What’s not going to change in this turbulent digital landscape?

September 26, 2016

Six Degrees and Pulicist.Sapient recently hosted an event for digital leaders in Sydney. We hosted the likes of Moet Hennessy, Aussie, Naked Wines, APG & Co and Suncorp and posed one simple question to the group… “What is not going to change in digital?”

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, has been quoted saying:

“I frequently get asked the question: ‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?’ And that is a very interesting question; it’s a very common one. I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’

His justification: “When you have something that you know is true, even over the long-term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it,”

Jake Hird, Consulting Lead at SapientNitro and Ben Mooney, Head of Strategic Partnerships at Razorfish Platform took this statement and used it to take us through an evening of shared experiences, industry insights and thought provoking discussion, all washed down with Pinot and canapes.

Jake set the scene by delivering a keynote presentation that discussed the nature of marketers to go after the new technology and ‘shiny’ strategies, before getting the foundations of their customer relationships right. Jake proposed that the one thing that we know won’t change in the next 10 years is human nature, and the service that we all want from brands.

We then threw to question to the floor and led by Ben Mooney the insights that ensued were focused in two key areas, what won’t change from a customer perspective and what won’t change from a business perspective.

Customer

Getting the communication and service for customers right is absolutely essential to building a successful brand. Customers will interact with a brand where they feel they get the best service – no one ever asked Amazon to deliver something slower, or be more expensive.

The four key insights unravelled in our discussion were:

Delivering to customer touch-points consistently is key – Customers should have the same wonderful experience at all touch-points, regardless of the channel. It is the leader’s role to create a consistent Omni channel experience.
Customer service and customer expectations are high - Companies that are winning understand what customers want. Technology is just a mechanism which will help them meet the customer's need.
Identifying and understanding customers is half of the journey - The need for empathy and understanding of the customer experience. Walk in their shoes and understand how they feel. Computers don’t buy products, humans buy products.
Understand customer motivations, behaviours, wants and needs - People will still be people. They want things to be cheap, simple, reliable, valuable, personal and combinations of these are winning!

Business

Building digital capability within a business is becoming essential, but as well as looking outwards, businesses need to look internally and ensure that they are facilitating change from the top down.

Customer adoption of technology - Intrinsically what customers want will not change as the technology does.
Investment in change - Create exceptional moments. Empower your team to make choices that will create the best customer experience. Make it common sense rather than a lengthy business process.
Need for information - Companies will continue to make mistakes but the ability to learn and relaunch is paramount. Listen to the market. Companies make mistakes, man up and sort it out!
Business processes and departments - If you want the fundamentals of success, you got to get the foundations right. Get the right people in the right roles.

The most interesting take out for the day was that we all convened to talk digital, but we ended up talking about people and empathy.

If you are interested in joining a digital networking group or would just like to talk about all things digital give me a call.