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ICX Symposium: The future of customer experience is coming fast

With the Interactive Customer Experience Association set to host 'Inflection Point: The Future Tech of Customer Experience,' aimed at getting B2C brands ready for the future of customer engagement tech, we talked to the Association's executive director about what to expect.

October 8, 2015 by Christopher Hall — w, t

The future is coming at you one second at a time; better get ready.

The Interactive Customer Experience Association is set to host its first Symposium later this month, "Inflection Point: The Future Tech of Customer Experience," aimed at getting B2C brands ready to understand and engage customers in ways that can hardly be imagined today, according to the ICX Association website.

The Symposium, held Oct. 27 and 28 in Atlanta, will take a closer look at how Moore's Law is revolutionizing the worlds of retail and foodservice, creating opportunities for deeply personal engagements with consumers — opportunities that brands have to grab hold of or be left behind.

According to the ICX Association website:

The evolution of technology, like the forward motion of time, slows for no one. Gordon Moore, one of the co-founders of Intel, observed this phenomenon in the late 60's when he extrapolated that computing would double in power, with costs reduced by half, in two year cycles.

Fifty years later, as Moore's Law continues to count out the rhythm of innovation in the tech sector, the next generation of computing technology promises to quicken the rate at which the rise in computing power and reduction of costs are impacted.

This means that within a very short time, B2C brands will have the means to understand and engage customers in ways that can hardly be imagined today.

The winners in this new era will be the brands that reshape their culture, their processes and people to respond boldly to new technologies while never forgetting the bedrock truths about human nature and relationships that are the foundations on which these new technologies will rest.

We reached out to ICX Association Executive Director Scott Slucher to ask him a few questions about the upcoming Symposium and what it holds in store for attendees. Here's what he had to say:

Q: Can you tell us some more about the symposium and what it's about? (What's your elevator pitch?)

Slucher: The ICX Symposium series consists of regional events held a few times throughout the year that are designed to take B2C marketers on a deep dive of a single topic on the customer experience spectrum. Each event is a short, concentrated dose of CX insight you won't find anywhere else, with interactive sessions and a cocktail party designed to give attendees plenty of time to work through their specific challenges and network. I always say, give us 22 hours and we'll give you a valuable new perspective on the customer experience.

Q: Can you explain a bit more what you mean by Inflection point? How does Moore's law affect retailers on the front lines?

Slucher:Great question. As B2C brands depend more-and-more on technological deployments to engage and understand customers, they are stepping onto a treadmill of innovation that keeps getting faster and faster – I'm imagining George Jetson about now.

The reason this so-called treadmill keeps moving faster is because of Moore's Law, which simply says that computing power doubles every other year, while the costs halve. Simply put, technology is always changing. Not only that, but the tech you bought two years ago is probably on the verge of being obsolete.

The inflection point we refer to is a moment in the not-too-distant future when this every-other-year rhythm of innovation will increase exponentially due to exciting new developments in chip technology that are being developed right now.

The bottom line to retailers? Don't be caught flat-footed. While no one can predict the future, we can all prepare for a future that is rapidly changing by streamlining our processes, understanding our customers at the deepest levels — basically preparing to be more nimble, more tech savvy and more in touch with who we are culturally.

Q: What will be some of the highlights of the show? Why should people attend?

Slucher:We have a tremendous lineup of speakers who will cover the full intersection of technology and the customer experience.

Our keynote panel is a trio of leaders from The Home Depot, Chick-fil-A and Fiserv who understand this inflection point and are preparing their respective organizations for an exciting opportunity. They will put this moment we are taking about in perspective and set the table for what is to come.

Next, we have Ravi Sirigineedi from Intel, who will give a talk titled "Transforming Retail with Responsive Stores" that explores how the Internet of Things is enabling retailers to interact with customers on a one-to-one basis.

Day two kicks off with Lyle Bunn sharing his research and insights on the future of digital signage/digital media that will get more specific about the gadgetry of tech deployments.

Brands always want to know about analytics and measurements, and we asked Jeremy Sublett, the managing partner of Composable Systems, to share his insights into the techniques and trends B2C brands should be thinking about as they prepare for a more tech-driven future.

Finally, we close out the event with what may be the most important message of the event, which comes from Laura Davis-Taylor and Ed King, from MaxMedia. They'll talk about the customer. More specifically, they'll address the elements of engaging customers emotionally, and how creating an emotional bond through your tech deployments is critical to success.

If that weren't enough, we'll have a fun cocktail/dinner reception at the end of the first afternoon, where attendees can network with our speakers and each other and really dig into their specific challenges.

Q: Sounds like it's going to be a lot about Big Data and the Internet of Things, two of the buzziest buzzwords that ever buzzed; (a) how do those things come into play, if at all, in the retail future you're envisioning/describing?

Slucher:As you know, buzzwords come and buzzwords go, but what remains constant is the necessity of treating customers like the individuals they are. The best brands get this, and they're the ones we read all the articles and case studies about.

I think you can extend this to tech deployments. The best ones are the ones that most closely mimic one-to-one human-like interactions. They anticipate our needs. They are helpful. They have heart and soul.

From where I sit, Big Data and IoT make it easier for B2C brands to create one-to-one interactions with customers by collecting more granular data about the customer that can then be used to create meaningful interactions that are based on that knowledge – much as we do with those we interact with every day.

Q: And (b) how do retailers/brands/agencies move past buzzwords into actionable insights or plans?

Slucher:There's an old truism, from Peter Drucker, I believe: Culture eats strategy for breakfast. I think that culture is where customer experience really begins.

Why are so many retail associates and QSR servers so sullen and disaffected? My guess, and I'm not the only one who believes this, is that it comes from the top. With so many B2C corporations focused first and foremost on the next quarterly projection, the message that comes down through the ranks is "efficiency first, the customer second." Many B2C brands are run like factories, and the front line staff — the very people who interact directly with the customer — know this. They are basically interchangeable parts, and we see the results of this when we get poor service when we go to get a burger or buy a pair of jeans.

To truly move past meaningless slogans and bolted-on solutions that are forgotten about by the turn of the next season, brands must look at their culture with the clinical eye of a scientist and take inventory of what their priorities are vs. what they maybe should be. There are a lot of brands out there that are like the guy trying to kick a two-pack-a-day smoking habit. This is a very difficult thing to do, I know, but it CAN be done. We just need to be real with ourselves and stop blowing smoke.