Infrastructure needed for continuous engagement with customer

Companies like Uber, Amazon, and FedEx captured the mind-share of customers. If one ordered a taxi by phone (if people still remember), you always wondered if the cab would even show up. If you are like me (very impatient), you will even call the taxi dispatcher a couple of times in ten minutes of wait time to make sure the taxi is coming. Uber completely altered the experience, and I now know precisely where the Uber driver is. Just that information calms my nerves. I am sure tracking the Uber driver in real-time is a “wow” experience. Before Uber, FedEx solved a similar problem of tracking packages across the globe. Dominos does the same for a pizza. Now, the customers attribute significant value to continuous engagement in real-time.

How many companies are adding value by continuously engaging with the customer? Some examples: Can I track my checked-in luggage with airlines? Can I track my $500 ACH transfer from my checking account to my brokerage account? Can I track my mortgage application? Can I track my tax filing status with IRS? Can the mobile app show the current wait times and your position in the call center queue? There is research/evidence that continuous engagement with the customer benefits companies (“Connected Strategy” by Nicolaj Siggelkow and Christian Terwiesch). Now, how can companies be continuously connected with the customers?

The first step is building a real-time mindset (the hard part), and the second is building real-time infrastructure (relatively easy). For the mindset change, a large part is in expanding the scope of a product definition. From a utility perspective, getting from place A to place B is the same in Taxi and Uber, but the customer experience is vastly different. Of course, Uber did many other business innovations, but including the technology-led customer experience in to the product definition was a key differentiator. Delivering checked-in baggage at the destination by the airlines is a utility, but providing an end to end tracking/notifications is the customer experience. Mortgage product is the same across most banks, but customer experience in obtaining the mortgage could be a key differentiator.

Now for the easy part, how to build a real-time infrastructure to engage with the customer continuously. There are four components:

1. Event Publication – All systems should capture the customer event (implicit or explicit) and broadcast the event.  Example: An airline system can publish an event once the luggage is loaded or unloaded into the plane. 
2. Event Collection – The Event should be collected and saved.Example: The generated event is stored persistently for processing. 
3. Event Processing – A process interprets each stored event based on business rules or AI/ML and decides on what action is to be taken. Example: An event processor reads the event and pulls more information about the customer, such as the preferred method of communication, phone number, etc., and prepares the message. 
4. Event Response – An action is taken to inform or act on the customer’s behalf. Example: Send a notification that baggage has reached the destination or the current status of the bag. 

Customer experiences based on continuous engagement creates key differentiator and is possible with right infrastructure.