One of the primary goals of the “Connected Company” framework is customer engagement. The terms customer engagement and customer experience take on a new meaning in the connected context. In Connected!, I bring out the need to focus on Ecosystem based CX instead of company specific CX.

Traditionally, we’ve relied on industry based customer personas and use cases. And we’ve measured our effectiveness through channel maturity and execution. But as we move towards a connected world, those use cases and personas will be woefully inadequate. The value we bring to our clients may look to be exceptional if we look inwardly, but to our customers, we will appear to be stuck in the stone-age.

Consider these examples:

• The financial technology (FinTech) revolution is emerging in the banking industry. Banks have excellent products and robust risk management procedures. They even have free checking accounts, great cash back programs and even protect us 100% in case of fraud on our cards and accounts. But they are far from being the heroes today. Instead our heroes are those that are able to capture the customer front end, look beyond the core banking products and provide a service which banks fail to do. Our hero is the mobile phone app that takes the change from our retail spend and invests it into a retirement account. Or the app that lives off commissions on payments transactions but provides a seamless experience.
• Retailers are trying to reach customers by way of coupons, promotions and deals of the week. We’ve reached a point where customers have become so accustomed to price discounts that a deal must always be present, and customers will always double check it too! Efforts to change this has resulted in huge failures (e.g.  J.C. Penney). Moreover, an offer never reaches customers when they need it. To the customers, despite all our attractive stores and technology, we are still stuck with the marketing models of the old. If customers are actively engaged the game can be instantly raised by many levels. Many retailers are now partnering with the mobile apps of our banks to provide us with deals (e.g. card linked offers). This capability helps both retailers and banks create new ecosystems around the customer and raise the level of one-one dialog and wish-lists. The difference this approach brings from bulk campaigns is profound – especially because we combine a sticky relationship (banking) with a fleeting relationship (retail). Such an approach also mitigates the privacy conundrum plaguing the industries. The Customer Interaction Spectrum explains this well and is an integral part of the Ecosystem Based CX framework .

It is clear that Ecosystem based CX is the need of the future. Consider the following additional scenarios where industry boundaries are being transcended:

• A retailer partnering with a fitness center to better personalize both sides of the customer experience and commerce
• A travel agency partnering with a bank to manage 3rd party local payments and risk management. Both of these examples will leverage IoT and rely on digital ecosystems to deliver the experience.
• A bank partnering with retailers and brand organizations to push personalized promotions to their customers.

As is evident, industry based personas and use cases have their place in the planning and execution of business processes such as support and sales. But they are grossly insufficient to drive the customer experience of the future. We need to build real customer personas, which by their very definition cannot be limited to an industry alone. We need to think of our customers as people. In Connected!, I outline practical ways to develop Ecosystem Based CX – identify the ecosystem, balance corporate priorities, and develop the customer journeys that will propel us into the future.