Customer in
the digital world:
The past decade and half is not just about coming to terms with globalization and complexity that brings uncertainty and predictability challenges in societies and businesses.
The past decade and half is not just about coming to terms with globalization and complexity that brings uncertainty and predictability challenges in societies and businesses.
The key themes and challenges center on convergence, context
and connectivity for individuals, professionals and their businesses in virtual
and real worlds.
In the mobile, social and cloud converged world, always on,
always connected, always aware businesses are setting the stage for defining the
new ways of interacting with customers – both current and future. Social
interactions and experiences are rich with current devices and customer centric
applications ranging from smart facilities to wearable technologies. They
enable varied and multiple social contexts for the customer with local and
personal data touch points. The business context augments the customer
experience with models that enable collaboration and co-creation with partners,
products and services. Unified approaches to provide omni-channel support and experiences
to customers are leading to solutions that connect with the customer on demand.
In the pre-web era, it was recognized that customer comes
first and her satisfaction is essential for surviving and thriving the tides of
business. In the web era, there is continued emphasis and visible growth of the
customer/ consumer demand chains. The customer participation at multiple levels
of product development, marketing, sales, and shopping is visible across all
channels of choice. With the power of the search engine geared towards
consumers, businesses have the option for demonstrating the power of “consumer
support systems” with sophisticated, intelligent agent systems (for
recommendations, negotiation, advisory) in addition to customer relationship
systems that match the production side offerings in the supply chain. Such
consumer support systems on the web exhibit characteristics that are oriented
towards the “task attributes” and not “product attributes”. For example, in
order to buy a PC, a consumer approaches this process of searching with the
tasks needed to be performed whether at school, work or home and not by the
product attributes such as CPU and memory details. By this, the consumer
experience is enhanced as the process is oriented towards her approaches to
obtain information for making decisions. (Orman, Levent.
V. 2007).
The customer is engaged at several
touch points of his journey in the current environment recognizing him as a
part of the whole system of life experiences. In learner centered, peer driven
education environments, the student is the customer, the course and degree
offerings are products in addition to the academic and other related learning
resources. The student teams are engaged not only in the class room with topics
that are relevant as well as within the prescribed curriculum and syllabus, but
also outside the classroom with guidance on work life balance, alerts to keep
up with the rigor or curriculum, and team buddies to support and enhance the
student experience. It is a visible experience in these settings to observe
clusters of students on certain topic areas and not much interest on some
others. This behavior sets the stage for relevance and effectiveness in planned
and well facilitated environments. When learning is continuous, the student
cannot be bound and limited to one institutional governance. It is the
community of students with similar interests that grow as individuals as
valuable contributors to their societies.
Augmenting the whole personality of
the consumer with techniques to immerse him in 3D experiences leading to
informed decisions in taking shape in various forms. Architecting the
experience is part of the AR (augment reality) design techniques gaining
momentum. Medical Apps such as EyeDecide are promising the advantages of AR where
the patient is able to visualize the simulated impact of the condition. This
may not be the only advantage and there can be many disadvantages of an AR
technique applied to patient education for awareness of his condition. However,
it goes a long way in being able to explain some of the conditions to prepare
the patient.
Consumers of the electronic commerce industry of the late
‘90s to the first decade of Y2K are experienced with the prominent B2B and B2C business
models. The information age has emphasized migration of an array of back end
and robust information systems to web based, global systems. The quest for
utilizing the internet’s strength as a larger platform embedded by systems of
platforms is taking shape in the form of consumer interaction platforms in the
business world. In addition, very powerful business models are harnessed to
address the new age global customer with experiences that are deeper in
meaning, nurturing behaviors with every device that can augment human empathy. . ( © 2006) called this phenomenon
attributing it to the dawn of “conceptual age”. He defines the conceptual age
“animated by a different form of thinking” with aptitudes of “high concept” and
“high touch”. He further clarifies that high concept “involves the capacity to
detect patterns and opportunities, to create artistic and emotional beauty, to
craft a satisfying narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into
something new. High touch involves the ability to empathize with others, to
understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one’s self and
to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of
purpose and meaning”.
The current trends in producer consumer interaction platforms are
fundamentally different from the business models witnessed in the various
stages of internet evolution so far. They combine the strength of internet as a
platform along with the applications of the conceptual age as defined by Pink,
Daniel. (2006). The connected world of industries and individuals have taken
the platforms to become hubs of communities where producers and consumers
interact more than ever before jointly creating new business models. These consumer platforms operate with their
foundations closer to social communities of customers whether they are public,
industry specific, business created or those created by the customers
themselves. These communities organized as platforms are setting the stage for
new ways of designing interactive customer experiences in scenarios with behavioral
complexity and relational control.
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