Prepare Now For New Rules For Customer Engagement

If you think your business has weathered the storm, think again. In addition to obvious economic challenges, the emerging generation of customers is determined to radically change the rules for customer engagement. Their expectations of relationship and personalization are taxing businesses today, and their power through social media will kill those who can’t or won’t comply.

An eye-opening list of insights was highlighted in a recent book, “Build for Change,” by Alan Trefler, Founder and CEO of Pegasystems. He makes a convincing argument that it’s time for every company to get prepared for the next customer generation, or your company is heading toward life support.

As a backdrop, he defines the evolution already in progress from current Gen Y customers to a more demanding and less tolerant state (Gen D) that will make them even quicker and more technologically able to demonize and destroy your business, if it won’t meet their norms of interaction, personalization, and purpose.

While I’m not so sure that I agree that these represent the ultimate apocalypse of customers, I do believe the solutions he recommends should be taken seriously by every entrepreneur. I summarize here my interpretation of his key points:

1. Take heed of serious next generation customer expectations. More and more, I see evidence that customers want to be pulled to your company, rather than feel that you are pushing yourself on them. They are not hesitant to engage the crowd through social media and sites like Yelp to drive you from the marketplace. Your reputation can be compromised by one bad oversight, like the United Breaks Guitars experience.

2. Don’t count on big data alone to save you. In reality, data today is only memory about past transactions. Responding to transaction trends without the proper context can lead to broken relationships. Your changes must allow them to discover something so awesome that they are excited, versus disgusted, that you seem to know who they are.

3. Add context and intent to your customer analysis. Use aggregated data from social media, professional market research, public sentiment, and key influencers for change analysis. Going beyond data to get intent is common sense, more than technology. Intent goes both ways, so make sure your customers understand your business as well.

4. Make sure all your processes are customer-centric. Most business processes today are driven by internal needs to cut costs and maximize quality. Customers want their interactions and transactions to be painless and personalized. It’s time to rethink every process from the outside-in, to be consistent with customer expectations.

5. Upgrade to modern information technology tools. Too many businesses still tolerate archaic IT tools, or resort to rogue mashups developed to circumvent the approved tools. Only modern tools can assure you the best and seamless execution for every customer interaction. Traditional waterfall development and outsourcing won’t keep up with change.

6. Rethink how you organize, train, and reward employees. The first step is to break the legacy silos and underground channels in the current organization, which usually means realigning executive leadership and roles. Integration of all groups is the key to an optimal customer experience, starting from the hiring process to pay for performance.

7. Adopt new core principles to stay competitive and assure survival. These must include democratizing how you do technology, thinking in layers, and using modern analytics to optimize continually. Technology need no longer be only the realm of expert gurus, business professionals in each layer of the business can build solutions, and executives with analytics can continuously refine the high-definition view of the customer.

Your ability to meet the test of the ever more-demanding and less-tolerant customer, as well as the emerging swarm of new competitors, is dependent on your willingness and ability to change your thinking and your company. The challenges ahead are great, but the opportunities are greater. Don’t be left behind in the ashes.

Marty Zwilling

Martin Zwilling is the Founder and CEO of Startup Professionals, a company that provides services to startup founders around the world. See more details at www.startupprofessionals.com