Customer Experience Considerations for Tech Leaders
Hello, and welcome to today's webinar. Customer, experience, considerations. For tech leaders. I'm elizabeth, heikler, executive, editor at mit, sloan management review. And i'll be your moderator, today. Today's, program, is sponsored, by compunal. And life rate. Our speakers, today. Are steve andreal, the thomas, lebreck, professor of business, in the villanova, school of business at villanova, university. And deborah o'neill. Who's uk, head of digital. And a partner, at oliver wyman. Steve conducts, applied research, on technology, management, best practices. Big data analytics. Cloud computing. Technology, due diligence. Digital, transformation. Technology, governance, and emerging, technology, adoption. In addition to his scholarship. Steve brings extensive, experience, working in industry. As well as working with industry and government, as a consultant. Deborah, leads complex, transformations. Of the world's largest, companies. Key roles she has undertaken, in her work in digital. Include, interim cto, for a new digital bank build. Delivery of an online, retime. Sme, credit lending product. And the technology, infrastructure, build out, of a client's, data and analytic, platform. Looking forward to hearing from both of you, steve, over to you. Thank you elizabeth. And welcome, i'm happy to talk about this. Really important, timely. Topic especially, given the perspective, i'm going to take which is all about technology. And the role of the cia. So that's the really the takeaways, i'll give, i'll give that to you up front, i want to talk about, sort of the technologies. That can. Enable. Improve, some cases, automate. The, customer, experience. And i also want to talk about the role of the cio, because that's. Getting more challenging, that's getting more complicated, to put it mildly, as, if any cios, and ctos, are on the call you know exactly, what i'm talking about. I've sat in your seat i know the expectations. Are very very high, about what you're supposed. To do, and given the shortage of resources. So i'm going to try to do is go through some of the technologies. And then, and then describe, a kind of agenda, kind of a very practical, agenda, for, cios, and ctos. Let's, let's start with, the customer, experience. Priority, here's the agenda, of course, but the customer, experience, priority. It's it's always been there i mean it's not it's it's interesting, how we sort of there's all these waves of attention. Um, that come and go, but this has always been there the customer experience. Is something that everyone, is focused on not exactly, the best way. Um if anyone's, experienced, a problem with a. Not so smart bot. Um trying to do customer, service, whatever, context, it may be trying to return, a product it may be, seeking information, about a product, whatever, it may be. You've experienced, those kinds of frustrations. There are some technologies, which we'll talk about in a moment that can help, but it's always been a priority. It's always, been a priority. And we've always been looking at technologies. To maybe improve, the process. Uh the entire life cycle, not not. Just individual, pieces but the entire, customer, experience, life cycle, um which has been with us from for many many years, and you'll see in the last bullet there i'm talking about, the emphasis. On the cio, to lead. This transformation. And that's going to be. Adding another. Agenda, item to the cio's. Already long list but we'll talk about that, in a moment. I want to talk about the technologies. This and the roles of the cios. This this is the meat of this discussion, this morning and i hope i can, generate some good questions, about this, um because it's it's sort of a topic of endless discussion. And, it's changing, dramatically, because of the, technologies, that are emerging, so quickly. Um, and the velocity, of the technology. Change. All, under this, gigantic. Umbrella, called digital transformation. Of which this is a part. Is just challenging, cios, and ctos. As well as all, c-level, executives. To think about the role of technology. In all these processes, so let's, let's jump in here. All of us are. Well aware of the, revolution, if you will in ai and machine learning, and you can see some of the technologies. There there's there's many others and i'm going to distinguish. Which you'll see in a moment between ai machine learning and natural language understanding, and generation. I know that they're under the large umbrella, back we're back to umbrellas.
On That artificial, intelligence, and machine learning. But i think there's a. An important distinction, there. But anyway if you go back to ai and machine learning it's to put it mildly. Ai, and machine learning have now come into their own. Um there was a time, when, it was referred to as. The, as the new as the ai winter. Uh some of you may remember that a long period of time, things have changed. Dramatically, because of the technologies. Right, the ability. First of all the availability, of data, which we often need to train systems. But the technologies. Around image recognition. Computer, vision. Of machine learning, of course all the algorithms. All those kinds of things which enable. Us to be able to do, some things we never thought we could do 10 15 years ago which have to do with, personalization. Self-service. And things of that nature. Facial recognition. Of course. Controversial. But that's an another aspect, of the customer experience. That could sort of, make it a lot easier for customers, to uh, to buy, sell. All kinds of things. Natural language understanding, as i mentioned a moment ago. There's all kinds of things that are possible i mean ultimately, this is the, this is the, perfect, interface. Being able to talk, to a chatbot, being able to talk, to a csr. I mean, all of these things make it so much easier to have the understanding, the degeneration. So chatbots, as i've already mentioned a couple of times they're they're pretty awful today. Uh they're getting better. Um but slowly. Uh what we're looking for is is prototypes. In the nl. Unlg. Area. Just did demonstrate, the possibility. Here. If you read anything about customer experience, technologies. And there's all kinds of things being written. Augmented. And virtual, reality. They always appear. Right and i think as we have more of these toolkits. That appear. Then you're going to see a whole lot more of this not to mention of course. The. Ar, and vr, as a service, which more of the cloud providers, are, providing, now, so i think, this is going to change we need the business models around what makes the most sense. They shouldn't be intrusive, they shouldn't be. Dumb, frankly. But they rather they should be very supportive, and very helpful, but this is a very promising, technology, again because. It's, the technologies, are now delivering it in a low-cost, way. Not so many years ago, like three or four or five. Um headsets, were ridiculously. Expensive. Now the cost is coming down, now of course we're using smartphones, and other devices. To affect, uh ar, and vr. That will change things as well offers a great opportunity. As does of course ai machine learning and, l u g. Social media of course there's a whole lot of you know, dm customer, support. There in social media people should be able to use, whatever, channel they want, to be able to communicate. Um and to get responses, that are, coherent. And often enabled by some of these emerging, technologies. I think that's a very important, aspect of this people shouldn't have to switch from platform, to platform. To, to engage, in a conversation. Or exploration. Or whatever. It may be in the context, of customer experience. That's another aspect, of this. Video teleconference. Conferencing, of course. You know with real. Um service representatives. You know. Although we're not that far, maybe, three to five to seven years from. All kinds of virtual, holographic. Csrs. That's, maybe pushing it a little bit, but you can see where this is going to go. In the short term like right now, it'd be nice to have video teleconferencing. As a ubiquitous. Channel. And i mentioned their holographic, interaction, i just mentioned that briefly. Um, already. There's lots of nice applications. Of this. Um. In countries.
Outside The u.s they're using us, for. Virtual visits from physicians, and things of that nature so, we'll see more of that going forward, obviously, you can see, what i'm talking about here is a way to, identify. And then integrate, these technologies. That can enhance, or improve, modify. Automate. Some of these experiences. So i think there's a tremendous, amount of opportunity, there, going forward for us to, be. Thinking about how can we leverage these technologies. In ways we hadn't thought of before. And again there's a whole life cycle. And we're talking about, you know omni-channel. Integration. But my approach, to this has always been sort of bottom-up, versus top-down. I'll talk about that in a moment in the context, of the cios. In other words i don't think anyone should try to boil the ocean with this, i think it should be sort of the case-by-case. Basis. Meaning that, you look at an opportunity, within the customer, experience. Process. You select the, technology, with the most promised. And then you run a, rather fast, cheap pilot demonstration. To see if it makes sense going forward. So i think when you step back and look at this, slide and i could have added more technologies, to this of course, and i'll show you one in a moment from gartner, where they've added many more of these technologies. Um you start thinking about well the possibility. Of of truly enhancing, the customer, experience, process. Is with us it's within, it's just within reach some of the technologies. Of course, are more mature, than others. Um, certain, holographic. Interaction. In interaction, with, obviously. Any kind of, immersion. Is going to take some time. But nevertheless, you get the idea that we're talking about. A whole series of technologies, that when taken together. Can really, really, change. For the better the customer, experience. So gartner is always with us with these hype cycles many of you have already seen these. This is for customer, service and support technologies. 2020. And you can take a look at that you'll see all kinds of things right so, you know i'm not going to read all these but very top left iot. Internet, of things for customer, service, you can work your way down these are the innovation, triggers. Even so far as to identify, emotion, ai. Right and of course more standard, things like, blockchain. And the like, so these are all kinds, of technologies. And as you know, in the hype cycles they identified, the triggers they identified, the peak of, what they referred to as inflated, expectations. Drop of this illusion. Slope of enlightenment. I guess what i'm talking about in the previous slide. Were more, sort of, more the slope of enlightenment, i really think this potential, on that list i i just discussed. Um but, you know everyone's got their view of the timing, of this of course. Um you can see what the disillusionment, is around chat bots and things of that nature. And fair enough, fair enough, but i think that, you know the the timeline, which again everyone sort of has their own timeline, about when these things are going to mature.
I I think we're looking at you know three to five years of sort of massive, change, in customer experience. As enabled, by emerging, technologies. I don't think it's seven to ten years, but i also don't think it's a year i think we're, you know three to five years, and i think the the way you get there, the way you get there is through a bunch of controlled, prototypes. And i'll talk about that right now. So the dual rows for the dual roles for this gio, so. Cios. I i've. Been one, studied this. Talked with many of them written about. About this conducted, research, about this collected, data, all kinds of stuff, they're under constant, attack, right the expectations. About, cios. Is sort of. Always, too high, it's always. Maybe even different from some of the data we've collected. From what cios, believe their primary, role is. Which is. From their perspective. Mostly. To manage reliable, technology, infrastructures. Right. To make sure that, the trains aren't on time to make sure there's reliability. In their networks, and connectivity. To make sure data is secure, we can go down the list all of us and identify, the things that most cios. Perceive, as their primary. Mission. And i'm not suggesting, for a moment that that goes away. Unfortunately. We're going to add another layer of requirements, to cios. They're going to have to do all of that always. But they're also going to have to prepare, the companies for what comes next. So the innovation. Piece of this, which is always. In a sense, uh. Challenged, cios. Because they've had lack of resources, they've been preoccupied. With, with managing, and maintaining. Reliable, technology, infrastructures. All fair. Um, innovation, i think now. Is inescapable. And i think it's inescapable. Because we do have this overarching. Pressure. Around digital transformation. But i also think it's inescapable. Uh because of these. The emerging, technologies. That are accelerating, at an extraordinary, pace it's not just, emerging, technologies. To enable. Customer, experience it's emerging, technologies, to enable, all kinds of processes. And increasingly. Lines of business.
And Lines of business, executives, are starting to look at the cios. Whether they're centralized, or decentralized. And say, how can you help us with this. So. Second bullet cios, should own innovation, around the customer, experience, and again i could add more things to that list, we're talking about customer, experience, today. And i think what's what's. An interesting, approach to this. Is i don't think cios. Should. Develop, these. Elongated. Expensive. Complex. Business cases. To for example. Omnichannel. Revolutionized. The entire customer experience. I think cios, should sort of pick and choose. The areas, that have the most impact. And i think the demonstration. Of that impact. Should be. You know through these, fast, cheap demonstration. Prototypes. I mean i've we've all been around for a long time i've seen people that try to boil the ocean as i mentioned a moment ago, it never works. I've seen people try to, adopt, any. Many, enterprise-wide. Solutions. Technology, business technology, solutions. They seldom, work. So the idea would be to take something like, let's use the most advanced natural language processing, technologies. Let's take our chatbots. And let's go to work. And let's demonstrate. The potential. First in a concept, demo, and then an actual demonstration. And if the demonstration. Doesn't go as well as you want. Then you don't scale, you don't continue, investments, instead, you move on to another technology. And another customer, experience, process. I think that's, i think that's where we are at this point in time remember. All the while you have to maintain this wonderful, infrastructure, that's reliable, and secure. Good luck with both of these missions but i think the second mission. Is inescapable. So. I think the technology. Demonstrations. They should be, you know based on rather short, not so ambitious, business cases. Bottom up not top down, and i think you go from there. So you know. One way of doing this is to think in terms of investment, strategies. And, you can see there that's one view of this, many of you have done this but it's a very simple one, you know, you map the process. And then you prioritize, the opportunities. And again. Not too ambitious, here. And then you develop your radar of course we all have that, uh you saw the gartner chart you saw my short list. And then you identify, potentially, the most impactful. Combinations. Right it's the match, you're looking for and i describe, one, actual language processing, and better chat bots, and then you build these, low-cost. Demonstration. Pilots, and you repeat. Because they're all they're not all going to work out in fact most of them will fail. So you need to prepare your audience for that as well. But if you haven't spent a ton of money, your audience, is going to be more open to that, going forward if you spend a ton of money, you become the villain rather quickly. So let me go with the takeaways, and i'll wrap up. Um. Customer, experience, is different, during the so-called, fourth industrial, revolution. Technologies, can enable, this transformation. Without, question. The emerging, technologies. That i listed gartner listed, lots of others. And of course cios, are forever, burdened with this dual role, but they've got to maintain, the infrastructure. And manage, innovation, in this case it's innovation. With emerging, technologies. Around, the customer, experience. And with that. I'll turn it over to debra. And, thanks steven for that i thought it was really interesting, and, hopefully. Where i'm going to go now is a little bit more holistic, across how does the whole. Of an organization. Really think about. That balance between that seamless, customer, experience. And some of the sort of, broad, cyber security and vulnerability. Risks. That we know that cios, and csos, are really, being focused, on, and so hopefully the sort of, grounding that stephen set in terms of the technologies. And the options, out there, this will sort of complement. Sort of around the edges. So as, as you all know there's this balance between, seamlessness. And security. And, there's often quite a tussle. Between, them, and, within an organization. We know, that customers, generally find more seamless, journeys, so where we mean seamless, you know one click or very fast.
Not Many interruptions. More enjoyable. But sometimes, security. Forces. Extra checks, and controls, into the process, either, redirections. Or, extra hoops, or, authentic. Authentication. Methods. That actually can create a feeling of dissatisfaction. But actually can also go wrong. So you you actually enhance the risk of that customer pleasing when you're actually trying to keep them safe. And that balance, between getting that highly, seamless proposition, that's appropriately, secure. Is one of the key commercial, differentiators. That i think we're all striving, for, in this new digital, age. Just you know i was thinking about this earlier and i was saying well, if you take something that we all used to do all the time and sort of think about how that's changed, you know, the one that came to me was, when you had to go and buy a present for someone. And you'd actually go to the shop you would select, the gift. You would, take it home, you would dig the sellotape. Scissors, wrapping paper out of the drawer, probably spend some time looking for them because you didn't know where they were. And then you would then, wrap it up you'd walk to your post office. You would. Weigh it you'd sign some papers and you'd hand it over and hopefully in a few days it would arrive at its destination. And today we just take it for granted, that, you know we can go onto the internet, very quickly search online. And just within a few clicks. Sometimes, even with not even putting any details, in because we've already got them all saved. We can, have a gift. Delivered. In a few hours potentially. All wrapped up and with a message included. And that's only been in a short period of time and we also, take that experience, for granted. But it does prove, sort of challenging, that balance. For other, organizations. So, everybody's, been on this rapid. Uh journey towards greater digitisation. I think we can safely say, particularly, given coverage. There's not much time that's slowing, down. So in retail. As we've said click and pay, it's just a normal action. We pick up the you know we expect to do that, continuously. Of course we now know we're also moving to a world where there's a potential, for, picking up the item, walking out the store and the store just taking payment. Through some sort of facial recognition. Or biometric, verification. And, i don't think it's too hard a story to even dream. Would we, one day have a fridge that just orders the milk for us and it arrives at home. Because. Uh they knew we were gonna run out before we did, so that seamlessness, is just pervading, through our lives and that's sort of hassle-free. But we know, and, uh you know stephen alluded to it this doesn't all come without risk and doesn't also require new technologies. And i think for the cio, or the cso, or anyone who's had a remix, for. Worrying about security. I think this has been very hard, for, them to sort of find their position in the organization.
Particularly. If the people who are driving, innovation. Don't have these risks front of mind. And. I've been many clients recently where the situation, has been that there's been a need to retrospectively. Apply, controls. And safeguards. And that does mean that people who have these jobs sometimes can feel like, the bad cop or, you know the villain, as i think was described, earlier. However. We you know there is hope, i think if you can be at that front. Of the innovation, cycle you know can you be the cio, driving. Some of that innovation. And be in the conversations. Then a lot of the interventions. To really balance this are quite small. And can really be done as part of the designs, of new customer, journeys. To and and a lot of this is also around not just the technology. And the things that you do for the process, but also that education. That you take your customers, on so they really know how to look after themselves, as well. I always think you know for the audience, a question to really keep in mind when you're having these conversations. Is. Where are you on this seamlessness, versus security, journey. And are you having those conversations. Frequently, enough. We know there's a negative, consequence. Of getting this wrong and, obviously when we had the. Um. Very rapid, increase, in online. Behavior, particularly around banking. And other secure. Uh, initiatives. We knew that there was an increase in fraud, and data breaches. And not all of these were down to security, issues within the organization. Some of them were, to do with you know, people making manual mistakes, or actually just customers. Not really understanding what they're doing and being taken advantage, of. This has obviously led to, some reputational. Damage for organizations. And we've seen it across banking, airlines. A travel companies. And. Some big fines, that have gone alongside, that. I think it's worth noting that the cost of global gdp. At the moment of these sort of data breaches is in the magnitude, of one trillion dollars a year, and that's actually equivalent, of argentina's, economy, being wiped out every single year, i mean this is a big number. And, you know just to put this into, visual, for you. It's estimated, that there's approximately. Nine billion, individual, record breaches. Since 2007, that have been publicly, declared. So that's you know almost one for everybody, on the planet. And, you know we can see that this will potentially, be only the tip of the iceberg, because this is the piece we know about. So this shift on online behaviors, has resulted, in that potential, disconnect. Between, how things are shared and secured. And has the security, profile, really kept up, with the amount of online, behavior we're now all going. Through. So there's a number of questions that you should really be thinking about when trying to balance these two components.
So What do we need to understand, to determine, the balance, of seamlessness. Versus, security. How do we communicate. Our approach to, key stakeholders. Both internally, and externally. Including, regulators. And can we do it in a language that everybody, understands. So we've got three steps to help shape, thinking, in this space. Firstly. Examining, the trade-offs, so for everything that you're launching. Any new proposition. How important, is that seamlessness. Versus the security. To your proposition. Can you develop a set of sound design principles, that help shape your strategies. And allow the organization. To make sensible, decisions. Such as when is the right time to just redo a customer flow completely. To address the new operating, regime, and behaviour, and take advantage, of some of those technologies, that stephen, laid out earlier. Versus, just patching, in an additional step into an old and expensive to maintain, process. And finally you need to support. That environment, of continuous, improvement. Given this is going to be a continually, changing area. Technologies, are going to improve. The way that customers expect to do things is going to change and you'll need to always, be reviewing, this, and actually making sure that your processes. And your technology, estate. Are. Modular, enough and nimble enough to be able to go on that journey. So just dive a little bit deeper into these three components. So each industry, and organization. Is different. And the trade offs will be very different against that context. So the first thing you really need to do is understand, your own positioning, in the market. One piece of research, i recently. Supported. Was actually. Working on some customer, testing, on a new onboarding, process. Which was fully digitalized. And only took a couple of, minutes to go through. We did this in a completely, white labeled manner, without much context. On, uh, who the brand, or organization, behind it was. And initially, the customers had a very very, negative, reaction, to it, they said it felt. Way too simple. Too quick, and it felt like they were giving their details, to. A tech firm as they described, it and they felt highly uncomfortable. Interestingly. When we revealed that the journey was actually for a new digital, bank proposition, of a very well known high street organization. And we added a few simple explanations, of what that data was used for and when we say simple you need to be thinking reading age 11.. That's the level that you need to be using, a language to explain, things, the customers, instantly relaxed. And they were, totally, fine with it they said we trust our bank. You know they look they look after our money. We really hold them to that standard. And they suddenly said we're very happy for them to do it this way it seems simple, and we trust them to know what needs to be done to keep me safe. And trust plays a really important, role. In the degree that you can really. Manage, customer expectations. The customers, willing to prepare, can see trust because they trusted the organization. Not the technology. Interestingly, older more established. Organizations. Often have a higher trust watermark. Even if they're not considered. To provide the best customer, experience. Unfortunately, this does mean there isn't a level playing field. And it means we all need to understand our own positions, in our relative. Markets. The mantra i always think about is trust is hard to win but very very easy to lose, so in some ways that higher trust level, actually makes it more difficult for you to be very experimental. Financial, services providers, particularly, have a very high degree of responsibility. To their customers. Given they're regulated. And they handle people's money. They're also typically, very established, organizations. That customers, pin very high expectations. To do. And it does mean that when startups, or challenges, come along, they are given more leeway, by customers, because people treat them as a supplementary. Offering. Or as a bit of an experiment. And they actually put them through that trust building exercise. Live, whilst getting that better experience. So when that trust is fully there, they will then move over. And that really, comes to my observation, for large organizations. Is that one of the best options to take, is to take small steps to add convenience, to someone's experience, or outcomes, how can you add a piece of technology. That delivers, well in a seamless, manner.
And. Really. Changes that expectation. Of experience. And then that starts to build you the permission, in a safe manner. To really move that experience, forwards. And wouldn't have been traditionally, associated, with your brand. And you can gradually reset, your positioning. But it also gives you time to make sure you don't make any mistakes. That could ruin that trust forever. And allowed your operations, and platforms, to evolve at the same time, as your customer, facing propositions. So design, principles, can really provide. Guidance, to those who are involved, in, designing these new solutions, within the organization. In a safe manner but also with that good user experience. They can act as a north star, and allow. Effective, trade-off, discussions, to take place early in the development, cycle. And allow solutions, to be agreed, before it's too late down the line. Companies, need to be having these discussions, at the right levels. In assessing what principles they want to apply to these three interlinked. Areas. And they need to have the right group of people, around the table. So, for the risk, and the organizational. Comfort with that level of risk you need your cir. Cro. For platform, capabilities. You need your cio. And cto. And obviously for your customer understanding, and expectations. That's your chief customer officer, or your ceo. Ultimately. And increasingly. Organizations. Are having a chief product officer who's really sitting, sat in the middle of this with the responsibility. Of ensuring, all these trade-offs, are appropriately. Made. The remit and owner for each of these areas is likely, very different, and creating, the right. Communication. Effect. For each stakeholder, is important, to get this right. A question, for you all think about when you're creating. New products, or new offerings in the market is, how often these conversations. Taking place. Before, development, has started. And. Hopefully, not at the point where you're trying to go live and suddenly. The chief risk officer, and the cio, cto, assistant, were suddenly all being, told that they're being spoiled sports or, are really preventing. People going live. These people need to be involved, up front, so they don't feel like they're the bad news. Agents, all the time. I've really seen that embedding, risk professionals. And members of operations, and security, teams.
Into Squads, is very effective. And can, recreate, a cultural, shift. To ensuring, that cyber security, and trust are part of everybody's. Everyday, responsibilities. Regardless, of whether they hold a technical, role or not. Finally, there are a long list of solutions, that try to bridge the gap, of providing, benefit, towards seamlessness. And greater security, to the customer, journey. Splitting these broadly, into customer, facing. And internal activities, there's a constant, need for innovation. And not all solutions, are fully technical. This can be as simple as giving the customer, choices, and being transparent. On what their choices will mean to their, forthcoming. Experience. But you've given them the decisioning, power rather than making those decisions, for them. One thing that i saw in the uk bank that i thought was quite simple. Was actually for, payments, payments had become very one-click. And sort of straight through processing. But they'd seen for a lot of their mainstream, customers. A high level of fraud. Of people being taken advantage, of so they did add a little bit of friction into the process, but it was in the form of one question. After you said you wanted to make payment. They said what is this payment, for, is it for goods or services, is it to friends or family. Is it to buy tickets or whatever it is and there was a series about five or six options. And when you clicked one the next screen said. Do you believe these guns and services, actually exist and are you going to receive them. And it was just that little moment of yes it slows you down for a fraction. And for some people that will be considered irritating, but for some people that might really save them, a lot of pain in the long run, and as we get to more faster payments, and you know every service being paid for on a mobile phone, we will need to think about how do we educate, our customers. It's not just about the technology, it's also about that educational. Process. So we really need to embed this behavior, both into the way that we talk to our customers but also into our development, approach.
Within The organization. So it's never just coming at the end of the process, as a bit of a tick box exercise. Or where you have to retrofit. In, a lot of activity. It's really about how do you get everyone, thinking about this all the time. So just reflect, on some of the trade-off points again and just to challenge them. What degree do you need complete, seamlessness, in a particular, proposition. Versus where is there some friction that's required, to keep people safe. Do you really need to ask for all of your customers, data up front, and have you got an appropriate. An expectation. With the client to be asking for it or at least explain what you're going to do with it. And are you a brand that's got a high trust customer expectation, and are you certain you're not putting that trust level at risk when you go live with something. So if you just take three things away from today. Um. In summary the pace of change, in the growth of digital. Is startling. It's not stopping, we're seeing journeys, get more and more simple. Authentication. Getting more and more simple. Um, and that's the drive that we're going on. But however, far you go along the one-click, process, needs to be this right for your organization. And you need to continually. Assess, it and adjust it accordingly. As i mentioned. Trust takes years to build, seconds to break and forever to repair. So make sure you understand, the degree to which you value trust with your customers. And how much tolerance, they have for things going wrong. Risk appetite, and platform capabilities, are typically, easier to connect and identify. But customer expectations. Are a third pillar. Not often, fully considered, and incorporated, into the strategies, of the other two. You don't want your customer experience to be eroded, by poorly designed controls. But equal you don't want to put people at unreasonable. Risk. And finally, i think in summary. And. People who've heard me speak before it tends to always come back to this is, cultures, and behavior. One can argue that those solutions, will be found in technology. I think we've seen, how many possibilities, there are, but you really need to focus strategies, and drive change in organizations. By having every single person, no matter what their job is, really embrace, the thought of, how do i really, embed. Security. Safety. And the right thing to do with my customers, into everyday, life, even as we're going at a fast rate of innovation, and development. Uh thank you very much, i hope that was useful, you know deborah just wanted to to jump off of um. Your presentation. A moment ago, if you can. Also just make sure your your volume is on while you're finding your webcam. Um. How, might uh. Competing. Interests, within, the organization. Make it more difficult for tech leaders, to balance, that sort of seamlessness. With security. Have you. Uh, encountered, or heard stories of. Uh. Kind of difficulties, where you know a cso, or you know chief information, security officer is having difficulty, sort of negotiating, with marketing, over these kinds of things. Um you know what what are some of the uh. Uh, is this a generally a political issue. You find or are there. Occasionally. Uh, um. Does it run pretty smoothly i guess. At elizabeth, i don't know if you can hear me i'm having a few technical, issues. I don't hear you yes we just can't see you again. Yeah no way for some reason i've got the uh you know the whirling. Timer of doom that i'm sure you're all used to on these um. On these uh items, but hopefully if you can hear me then i can answer. Um, yeah i think there's a few areas where competing, priorities, become. A challenge and i maybe would say priorities. And, i guess points of view or responsibilities. And one of those is. Um. Usually there's a big push for, let's get the b to launch out or let's get something into market very quickly. And i think that, you know, csos. Or you know people who have all actually the chief risk officer where you have some responsibility.
For Risk appetite, or cyber security. That can put you under a lot of pressure to be signing things off. Um. Before you are necessarily, fully comfortable. And from an organizational. Perspective. I've really seen that that's most effective, where, actually the sort of agile squads, or the delivery teams are set up with people embedded, in them who know these topics, so, the use of secondments. Or, you know at least having. Those people, spend some time with those teams up front so you can map out, those risk areas. All those, um. You know threat, met, threat, um, modules. Out. In advance so you can sort of be preempting, it so that when you do get to the point where you want to go live. Everybody's. Already managed, to that process. To get comfortable. With the amount of risk that they're putting everybody, under. Okay thank you. Um. And, uh steve, i just wanted to, jump in on on your presentation. Uh you uh gave us uh quite a. Long list of emerging, technologies. Um, there are a lot of choices, there for. What people might decide that they want to. Invest, in, um, you know especially you know for this. In this arena. If you had to rank order those technologies. Uh which you put at the top of the list. Yeah it's an interesting, question. Because i don't have the hype cycle kind of approach to this maybe, maybe i should, i think the one that would jump out at me i would rank number one is anything having to do with with language. Conversational. Interfaces. So natural language understanding, natural language, generation. I, i believe, and many of us would probably, agree, that voice is the ultimate, interface. That being able to discuss, these things whether it's, directly, whether it's to a hologram. In the future whatever it may be but being able to converse. In real time. To, someone who understands. Exactly what you're saying what your problem is can infer the purpose, the intent, of your questions. You know not just the immediate, words, whatever. Um. I think that, i would rank as number one. Number two i'd probably move into the general field of of machine learning, because i think an awful lot of things can be done can be automated, and made a whole lot smoother, for customers. Um and all the, supporting, processes. So you know. Most of that's going to be in supervised, learning and machine learning. Um much less so and unsupervised. Um, so you know those are the the two i would probably identify, as the top two for sure.
Uh Beyond that we could probably it's anyone's guess there's a whole bunch of this, um that are out there but but i really would if if i were doing, as i described, during the talk, if i were doing these controlled, demonstration. Prototypes. It would be in those two areas. Right okay, and i also wanted to ask you a version of the same question that i asked deborah. It occurred to me as we were watching, um. You know the uh, the perennial, questions about you know the role and influence, of the uh of the technology, leader or the cio, in the organization. Um, as we're you know talking about all of. The ways and you laid out some you know very specific things that you know the technology. Uh. Chief should be. Um. Leading. Uh what's your sense of, their. Degree of influence. Within, this, area of customer, experience. Which, uh you know certainly, belongs, to, you know, certain marketing, and others as well. Well to the extent that they they own innovation. In lots of areas including customer, experience. Um, i think the influence, and the expectations, that i discussed will be high. But let me just say that in general, because there was a question, related, to and, deborah talked about this politics, and culture. And all that sort of thing. Um. In my experience. All this is about political, capital. That you build inside, an organization. So cios, are, not unlike any other executive, you must build. This bank. Of capital, that you can spend, at some future date. Against a set of problems, in my case, in this case we're talking about customer experience. And we're talking about. Spending, that political, capital. In ways that will be. And this will be surprise, you probably. Um, moderately. Impactful. Not necessarily. Disruptively. Impactful. I think when we swing for the fences. We miss. And, i think, as someone who's, i see deborah's probably agreeing with this because, you've seen this, so i think cios, ctos. Cisos. Across the board, what you want is, a series of small wins. That are measurably, impactful. Um that's the capital that you get to spend, later on. And, you've got to whether it's customer experience or any other area, you've got to build this capital, bank. And if you don't do that, internally. Politically. Culturally. Um you're going to be, fighting an uphill battle forever. So i'm that's why i was suggesting, very strongly. That you go with these sort of smaller, demonstration. Prototypes. The impact of which can be measured, often they'll fail which is fine. But if you, if you pursue these enterprise-wide. Projects. To revolutionize. To disrupt. The entire, customer, experience. With technologies. You'll fail, and in the process. Your credibility. Will fall. And the last thing you need as a cio, or cto, with all these responsibilities. Is for your credibility. Bank, to become depleted. So, my advice to cios, is to be really careful here. Um, and to make sure that at least initially, you're building, up enough political, capital, that, when you finally do want to take that leap, to a more enterprise-wide. Because you've got the evidence, through all these prototypes. Then you'll have some people behind you to do that and you'll be able to get the funding to do that, otherwise.
You're Just going to spin your wheels. You make a really interesting point that just really. You know resonated, me is. You have to be the person that's making things happen not stop things happening, i think that's a very, delicate, line and you know, i've seen the pressure people are under, you know we we, know that a lot of organizations. Are fighting, with. A large legacy of state of interconnected. Systems, that, are a constant, battle to patch, and, you know all of that pressure but. If you are the person that's holding people back, that's when people try to find ways to go around you. And that's where you can find out very late in the day that suddenly something's, going live. Because, you know some innovation, unit, or, some new products, launching. And suddenly you're caught out and then you, become. Not only the person that was missed out of the cycle. But also the person that's then shouting, and stamping your feet which. Is i think your steam and says that's why you need that political, capital but you've got to be on the positive, side of all of this, and actually it's a great opportunity, to start simplifying, your estate right if you can, convince people to move on to cloud, and some of these new technologies. In the long run this should actually make your lives easier. In terms of that um state that you've got to manage. Right. Good thank you, um, endeavor, um, a few audience questions, um here for you, uh, one, person asks should we sacrifice, security, for a great digital, experience. In certain, cases. If if so what would those cases be. So i i think, absolutely, there should be no time where you're just putting. People's personal data out on the internet or anything like that i think you know there's a there's a, flaw, on which security, you need to be, you know, uh compliant with, but, we see it in non-red, some of the not more. Freely. Or less regulated, areas right already. You know sometimes, when you go and make online, purchasing. Um, or somebody makes an online purchase pretending, to be you. And you make a complaint, about, it they refund you the money instantly and in fact some of the organizations. Are. Are very good at even saying, oh that went wrong and i refund you before you even know it's happened. And so you do have more freedom depending on your industry sector to say. Actually we'll let transactions, happen, or we'll let something happen but we know how to rectify, it i think it also, comes back to this point of what is your market position. If you are a. Well-established. Household, brand. I hate to tell everybody. But you're held to a higher standard, than if you're something funky and new because people expect you to be more experimental. And that's why i think this balance, of, how much can you try all in one go. And, making sure that, the you know everyone feels confident, we i've seen a lot of cases where people, create a new beta product. And. It hasn't been, done within the confines, of the right organization, it's built on a little piece of tech over here. And, you know it looks shiny. But they have missed out important steps like the cio. Or the cro. Or, you know, people who have to manage the downside, risk of this, so i hate you know i've become a bit of a broken record but it is that communication. And political. Internal. That really helps you balance, those things. Right thank you. Um let's see uh a question, for steve from the audience. About, uh, chat bots. Which. Have a bit of a a bad rap, um. People can you know our question, says you know they uh. They can sometimes put people off, actually you know increasing. Dissatisfaction. And, you know make it look like the organization, is more interested, in cutting costs than in delivering, great service. Can we expect. Chat bots. To, improve. Um dramatically. Um, or would you expect, that they, they may be supplanted. By other, kinds of uh. Other, other automation. That. Might be more. Accepted, by, customers. Well i mentioned the, when you asked me about the rank ordering of the technologies. That natural language understanding, and generation, i put at the top of the list for that reason.
I Think there's there's a larger issue with chatbots, though, i think that. You know it depends on the intent, the rules, we can write the rules, about how they respond but what are the rules. And and to the extent that they bias, they buy us in favor of the company that maybe. Uh someone's complaining, tremendously, someone wants to to, cancel their account for example. And the rule sends them to three other people, or some other functions in the chat bot that are basically, intended. To keep them from resigning. Um, keep them from right so i mean i think, those are the rules. True customer, service, true customer. Experience. Is is one that actually, is customer, friendly and is customer, oriented. And so i've experienced, we've done some research on this, looking at at the rules behind, the chatbots, the interface, is one thing that's the natural language part that i love, but, and then there's the rules behind them so when you ask let's assume it understands, things really well. And, again that's why i referred, earlier to purpose, and intent. So being able to infer purpose of intent, you've got a customer, is very very upset. Right say it's a customer who's, a medicaid, in pharmaceutical. Complaining, about the side effects of a medication. Right so the rules can go a couple of different ways, so one way can go is to tell us more about that we'd like to deal with that we'd like to help you through that, but the rules will also be written and they often, are. About oh this is an indication. As a kind of, back processing of sentiment, that this person is going to stop taking that medication. So if that is inferred, on the part of the chatbot, which is driven by these rules. Then, then the customer is going to hear, in this case the patient, is going to hear all these things that are designed to deflect. That so they don't stop taking the medication, and maybe go to a competitor. So customer, service, customer, experience, is really, at least two dimensions. One is the interface, itself. Nlp, can help there, and then also the rules behind the experience. So i think that, they've got companies need to be thinking about that we've all experienced. Interacting, with chatbots, again it's inefficient, you're actually typing all that sort of thing, and that can be improved with a natural language interface. But then it's like you're not answering my question. You don't understand the purpose of my question. And i'm getting increasingly, frustrated, by this, because it's clear that not only they don't understand the intent of my question, you have your own agenda. Which makes it even worse. So i think that we have to be thinking about this on several levels, going forward, so the technology, and again the technology, can help there and that's why i rank machine learning. Right number two, because the machine learning those algorithms, can be trained. To respond, to intent, and purpose. And in a way that is truly, customer, friendly as opposed to oh my god let's make sure we don't lose this customer. Right. I think it also links to the need for, organizations. To be thinking about this front to back right. There's no point, tacking, on an amazing, front-end, experience, if you don't update your, operations. And how the way you run your organization. In the background. I think, you know we've all come from worlds where. Um people ran in very siloed, you know you want to talk about product a well that's that team or you want to talk about product b that's that team but now people don't care they don't care how you internally, organize, themselves. They want to just talk to the person who's going to solve their problem. And we are you know you see the difference, now with some of the organizations.
Who Have only established, in the last. You know, five maybe decade. Years. Is that. They are organized, in a much more. Customer-centric. Manner that they have smoothed, the silos so whoever you get to, will know enough to solve, 99. Of your problems. Versus, that, i'm now going to put you through to the team that deals with product a, oh i'm going to put you through to the team that. Uh deals with product b and actually i'm going to disconnect, you halfway through the process, and then you're gonna have to start again, so it really does pervade, whatever you do to the customer experience you've got to drive, through the rest of the organization. From front to back. Um which is why these transformation. Programs that everybody, undergoes, become quite difficult. Because it's usually someone, driving from just one agenda. Which is why all those three. Sort of areas have to work together quite tightly. Right, got it, um another, question for you deborah that, relating, to um. Again you know a bit of you know the corp sort of corporate culture piece of it that you uh touched on in your presentation. Um can you dive a little bit more into you did speak to, the need to develop. A culture, of, um, security-mindedness. That permeates, the organization. Whether or not it's their job. How have you seen this uh been done effectively. So i think a really simple thing you can do is. Very, it's sort of you know monthly, or every couple of months getting your team together and doing kind of a, threat modeling, brainstorming. Session right where you say, okay let's look at our. Let's look at our process that we're running where are all the places, that we could be vulnerable, either vulnerable, to. A customer doing something, wrong. Uh you know not understanding, what you're asking. Where is our vulnerability, because we have a manual intervention. Where we don't have enough control around it and you're constantly, getting everybody, to look at that from different angles, because you get very interesting perspectives, somebody from marketing, might say, actually. I've seen something out in the industry that now makes this look like we may get a reputational. Risk, because. Uh. Actually people don't like this experience anymore or you'll get one of the engineers, that says. Actually i've noticed that, we haven't upgraded, the api. Uh structure for a while and checked that you know. That the messaging, system's, secure, between them, and you'll get maybe one of the analysts, that says, actually i've noticed, that we've had to do a lot of manual interventions. On. This particular, piece of documentation. And i feel like maybe we didn't have enough, checks on it to make sure it's secure, so you just start that mentality, of people really challenging, their processes, and thinking about it and that's quite simple, because. It gives everyone, almost a sort of, vested, interest to get these concerns, out on the table, some of them will be, minor risks, that, don't need any particular. Worry, but now and again you'll just get that needle in the haystack, where someone hits on something that's quite important. Okay, thank you. And let's see and see we have one for you that's also kind of getting a bit, getting down to brass tacks, um, what are the uh what are some of the biggest, challenges, or obstacles. For you know prototyping. And adopting. Uh some of these emerging technologies. That you had talked about. Well as i mentioned, you know you try to boil the ocean you'll fail, i think if you ask for way too much money you'll fail. Um i think if that if you if you, set expectations. Too high you'll fail.
So I think, i've been talking a lot about, and writing a lot about this bottom-up, phenomenon. Right and i mentioned that in the context, of political, capital. I think i think a lot of its messaging, a lot of it is, is communication. Um setting expectations. Um, going for more incremental. Innovation. Than disruptive. Innovation, that may strike some of the listeners as, maybe not a great message, but, um disruptive, innovation, is very challenging, and very difficult, you know deborah was talking about, at the end she said hey this won't work unless there's a cultural, change. Culture is the hardest thing in the world to change. It can take years. And and you may succeed. If it may fail and and, think about this the management, team, under which you're operating. That, owns the culture, may be gone, and then you have a new management team that comes in and tries to institute. Another culture which may or may not work right, um so you've got. I really believe in this bottom up and just demonstrate, something. So i think this whole idea of looking for that leverage, between. The customer, experience. Process, that little point maybe. And then looking at the technology. That exhibits, the most promise, and then doing something in a very controlled, way, with managed. Expectations. That and being able to measure the impact. And then moving on to another prototype, i had in the slide repeat. So it's sort of like you know, incremental, prototyping. Another term, which is just simply going from one to the other to the other never, talk about, how we can scale this and change the world, and change the culture and our customers, will all of a sudden love us to death, because we're going to do this one, prototype, which will be scaled, and deployed. Globally, that's insane. And cios, that try to do this they will fail. So i think again you want to start small with prototyping. Manage the expectations. Measure the impact it's got to be quantitative, empirical, impact, it can't be anecdotal. You can't do that because then people will be able to. Offer their own anecdotes. That contradict, your anecdote, so it's got to be quantitative, empirical. It's got to be a relatively, small scale and then you move from that you move up with another prototype, and another prototype. So i think it's it's cautious.
I Guess, it's i guess it's a conservative, approach, to leveraging, technology. Against customer, experience, processes. Um but in my experience and the data we've collected that's what works. Okay, and you kind of queued up for me uh what we have time we've just a few minutes left so this will be sort of maybe a little kind of a lightning round question for both of you, uh you mentioned, you know quantitative. Measures of impact. Uh and we had a good question about what are the kpis. You know, how do you measure, um success, both in customers. Maybe customer experience broadly but also, you know maybe, endeavor, in threading that needle between, um you know security and experience. Um, uh. You know deborah what do you think are some of the key measures that people should be, using to hold themselves accountable. Yeah i mean the big one that i know the whole industry, goes on and on about is you know, have you got things like your devops, pipeline, working well can you do that continuous. Deployment. So, if you do put something, out there and people like it how can you develop, it further, how can you add in, new functionality, if you need to if they don't like it how do you get it out again. So you know how i think something around that measure of how quickly you can deploy, things how frequently, you can deploy things is a great one, i think you know around, operations. And some of that customer, interactions. Obviously, people go on about cost as stephen wright says we don't people feel on the other side that it's all about cost, but there is something around cost to serve, and, also not just the cost to serve but the cost to get to satisfaction. Because, there's the cost of servicing the call and people not being satisfied, and losing that business. So how do you get that you know cost to serve and cost of satisfaction. At the right level. And then i think there is something around measuring, you know. Um your. Um attack plane you know if you put something out there, how many attacks are you getting. Hopefully you're actually measuring them because actually if you know they're coming then you're doing something about them the worst one's the ones you didn't know and they get inside your perimeter, but, being very aware of what's our attack profile. And where are those attacks coming from so some of it's very standard, sort of kpis. Around that. Service management, is a massive, topic now if you're working with a lot of third parties. What are your service management, kpis. Availability. And. Responsiveness. Latency. All of those good things would be my view. Great thank you, do you give, 30. And can you share any in three seconds. Yeah i'll say just in the context, keeping it small again through chatbots. Making some changes making some fixes with nlp. Natural language processing, broadly defined. Um you can certainly, measure the effectiveness, of that, right the abandonment. How many people leave a call how many repeated, questions, these are all the quantitative, and then the outcomes, so i mentioned the example for example, of um, you know pharmaceutical. Companies trying to prevent people from stopping to take medication.
You Can measure that as well, so there's a whole series of things that can be through sentiment analysis but you can, measure all sorts of things like that against a set of outcomes. I did it in 30 seconds. Beautiful. Thank you so much, both of you, um, that concludes, our program. And uh you know thank you both so much uh steve and debra, i wish we had more time we had a, lot of good questions i felt like we were just getting started. A good discussion, there. Um. Thank you uh to everyone who attended, today. And of course thanks to our sponsors. Uh compile, and liferay, we hope you'll join us again. Soon.
2020-11-24 00:03
