Why washing machines and digital customer tools free us up to focus on what matters

Home appliances freed us up

When the washing machine arrived in our homes in the 1950s, it represented a dawn of modern luxury.

But it also had a huge impact on our economy.

What used to be a time-consuming, dirty and manual part of the day became automated and simple. It freed up many hours for millions, especially women.

Domestic appliances became part of a much longer story about the industrialisation and automation of tasks at home. 

We still have issues - but this time it’s digital

We still have many time-consuming and manual tasks to deal with every day - but they are related to our digital lives rather than scrubbing socks.

We’re updating our details. Logging in. Making payments. Managing a blizzard of notifications. Shuffling painfully between different online accounts. 

It’s counter intuitive to think about, but our digital lives and data are still very much pre-industrial.

But new digital customer tools are going to automate and simplify many of our complicated, boring and unecessary digital tasks. Over time, they will utlimately change how we experience products and services full stop.

Automation isn’t just helpful - it’s empowering

We’ll be able to automate away the admin, and eliminate entire steps along the customer journey.

Digital interactions that used to take eight steps will only take one. Processes that used to take three weeks will take only 2 minutes. 

It means we’ll be able to focus on what matters.

That could be to help make an important decision, or to access the right help at the right time. But either way, our new digital customer tools are going to change our lives for the better.

Just like washing machines have.

***

If you want to read more about how customer relationships and personal data are about to change forever, why not sign up!