Digital Transformation Rule 7 - Smartphone first

Smartphones now outsell toothbrushes. Experience indicates that the majority of your customer engagement will be via their smartphone. This is particularly true for the younger generation for whom their smartphone is the portal to the world. Indeed, to call such devices a phone is like calling a vacuum cleaner a Hoover. Increasingly, these devices are very rarely used as a phone by many. Other communication channels are replacing traditional voice calls ‘by choice'. Ensure that anything designed for customer use considers use via Smartphone first and considers all the communication channels customers might use.

It is not unreasonable to think that within 5 years customers will be able to make contact 24x7 with a virtual automated assistant that will be able to deal with the vast majority of their needs without human intervention. This liberates your staff to proactively do the high-value tasks and customer contact that can’t be automated. Your long-term vision needs to consider this.