2023 wrapped, and a thank you
The future of being a digital customer is in our hands. It's our future to make. So a huge thank you to you, the Customer Futures community. For being part of this amazing journey.
Hi everyone, thanks for coming back to Customer Futures. Each week I unpack the disruptive shifts around digital wallets, Personal AI and digital customer relationships.
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It started as a release valve.
A place to capture my thoughts about where things are going around digital ID. Around digital wallets and customer engagement. And around Personal AI.
But the Customer Futures newsletter has become something different.
A way for me to learn in public. To explore how these amazing digital developments are coming together, fast.
And to learn about a remarkable online conversation that’s emerging.
About the future of being a digital customer.
So first of all, I wanted to say thank you.
Thank you for reading. Over half of you are opening the newsletter each week, which is beyond amazing.
Thank you for responding. Each week I get brilliant feedback, suggestions, comments, requests, and introductions to new and exciting people.
And finally thank you for writing. I’m very much standing on the shoulders of giants. Making sense of what’s already out there. Much of which has been published, posted or tweeted by people like you in the Customer Futures community.
To round out this final 2023 edition, I wanted to re-post some of the most-read articles over the last 12 months.
The things that helped me think differently. To see differently.
And once you see them, you can’t unsee them.
The future of being a digital customer is in our hands. It's our future to make.
So a massive thank you to you, the Customer Futures community for being here. For showing up.
We had the first Customer Futures meetup last night in London. And it was brilliant to bring together a few of those working in, and on, this shared digital future for customers.
We discussed, debated, and shared stories and scars. You can feel the excitement. Things are definitely on the move. And I couldn’t be more positive about 2024 and what’s to come.
More meetups are planned - watch this space.
For now, Merry Christmas. And thank you again.
Welcome back to the future of being a digital customer. And welcome back to the Customer Futures newsletter.
In this week’s edition
What if we design for customer friction?
Most organisations have been designed ‘inside-out’... here's the $BN opp you are missing
Digital wallets are the new accounts
Designing for *less* engagement
I have bad news... your Personal AI isn't really Personal
RegTech’s Quiet Backdoor to Wallet Adoption
The 'right to be forgotten' really does exist... but it’s not the customer’s
It's not about your identity - it's about your *identifiers*
The biggest identity market is the one you’ve never heard of
… plus other links about the future of digital customers you don’t want to miss
Let’s Go.
What if we design for customer friction?
“If businesses automate away all the wasteful steps and interactions… and customers do the same on their side, then: What’s really left? What will an AI-powered customer journey really mean?
“‘Customer engagement’ is about to be completely redefined, but by the customer.
“Let’s assume that our personal AIs will become smart enough to handle the things people don’t want to do. So what’s left is… the real customer engagement. Those steps, those moments, where customers want to be engaged.
“By automating and eradicating the Bad Stuff, we can strip things back to only the Important and Engaging Stuff.
“Let’s call it Good Friction.”
Most organisations have been designed ‘inside-out’... here's the $BN opp you are missing
“Businesses only really care about themselves.
“They focus on what they can build and offer. Their strengths. Their most profitable processes. Their USPs.
“And you can tell by looking at how businesses design their customer relationships.”
“It's about a lack of focus on the customer. They can’t see the real customer journey. Real needs. They are blind to everything that happens before people show up at the shop, branch, or on the website.
“These businesses are all designed inside-out.
“But here's the kicker: by connecting to CustomerTech tools, businesses themselves will be able to interact all the way across the real customer journey.
“Spot new opportunities. To add value. To interact. To help.
“And grow revenues and customer engagement like never before.
“They can finally design themselves outside-in. And it’s going to change everything.”
Digital wallets are the new accounts
“Once individuals can show up independently, with their own digital tools - digital wallets with verifiable, data, identity and digital assets - then we have something new, something special.
“It’s a New. Customer. Channel.
“Once a business asks for some data from a customer’s digital wallet, they have the opportunity to form a new digital connection with that customer.
“A persistent one. A verifiable one. A private one. An auditable, secure and intelligent one.
“My goodness, what business wouldn’t want that? Imagine plugging that connection directly into business systems and processes like CRM.
“Yes, digital wallets can hold and manage assets. And identity. And portable, verifiable, authentic data. But with the narrower ‘data and assets’ framing, we risk missing the larger market opportunity.
“Digital wallets become the new account.”
Designing for *less* engagement
“We are addicted to our mobiles, especially social media. It’s because many (most?) companies are designing for maximum session length and repeat engagement. Facebook notoriously created a team focused on extending engagement — they named themselves ‘the Dopamine team’.
“Instead, we should be designing for just the right level of engagement - and in some cases no interaction at all.
“To free up time drawing with my kids, not shopping for car insurance policies online.
“With new digital customer tools - ones we can trust and control ourselves - we’ll be able to re-imagine customer experiences. To focus on building products that create meaningful connections. Ones that fulfill us.
“Not time-wasting interactions that purposefully create addictive habits.
“It’s time to design for the right engagement.
“It’s time for the ‘oxytocin team’.”
I have bad news... your Personal AI isn't really Personal
“These new personalised AIs are going to become breathtakingly intimate with us. As Yuval Noah Harari has predicted since at least 2017, these AI are going to know us better than we know ourselves.
“So if an AI is really run by someone else, should we have some boundaries?
“What’s stopping from an AI really being ‘mine’?
“Is it physics (it’s too slow, too complicated to run the AI on your local phone or laptop) or economics (it’s cheaper to run the AI centrally)?
“Or something else like the skills of the people using it? Will it be too technical to run? They said that about software applications once. Now just look at the App Stores.
“So we are going to need to differentiate ‘Personal AI’ (mine) from ‘Personalised AI’ (theirs).
RegTech’s Quiet Backdoor to Wallet Adoption
“I can see Chief Compliance Officers starting to pay more attention to digital identity wallets as a ‘Reg Tech’ option. A legitimate, risk-minimising way to help organisations collect less data.
“All while still performing the compliance checks they need to run the business day-to-day. Over time, RegTech might just become a quiet backdoor to wallet adoption, certainly across the EU.
“Especially when the prize is to turn the compliance team into a profit centre.
“Rather than get beaten up because the Compliance Team is usually the Department Of ‘No’.
The 'right to be forgotten' really does exist... but it’s not the customer’s
“Like it or not, 3rd parties have now become our default identity providers. Our digital backup when we can’t access other digital services.
“A single point of failure.
“But what happens if it’s actually these 3rd party identity providers who lock us out?
“We can't access other services. Our lives get frozen almost instantly, and completely.
“The 'right to be forgotten' really does exist... but it’s not the customer’s. It belongs to the 3rd party identity provider, who can choose to lock us out and forget the customer whenever they want.”
It's not about your identity - it's about your *identifiers*
“Our invisible identifiers are usually created by businesses. Dropped in our digital pocket without us seeing. Attached to our devices, each browser, each app, and even each ‘session’. It goes on.
“Here’s why it matters: If you can control the identifier, you can control the data flows. If you control the data, you can control the value that’s created.
“And if you control the value, you win.
“With DIDs, businesses will enable a whole new category of direct, secure, private and permissioned digital relationships. And will unlock new customer experiences, new business models and new levels of customer trust.”
The biggest identity market is the one you’ve never heard of
“Business identity - and critically company reputation - is about to change forever. Because it will no longer just be digital. It will be verifiable instantly. Anywhere. By anyone.
“OI is the next, and third identity market. Getting ready for prime time.
“And just like ID for employees and ID for people, ID for organisations is a huge thorn in the side of the digital economy. It’s why it’s ripe for digital disruption.
“Is today the day you became aware of the biggest identity market that you’ve never heard of?”
OTHER THINGS
As usual, there are far too many interesting and important Customer Futures things to include this week. So here are some more links to chew on over the festive break:
Apple to open up the iPhone’s NFC chip in Europe? READ
CRM: Custobot Relationship Management READ
71% of B2C marketers believe a wallet address is more valuable than an email READ
Google - yes, that Google - testing proxy scheme to hide IP addresses for privacy READ
How Machine Customers Will Impact Future Decision Making READ
Apple Report says 2.6 billion personal records compromised by data breaches in past two years READ
Empowering users: A universal interface for digital ad preferences READ
Ben Evan’s 2023: AI and everything else READ
And that’s a wrap. Stay tuned for more Customer Futures in 2024, both here and over at LinkedIn.
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