[00:00:00]
[00:00:09] Dan: Today, I'm with Sean and we're going to be talking today about the future of customer experience and their predictions for SMEs. So, Sean, what do you think the trends are for customer experience?
[00:00:21] Sean: Well, there's a few trends at the moment. One of them is personalization. And now that's moving into hyper personalization. Another one is AI. And those two things apply to lots of different sectors. We work with quite a few different sectors.
[00:00:38] But how they're implemented is slightly different.
[00:00:40] Dan: You touched on a key buzzword there, hyper personalization. What does that mean exactly?
[00:00:44] Sean: So We think of personalization, which has been around a long time, and it's the ability to change an experience, often using cookies and browsers
[00:00:54] hyper personalization is taking that step further. data collection is on the rise. I mean, most people are familiar with club cards and, you know, those types of things where lots of data can be collected Companies can actually go a step further to create an individual experience or what appears like it for every single user.
[00:01:12] Dan: Brilliant. And so how would that differ between the sectors you touched on?
[00:01:17] Sean: There's a few different sectors that we work with health care organizations, banks, fintech. organizations to name a few, in terms of how that, journey looks. So for example, for a healthcare company, it will be a patient experience.
[00:01:32] and that would be them going from the point of maybe seeing a GP all the way through to completing their treatment. the other one I mentioned there was FinTech. So How can you provide a personal banking experience? Everyone's banking needs are slightly different. How can you tailor that experience based on what people are doing with their money?
[00:01:49] So, for example, if you've recently taken out a mortgage, what types of services would you want? Would they be different to someone that hasn't done that? And it's really just applying that to the customer journey.
[00:02:00] Dan: does Distinction kind of dive into any kind of service design or? Can you speak to that?
[00:02:04] Sean: Yeah, so I mean, customer journeys have been around, um, for a long time, the sense of when you go to a site, people are trying to map out what they want people to do, and the step by step touch points that someone would do that. Service design is something that we offer clients, and it goes a step further than that.
[00:02:21] So rather than just thinking about one point in the journey, we're actually breaking out the journey into, Every single step and not just that, but then also looking at the technology that drives those steps, how those steps are interacted with. So an example I use that people might be familiar with is Uber.
[00:02:38] So with Uber, there's a step where someone actually goes on the app to book a cab. But then in the background, there's a lot of systems that actually match you to a driver.
[00:02:48] In terms of the personalization, it gives you different options of types of vehicles that you can get, and the reason that they're able to do that and provide such a unique experience dependent on where anyone is, it's because they've really broken down every single step in that journey, not even just you being in the cab, but when you get out, you get asked if you want to tip someone, and they're thought about every single step that someone would do.
[00:03:11] And the benefit of that is you can deliver these hyper personalized experiences for users, which drives loyalty, which drives lifetime customer value. It has loads of benefits for businesses.
[00:03:21] Dan: So touching on that example that you just mentioned, can you think of any new technologies that would help create these newer trends that are arising?
[00:03:30] Sean: We mentioned hyper personalization. AI is a big driver in that as well, in having the data and how to leverage that data. if a company was looking to sort of make those steps, a suggestion I would make is by having that service design plan and breaking down the service blueprint
[00:03:48] You can actually delve into each area and look at how technology could better serve those elements.
[00:03:53] So one of the examples I mentioned there was that if you're needing to say, find a driver in that example, how could I make that better? How are you doing it currently? Is there another way of doing that?
[00:04:06] And then when you start doing that, you can start sort of creating a problem so you could then start saying, well, we have this problem. How might we solve it? And then you can come up with solutions. And this isn't just for one person to do. This is something that you could do as a team.
[00:04:21] It's something that we help a lot of clients with, but essentially it's about being curious about the different technologies, having a variety of people there to have knowledge on different areas and maybe seeking outside help if you're not sure about where to start.
[00:04:34] Dan: Can you speak to the types of SMEs that this type of technology would help?
[00:04:39] In organizations?
[00:04:40] Sean: So the types of organizations I think any organization could benefit from it. I think that the good thing about service design and the trends in focusing on the customer is that whatever sort of stage of business you are or size of business or even sector.
[00:04:58] There is a way to pull apart what you're trying to do the value you are adding for customers and how you add that value So I mean in terms of different types of companies we mentioned health care fintech We work with a variety of companies in terms of size But anyone can benefit from this of it's not something that's blocked by size Innovation can be started and used by anyone really
[00:05:23] Dan: Perfect.
[00:05:24] Thank you. And do you think there's a responsibility on these organizations between all of this data that they're collecting through the hyper personalization, but then with privacy concerns?
[00:05:36] Sean: So that's another thing that is delved into, um, in terms of that planning side. I mean, there's lots and lots of regulation on GDPR, how you can use data, how people have opted into data and particularly for say healthcare organizations, patient data, your banking data.
[00:05:52] I mean, People don't want to really share their salaries with people. Why would they don't want that leaking on the net? And the systems that drive that are a driver of that innovation. So, for example, when you're thinking, how can we innovate? Um, another point to think about is what are the barriers stopping you doing that regulation is one data privacy is another budget can be another.
[00:06:15] So, When we go through a process with a client on sort of tackling these, we go through step by step in terms of a discovery process
[00:06:23] Dan: And do you think there's a challenge for these SMEs and organizations that we work with?
[00:06:28] I know we've worked together in the past Service designs and discoveries. There's a challenge with these technologies being adopted by these companies, isn't there?
[00:06:37] Sean: Yeah, I mean, there's lots of reasons why people don't adopt things. I mean, one of them is a fear of change. I mean, we spoke about AI there.
[00:06:46] A lot of people are still unsure about what AI means for them and their job. Um, and the fear of change can come from, well, If we can automate this process or make it easier to do, am I needed anymore? So there can be sort of a resistance from that side. Uh, in terms of the technical debt from, um, technology you're already using, it's great to look at new technology, but actually that transition and choosing a new technology is actually quite challenging.
[00:07:11] And a lot of companies, particularly healthcare organizations, Um, they use lots of different platforms. You're not seeing the same person at different steps in the journey. Someone like Uber has a lot more control over those steps. Then someone like a healthcare organization, for example, in terms of membership organizations, they don't have huge amounts of money possibly to spend on these things.
[00:07:34] So the investment side of it. So, yeah, there's lots of barriers, um, that companies can face, but. I think the right thing to do is investigate and really delve into what the options are, because ultimately, if you do sort of start that process, you can then make the start on asking those questions and saying, Well, if we invest this, we could improve this by X.
[00:07:59] And then you improve the experience. You get the benefits of that.
[00:08:02] You get the customer loyalty and you get the revenue that justifies those decisions.
[00:08:06] Dan: Absolutely. And you touched on it a bit there. Let's dive into it a bit more is, um, Artificial intelligence, but let's go on the flip side of augmented reality or virtual reality.
[00:08:16] Can you speak to that a little bit?
[00:08:17] Sean: augmented reality is, it's sort of, it's sort of in between virtual reality, which you wear a headset and you're completely a different world. Augmented reality and you might have seen the new Apple headset that they've brought out.
[00:08:31] It's sort of meant to be a bridge between the two. So you can still be in the real world and things change, but you're not sort of completely in a different, um, space. You can still have, it's sort of like a bridge between the twoso for example, for a B2B company, you could host your webinars.
[00:08:48] in augmented reality or virtual reality, even so people can still get the experience of being around people. Um, and that is part of the journey as well. Um, in terms of healthcare organizations, there's a lot of like treatments and, I was reading a thing about how they can treat different, um, Parkinson's disease by using VR so people know the symptoms that they're going to face later down the line.
[00:09:12] So AR is another way that. Customers can be engaged on a on their journey through and also during those services as well.
[00:09:21] Dan: Thanks for all that, Sean. We've covered a lot of different topics and predictions that you've said from AI to AR to hyper personalization. So what's the next step for an organization now?
[00:09:34] Sean: a good way place to start if you haven't done so already is map out that customer journey in form of a service design.
[00:09:40] Um, if you haven't done that, that's something we can help with. But when you're at that point, you'll be able to see the areas that you can have those conversations and you can then bring in the right people and really make those improvements that are ultimately going to drive the revenue your business needs.
[00:09:55] Dan: Thank you very much, Sean.
[00:09:56] Sean: No problem. Thank you
We are the home of unreasonable progress. We are distinction.
