In this edition of the QT: The potential of good CX meets the reality of implementation, data privacy and trust are inextricably intertwined, the big money might have already been spent this holiday season, and the dangers of hero worship. Happy almost-holiday!
CX 
The State of Enterprise Customer Journey Mapping
Quick-Take: Some 39% of respondents say they have and use defined customer journey maps, 29% say they are currently building or testing customer journey maps, 22% say they plan to create maps in the future, and only 10% say they have no plans to create maps.
Five Lessons On CX From Eli Lilly And Co.
Quick-Take: Aligning revenue growth and the experiences of customers and employees pays big dividends. Again, the goal of engaging employees and improving customer experience is to add corporate value. But improving results depends on integrating customer experience management and employee experience management, Hill says.
Delivering CX that meets the consumer at their moment of need
Quick-Take: Research suggests that 84% of consumers (spanning five generations) will express frustration when they have to reintroduce themselves to a brand when they pivot between channels (for example, from a company website to a chat bot, to a phone call).
We’re In The Age Of Customer Divisibility
Quick-Take: General estimates are that 60% to 80%+ of CX programs fail to meet objectives. Too many companies, executives, and managers have gotten burned out and disappointed with CX due to misunderstanding and misapplying techniques thought to be personalized and relationship-focused and leveraging customer loyalty behavior.
PERSONALIZATION
Personalized marketing can be ineffective and creepy
Quick-Take: Consumers react poorly, studies found, when they receive messages based too closely on their transaction history or if they realize the information being used to target them was collected from another source’s website.
DATA & PRIVACY
Nation-State Hackers Breach Cybersecurity Firm
Quick-Take: The New York Times said the “stunning theft,” which FireEye disclosed on Tuesday, was “akin to bank robbers who, having cleaned out local vaults, then turned around and stole the FBI’s investigative tools.”
The Rising Concern Around Consumer Data And Privacy
Quick-Take: Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report, 81% of consumers said they need to trust a brand to buy from them.
TRENDS
Retailers Rethink Customer Engagement For The Holidays
Quick-Take: Signs of the consumer’s collective mindset are already disappointing. Over the important Thanksgiving weekend through Cyber Monday, shoppers spent 14% less than the corresponding five-day period in 2019, an average of $312, down from $362, according to the National Retail Federation.
TECHNOLOGY
Why Big Machine Learning Models Must Go Small
Quick-Take: For example, GPT-3, this summer’s massive, buzzworthy model for natural language processing, reportedly cost $12 million to train. What’s worse, UMass Amherst researchers found that the computing power required to train a large AI model can produce over 600,000 pounds of CO2 emissions – that’s five times the amount of the typical car over its lifespan.
CONSUMER PSYCHOLOGY
Research Finds Consumer Attitudes Differ Considerably Between East and West
Quick-Take: Although large majorities of consumers around the world—ranging from 67% in Japan to 81% of Australia—agreed that value for the money is an important consideration, only a small minority cited such value as one of the leading needs they considered in their most recent dining or auto purchase.
How to handle customer data responsibly after COVID-19
Quick-Take: People’s concerns don’t always marry up with their actions. People may appear cautious or even concerned about sharing data on social media but their continued rise in adoption and prevalence suggests people are willing to overcome their fears in order to make use of such platforms.
NOT CX
Some non-CX thoughts on Tony Hsieh
Quick-Take: If our perspective is so far distorted that our heroes can do no wrong, it’s not a huge leap to fall into the trap of considering our opponents as incapable of humanness either. What if, instead, we judged people’s actions as actions, and them each as more than just the sums of their parts?
RANDOM BUT ENLIGHTENING
Reminders of one’s middle name lead to increased guilt and reduced indulgence
Quick-Take: The researchers found that reminders of one’s middle name were associated with increased feelings of guilt, but only among participants in the United States.
