Pictures At An Exhibition: Michael Maoz Kicks Some Intent-Driven Butt Into Gear

Got to see Michael Maoz (Gartner's superstar analyst) both hanging out and presenting at the SAP CRM Theater. Aside from just the sheer pleasure of seeing someone I count among my special friends, he did a GREAT job at the presentation, unveiling some new material on CRM and the social actions of the new customer. Some of his stuff was validating to me because it overlapped (with different verbal assignments) what I've been saying. Some of it was outright fascinating & I think he personally is onto something here. I'm going to summarize in about 200 words what he said for an hour so needless to say this will be the spare version. Gartner Research apparently found that CRM is THE top priority for businesses in 2008 - in part due to the economic difficulties - because people need to retain customers when the going is bad. but what was interesting is the different spins different segments have - for examples the biggest business issue is enhancing and retaining relationships with customers (8.1 on scale of 10) while #2 is tracking new customers (pay attention Business Objects!!) (8.0/10). When CEOs only were queried they thought that sales productivity (36%) and customer care (35%) were the #1 & #2 issues respectively - which for those of who think in a classically siloed way - are two of the three pillars of CRM. When IT was queried about their business expectations the number 1 for 2008 (and '07 & '06) was improving business processes and #2? Attracting & retaining customers. Innovation went from #10 in 2007 to #3 in 2008. He then went thorough a significant amount of other Gartner numbers of which, I'll let you in on a few more. The availability of channels for the customer has increased in both scope and complexity and what was fascinating is that as self-service via the web increased to 50% of channel activity in customer service in 2007, the parts of customer service that still relied on humans (e.g. contact center CSRs) found that it got far worse for them and even with all the new technologies and the reduction in the amount of human to human contact (though, for example, T-Mobile has 300 million incoming so I can't see that calls have been reduced THAT much), the attrition rate among CSRs is worse than ever. The reason? If someone goes to the extent of calling, given they can take care of many of their problems or queries via the web, they are REALLY REALLY mad. REALLY mad. Really....mad. The lesser problems have been solved online. See the theme here? Customers, customers, and, oh crap, yeah, all things related to customers. Which means that CRM is the #1 priority for us'n in 2008. But, and this was the kicker, as Michael said, his daughters don't know that. They do their purchasing due to what they are told to on Facebook. They ask their friends via Facebook, or MySpace or perhaps use the aggregators like FriendFeed to find out where to go tonight or the best place to get a bargain handbag or how to figure out a more complex purchase. All that "stuff" that companies are doing doesn't mean squat to them. He also pointed out in a very interesting way that he's had three varieties of Toyota SUV, or car or lux car (Lexus), and has been a committed Toyota customer for 10 years, but Toyota didn't grow with him so it couldn't make a suggestion about what might interest him. Why not? THEY DIDN'T KNOW. All they know is that he bought some cars for some reasons other than what they can fathom. In fact, I find this to be a HUGE problem with companies and a complex one to solve. How do you grow with the customers? Each of them grows differently and yet, if you knew, the likelihood of repurchase or of a new purchase or cross sell or whatever salesy terms you are comforted by, goes up exponentially because the emotional state attached to that knowledge and indication of that knowledge to the customer is that "hey, they CARE," or in a Sally Fieldsian way, "They like me. They REALLY like me." Procter & Gamble is the only company I'm aware of doing that "growing up with the customer" to some degree. They have a product called "Sparkle Body Spray" that in 2005 (long story with this that you should attend my classes to hear) was aimed at the 14-15 year old girl market and had a social site that was associated with the themes that you'd find with that age group. Contests, blogs with colors associated with the body spray (anti-perspirant) scents, putting together dream date and then emailing info or text messaging info to friends, etc. This was wildly successful, all word of mouth built with 12,000 unique visitors a week who averaged 25 minutes per visit on the site. But if you look at it now, when the girls are now around 17-18, the site is tied to another site "Because You're Hot" which has video dance contests that win you a JLo music video slot and surveys about the sexiest scent, etc. In other words, the site is growing up with its audience. (BTW, this is me, not Michael in that red paragraph. I don't want to put words in his mouth) He made the point that his kids and many others are moving to control their own experiences outside the channels provided by the company and this is an inevitable march. This peer to peer relationship, the external communities not in the control of the business, are all creating a new set of expectations which he identified as:

• 24/7 availability of services
• want to be needed, recognized
• Dialogue, experience control
• Give them, show them you have domain expertise

The optimal enterprise here would not be the current one which he called the function driven enterprise, but instead the "Intent-driven Enterprise." That is a company that knows not just what I want, but knows my intent - what are the reasons I want what I want, and what WILL I be interested in down the road - the knowledge of which they got from me, senor, senorita, senora customer. He then identified the top "functionality" requirements for the Intent-driven Enterprise:

1. It is in sync with evolving needs (key here is evolving)
2. It engages community opinions
3. It is reliable & trustworthy
4. It allows independent ratings
and
5. It uses "like type" comparisons (similar here to the Edelman Trust Index findings - the most trusted person I know is someone like me).

Because this is so complex, success can't be defined as good "suboptimal" results (good marketing, good sales, good service, etc.) but has to be defined as the engagement of an integrated ecosystem made available to the customer.

He (almost) closed with what I would call a perceptual model for the future customer. He said the customer had to have the illusion of free will, of the availability of multiple paths for exploration and of the means to achieve several goals with the business. While the business is needed to provide it, the business reality is that the paths are probably pre-determined, that there is one process that is truly available and that one goal is there for the customer. Michael wasn't advocating this, he was saying that's what the business reality is and probably will be. This is very much the same concept in a somewhat different framework that Joe Pine 2 advocates in "Authenticity" which is fake real in a manner of speaking. My take on this has been more benign since I don't think that fake ANYTHING is what needs to happen but I do think that you don't need to own luxury, you need to "feel luxurious." You know the old saying, "whatever floats your boat?" That is what I mean, but the business has to see it from what it costs them to make the boat that the customer wants to float, and no one in their right mind can argue this is wrong. I do think there is an optimal state possible, though. I think that the engagement of the entire ecosystem of the company for the customer opens up options for the customer that give them increased degrees of freedom while at the same time allowing the enterprise to execute its business plan successfully. Meaning a "real real" collaboration. Primarily because there are a lot of forces involved in an ecosystem - not just one company and one customer but multiple value chains associated with either the customer or the enterprise. What Michael (though not in this presentation, more in discussions) and I make abundantly clear in our own inimitable styles is that business value and customer value while sharing the word "value" are two very different ideas that have to work in conjunction for both the customer to get what he/she wants & the business to get what it wants.

Pay attention to this "intent-driven enterprise" thing - its important and this is the first I've seen it. I hope that Gartner gets on board with Michael's thinking here. It would do them well to be more than cursory about it. This is really good stuff.

Comments

[PaulSweeney]

Nice post. I like it, "the intention based enterprise".

[Guido Oswald]

I totally agree with the intent-driven enterprise. Amdocs (the company I work for) propagates the "Intentional Customer Experience" which goes into the same direction - although I think the phrase was chosen because of its high density off Buzz-Words ;)