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For years we\u2019ve been hearing about the promise of customer experience management, the notion that you can understand your customer at a highly detailed level and serve them the content, products, services and even ads that matter (or at least make sense) to them.<\/p>\n
Today\u2019s marketing software is bringing that idea closer to reality.<\/p>\n
But technology is only part of the brand-consumer interaction story. Just because you understand your customer through the lens of their\u00a0online activities, doesn\u2019t mean that translates into smart and insightful interactions in person. We need to take that knowledge and use it in every step of the customer journey. Unfortunately, as we\u2019ve learned that doesn\u2019t always happen.<\/p>\n
For Exhibit A, I give you United Airlines, and its PR disaster this week. The company\u00a0not only blew it with the customer they so unceremoniously had dragged off a plane<\/a>, they potentially upended their relationship<\/a> with loyal and potential future customers alike.<\/p>\n The United case showed that having technology\u00a0available for learning about our customers\u2019 wants and needs in an online context isn\u2019t enough. Companies have to learn to use that knowledge for in-person engagements\u00a0too. (Of course, a little common sense wouldn\u2019t have hurt either.)<\/p>\n When you look at successful companies, they have a core understanding that the customer is at the center of every decision and action they make, regardless of where the interaction takes place. In his annual letter to shareholders<\/a> this week, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos noted that \u201cobsessive customer focus\u201d is the only thing that stands between a company and inevitable brand demise.<\/p>\n Salesforce \u00a0is another company that obsesses over customer satisfaction. Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff is constantly talking about a company\u2019s core values. He says one of those core values has to be trust. If you don\u2019t have trust, in his view, it\u2019s impossible to do business.<\/p>\n It\u2019s pretty clear that United wasn\u2019t thinking about that in their infamous customer incident this week,\u00a0and while their example was particularly glaring, brands\u00a0could still take it as\u00a0a cautionary tale\u00a0to know your customer and use that knowledge in every interaction, whether online or in-person.<\/p>\n Marketing technology vendors are in the business of helping you understand the customer at an extremely detailed level. Salesforce is a good example of a company that sells software to focus on every aspect of the customer relationship from sales to marketing to service \u2014 and is constantly talking about giving that customer the best possible experience.<\/p>\n In a presentation in Washington, DC<\/a> earlier this month, Salesforce\u2019s Benioff spoke about the increasing number of signals coming in from connected devices that can help brands understand their customer better. \u201cWhen all these things are connected, everything pivots back to the customer,\u201d he\u00a0said.<\/p>\n He\u2019s right of course, and companies like his and others are trying to help you get there, but it\u2019s not always easy putting that data\u00a0to work or getting it in the hands of employees at the moment they are connecting\u00a0with that customer. Technology is just one piece of the puzzle.<\/p>\n Salesforce is far from alone\u00a0when it comes to selling you software to help you have better and more informed interactions with your customers. Just this week, in fact, we saw Sprinklr, a company that up until now has been focused on helping companies understand customer\u2019s social signals, launch a new platform called Experience Cloud<\/a>.<\/p>\nTech is only part of the answer<\/h2>\n