A keynote presentation I gave at the PPA's Customer Direct conference in November 2016 on the topic of 'The Customer Journey'. I talk about trends, challenges, organisational impact and the future of customer experience.

1. Copyright © Econsultancy
The Customer Journey
Ashley Friedlein
President, Centaur Marketing & Founder, Econsultancy
@AshleyFriedlein
er Direct Conference, Nov 2016
lton Tower Hotel

2. 2
The Customer Journey
1. Why this obsession with the ‘customer
journey’?
2. What are the challenges?
3. What are the internal implications?
4. What’s the future?

3. 1. WHY THIS OBSESSION
WITH THE ‘CUSTOMER
JOURNEY'
3

4. 4
Three reasons
1. Digital transformation = customer-centricity
2. Customer experience = competitive advantage
3. Business model shift from content to commerce

5. 5
Digital Transformation
• The journey towards being a
digital organisation
• “Digital” means:
– Focusing on the customer
experience irrespective of
channel
– Having a digital culture

6. 6
The 7 defining characteristics of a digital culture
1. Customer-centric
2. Data-driven
3. Makers & Doers
4. Transparent
5. Collaborative
6. Learning
7. Agile

7. “I will focus on … the
convergence and
integration of our retail and
e-commerce, digital, card
and mobile assets around
the world … develop "next-
generation retailing"
Competing on customer experience

9. 9
From content to commerce
• The decay of ad-funded models for most media businesses
(unless you have massive scale)
• The rise of subscription services – from content (Spotify,
Netflix etc) to service (e.g. Amazon Prime) to goods (e.g.
Dollar Shave Club)
• More focus on actual individual customers (CRM not just
content), metrics like conversion rates, yield, CAC/LTV
become more important than volume

10. 2. WHAT ARE THE
CHALLENGES?
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11. 11
We’re beginners at this…

12. 12
Organisational and tech challenges

13. 13
Who is in charge of customer experience /
customer journey?
Only 1 in 10 of the participants in our
survey said that their organization is
currently structured to deliver a
seamless customer experience across all
customer touchpoints.

14. 3. WHAT ARE THE
INTERNAL
IMPLICATIONS?
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15. 15

16. 16
“Organizations are structured
around control mechanisms
and reporting, not around
capabilities and outcomes."
“Organizing Marketing in the Digital Age”, Econsultancy, 2015

17. 17
How to organise?

18. 18
The rise of the Chief Customer Officer (CCO)
Source: The CCO Council 2014 CCO Study

19. 19
Katie Vanneck
Chief Customer Officer
and Global Managing
Director
Dow Jones
Robert Bridge
Chief Customer Officer
Telegraph Media Group
Chris Duncan
Chief Customer Officer
News UK

20. 20
What I learned about CCOs
• Strategic driver = competitive advantage through
customer-centricity and integrated channels
• Big teams and P&L responsibility
• CCO combines CDO and CMO roles (more likely to be an
internal appointment than a CDO)
• CCOs have significant, if not complete, control of
technology, data, digital, insight, innovation. In some
cases customer service and, depending on company size,
all the physical (store, branch, call centre etc) operations.
• CCOs next job? CEO.

21. House of Fraser
• CCO with digital and multichannel
background
• Head of “Find it”
• Head of “Research it”
• Head of “Buy it”

22. 22
http://www.slideshare.net/MarTechConf/marketing-ops-is-a-philosophy-not-a-department-by-justin-
dunham

23. 23https://econsultancy.com/blog/66223-with-a-blank-sheet-what-organisational-structure-would-you-choose-for-marketing-and-digital/

24. 24
Culture
• Importance of
“Design thinking”
being in the DNA of
the business
• How Design
Thinking
Transformed Airbnb
from a Failing
Startup to a Billion
Dollar Business

25. 4. WHAT’S THE FUTURE?
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26. 26
We’ve only just begun
• Video –
vertical,
immersive,
shoppable etc
• Messaging -
chat, bots etc.

27. 27
Voice as an interface – e.g. Alexa, Echo

28. 28
Mobile both as ‘glue’ (binding physical/digital)
and ‘lubricant’ (easing your path along the
customer journey)
Google Now Google Nearby

29. 29

30. 30
The future of customer experience
1. Join up data and systems, then…
2. Deliver experiences that are consistent, synced
and responsive across devices/channels, then…
3. Make them personalised, proactive, contextual,
realtime, smart
“The era of living services”
Mark Curtis, Founder, FJORD

31. 31
Who to learn from if you’re in subs/media?
• SaaS (Software as a Service) businesses:
– Product obsession inc. UI skills
– Data / metrics savvy
– Growth marketing/hacking
– All about CAC and LTV
– Marketing automation
– Beyond content/data… tools, workflow, productivity

32. THANK YOU
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