Wow, what a week – I’ve been focusing in on customer experience this week – and wow my brain is twitching with reflections and predictions.

The biggest reflection comes from a session at work where people were asked the classic question .

“Tell me when you have had a great experience when dealing with a business/organisation.”

Chris Chambers was first to shout out and it’s reflecting on his experience that has got me thinking.

He choose to share his story about one of the most long serving businesses in Southampton.

Please, please watch this video !

In a world where we are online, clicking and collecting within a nano second – this film makes you really think about what service means.

The classic line “we can take over an hour with some customers helping them choose their shoes” is at odds with the way the online experience is turning decisions into taking nano seconds rather than time to really consider the bigger picture.

So here is the predictions, if you look at the online world through a human centred perspective.

1. We like to be heard, we like to be listened to and we like to have options. The online experience has to be more “conversational”. It has to be more engaging, it has to be far more than form filling.

The “chat bot” is the start of the conversation. They are not new, in fact Zurich Insurance launched “Catherine” back in the late 1990s an online virtual assistant who would support you through the online insurance process.

20 years later some of the chat bot experiences haven’t moved beyond “Catherine” but others are becoming very intelligent even appearing curious and asking more open questions in response to questions you raise with it.

2. We like to know that someone is interested in considering what matters to us.

The “if you like this – you might like that” was sort of launched in the early 2000s when Amazon were recommending books you might like to read.

Some of the recommendations are pretty binary and clunky but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the online world has the potential to become pretty sophisticated analyzing our behaviors and based on our behaviors an online experience can become more focused on what matters to us.

3. And finally many of us like to put a face to a name. The faceless chat bot, the faceless call centre agent creates a bit of friction in the world of digital experiences.

Slightly at odds with the chat bot could be the “in app”, “in platform”, “in service” – facetime or zoom call. Why can’t a pop up video call happen allowing two real humans to talk together and discuss and share experiences.

I wonder how long it will be until the “video pop up ” will emerge. Having spent a year in lockdown there is no doubt when cameras are on the experience is far more engaging than when cameras are off.

Now we will never recreate the intimacy of French & sons on line but the functionality of the online experience is improving year on year. The more we can all look to harness the French and Co approach in our thinking for the virtual online world the better.

I have complete faith and confidence that those businesses that are starting and evolving the human centric approach to delivery of their customer experience will get there faster than those that don’t.

What are your thoughts?