Final post (thanks for the patience while grudging through this) in the series.
I wrote earlier this year that I was changing the model for my work and that I was going to be focused on five topics, with formal research agendas. I shared with you first the model for Customer Service Usage and Adoption, then the one for Data Usage in the Enterprise, followed by Artificial Intelligence in the Enterprise, and Platforms and Ecosystems. This is the final topic: Customer Experiences and Engagement.
I know that we have been talking about Customer Experiences for a long time; Ed Thompson and I wrote “the original bible” (a stunning 48-page primer on it) back in 2003 while I was at Gartner. Much has changed, and lots have not also in the interim. For example, fewer people and organizations are just looking for a technology solution for the enterprise. Yet, many still are looking for a vendor to deliver a “customer experience suite” to help them with what they have to do.
Engagement is a more modern topic (one that my good friend Paul Greenberg has chosen as the topic for his next book – due end of this year hopefully), and I wrote a detailed report in 2013 with Thunderhead about it, after interviewing some 40+ CMOs across the world.
There is, however, a misnomer that I will try to stamp out in my research on this topic The evolution is NOT CRM –> CX –> CE.
Not by any intelligent attempt.
The topics are related, and will bring that to bear, but they are not interchangeable or even correlated. You can, for example, launch a customer engagement initiative without even trying to understand what Customer Experience means or how you address it. True, trust me. Will explain more in the research I publish later this year… which is the following five notes:
- February 28 – CEE Market and Definitions
- April 4 – Trends and Adoption in CEE
- May 16 – Use Cases to Consider when Launching CEE
- June 20 – Pulse of the Market for CEE
- September 26 – Case Studies and Interesting Cases in CEE
In addition, of course, there is a primary research project planned for CEE that may – just may – be a quantitative project. I originally had planned to do a qualitative project, but I think the market has matured enough by now that I can get some interesting data. Will evaluate as we get close to the date (the launch date for the project is after the summer, there’s time).
How can you help? How can I help you?
See below? there’s a comment section. You can put stuff in there… Or, you can drop me a line and let me know what interesting data, facts, use cases, case studies, and others you have around the topic. Or, if you have any questions — just let me know. Glad to answer anything, or help, or — whatever helps me further the understanding of the topic.
Anything I missed?
disclaimers: in 2013 (and later) I worked with Thunderhead and under their auspices wrote the engagement report I referenced above. I ran the entire project independently and wrote what I saw in the market, regardless of fit for their message. they sponsored me on that project and a few others, and I am forever grateful. if you want to see the report, which I cannot post due to distribution rights, please let me know and I can get out a courtesy copy. everything else that needs to be disclaimed has already been done in past posts. thanks for reading.
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