From CRM to CX to CE… (Customer Empowerment)

CRM, or Customer Relationship Management emerged as a software solution and business definition when new technical capabilities emerged. The new possibility that emerged (in 1995 or so) was that three main business functions (marketing, selling and customer service) could be underpinned by a single database; the mythical ‘single view of the customer’.

Customer Experience (CX), an extension of CRM, emerged (2005 onwards) when new digital channels emerged (web, mobile apps, social). This enabled organisations to think and act more holistically, managing many more points of interaction and transaction with customers.

We contend that the next customer related discipline to emerge will be Customer Empowerment. Again this happens when new things become technically possible. Somewhat ironically, this new capability emerges when relationship management tools are built on the customer side to complement those built, via CRM, on the organisation side. That is not as crazy as it may sound; by definition relationships must have at least two parties.

DataPal is very much about Customer Empowerment. And relationship management tools built on the customer side that then connect to those within organisations. Just as CRM and CX enable ‘one to many’ (one organisation many customers), DataPal enables one individual to build relationships with the many organisations they engage.

DataPal is therefore the inverse of CRM.

So what capabilities does that require? We have the following:

• Identity and identifiers management for the individual

• Data management for the individual

• Gather and maintain data and its provenance

• Augment data through AI and other processes

• Share data with granular permissions and an audit log

• Connectivity (via two wayAPIs) to:

• Organisations

• Applications

• Fiduciary Agents

• Non-fiduciary Agents

• Data Services

So how does this lead to and create Customer Empowerment? Let’s start by defining what we mean by that. Here’s our take:

Customer Empowerment is the series of processes enacted by organisations that consciously enable the customer inside and outside of the immediate product/ service relationship. The objective of customer empowerment is to ensure that products and services provided are a good fit for a customer’s needs and requirements. And that the overall experience from initial engagement, transaction, ownership/ subscription and dis-engagement is optimised from the customer perspective.

The essential difference therefore between customer empowerment and its predecessors then is that orientation. Of course this may seem like common sense - ‘meet customer’s need’s - at a profit’ is the definition of marketing that I have held since day one of my Marketing Degree many years back. The practical reality these days is that many organisations are now highly optimised for their own perspective. Just try getting out of an online paid subscription to see what we mean. That’s what the digital transformation of organisations has done. So one way to think about customer empowerment is that it facilitates and drives digital transformation for individuals (in their guises as customers, citizens, users, donors, employees, patients et al).

In order to engage in Customer Empowerment organisations will need to do one main thing (that they should be doing already but are typically not), make relationship and product/ service data accessible to and portable under the control of the customer. In other words, move beyond the mind-set in which ‘lock-in’, surveillance and entrapment are a good thing. Move to the world of active dialogue and positive conversations between customer and organisation. Think Apple Store, Genius Bar et al as opposed to an offshore contact centre or ‘drive to chatbot’ customer experience.

So how can this accessibility and portability of relationship and product data be done in practice? 

If we assume DataPal as the data intermediary acting on behalf of the customer then we think there are four obvious ways to make data portable and step towards customer empowerment.

1. Two-way API connection, i.e. both parties can exchange data through the same connection

2. One-way API connection, i.e. organisations can send data direct to their customer’s chosen intermediary)

3. Enable a machine-ready self-service download from a customer portal

4. Deliver a machine-ready file via email/ text/ chat as part of the transaction flow (i.e. a smart receipt)

DataPal can support all of those models, and are now ready to work through proofs of concept with organisations that are willing to cross that chasm to Customer Empowerment. Organisations that are in e-commerce, or have/ are a loyalty programme; or use Salesforce CRM are our sweet-spot as all that is required in the data sense is already in place - just waiting to be hooked up.

So if your organisation is willing and ready to try building/ re-building genuine digital relationships with your customers get in touch about our proof of concept programme.