I prefer to replace the word “Continuous” with “Timely” and add two adjectives: “Relevant” and “Value Added” to the word “Connection”; so my proposed phrase will be “Timely, Relevant and Value Added Connection”.

Supra Banerjee Principal Consultant, Product & Technology Strategy

I think today's digital consumer is in a confused state of mind - On the one hand they are apprehensive about sharing their data and information with brands, while on the other hand, there is a basic expectation of the communication and offering to be highly personalized.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

I tried to locate myself on the HBS article table and found that my preference as a customer was highly dependent on the situation. I like suggestions from Netflix and alerts from AT&T that my data usage is running high but I hate getting emails from 800 Contacts telling me it is time to reorder.

Anthony J

In today's environment if you are not doing it you will quickly be behind and lose relevance. Not because you don't have inherent value but because you may lose the sale as someone gets there first with proactive efforts.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

This has to be looked at through a completely customer-centric (or I would say, customer obsessed) lens that places utility, service, experience at the top of the priority list and friction, time wasted, inefficiency and dead ends at the bottom of the scrapheap.

Joseph Jaffe Admiral, Co-founder at the HMS Beagle, 5-time author (5th book due 2019), Keynote Speaker, Thought Leader, Rabble-Rouser, Trouble-Maker

We have to find ways to “Humanize our Digitization approach”, make it more “Authentic”, and bring more “Heart” in interactions. Leveraging holistic data, applying more refined AI for an event specific, personalized treatment will be one of the ways to humanize the customers experience.

Supra Banerjee Principal Consultant, Product & Technology Strategy

In many cases today Continuous Connection simply overwhelms Customers through chaotic interactions and often fails to connect to them objectively. The reasons may be the lack of data insights and intelligence.

Supra Banerjee Principal Consultant, Product & Technology Strategy

It is not continuous selling, it is a continuous connection and that means it needs to be personal. This opens up a whole new set of challenges for brands

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Everything I witness with technology translates to unconscious rapid acceleration at the expense of any mindfulness. I see this at the group and organizational level as well as on the individual level.

Anthony J

I foresee this driving a hyper-personalized commercial experience that drives everyone to be catered to as their own population of one and yearns for creativity, yet lacks it due to the overwhelming noise from various mediums when one looks outside their own sphere.

Jeffrey Eker, Jr. CEO - Tediferous, LLC | Technology Portfolio Director

Convenience, speed & intuitiveness are definitely important aspects & they are a key differentiator for a few brands today, but tomorrow when every brand is able to provide the same level of agility & customization, what will differentiate one brand from the other?

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

When it comes to setting the bar or gold standard in terms of responding to desire, surely there can be no better at this point than Amazon. From One-Click-Order to Alexa integration, Amazon has near perfected the ability to scratch any itch and do it without any friction or pain whatsoever.

Joseph Jaffe Admiral, Co-founder at the HMS Beagle, 5-time author (5th book due 2019), Keynote Speaker, Thought Leader, Rabble-Rouser, Trouble-Maker

Zappos - probably one of really best examples with customers able to call and tell the operator "I've seen the red shoes on character A in season 1 episode 7 of the show Z - I want the same ones, my size is..." and operator searched for the item and placed an order.

Sergey Belyaev Loyalty marketing.

Chewy. They'll show up in the other strategies but they rock it in Respond to Desire. Fast, efficient, easy to do business with and if/when a problem happens its resolved easily.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Medical is often in the respond to desire category. Instead, we are faced with a system where one often does not know the cost until after the service has been delivered, get sent from place to place honing in on the next specialist, and many times provided treatment for symptoms not cures.

Jeffrey Eker, Jr. CEO - Tediferous, LLC | Technology Portfolio Director

banking products: Most of the product (Money Transfer, Mutual Funds, Mortgage, Credit Cards, etc) is not personalized. Same for their service arms (online banking, mobile banking, and in-branch banking). Even if you leave the product part apart, delivery and customer experience are not that great. 

Hitesh Mathpal Technical Director

Automotive - One day consumers will buy new cars online, but there is a lot of offline interaction involved (even if the research is still driven online). There is a need for having a seamless connection between the two journeys, making life simpler for the consumers.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Chewy trusts the customer & front line service reps. I had a high value coupon to use & I just had to tell them & they credited the account, asked for me to send it in, immediately applied the discount, & shipped the product. Great example of how the nuances can provide frictionless experiences.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

More and more companies are removing human element from customer service. No contact us phone number or email or chat. Help may appear to be backed by a human but it becomes clear its just a program serving up links or send you to a forum that never seems to address the issue.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

In our case, we knew what our customers are saying but not how to engage them (earn loyalty). We started listening to them from our ticketing systems, social media, emails etc. The difference was a quick personalized response that shows we are listening. Sometimes that is also "Response to desire". 

Hitesh Mathpal Technical Director

1) clear internal vision genuinely focused on the customer 2) customer journey mapping & aligning efforts to delight the customer 3) relentless commitment to remove points of pain 4) simplifying ops to the fewest & repeatable "steps" 5) empower the front lines 6) customer metrics are top KPIs.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

1) Do core business the best you can. No perks etc. will save you from bad quality of your core business 2) Do more for your customers than they expect 3) Do by yourself as much as you can, don't ask your customers for any action you can exclude 4) Anticipate the needs, if it's possible

Sergey Belyaev Loyalty marketing.

1) Right and exceptional team 2) Local (country) freedom in decisions 3) Team's desire to make a breakthrough (not disruptive, but breakthrough) service 4) The right to make mistakes - we could try any features we believed in (of course we had to champion and calculate those initiatives).

Sergey Belyaev Loyalty marketing.

Your cable company - Comcast for me - will serve up movies instantly with a point and click of the remote, a product of technology for sure, but pre-digital/mobile app era level technology.

Autumn B

Insurance products of any kind (a lot of what is wrong with insurance is also true for credit, lending, mortgages and so forth). Maybe it goes even further to extend to any industry that employs some level of dynamic pricing and limits transparency to protect margins.

Anthony J

Two critical internal drivers to success: First is the internal will to invest in analyzing a dynamic landscape to anticipate what customers will desire in the future. Second is willingness to take large risks for high returns on developing solutions that meet the outputs of your initial analysis.  

Jeffrey Eker, Jr. CEO - Tediferous, LLC | Technology Portfolio Director

In your company do you teach all professional staff how to be value creators or innovators? -A focus on important needs -Shared understanding of value proposition, innovation, customer value, etc. -Recurring forums where teams present their value propositions for 2-5 minutes and get team feedback

Curtis Carlson, Ph.D. Founder and CEO

Look from another side: customers within different industries are the same people. It's the same customer buying coffee, filling the tank, subscribing for movies, going to dentist, buying an insurance, renting a house and etc. It's the same customer with the same needs and desires.

Sergey Belyaev Loyalty marketing.

Graze positions itself as tasty healthy snacks, portioned controlled, giving customers permission to snack. Customers vote on what was sent to them - which helps Graze improve future curation and engages customers. Curation allowed an innovative business model in the competitive sea of snacking.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Personalized 'box' senders - Lots of retailers are jumping in the 'monthly' or other periodic box sending, be it fashion, dog treats, kids toys. The more you like what's in the box by guessing your preferences (using your profile, etc) the more likely you are to keep it coming.

Autumn B

The M.A.C stores: They give you a free demo with the makeup that you wish to try. They provide recommendations about what would go with your skin tone, hair & skin type. In a store like this, you are bound to end up buying even more than you actually needed!

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Progressive Insurance rate comparisons: They provide the consumer with product information even where they may not offer the low bid. Trust develops, and eventually, that feeling leads to a purchase. With a curated approach, the sale results in the end rather than being pushed from the beginning.

Paul Korzeniowski B2B Content Producer

Ikea: Apart from providing great decor ideas through its app and in store, the Swedish company has also acquired Task Rabbit, which takes care of home improvement related services, right from fixing the broken sink to curating your furniture.

Anvesha Poswalia Marketer | Digital & Brand Strategist | Top 50 Digital Leaders India CMO Asia | Adobe Digi100

Schwan: sales people introduced customers to pizza or ice cream...high impulse indulgent items. Data showed that this was not the ideal start to the journey as it caused people to see Schwan's as an indulgence. Starting people with center of the plate items solidified the brand as a meal solution.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

One way to gather more info and involve the customer is asking for feedback on suggestions you make. Using a simple thumbs up or down you can start to gather richer insight to help your back end analytics be more effective at serving up the best recommendations.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

ex: The company knows you buy a certain type of latte since you order through their mobile app every day. The company also knows what people buy together from their sales data. Tee up the food most often purchased with the latte you always buy. Even better by people with the same profile as you,

Autumn B

Companies need to be like Goldilocks (what is "just right"). Maintaining balance is difficult with many opportunities to engage the customer. Sticking a survey in front of them every time they move from one spot to another on your site creates resentment rather than connection with your customers.

Paul Korzeniowski B2B Content Producer

New Cust: Serve up "profiles" and ask the customer to tell you which is most like them. Illustrate with concept boards and words. I am a fan of this approach since it results in a detailed algorithm that has proven to be effective AND doesn't require the customer to go through a boring survey.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Incentives work. Vendors can incentivize consumers (discounts, etc) to complete a survey to collect information and gain a better understanding of how to help them make a selection. Then use artificial intelligence and machine learning to better correlate information and more effective offerings.

Paul Korzeniowski B2B Content Producer

New Cust Ex: Suggest something that 'everyone' loves. Sites that suggest 'most popular' and 'bought most' are hoping you like what most other people like, and teeing those ideas up will resonate with you too. it doesn't hurt to have a psychological push to do what everyone else does too.

Autumn B

For some industries (health, weight mgmt) coaching is no longer a differentiator but a cost of entry. Coaching needs to be more than a brand interjecting themselves into a customer's life...it must be provide viewed as true support that is appreciated and valued.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Baby product companies communicate with moms before the baby is born. Baby Center app to know what to expect during pregnancy. An interesting example of pregnancy monitoring is Ovia which is not only coaching for moms-to-be, but also providing insurance companies and employers with health data.

Dawn Houghton Innovation Consultant

Coaching is a common approach within CPG food. Marketers communicate recipes and different ways to use the product. Why? CPG products have a dual challenge...they need to get into the pantry (initial sale) and out of the pantry (consumed) to drive future sales.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Kimberly-Clark Professional: Reducing the spread of germs to reduce employee sick days is a way to encourage purchase and use of a variety of hygiene products (hand sanitizer, facial tissue, hand soap, etc). This is a metric that can easily be monitored though not typically of concern to the company's buyer.

Dawn Houghton Innovation Consultant

Multi purpose products such as kitchen counter top mixer. People buy it for a particular use but reminding consumers of other applications (such as meat grinder or ice cream maker). Increased usage can increase the purchase cycle of what is traditionally an infrequent purchase.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

It is important to tailor coaching to where customers are in the journey. New customers will benefit from help on how to best use the product/service where existing customers can fall into a "rut" and benefit from reminders of what is possible (e.g. additional features, services, etc.).

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Financial Services: Ellevest will heavily leverage coaching emails based on your profile goals and needs (savings? growth? income?). They will pepper you with coaching emails to keep you on the right path. Topics range from tips on how to save more, write a budget, decide who to invest with, etc.

Autumn B

Insurance: Yearly policy renewals asking if anything changed. Savvy companies would mine data to learn if something did indeed change that would impact their coverage. Second, they should prompt the customer with examples of those changes and how/why that might cause coverage reconsideration.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Banks are realizing they need to better use customer data instead of just attempting to service customer needs. The realization of open banking creates a sense of urgency for deploying trusted financial advice across channels, asset levels, and price points (including free).

Rob Bickford COO, SVP, CIO and President

They key thing to me is curation, personalization and authenticity. Most tools I find simply become another tool or coach with a single minded focus which is their selling needs rather than my needs and supporting what I'm trying to accomplish.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

Take what customers desire and deliver it with no strings attached. IMO, many times firms tend to be self-centered and focus as much (and often more) on what the company will get from the customer (more leads, more revenue, more etc.) rather than vice versa.

Paul Korzeniowski B2B Content Producer

There is a fine line between coaching as a benefit and coaching as nuisance. The customer is more likely to embrace coaching if it directly meets their needs. Education and motivation are two benefits where coaching can help.

Dawn Houghton Innovation Consultant

Ideal situations are life "events" filled with lack of knowledge and high emotion. As such, consumers may not even realize needs or that products/services are available to assist them.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Outsourcing has been around forever so may be less data rich/cool than newer examples. Outsourcing companies certainly have access to data that would normally reserved just for the client resources in a non-outsourced scenario, and are expected to execute as needed to fulfill their contract.

Autumn B

More companies are moving to Managed Services to create predictability and defer to others with deeper competencies. This plays out in spades each and every day in IT Infrastructure, ceding the responsibility to outside parties to design, deliver, and execute within specification and price.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

Remote tech support and monitoring services provide ongoing 24/7 remote tech support and monitoring, If there is a problem their systems will find and correct it (in theory) without your intervention, then advise the customer after the fact.

Michael Phelan Start-Up CMO, Founder & Principal Go-to-Market Pros

A connected med tech monitoring service can identify, alert, and direct actions to avert health crises or death. You can see this working in areas like arrhythmia detection, hypertension, diabetes, and perhaps even a number of mental health situations where there are clear biometric warnings.

Anthony J

Refrigerators using Samsung Bixby automatically detect some of the foods you put inside. Samsung has launched a home hub which will include many in home devices along with the ability to automatically buy groceries with Instacart, browse recipes with the recipes app and even order in with GrubHub. 

Rob Bickford COO, SVP, CIO and President

On Star is a great example of the customer having trust of complete data flow to the company. There are infinite random variables that On Star will respond to such as accidents, car problems, etc. The privacy yield here is huge as the owner allows all their travel patterns to be recorded.

Anthony J

Neo Banks are reinventing the practices and processes associated with traditional banking. I've opened accounts with several Neo banks including Simple, Chime, Varo etc. No fees at all, higher savings rates, great "human" customer service and online chat, and 24/7 access.

Rob Bickford COO, SVP, CIO and President

Pill Pack puts medicines in little plastic bags labeled with days and times and supply is regularly replenished. This is great because people's medication regimens can be complicated. It also ensures a pharmacist is checking the combination and dosing.

Dawn Houghton Innovation Consultant

Another area where automatic execution strategy is prevalent is in the financial services industry. Real time alerts push information from the institution to the consumer sometimes surprising the customer as these can detect unauthorized purchases, log ins and more.

Rob Bickford COO, SVP, CIO and President

Whether commercial or personal, property management clearly represents this strategy. The customer empowers the company to watch over, care for and make decisions on what is needed. In many cases this means the company is an agent, deciding where and when something needs to be done or purchased.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

On Star is a great example of the customer having trust of complete data flow to the company. There are infinite random variables that On Star will respond to such as accidents, car problems, etc. The privacy yield here is huge as the owner allows all their travel patterns to be recorded.

Anthony J

Respond Desire: Polish Idea Bank has branch/coworking spaces on commuter trains (staffed w/bank employees). Any passenger can use the space while the train is moving, but priority is given to Idea Bank customers. Goal is to support small business owners by giving them a place to work from the road.

Michael Phelan Start-Up CMO, Founder & Principal Go-to-Market Pros

BMO Harris Bank recently opened a “Smart Branch” to combine the best of interactive technology and human advice. The branch includes video tellers to interact with customers, Smart ATMs, & on-demand video to showcase products and advice.

Michael Phelan Start-Up CMO, Founder & Principal Go-to-Market Pros

Coaching: In Spain, BBVA has an app feature called Bconomy, to help custs set goals, save money and track progress. The app also suggests how to save money and compares prices on things like utilities and groceries. In just 3 weeks Bconomy had 500k users.

Michael Phelan Start-Up CMO, Founder & Principal Go-to-Market Pros

Create a customer experience vision illustrating what success looks like...how we will service our customers. this should not be hindered by where we are today or perceived barriers to change. this becomes the anchor that drives where we go next.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

To provide a curated experience organization structure must change. The customer sees one company and expected to be treated like everyone knows them. When they talk to a customer service rep who does not know they opened their account last week, they become frustrated.

Paul Korzeniowski B2B Content Producer

If you don't change your filter from maximizing profit to one balanced by purpose, experience, security and profit, you can implement any continuous connection strategy you want and it will fail. Fail to be an authentic advocate and enabler for the customer, you will also fail.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

Many orgs are finding that that IT can actually lead in the new world of digital transformation in ways they couldn't before and are are learning from internally incubated ideas. When you can truly see IT that way, you'll have the beginnings of a transformation. The mindset shift is on all sides.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

HR plays an essential role in creating a new workforce-management practices, proactively managing changes, and using analytics to plan and coordinate the redeployment and reskilling of employees. Working closely with HR from the beginning is essential.

Rob Bickford COO, SVP, CIO and President

A close partnership with IT is critical. IT designs the overall systems lifecycle, manages the rollout, supports development, and performs ongoing maintenance. A successful partnership requires early and ongoing engagement with IT through a program steering committee and governance structures.

Rob Bickford COO, SVP, CIO and President

Focus first on Respond to Desire with analysis of existing products and services where Customer Desire is a combination of products and services. Then Curated Offering, banking products are highly compliance-driven and cannot be changed easily, but you can always change or improve your service.

Hitesh Mathpal Technical Director

Customers now expect a quick, simplistic and seamless account opening processes (respond to desire). Customers want to open an account on "their" terms. Failure to create a frictionless experience can result in a lifetime of lost business for the bank and a frustrating memory for the customer.

Rob Bickford COO, SVP, CIO and President

Curated offer: Banks offer a broad array of services many of which the avg consumer is unaware. Rather than serve up emails and mail with the latest product why not ask the cust a series of targeted questions then provide me with a curated list of what would be most applicable and valuable to me?

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

I do most of my banking activities via an app. Not only does the app execute my orders (Respond Desire), but also gets pro-active (Automated Execution) warning if my credit card gets used while my smart phone is in a different place.

Patrick Henz Head of GRC US, Regional Compliance Officer Americas, Futurist, Storyteller, AI.

Employ Coaching based of FAQ's: Identify several outreach methods - direct emails, 'splash page' advertisements on banking platforms. 'Prepare for your future', "Make sure you are ready for an emergency", and so on. Msgs would not be offered for those who have plans.

Autumn B

Banks see where customers need help to better manage their finances. They know about late charges, bounced checks or racking up atm fees. There is an opportunity for banks to coach their clients on different options. Tough sell internally as banks make a lot of money from clients "bad" behavior.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Inspire the why, help with how. And be in it for the long haul. Customer centricity is not a strategy, a tactic or a tool. It is fundamentally changing your organization's DNA. It's all about leadership so if it's not your forte then ensure you have partner who can coach and guide you.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Actions speak louder than words. If management funds new initiatives, executives constantly talk about it, and the business offers employees support (training, financial incentives), the chance for success increases. While it seems obvious, many management teams do not take those simple steps.

Paul Korzeniowski B2B Content Producer

PASSION- Brands that are committed to customer centricity are passionate, and truly believe the customer comes first. They believe that without the customer, they cannot succeed in business and see the world through the customer’s eyes.

Rob Bickford COO, SVP, CIO and President

Fundamentally, people need to be able to: 1) connect to higher cause 2) understand where they are going (vision) 3) understand how they work together (particularly in a world where that has fundamentally changed) 4) know what they are contributing to (where they fit in the strategy).

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

I've seen good ideas fail and "bad ideas" succeed. It comes down to execution: the combination of culture, planning and control, purpose-driven customer obsession and stellar decision making from the Exec Team (committed to a path and aligning all things behind it).

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

Failures: -Initiatives that were treated as initiatives rather than "how we do business" -Initiatives aren't framed with purpose driven customer obsession -Initiatives that emphasize technology over solutions -Initiatives that replicate everyone else which creates a never ending wheel to the bottom

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

The first job is establishing metrics that measure success and failure in new ways. Every department needs to think in terms of delivering noteworthy customer experiences. The initiation needs to come from the top down, be implemented in visible and tangible ways, and communicated across the org.

Paul Korzeniowski B2B Content Producer

1) Outline new goals for customer centricity 2) Show examples of success 3) Challenge employees come up with new ways to accomplish the goal 4) Select the best ideas to implement 5) Put stellar employees in 'super user' positions to peer influence the rest 6) Monitor outcomes, tweak, and repeat

Autumn B

The most successful approach I have observed is where the employees themselves come up with the ways they can change when presented with a new goal and challenged to come up with new pathways. If simply 'shown the way' they tend not to adopt.

Autumn B

IDEATING or IDEA-ATHONS: Start with subject such as customer satisfaction, pour in as many ideas as possible, empower the employees who have shared best ideas, recognize and reward them. This way employees will feel responsible and take ownership which is key to continued success.

Masarrat A Shah Business Program Manager - SIAM Process Architect

Implementation of a Customer Board to orchestrate and comprehensively steer all company activities affecting the customer experience. As a result, company activities that influence customer experience would be reviewed and championed by this board.

Julius Golovatchev Co-Founder & CDIO / COO

AT&T's Future Ready gives employees an online portal showing open positions, salary ranges, and skills needed. Through partnerships with universities and online providers employees take classes and earn certifications. In just a few years, nearly 60,000 workers have earned those certifications.

Rob Bickford COO, SVP, CIO and President

Ability to provide extraordinary experience: "If I asked what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse"-Henry Ford. Sometimes the justification is a step change in experience. If your gut says it will create extraordinary experience, in a world where experience matters, it's critical.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

Continuous connection with customer will enable company to receive multifaceted feedback and suggestions faster than earlier. this will help company to identify areas for improvement and create initiatives for the same.

Vijay Tambwekar Customer Experience, Growth through Transformation, Delivery & Operational Excellence

Catching up is not winning the race. They obviously can be helpful, but they are not going to create significant new customer and enterprise value. In some cases they will give the impression of succeeding while actually missing the main opportunities in the new white spaces.

Curtis Carlson, Ph.D. Founder and CEO

The unknown and typically unaccounted for cost, culture shift, skillset shift and business model shift. The people running your business today, the old way typically aren't the folks to envision the new way and in many cases don't have the needed skills.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

Continuous Communication is an ongoing initiative and new ideas and aspects of connection would be included on regular basis. The key here is to ensure that the right technology backbone is created so that the deployment as well as refinement becomes easy.

Vijay Tambwekar Customer Experience, Growth through Transformation, Delivery & Operational Excellence

Human resource cost With new processes and tools, you need training. Training is a cost. Also, to fill the talent gap you need to hire more people. In the transformation journey, human resource cost plays a significant role.

Hitesh Mathpal Technical Director

Start with purpose. Then get to customer. Major worksteam. How will you define voice of customer? Major worksteam. You understand your customer. What journey do you give them? What journey do you want? Major workstream.

Brian Chossek Purpose, Customer Experience, Automation, Change Management, Strategic Planning

Value-Creation Forums: Have the teams meet every 2 weeks and present short versions of their value propositions. Each team receives feedback from all present -- i.e., what is good, what needs improvement from eyes of the customer, and eyes of the investor. The teams learn and motivate each other.

Curtis Carlson, Ph.D. Founder and CEO

The biggest risk factor is not creating the value proposition first.

Curtis Carlson, Ph.D. Founder and CEO

Business Experiments bring the developed prototypes into an external environment and test the idea and its most critical assumptions with customers. Organizations get the chance to understand their idea from a market perspective in contrast to the mere internal-oriented prototyping phase.

Julius Golovatchev Co-Founder & CDIO / COO

Piloting is a savvy way to vet hypotheses, validate what is needed to maximize the impact. Leadership loves piloting as it demonstrates innovation in a thoughtful and measured way. It also provides the proof points to influence the broader organization as new initiatives require significant change.

Christine Hade Omni Channel Brand Marketing & Innovation Executive

Ideally a subset - channel, geography, or brand - that could be carved off with a smaller scope to try a continuous connection initiative. The smaller scope would help ensure a 'bite size' trial run to learn how to do this properly within your organization without attempting a full scale transition.

Autumn B