So my daughter recently had me read an essay about Medieval times and I couldn’t help but marvel at how times have changed. Want a cheeseburger at midnight? Call Doordash. Missed church because you overslept? Watch the sermon online. Not exactly the Middle Ages.
What particularly strikes me is how customer service has been transformed. Good service used to just require a willing heart, a friendly face and maybe some thoughtful processes backing up the people. Now it so often requires technology, too. The ability to segment, then ease the customer experience. Or even predict their future buying behavior.
Big companies that sell consumer products are hardly the only ones affected by higher expectations. Even smaller B2B organizations—providers of everything from legal and IT services to raw materials and trade associations—have to up their games. ALL of us are consumers so we naturally carry experiences from the consumer realm to the purchases and decisions we make at work.
So welcome to a New Age, business leaders. It’s not enough to keep up with your competitors. You have to keep up with everyone your customers interact with, too.
