ABOUT THE BOOK
Almost every business today is trying to deliver the best and most inclusive customer experience for their customers because it is seen as being a source of sustainable competitive advantage for the businesses that can achieve it. However, every business approaches this in a different way, and very few achieve the optimum results from their investments. They do a lot of things, motion, but they don’t maximise the effect of that action and so fail to turn it into progress.
The real reason that businesses want to deliver an excellent customer experience is to differentiate their business from the competition and drive long term customer engagement. When you measure your actions through the eyes of the technology and other investments the business makes, all you can measure are small outcomes. When you measure it through the eyes of the customer, and the measures that matter to customers are improving, that is real Progress towards these business goals. Action will have translated into progress.
This book will help you make the right business decisions for customer experience and deliver progress as a result.
The real reason that businesses want to deliver an excellent customer experience is to differentiate their business from the competition and drive long term customer engagement. When you measure your actions through the eyes of the technology and other investments the business makes, all you can measure are small outcomes. When you measure it through the eyes of the customer, and the measures that matter to customers are improving, that is real Progress towards these business goals. Action will have translated into progress.
This book will help you make the right business decisions for customer experience and deliver progress as a result.
Picture a child sitting on a rocking horse. They are laughing as they sway back and forth. Maybe they are pushing the rocking horse to go faster, encouraging it by shouting phrases like, “Giddy up!” As you watch the child enjoying their ride on the rocking horse you smile. They are safe, they are happy and you know that regardless of what their imagination is telling them, they are going nowhere (in the physical sense). You leave them to their game, confident that you won’t look out of the window to see them galloping across the garden on their rocking horse in half an hour.
You would certainly think it odd if you walked into a boardroom to see the CEO, CMO, CTO or any of the other directors sitting on a rocking horse. However, all too often businesses have boardrooms filled with metaphorical rocking horses, they just don’t realise it. They don’t distinguish between motion and progress, or know how to turn the motion they are generating into progress, and therein lies the greatest challenge to becoming an adaptive organisation.
You would certainly think it odd if you walked into a boardroom to see the CEO, CMO, CTO or any of the other directors sitting on a rocking horse. However, all too often businesses have boardrooms filled with metaphorical rocking horses, they just don’t realise it. They don’t distinguish between motion and progress, or know how to turn the motion they are generating into progress, and therein lies the greatest challenge to becoming an adaptive organisation.
Charting progress in a modern business world
The business world today, especially after black swan events like the 2008 financial crisis or the global Covid-19 pandemic, is characterised by an increasingly big number of known unknowns. It seems clear that the past is probably no longer a safe basis for predicting the future and much of what we have learned and been taught may well have limited relevance to our future decision making.
The competition feels like it can come from anywhere, and time is definitely no longer on your side. As Rupert Murdoch said (in 1999!), “The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.”
To not only survive, but to thrive in the new world is a constant challenge that requires businesses to fast become the masters of many things. Agility (speed) and adaptability (ability to change) have become strategic differentiators, giving those businesses that can rapidly adapt and build a muscle to respond to change a massive advantage by making faster and smarter business decisions for customer experience.
The competition feels like it can come from anywhere, and time is definitely no longer on your side. As Rupert Murdoch said (in 1999!), “The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow.”
To not only survive, but to thrive in the new world is a constant challenge that requires businesses to fast become the masters of many things. Agility (speed) and adaptability (ability to change) have become strategic differentiators, giving those businesses that can rapidly adapt and build a muscle to respond to change a massive advantage by making faster and smarter business decisions for customer experience.
