What is Important in 2020?

What is Important in 2020? Yogi Berra, the New York Yankees Coach once said, "Predictions are hard, especially about the future." Predictions can be difficult; it is true. However, they can also be helpful, especially if you are trying to plan for a new year. I have been in the Customer Experience industry since before there was such a thing. When I founded Beyond Philosophy back in 2002, no one was talking about Customer Experience. Then, things changed, and over the next decade, it changed from no one talking about Customer Experience to everyone talking about it. A few years into it, bandwagons formed. Soon after that, people that had no idea about the depth and breadth of the concept of Customer Experience were jumping on it, touting the importance of minding the Customer Experience to anyone who would listen. However, they kept trying the same things they were doing before they heard of Customer Experience and were getting the same results. Looking a new year and a new decade is a time for reflection for me. I have been working in Customer Experience for nearly 20 years now. Bandwagon riders notwithstanding, I am enheartened by the way the broader business world has embraced the importance of putting the customer at the center of everything you do, even if they don't always understand what the term means. However, we are also at a point where Customer Experience is a concept that has had a fair chance to prove its worth. The results we expected should be appearing in organizations that have taken the idea and applied it to their business model. It is reasonable to expect for the time, energy, and resources to show a return on investment, whether in customer loyalty, customer retention, or even just cold hard cash. So, will we? Like it is for many of these questions, the answer is it depends. On this episode of The Intuitive Customer, I further explain my answer and share my predictions about the fate of Customer Experience. We will look at what led to our current situation and what will carry us onward in the coming year.   The Intuitive Customer podcasts help you take your Customer Experience to the next level by unlocking the "hidden" aspects of your experience and determining what really drives value for your customers. To find out more about how your organization's marketing can improve customer loyalty and retention, contact us at www.beyondphilosophy.com. To subscribe to The Intuitive Customer and never miss a podcast, please click here.