An Interface Refresh Can Revitalize Existing Features

Applications are not always brand new. We all use many applications that have been in use for years, perhaps decades. For mobile applications, refreshing the interface is a requirement, rather than a nice to have. If you are lucky, it will be delivered by updates to the underlying OS at little development cost (e.g. notifications in iOS 10). If unlucky, matching your interface to the esthetic of an OS may require you to redesign your app from the ground up. If done well, redesign can be more than refreshing for customers, it can be reengaging.

Personalization Becomes Participation (In the Words of Monty Python)

If you are stepping up to responsibility for Customer Experience (CX) in your business, you may be considering the title as Chief Experience Officer or CEO. However, your CEO may question others having the same acronym as themselves, so the industry uses CXO. There is a better choice – Chief Participation Officer. Customers are individuals, and respond more deeply to a meaningful level of personalization. The real result of focus on customer experience is more than connection or engagement or permission to market. Participation with you as a business is the true success criteria for customer experience management.

Delight is the Success Criteria for Application Code

The hardest decision in coding applications is to admit your users are NOT delighted – and that you have to rebuild. It takes discipline to move application development from functional to delightful. It can only happen when there is clearly understanding by coders of the purpose of the code. Connecting coders to customers is hard work. It takes deeper effort from product managers and marketing teams, though the payoff is worth it.

The ‘I’ in CIO is for Information

For the last sixty years, the title for the person in charge of IT should really have been the Chief Digitization Officer rather than Chief Information Officer (CIO). Today’s technology enables the CIO to focus on information as well as technology. As CIO, you must own the connection of your customers to your business – the customer experience (CX). Personalizing this experience will require collecting more information about your customers. There are multiple information collection approaches, and you must select those that will give you sufficient details, and more importantly match the type of relationship desired with your customers.