I very much do agree with that and I have no problem with the [00:16:00] definition.

You know, strategy is, is by definition, your, your plan of action. It's what you want to do. Um, the only thing I would add to it is that, is that one option in your strategy. It's not the only option. I mean, you can use experiences even as distinct economic to offerings. In many ways you can create, for example, marketing experiences that you, that you use just to generate demand for your core commodities, goods, services, whatever they might.

Um, but one strategic option and the option that I always encourage clients and listeners and readers to do, uh, is to, is to consider what business are you really yet, and to determine whether you want to be in the business of staging experiences versus merely, uh, extracting commodities, making goods or delivering.

And if you decide that then, then the experiences become your core economic offering. It becomes [00:17:00] what you do and becomes the focus of your strategy and the locus of where you want that strategy to take you both. Great answers. Go ahead. I'm

Aransas: curious to listening to you right now, Joe, which industries do you feel like are missing that.

Joseph: Uh, yeah. So, um, number one is retail. And particularly after the pandemic where it should be very obvious to them, uh, that you need to give a reason for shoppers to come in your store besides buying stuff. Right? That's that's the raise on debt is just to, to get stuff in customer's hands. Well, guess what?

There's a lot of different ways I can do that. And coming into your store is not generally going to be among the. Right. And unless you give me a reason beyond that, and that is the experiences that you, um, that you create. Um, and so, you know, so retailers really need to pay [00:18:00] attention now more than ever.

And many do. There are some great ones out there. Um, but, uh, but by and large, they don't quite understand still yet, um, how to bring people in their store versus just the merchandising that they have, you know, the core service that they, that they all. Um, I think that financial services is another one. Uh, I've long said that no industry is more commoditized itself than banking because they came to view.

Spending time with customers is costing them money and that's, so they don't want to spend time with customers. And guess what we realized we don't want to spend time with you either. And so creating that, that, that time well spent is very different. Uh, in financial services and it's something that, you know, is, is commoditizing them and, and that they need to, uh, to respond to, um, you know, there's a lot of other industries that do get it, but don't do it well enough.

Don't fully, um, um, embrace it. Um, and I think, you know, I think healthcare [00:19:00] is one of the. Research has long shown that the better the patient experience, the better, the outcomes that they get. And that's what that's, what healthcare is fundamentally about is outcomes. Um, and, uh, and so they, they sort of intellectually realized that I think most everybody intellectually in healthcare realizes that, but they still haven't fully embraced what that means and, and how they go about it, you know, by and large,

Colin: let me pile in there because you're now starting to hit on a nerve.

Um, and what I mean by that is, um, I would argue that two thirds of organizations are, are not doing custom experiences. We would define it. Probably more than that, actually, but let me, let me explain where I'm coming from. Um, we recently had the managing director of, um, the American customer satisfaction index on the [00:20:00] intuitive customer podcast, because I've been Molly and all this stuff over, over the last few months, basically.

Um, and let me give you a few stats, which I find horrific. Okay. Um, So one star is, and if you haven't, if any of your listeners have never seen the American customer satisfaction index, I recommend that you go and have a look, Google, Amazon, and look it up a one star is that, uh, I think our about a month ago, it was at the lowest point.

It has been for 15 years. So customer satisfaction and bearing in mind that they've been measuring customer satisfaction since 1994. So before I started doing this and probably around, I guess, Joe, the time you started writing the book, actually, um, other the, uh, that'd be measuring it since then. So it's the lowest point for 15 years.

I think it's just [00:21:00] uptick in the last month by a bit. And, and of course you sit there and you go, yeah, that's, COVID. But here's the really interesting stat between 2010 and 2019, only 30% of organizations improve their customer satisfaction. Okay. So 70% of organizations, either their customer satisfaction remained flat, ORIC declined, IAA.

This is pre COVID. The business of a strike. The nerve with me is going well, which industries? Well, it's bloody two-thirds of them. Yeah. Um, and why is it two thirds of him and why is he not doing what Joe and I had just been talking about because he's not plenty driving value, you know, you, you're not, they're not getting a return.

I, you know, I've worked in organizations where they've called us [00:22:00] into help them set the strategy. They've got 50 people working on it. You know, uh, th they're spending loads of money on it. Uh, and they're not getting the return. Now, if I was a CEO and I'd gone into the pandemic and undoubtedly experiences have declined during the pandemic.

Okay. I wish I had a dollar for every time. They, I was being told that there was, you know, that there's an extremely high call volume at the moment. And I actually think, well, they shouldn't bloody put buy anymore. What they should actually say is we just haven't employed enough people to, to answer the amount of phone calls because we're two years into the bloody pandemic for Christ's sake.

So I'm sorry, I'm getting passionate about this now. But, um, the, the, the point I'm trying to make is that, you know, there's two thirds of organizations that have not made progress. And if I was a CEO and I was starting to come out of the pandemic and I was going to. [00:23:00] Which parts of our organizations drive value?

Where am I getting a return? I would be looking at, go in while we're employing these 50 people on customer experience, because you know what, they've not really delivered anything because they haven't changed the dial and the date. This is where I would segment Joe's work. And my work, if you like between.

You know, Joe is in that, you know, more, much more experiential immersive weld, uh, as, as we, we, Joe and I did a podcast a few weeks ago, uh, where I'm talking about, I'm dealing with utility companies that send out people to do, to fix your sewer. You know, the experience of that is somewhat different to go into Lego land or something like that.

Um, so the issue is, is that, that that lack of delivery is driving value is really starting to, to [00:24:00] cause an issue in my

Joseph: view.

Aransas: I think though what's interesting here is that if we look at the Mata CLI at the categories that Joe. Retail financial services, healthcare. These are all industries that historically were in-person.

And then we might have that up against the period of decline that you mentioned Colin. That is the period of decline where digital experiences have been on the

Colin: rise. Yeah, I know. So, so. Um, I'm trying to stop myself launching into, um,

okay. I, and again, Joe and I kicked this around a few, a few weeks ago, so for me, there is a big change that's coming. Okay. And for me, when I started in this game after reading Joe's book, And [00:25:00] started to think. Okay, so heroine, I am a British telecom. How in the hell do I do this from a really practical perspective?

Yeah. Um, I'm, you know, that was 20 years ago for me. Customer experience has been a wave of change. Okay. Uh, and, and prior to that, there was other, other waves of change. So there were things like total quality matters. We w you know, there's been business process. Re-engineering, you know, digital transformation, so big waves of focus.

Okay. And the big one 20 years ago, uh, was CRM. Yeah. Everyone was talking CRM. I remember Joe and I had been at conferences talking about customer experience and people were going what's that then, you know, tell me what customer expenses. And I always thought that the wave of change of custom experiments with loss 10 years, 15 years, [00:26:00] and here we are 20 years later and it's still, still going.

It's still in

Joseph: its infancy.

Colin: Yes. Yeah, no, absolutely. Um, but I think that the, what what's happening and it's been interesting, Joe, since last we spoke, I've actually gone back and I started to read some of the blogs that were being written at the time. Um, about CRM. Yeah. And it's been really quite interesting because you'll remember Joe, back then people were talking about the fact that CRM is failing and it, and it, you know, it's failing because it wasn't producing the results that it was meant to be producing.

And what also happened was that technology industries had effectively overtaken. Uh, I'll take it over as a, again, as a movement that changed. So CRM suddenly becomes synonymous with buying a system. And I see it's interesting this, I see so many parallels now between [00:27:00] that situation and where, where we are now.

So if I, if I drew the equivalents, it, lots of organizations now are starting to say, well, this is all about voice of the customer. And you actually have to waste by voice of the customer system. And customer experience, isn't delivering the benefits as we've just talked about with the, with the, uh, ASCII index.

And when you look back on, uh, you look back on those podcasts or, sorry, not put cost. Cause I went over. I haven't been 20 years ago. If you look back on the blocks, then I need to look at the things why it was failing. CRM was failing at that point. It's things like, um, lack of executive sponsors. Uh, not being able to, you know, um, tie the results together, looking at things from a siloed manner.

And it was really, as I read these things and I sort of reacquainted myself, I thought he said, bloody same now, you know, [00:28:00] not exactly the same now as it was with CRM. So you then start to go. Okay, well, does that mean that customer experience is dying and that was the, the, the, the, um, what the podcast was that Joe and I did a little while ago.

I, I don't think it's, I don't think he's dying. I think it's been absorbed. Okay. So, and the example I would give would be CRM has not gone away. In fact, here's another interesting stat CRM. In the last 10 years has gone from a $13 billion a year industry to a $69 billion a year industry. So CRM is growing.

Okay, but he's no longer a wave of change, custom experiences. And I would argue that there is a new variant and you are [00:29:00] a new wave of change that is starting to pick up. That doesn't mean to say that CRM is going to be unimportant. It doesn't mean to say that that people should be doing it. I think it's just these incremental steps and these waves get absorbed into organizations, uh, and CRM over the next five years, uh, is going to be absorbed.

And this new wave of change will start to come about and stop. To take over in, in, in importance, you know,

Joseph: if they approach it in the same way though, that that will fail largely two thirds of the case. Right. As well. But I always think the fundamental problem with how companies approach all of these things is they approach it with the wrong mindset.

They, they, that so often they look at particularly re-engineering is where you really saw, but including with CRM and. Um, with digital transformation know, particularly also is, is they sold us. Like we're [00:30:00] going to gain so much efficiencies. We're going to be able to get rid of so many people and do great across this great value, instead of understanding the importance of the people of what we're doing and that you want to augment their skills rather than automate their tasks, you know?

And, and as long as you approach it with the wrong mindset, and that's also where, where I'll sort of say, when you, you differentiate between what you're talking about, when I'm talking about where we meet. Uh, is in the principal. And, uh, ranches said this at the very beginning, that work is theater, right?

That, that, that I always say any business without, without any capital equipment improvements without spending any money probably should, but they don't have to can turn any mundane interaction of a service into an engaging encounter of an experience. They simply understand that that work is theater.

Then they direct their workers to. And if you're, if your utility coming into fix the sewer, right. It, and you have a great, you can have a great experience with [00:31:00] those people, right? If they understand that they're onstage and they act in a way that engages you right. Rather than, you know, sit there and, and, you know, show the crack in their ass, uh, as their primary signature.

Colin: I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you. Okay. However, the issue for me is. That is a million miles away from where the average utility telecoms organizations are, you know, they don't even consider a lot of them don't even buy into the fact that customers have emotions. Uh, and, and therefore you should even start to sort of focus on emotions, let alone anything from sort of the behavioral science fields.

You know, intellectually. I totally agree. Practically. I go. Yeah. But that's a bloody many miles away from where they are. Do I think that in 50 years that would be the case. Yeah, I [00:32:00] do. Because you know, you're going to get the sort of a, of that are coming through and, you know, people see, should be seeing these as these as opportunities, uh, for them to be first movers in the marketplace.

Uh, you know, I think that that takes some guts for somebody in a water company to go, okay, we're going to turn fixing this jury. If the victim is sober into theater,

Aransas: all they have to do to look at Peloton though, to prove it out to themselves. Right? They've been delivering experience, a piece of theater that was a profound transformative experience for the PR for the recipient.

And suddenly there was a relationship that was.

Dave: No, I got to insert myself just a little bit here for just a second, because I think almost all consumers today, all customers are having similar experiences to what you're talking about. Calling. I can tell you, I've been [00:33:00] trying to get my basement finished.

We started in, uh, in February it's December. The last message I got from the guy who's building it. He was screaming at me for the fact that he was working 14 hour days that had nothing to do with my project whatsoever. And so, and so, um, I think a lot of consumers today are saying to themselves, There, these are really bad experiences that we're having, whether they're common experiences or their immersive experiences, it doesn't really matter.

Most of the experiences today are really, really bad. And it begs the question. What are people going to expect or. Alright, or are they just going to have apathy coming out of all of this? Are they going to be just like, I hate to say this, but since we're talking [00:34:00] internationally, kind of that French experience, right.

You know, where they, they don't like you and you don't like them and everybody just kind of accepts it. Um, if we're going to go with stereotypes here for.

Colin: We have a

Dave: huge following in Quebec. We have a following in Quebec. Right. So, um, where do you think customers are going to be? Um, going forward? Are they going to go back to what they wanted before? They never have actually gone back to wanting what they wanted before. They've always gone in a different direction.

Joseph: Well, well, first is I, I would, I would never call virtually any consumer apathetic. They may be resigned, right. They may recognize, okay, I'm never going to get it the way I wanted. It's never going to improve, but they're not apathetic about it. They're very pathetic.[00:35:00]

Uh, that they, that they do have those emotional reactions to this things. And, and I think it's only going to continue. I think the pandemic has actually, uh, again, storied up these things in a way that, that has a snowball effect that people recognize, know that, you know, I I'm tired of that way, that things have been done for the last 20 months.

Um, to gain more value. I want to be emotionally involved. I want to have the, these, uh, these experiences. And again, it, it, it's, it's a shift to answer your question particularly it's, you know, there is a shift from, so I would S if we have three call, uh, bring up three classes of experiences, maybe for us, we'll go here.

I'll often do that. Like, I got two things I ended up with. So, so you've got the, that first level of experience, the little acts, the small acts that, that, that call in is, is talking about where things, you know, just go well and, and [00:36:00] nothing bad happens, right. That's a sort of level to get to. Um, and, but there's a shift from, from absolutely wanting that to us to get to that level, rather than the pathetic level that we've been in.

To then rise up to the level of memorability and say, okay, I really want these experiences. It's one to have experiences again. And, but, but then also they, there's a shift from the, those merely memorable to more meaningful experiences as you Dave and ranches have talked about for a long time that, that, um, uh, we want things we want experiences to give meaning into our lives.

And again, that's a key, absolute thing that's been missing, uh, because of the past. And then one more level, right? That meaningful is a half step towards transformative experiences, experiences that changes something in some way, experiences that, that, uh, help us achieve our aspirations. And, and that's what I call it.

Even a fifth level of value, a fifth, uh, distinct economic offering [00:37:00] of transformations, where you, where you are guiding customers and helping them to, to become who they want to be.

Colin: Yeah, and I think that's a good way of, I think that's a really good way of looking at it. I think from a, from an internal perspective, I think that what you're starting to see is what I would label and not just me, but others, a customer science.

Okay. So the new variants that I'm seeing emerging and customer science is effectively. The next wave of change. Okay. Now whether it's called customer science or whatever else I can give them. but it's, it's consists of three things. It consists of AI. Okay. So, you know, obviously loads of organizations implementing AI at one, uh, one level or another eight [00:38:00] consists of data.

So data sources, both from, uh, you know, internal organization, data sources, big data, external organizations, data sources, all coming together. And the third part of the customer science part is, uh, behavioral science. So behavioral science is understanding how customers behave. So it's the psychology aspect of things that I spoke about.

And at the moment, you know, you've got those three aspects that are being dealt with independently, but what you're starting to see is those three things fuse together. Okay. And, you know, somebody said to me, once, you know, they've been around for a while. I'm like, it's the phrase of, uh, nothing's more powerful than, than an idea whose time is.

Uh, why are those coming together? Well, they, they they're [00:39:00] coming together because you're going to be able to understand and predict how your customers are behaving. So it was interesting to what Joe said earlier about financial services, uh, because we, um, we had on, uh, intuitive customer podcasts. We had, uh, a couple of people from, um, one from, uh, instant.

And one from a FinTech company, both, both behavioral scientists. And I said to the, to the young lady that was with, um, the FinTech, I said, how many fintechs, uh, have behavioral scientists? And she said, oh, well, of all of them. And the more progressive organizations are seeing that fusion and are starting to see there's a big difference.

Between what customers say and what customers do. And clearly what you should be more interested [00:40:00] in is what customers are doing. And one of the reasons I think that organizations are failing to generate value today and get things back for their organization. And this is quite ironic because my second book was about customer centricity is because they're listening to the customer.

And the customer is missed guiding them to actually what they want. Okay. And therefore, the, this sort of customer science, the AI, the data and the behavioral science is, is not just, you know, listening to what the customer saying, but actually looking at what they're doing, training AI to interpret what they are doing from a behavioral science perspective, using internal data, external data.

So. Supplement the profiles and understand customers are much more deeper level and go back to what Joe said earlier, uh, which is, you know, about the definition of a customer experience, then being able [00:41:00] to effectively automate a personalized experience. And, and for me, this is going to be the, one of the most important words over the next 10 years, uh, is going to be able to be able to provide a proactive experience.

So be able to provide the next level of experience on Joe is five things that the customer didn't even know that they wanted. And, you know, it's especially been done automatically because it's being automatically understood by the AI and, and deliver to them.

Joseph: If only there were a company. Who could understand for their clients, what customers really want.

They could do ethnographic studies and yes. Talk to them and understand and had a method for figuring out how do they integrate high brains innovations. I'm just saying I'm just, if only I were a company like that. Yeah. Colin.

Dave: You know, what shows kind of referred to is we, [00:42:00] we often refer to what you're calling customer sciences, data experience design, and I think there's a real connection, uh, between what you're describing as customer science and some of the research that we've been doing around data experience design.

Which is fantastic. And what I like about the, all of what we're discussing here is it doesn't really matter if you're designing experiences, meaningful experiences or transformative experiences. There's going to be a component of this new wave of customer science. For data, user experience design, that's going to be, um, very much a part of it.

I think consumers are going to expect you to proactively anticipate their needs. What a wonderful conversation. Uh, thank you so much, Aransas. I love,

Aransas: so I have one more question. If I may, we are [00:43:00] entering a new year, 2022. What are your. New year's resolutions or intentions, or however you choose to look at them.

Where are your work for 2022. All set with you, Colin.

Colin: Yeah, I think for me, it's, I'm, I'm fascinated by this, this whole customer science area and the, uh, As a side, whatever it's called customer sciences and the relevance to be totally honest, but that, that whole area and the analogy to where CRM was, because I think that that's going to be, that's going to change.

Let me be clear. It's not going to, you know, in six months time, everyone's not going to be talking about customer science. Okay. But you know, it, these things take a period of time. But I think as we come out of the pandemic and it get, we get into an endemic, [00:44:00] um, then organizations are going to be going, we need to change.

It's not going back. In fact, two hits a thing. I was actually reading the economist the other day and they said something there, which was quite, I can't quite profound for me, which was where, you know, we talked about the new normal, this is the new. We've written an email note COVID is not going away in the next year.

Right. You know, there's going to be different variants. There's going to be different things happen. This is it. You know, so wake up and smell the coffee, you know? Um, so, and we got to live with it. Uh, and, and therefore, how do we live with it and going, going, going back to what I said at the beginning, you know, practically, how do you live with it?

And it starts to change your mindset. And that's what I'm, that's my new year's resolution is to, is to start to sort of go, this is it actually. So what are the implications of it and how can we help guide people in that?

Aransas: I think that's [00:45:00] fundamentally different than the way companies have been approaching it.

They've been creating stop gaps and feller solutions. And I think what you're saying is no, no, no, no. Create your new solution

Voiceover: because this is it. Yes.

Colin: Yeah. Do we think this is the last variant variant that we're going to see?

Aransas: We can't stop until we've run out of Greek letters.

Joseph: Um, I, you know, it's, I almost feel like this is paradoxical, what we've been talking about, but, um, I actually hope in the next year and two and three and five to work more and more on the transformative end of things, too. You know, I often, when I work with clients or give speeches, I, I breathed in at the answer.

They need to think about this sort of thing. And I'd love to be working with more companies. I know we, you know, we recognize that partly because. Um, uh, you know, Dave and I just, co-authored a piece in the January, February issue of the Harvard business review on transformations. [00:46:00] You're making the case that this is a distinct economic offering and I'm hope we're hoping that people, uh, companies will read that and understand, okay, that really is what business I'm in and, and start to think differently about it.

Uh, you know, because of that.

Colin: If I could just jump in there. Like I think that whenever there's a change like this, okay. The, you know, the pandemic has been a catalyst for people to review their businesses. So there is a time when someone's going to do it. It's going to be now over the next year.

Aransas: My favorite phrase of the pandemic is never waste a good cry.

Um, and I, and I think to Joe's point made earlier about experience 20 years later, still being in its infancy, perhaps this is what nudges it out of infancy and intent and the charity. Thank you both so much for, so candidly. [00:47:00] Sharing your experiences, your ideas for experiences. I yet another use for the word, uh, your ideas and, uh, taking that little look into your crystal ball today with us to see what might be ahead.

Um, I'm going to put it out there right now. My, uh, intention I'm adding to the list right now for 2022 is to have you both. On this show at the end of 2022, so that we can look back on some of these predictions and see what played out as we expected and see what surprises the heck out of us. Because if nothing else we learned in the last two years that we had.

We have no real control and the things they're constantly changing and that we will be surprised. So, uh, looking forward to seeing what unfolds with all of you again, thank you both for being here to our listeners. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for

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