Here's the mistake you're making with customer engagement: offering one-way trains, not digital cars

Hi everyone,

Thanks for coming back to Customer Futures. Each week I unpack the disruptive shifts around Empowerment Tech. Digital wallets, Personal AI and digital customer relationships.

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This week we’re taking a look at what’s wrong with the digital economy. And more importantly, why no one can see it.

We need a new perspective, and approach, for thinking about customer data. And for building digital experiences.

We need new customer tools that act like digital cars. Giving us online freedom. Not websites and apps that act like trains, forcing us into transactional, one-way trips.

It’s time to talk about the digital elephant in the room.

It’s time to talk about Empowerment Tech.

If we are honest, our digital economy is in a mess.

Rising fraud. Power struggles with the Web2 platforms and data majors. A chaos of consent boxes. Icky and fragmented digital experiences. Near zero portability of our personal data. A collapse of trust online.

And to top it off, I spend much of my day clicking on pictures of boats and bridges. Just to prove I’m a human… to the AI.

It’s ridiculous.

And here’s the thing. We’re all hurting. End users and business. Regulators and innovators. Citizens and government.

Like having a pebble in your shoe, it bugs us every day. And we can all feel it. Things aren’t working with our digital experiences.

But what precisely is wrong?

That’s the snag. Few can actually see it.

Why? There are 3 reasons:

1. Everyone thinks there’s a different root cause
2. Most of the digital issues are framed as a trade-off between ‘value’ or ‘trust’
3. We can’t see beyond today’s business approach to personal data

Let’s dig in.

1. Everyone thinks there’s a different root cause

What's really going on? What’s the root issue all this digital pain?

Is it about data? Is it about regulation? Is it about privacy? Is it about surveillance-based business models?

Or is it about platform economics and the power laws of networks? The models that concentrate our data in the hands of only a few companies?

The answer is all of it. And more.

It’s a bit like the parable of ‘The 8 Blind Men and the Elephant’.

One of the blind men is touching the elephant’s leg. But thinks they are standing in front of a tree. Another is holding the elephant’s tail, but thinks it’s a snake. Another is by the elephant’s side, thinking they are up against a wall.

None of the 8 blind men can see the whole thing. The big picture.

The same is true with our digital economy. No one can accurately see what’s exactly wrong with digital customer engagement. How badly things are broken for people.

Because we’re all staring at our individual and favourite digital problem.

Some of us believe it’s about personal data UX. Others say it’s about personal data protection regulation. For many, it’s about broken business models. And others think it’s all down to failures in data governance.

“No! It’s the personal data protocols, the ability to freely move data around” some argue. And many of the technical folks believe the root issue is much deeper, and about how we handle cryptographic keys.

You get the idea.

We’re all standing in front of the digital customer elephant, yelling about different root issues. So we end up playing whack-a-mole with fixes for each of these discrete problems. Not joining them up.

2. Most of the digital issues are framed as a trade-off between ‘value’ or ‘trust’

There’s a standard response to the issues around the digital customer.

Businesses must choose between two options:

1. Using more personal data… to create new value… OR
2. Using less personal data… to build customer trust

Either-or. You can’t have both.

With the first, companies use lots of personal data to offer exciting and personalised experiences, customised services and tailored offers. But in doing so, they risk eroding customer trust.

Why? Because they might

a) Accidentally surprise customers with what the business knows. “Where did you get my data from? How did you know that about me? I didn’t ask for this? Why is this ad following me around?”

b) Mishandle the personal data. Failing to collect the right consent, spilling the data in a nasty data breach, or just clumsily asking for too much personal information in the first place.

The alternative, option 2, is to build customer trust. To not collect and use the data. To create customer value in other ways. Avoiding personalised insights or the monetisation of customer information.

It’s a trade-off, businesses insist. A ‘balancing’ of interests.

But this is zero-sum thinking.

As a result, businesses end up swinging wildly from data lockdown (trust)… to data innovation (value)… and back again. And we have endless fights inside our organisations about which approach is better.

About which is more important. Trust or growth.

3. We can’t see beyond today’s business approach to personal data

Einstein said (something like) “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Today’s digital solutions are making things worse, not better.

And the incumbents - multinational social networks, the device and data companies - have a vested interest in keeping things as they are right now.

Or at least evolving things in directions that suit them.

Those running the show today can’t - and don’t want - to see the digital issues they are causing. And certainly not to find solutions to them.

We need a new approach… digital trains or cars?

It’s a simple idea. When you take a step back, it’s actually obvious.

It’s to give customers their own digital tools.

No, I don’t mean another personal data app. No, I don’t mean an NFT marketplace where I can sell my own data.

I mean new technology - software and processes - that are managed by the individual. Software that helps us do our own things, on our terms.

Empowerment Tech.

Let me make the point with a different example: cars.

With cars, we can go where we like. Whenever we like. We can paint them whatever colour we like. Put in them what we like. And travel together in groups as we like.

Yes, we have to obey the local rules and driving customs. Yes, we must insure the car and drive carefully.

But cars are ours.

The digital tools we give people today don’t belong to individuals. Not really.

Instead, they are a cluster of apps and websites that belong to companies.

They are a set of chat interfaces that are owned by the major messaging and handset companies. They are SMS and email channels that are run by telcos and huge corporations.

OK, but what about web browsers? Aren’t they a genuine tool for digital customer engagement and empowerment?

For sure. They are closer to the idea of ‘digital cars’.

Users can visit whatever site they want, and configure it the way they want. They can even choose which browser provider they want to use.

But look closely. With the explosion of software-as-a-service (SaaS) platforms, now available to every business that wants it, browsers have morphed from being personal tools used to navigate the internet, into digital customer windows for users to interact with business applications.

Fantastic digital experiences. But in reality, customers have very little control over what happens to their data when they land on those sites and mobile apps.

No, today’s digital customer tools aren’t like cars at all.

Rather, they are more like trains.

They are efficient. They go fast. Sometimes they can be comfortable. But they can only take us in one direction, to specified destinations.

Let’s awkwardly stretch the metaphor further.

OK, there’s some interoperability across our trains (like the rails they run on). But if I want to take a different train route, I have to change lines and wrestle with a mix of timetables and tickets.

And in countries where the rail network is privatised, I have to buy a different ticket, from a different company, with a different pricing system and of course, use a different account.

Going for a digital spin, and building trust AND value

Here’s the point. We need to give people the digital equivalent of cars. New digital tools that empower us to go where we want, when we want, to do what we want.

Actual Empowerment Tech. Not just so-called Customer Tech, which still sits on the side of the business.

With the right approach, especially around Personal Agents, Personal Data Vaults and Digital Wallets, these new customer tools are going to help fix the broken mess we call the digital economy.

They will help tackle fraud. They will provide alternatives to the Web2 platforms and data majors. They will help reboot digital trust.

But most importantly, they will show that there’s a way out.

That we can build digital solutions that don’t force a trade-off between value and trust - we can have both.

There’s more to come on that in future posts. But for now, let’s start talking about the elephant that’s right in front of us.

The empowered digital customer.

Thanks for reading this week’s edition.

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