Augmented Customer Strategy E-Book
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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Fachliteratur
- Sprache: Englisch
Digital transformation is shaping a new landscape for businesses and their customers. For marketing professionals, advancing technology (artificial intelligence, robots, chatbots, etc.) and the explosion of personal data available present great opportunities to offer customers experiences that are ever richer, more fluid and more connected. For customers, this ecosystem is synonymous with new roles. They are more autonomous and have power alongside the company: they influence, innovate, punish and more. These developments push companies to implement new customer strategies. It is in this context, marked by pitfalls and paradoxes, that the authors of this book reflect on the customer relationship, what it has become and what it will be tomorrow. The book provides practitioners, teacher-researchers and Master's students with a state of the art and a prospective vision of customer relations in a digital world. It is aimed at those who want to gain an up-to-date understanding of the field and find all the keys needed to project themselves into the future.
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Seitenzahl: 544
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Table of Contents
Cover
Preface
1 Customer Strategies in the Face of New Technological, Social and Environmental Challenges
1.1. AI, robotization and algorithms: what are the effects on customers?
1.2. Business model renewal: what are the impacts on customers?
1.3. Accountability to customers and citizens: why and how?
1.4. Practicing open innovation with customers
1.5. Customer relationship management in the face of societal and environmental challenges
1.6. Conclusion
1.7. Acknowledgements
1.8. References
2 Brand Practices Faced with
Augmented
Consumers
2.1. A more complex approach to the customer to follow them wherever they go
2.2. An evolution of message content
2.3. A stronger involvement of consumers in brands
2.4. Conclusion
2.5. References
3 The
Augmented
Customer Relationship: the Increasing Importance of the Customer’s Role
3.1. The customer, a long-standing player in the relationship
3.2. The digitization, development and diversification of the customers’ roles
3.3. The consequences for the company
3.4. References
4 Innovation
Augmented
by the Customer: from Ideation to Diffusion
4.1. Introduction: the new roles and contributions of the customer
4.2. The role of the customer in the upstream phase of the launch of an innovation: the customer as a source of new ideas at the service of companies’ innovation processes
4.3. The role of the customer downstream of an innovation launch: the customer influences to facilitate the adoption of the innovation on the market
4.4. Conclusion
4.5. Acknowledgements
4.6. References
5 The Customer’s Voice: Toward New Listening Tools
5.1. Introduction: “markets are conversations”
5.2. The different forms of WOM
5.3. Steps to managing the customer’s voice over the Internet
5.4. Current and future challenges
5.5. Conclusion
5.6. References
6 Redesigning the Customer’s Role in a Connected World
6.1. A connected customer with multiple faces
6.2. Managing the customer in their connected environment
6.3. Connected customers, masters of their own consumption and relationship with brands
6.4. Conclusion
6.5. References
7 The
Augmented
Customer Experience: Between Humanity and Robotization?
7.1. From experience to omnichannel experience
7.2. Management of the omnichannel system: between fluidity, continuity or disruption and jumping between “touchpoints”?
7.3. Conclusion: the place of the human being and technology to create a quality experience
7.4. References
8 Designing Your Customer Experience
8.1. Designing a new customer experience
8.2. Designing customer journeys
8.3. Big data and design: the two necessary areas of expertise
8.4. References
9 Customer Relationships and Digital Technologies: What Place and Role for Sales Representatives?
9.1. A new way of selling: social selling
9.2. The prospects of AI for the commercial sector
9.3. References
10 Engaging Reciprocity from the Complainant Customer in the Digital Age
10.1. Obtaining the complainant customer’s voice: a multifaceted challenge
10.2. Understanding the complainant customer’s levers of reciprocity
10.3. Differentiating the care of complainant customers
10.4. Conclusion
10.5. References
11 The Firm’s Empathic Capacity: a Social Neuroscience Perspective for Managing Customer Engagement in the Digital Era
11.1. Introduction: the dilemma of digital transformation in customer relationship management
11.2. What social neuroscience tells us about empathy
11.3. Developing firms’ empathic capacity: a two-level strategy
12 Data Marketing for Customer Intimacy
12.1. Multiple customer data sources
12.2. The different customer data hubs
12.3. The difficult consolidation of customer data
12.4. The intersection of media and data to serve customer strategy
12.5. Leveraging data: market research in the era of customer data
12.6. Data marketing… tomorrow
12.7. References
13 The Dark Side of Customer Relationship Management Practices in the Data Age: Managing Resistance and Perceived Intrusion for Responsible Practices
13.1. The dark side of customer relationship management practices
13.2. Possible consumer feelings
13.3. The consequences: consumers are showing signs of resistance
13.4. Solutions for effective and responsible practices
13.5. Acknowledgements
13.6. References
14 The Legal Basis for a Data Economy Based on Trust
14.1. Personal data at the heart of the DGMP
14.2. GDPR tools to restore trust
14.3. The future of our personal data
14.4. Conclusion
14.5. References
15 Information Systems Security: Challenges, Vulnerabilities and Tools
15.1. Current uses reinforcing the need for security: cryptocurrency and blockchains
15.2. Protecting yourself from potential threats: safety and security
15.3. Security in companies and organizations
15.4. The standards that govern safety: ISO/IEC 27000
15.5. Conclusion
15.6. References
16 Organizing the
Augmented
Customer Relationship
16.1. Introduction
16.2. Governance of customer strategy within the organization
16.3. The role of the different stakeholders in customer relationship management
16.4. In-house contracting or outsourcing: who should implement customer relationship management?
16.5. Aligning the organization around the customer strategy
16.6. References
List of Authors
Index
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 3
Table 3.1. Characteristics of the customer's role
Chapter 6
Table 6.1. Representations and performance indicators of the connected customer
Chapter 9
Table 9.1. From traditional selling to social selling. Adapted from http://www.c...
Chapter 12
Table 12.1. The different types of consumer data
Table 12.2. Example of website visitor engagement scoring based on non-PII data....
Chapter 13
Table 13.1. Main dark sides of customer relations
Table 13.2. Main reasons for lying
Table 13.3. Possible explanations for the privacy paradox
Table 13.4. Explanatory factors of lying strategies
Table 13.5. The TRUVEC model (Lancelot-Miltgen), restoring confidence in data co...
Chapter 15
Table 15.1. Examples of attacks and threats
Table 15.2. Examples of safety standards
List of Illustrations
Chapter 2
Figure 2.1. Open days at LVMH
Figure 2.2. Employee involvement in Uber's communication
Figure 2.3. When influencers get caught out at their own game
Figure 2.4. Lego's ideation platform
8
Figure 2.5. Launching new brands thanks to consumers
Figure 2.6. Applications enhance consumer benefit
14
Figure 2.7. Brands' new digital services
Figure 2.8. Brands’ websites supporting their engagement
16
Chapter 3
Figure 3.1. Managerial drivers to motivate the customer to play a greater role
Chapter 4
Figure 4.1. Upstream and downstream co-creation in a context of commercializatio...
Chapter 5
Figure 5.1. Visualization of Twitter interactions related to the polluting emiss...
Figure 5.2. The six types of social networks (own illustration adapted from Smit...
Figure 5.3. The example of support networks in the banking sector
Figure 5.4. Response strategies to be implemented as part of customer listening ...
Figure 5.5. Response options according to the steps of the complaints process [M...
Chapter 6
Figure 6.1. The fragmented identity of the connected individual
Figure 6.2. Example of a "Human Being, Pedometer, Application, Smartphone" assem...
Chapter 8
Figure 8.1. The five steps to designing customer experience
Figure 8.2. Possible gaps between the target experience and the lived and percei...
Chapter 10
Figure 10.1. Update to the Exit, Voice, Loyalty model for complainant customers
Figure 10.2. Prescriptive characteristics of relational investments in complaint...
Figure 10.3. Matrix of restorative actions
Chapter 11
Figure 11.1. Illustration of neural resonance. This functional brain imaging ide...
Chapter 12
Figure 12.1. Evolution of the volume of data created since 2010 and projection t...
Figure 12.2. The “Data Journey”, an example of data generated throughout a custo...
Figure 12.3. Illustration of the multiplication, over time, of customer data to ...
Figure 12.4. Comparative evolution of the time spent per day in front of the TV ...
Figure 12.5. Comparative evolution of the time spent per day in front of digital...
Figure 12.6. Example of a relational programmatic campaign for a customer named ...
Figure 12.7. Comparative evolution of error rates in image recognition: algorith...
Chapter 13
Figure 13.1. The six key elements aimed at enhancing trust in data collection an...
Chapter 16
Figure 16.1. The key role of employees in value creation (service-profit chain)
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Begin Reading
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Series EditorJean-Charles Pomerol
Augmented Customer Strategy
CRM in the Digital Age
Edited by
Gilles N’Goala
Virginie Pez-Pérard
Isabelle Prim-Allaz
First published 2019 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms and licenses issued by the CLA. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publishers at the undermentioned address:
ISTE Ltd
27-37 St George’s Road
London SW19 4EU
UK
www.iste.co.uk
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
111 River Street
Hoboken, NJ 07030
USA
www.wiley.com
© ISTE Ltd 2019
The rights of Gilles N’Goala, Virginie Pez-Pérard and Isabelle Prim-Allaz to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019930585
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-372-1
PrefaceAugmented Customer Strategy
This book is not a science fiction novel… but comes close to it! The extended and augmented human being already exists. Each year is punctuated by new scientific advances in the fields of robotics, computing, cognitive sciences, etc., which make it possible to imagine a world marked by virtual or augmented realities, by the expansion of all kinds of networks and digital media, by the development of new humanoid robots (exoskeletons, for example), by the diffusion of the Internet of Things (IoT), by the improvement of artificial intelligence (AI) solutions, by the exploitation of drones, etc. Every human being, whether a doctor, manager, customer or political decision-maker, can potentially benefit from new technologies and can have their cognitive (information processing), sensory or physical capacities considerably increased. This transformation of the world is already here, but we are only seeing the beginning.
Each of us is, within ourselves, the bearer of this imagination conveyed by literature, cinema or the media, where humans make technology an ally, an addition and a partner in our daily lives, rather than a substitute. However, the fear of seeing humans imitated and then supplanted by robots persists and regularly raises debates within companies (employment, growth, professions, training) and society as a whole (respect for privacy, individual freedom, etc.). The expansion of the robot questions, in mirror form, the role of the human being in our society and, in the field of customer relations, that of the consumer, the citizen and the user in relation to the tools and machines that surround them. Alternating between strategies currently underway in organizations and a forward-looking dimension that makes it possible to imagine multiple scenarios for the future, this book highlights how much the digital transformation impacts and will impact customer relationship management… but also the customers themselves.
Can we effectively consider that the customer benefits, in the same way as the company, from this “expansion”? Is the individual augmented, or are they alienated by the machines and technological tools that linger around their daily lives on the lookout for the slightest opportunity to solicit them? Digital technology has totally invaded our daily lives as consumers, customers, citizens, voters, etc. The digital barometer published each year1 shows that this movement toward the greater connection of populations is not only inevitable but will also increase over time. In France, for example, nearly three-fourths of the population already own a smartphone, more than 80% a computer and nearly 50% a tablet. In the space of a few years, the smartphone has become the object of multiple addictions (hyperconnection, infobesity, “no life” phenomenon, etc.) and one of the major tools for connecting to social networks, personal messaging as well as corporate and ecommerce sites. Many French people today cannot do without the Internet for 3 days or their mobile phone for more than 1 h. They eat and sleep next to their smartphones, play, read and watch videos when they get bored, and struggle to disconnect from their work messages when they are on vacation. They can spend nearly 100 days a year reading their e-mails and the youngest (18–34 years old) can consult their smartphone up to 100 times a day, once every 10 min (Institut Omnibus study for the publisher Kana Software – 2014). Thus, even if this phenomenon of hyperconnection does not affect all French people in the same way, according to age, level of education and social status in particular, it nevertheless increases significantly each year and changes diametrically the way in which firms can reach their customers.
Against this backdrop, writing about tomorrow’s customer relations is a risky project, given the rapid pace of change and the changing environment. For marketing professionals, the last few years have been marked by a significant evolution in their profession, as a result of this incredible acceleration of technologies. These have considerably changed company practices, but also those of customers. AI, now established as the “right arm” of any self-respecting marketer, and the explosion of precise and abundant personal data held on customers, is already shaping a new landscape for companies and their customers. Customers, for their part, make extensive use of the multitude channels and tools available to them, as well as the wealth of information they have at their disposal to design their own customer journeys. What if the common point of all these scientific and technological advances was that they made it possible to develop augmented customer strategies?
–
Augmented
, because the technological tools (applications, robots, chatbots, beacons, RFID technologies…) brought about by the digital revolution today represent tremendous opportunities that offer customers ever simpler, more fluid, rich and connected experiences.
–
Augmented
, because the data now available on customers allow increasingly personalized and accurate actions, as close as possible to customer expectations and at a lower cost.
–
Augmented
, because the digital transformation of companies allows ever precise evaluations of the effectiveness of marketing actions, thus allowing a better trade-off between different relational investments.
– Finally,
augmented
because the customers themselves are assigned new roles alongside the company in the context of promotion, innovation and/or branding activities, which can, depending on the approaches, be similar to customer empowerment (cognitive, influential and sanctioning skills).
It is in this context that we have sought to reflect on the customer relationship, what it has become and what it will be tomorrow. This collective work shows to what extent customer relations in the age of digital transformation is a fertile ground for many paradoxes that have inspired the great French-speaking experts in the field, experts who have been asked to contribute to this book. This book proposes to extend the reference works on customer relationship management, in particular the book Stratégie Clients, edited by Professor Pierre Volle in 20122, by providing a resolutely forward-looking vision of the discipline. The latest advances in marketing research, which provides empirical validations of the importance of “customer-centric” approaches and gives high priority to societal and environmental concerns, are integrated. In addition to the rational effectiveness of marketing actions, it is the customer, as a citizen and in their daily environment, who will be discussed. Customers’ well-being is now invoked, rightly or wrongly, as a compelling reason to guide the hands of marketers.
Throughout the 16 chapters of this book, some 30 researchers discuss the main issues that drive customer relationship management professionals, students as well as the marketing scientific community.
Chapter 1 is an introduction that provides an overview of the projects to be carried out in order to adapt customer relationship management to new technological, social and environmental challenges. Indeed, based on the hot topics identified by a team of researchers from the Association Française du Marketing (French marketing association), Gilles N’Goala makes the link between these current topics and customer relationship management. Jérôme Baray also offers us a focus on the challenges of AI.
To meet these new challenges, this book is then structured into three parts that allow our readers (1) to better understand the customer in the digital age, the augmented customer; (2) to produce augmented customer experiences; and (3) to help rethink the organization of customer relations, ultimately benefiting an augmented organization.
Part 1: Understanding the Augmented Customer
–
Chapter 2
: Brand Practices when Faced with Augmented Consumers
This chapter, written by Nathalie Fleck and Laure Ambroise, provides a better understanding of who the customer is in this new digital environment. In response to this new consumer, the authors question the opportunity and necessity for brands to change their practices.
–
Chapter 3
: The Augmented Customer Relationship: the Increasing Importance of the Customer’s Role
In this chapter, Sylvie Llosa and Lionel Nicod show how the customer has become a proactive actor, a source of competitive advantage for companies, while this customer was, in the past, considered a simple purchaser of products and as the passive beneficiary of the interaction with the company. This customer has become more powerful and is now taking on new roles.
–
Chapter 4
: Innovation Augmented by the Customer: from Ideation to Diffusion
Among the roles taken on by the customer, Thomas Ruspil, Cyrielle Vellera and Andreas Munzel propose, in this chapter, a perspective of two new roles for customers upstream and downstream of the launch of a new product or service and its commercialization: the customer becomes a co-innovator when they participate in the processes of developing new ideas and designing new products or services, and can then facilitate the dissemination of this product or service by becoming a co-marketer who promotes the offer. This chapter is enriched by Patrick Kleer’s reflection on the co-creation approach implemented by Crédit Agricole Centre-Est bank, of which he is Deputy CEO, and from Yohann Melamed’s experience as a co-founder of Agorize, a company specializing in organizing open innovation challenges.
–
Chapter 5
: The Customer’s Voice: Toward New Listening Tools
Beyond the new roles identified in Chapters 3 and 4, Andreas Munzel, Jessie Pallud and Daria Plotkina raise here the question of the nature of the conversation between the company and its customers and its management. Listening to the customer, who now has the opportunity to be heard instantly and broadly, requires companies to be more responsive and to set up genuine social listening.
–
Chapter 6
: Redesigning the Customer’s Role in a Connected World
To close this first part, Pauline Folcher, Sarah Mussol and Gilles N’Goala ask in Chapter 6 what it means to manage customers in an increasingly connected world. The authors describe three major changes: the new faces of customers, sometimes users, sometimes buyers, influencers, collaborators, citizens, etc., which must be managed as a whole; new forms of marketing, between invisibility and speed of execution; and the challenges of taking into account the global experience of customers whose various products/services co-create value.
Part 2: Producing Augmented Customer Experiences
–
Chapter 7
: The Augmented Customer Experience: Between Humanity and Robotization?
Régine Vanheems explains to us, in this chapter, why and how it is no longer simply a question of reducing the customer’s efforts or satisfying them at each touchpoint, but that it is necessary to rethink the entire process, which has sometimes become too complex. The goal is to construct a pleasant, rewarding and memorable omnichannel experience, and digital tools can assist with this. However, the author notes the need for consistency between all touchpoints in order to ensure a satisfactory experience.
–
Chapter 8
: Designing Your Customer Experience
Echoing Régine Vanheems’ comments, Florence Jacob helps us define the concept of customer experience, but above all to “design” successful customer experiences. This chapter thus makes it possible to position the concept of experience and to understand its importance, both from a strategic and an operational point of view.
–
Chapter 9
: Customer Relationships and Digital Technologies: What Place and Role for Sales Representatives?
The customer experience and B2B relationships are also strongly impacted by the advent of digital technology. In this chapter, Eric Julienne, Maud Dampérat and Romain Franck question the place and role of the seller in the era of social media and artificial intelligence. The authors question (1) the development of social selling, which is already well underway and is profoundly disrupting the relationship between sales people and their customers, and (2) the development of AI and its prospects in terms of customer relationship management. AI has announced a profound change in the world of work and a fortiori in the commercial profession. The authors propose three prospective scenarios, oriented toward future technologies and which may exist concurrently in the medium to long term: (1) the augmented seller, (2) the sale without a seller and (3) humanoid robot sellers.
–
Chapter 10
: Engaging Reciprocity from the Complainant Customer in the Digital Age
Françoise Simon, in this chapter, proposes to focus on a specific and potentially crucial aspect of the customer experience: the complaint. The author shows that, in a connected and globalized world, customer complaint management is at the heart of the new challenges facing brands. By offering dissatisfied customers new spaces to express themselves, Internet ecosystems tend to divert them from a direct dialogue with brands, with the risk of deteriorating their e-reputation. Based on this observation, the author helps us to better understand how to manage complaints and shows the key role of reciprocity.
–
Chapter 11
: Firms’ Emphatic Capacity: a Social Neuroscience Perspective for Managing Customer Engagement in the Digital Era
To conclude this second part of the book, Mathieu Lajante relies on one of the paradoxes of digital transformation relating to the need to forge a strong bond with customers while trying to rationalize and make their experiences smoother, with the help of chatbots and other AI that potentially lead to a loss of physical connection with the customer and an absence of perception of emotions which would be spontaneously felt by the user. In light of the latest research in neuroscience, this chapter highlights that the company’s empathetic capacity contributes to shaping a virtuous customer relationship management that creates value for both parties.
Part 3: Toward an Augmented Organization
–
Chapter 12
: Data Marketing for Customer Intimacy
Grégoire Bothorel and Virginie Pez-Pérard show, in this chapter, that we are witnessing the development of service offers that put technology and associated data at the service of a totally (and perfectly?) personalized offer. By using a variety of customer data sources (home, media, touchpoints, cars, etc.), data marketing transforms the customer approach and makes it possible to be present where the customer consumes content, at the right time and with an adapted offer.
–
Chapter 13
: The Dark Side of Customer Relationship Management Practices in the Data Age: Managing Resistance and Perceived Intrusion for Responsible Practices
Caroline Lancelot-Miltgen, Aïda Mimouni and Virginie Pez-Pérard highlight the paradoxes of customer relations and help us to understand the dark side of customer relationship management in order to build more responsible practices. On the one hand, the customer is often encouraged to develop their average shopping basket and/or frequency of purchases through promotional offers or reward mechanisms, and can therefore make unnecessary or too expensive purchases in relation to their budget. In addition, an exclusive relationship, a favored objective of loyalty shown, would deprive the customer of their freedom and lock them into an often unbalanced commercial relationship. How can we not fall into these traps? This chapter is enriched by Fanny Reniou’s reflection on the management of the deviant customer and Audrey Porte’s reflection on the interest in transparency. The authors advocate a responsible approach to restoring trust with customers.
–
Chapter 14
: The Legal Basis for a Data Economy Based on Trust
Marketing practices based on customer data, and the resulting privacy and data protection issues, have led the legislator to take up the issue. In this chapter, Isabelle Landreau deciphers the legal context relating to personal data by presenting the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and proposing prospective reflections.
–
Chapter 15
: Information Systems Security: Challenges, Vulnerabilities and Tools
The GDPR refers companies to a set of responsibilities, including information system security. In this chapter, Philippe Cohard points out that, in a context where customer data already represent, today and tomorrow even more so, the basic foundation of customer strategies, it is more than ever in the interest of companies to organize their information systems in such a way as to be able to store and use them correctly, while complying with the jurisdiction in force. In this regard, management faces several threats, particularly those related to the organization’s employees, that need to be assessed.
–
Chapter 16
: Organizing the Augmented Customer Relationship
To conclude this part and the book, Isabelle Prim-Allaz and Pierre Volle raise in a more global way the question of the structure of the augmented customer relationship and the role of the various stakeholders. The authors start from the observation that the implementation of a strategy, and the structure that goes with it, is necessarily a source of paradoxical tensions. This chapter proposes to answer, in part, the management of these paradoxes by first asking the question of the governance of customer strategy within organizations, and then, in a second step, by questioning the role of the various stakeholders. The question of the internalization versus the outsourcing of customer relations is also raised. Finally, as a conclusion, the authors discuss the interest in thinking about a coherent implementation of customer strategy through configuration theory.
Gilles N’GOALA, Virginie PEZ-PÉRARD andIsabelle PRIM-ALLAZFebruary 2019
1
https://www.arcep.fr/uploads/tx_gspublication/barometer_of_numeric-2017-infography-271117.pdf
.
2
Pierre Volle (2012), “Stratégie Clients : points de vue d’experts sur le management de la relation client”, Editions Pearson, p. 228.
1Customer Strategies in the Face of New Technological, Social and Environmental Challenges
The marketing practiced and taught today is light years away from that which was practiced and taught in the 1980s. In a few decades, the discipline has been transformed to provide consumers with a new role, integrating the latest technological advances and possessing a new place in society. The transition from an industrial to a postindustrial era has, in particular, underlined the importance of services and the intangible, knowledge and information, techniques and technology, the environment and individual well-being, globalization and a new organization of work (platforms, uberization, etc.). It thus becomes impossible to talk about marketing without mentioning digital tools, big data, Service Dominant Logic perspective, artificial intelligence (AI), economy of platforms, open innovation, GAFAM (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft), NATU (Netflix, Airbnb, Tesla, Uber) and BATX (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi in China). Everyone must constantly reinvent themselves to be in direct contact with changes in society, the economy, technologies and managerial practices.
The hot topics identified by a team of researchers from the Association Française de Marketing clearly reflect these developments and the need to produce scientific knowledge that will shed light on current developments1. In 2017–2018, Amina Béji-Bécheur, Audrey Bonnemaizon, Bérangère Brial, Jérôme Baray, Laurent Bertrandias, Madeleine Besson and Alix Poels effectively identified – based on expert opinions (practitioners and researchers) and calls for French and European research projects – what the urgent and obvious subjects to be investigated in the next few years were : (1) the impact of AI, robotization and algorithms (big data) on marketing practice, (2) the renewal of business models (platforms, blockchain), (3) the responsibility or accountability of marketing, (4) open innovation, (5) the role of marketing in the evolution toward a welfare society, (6) the construction of markets, (7) the place and legitimacy of marketing in companies (identity, skills, etc.), (8) the role of brands in society and (9) new ways of influencing and persuading (e.g. “nudge marketing”).
Without going back to the many facets of marketing, we will address these issues in the context of customer strategies implemented in organizations. By customer strategy, Volle and Delecolle [VOL 12, p 13] mean the organization’s implicit or explicit response to the various strategic issues of customer relationship management and relating to: (1) the degree of customer orientation, (2) the targets of the relational strategy (customers, employees and other stakeholders), (3) relational priorities (customer acquisition, retention, engagement), (4) the focus on customer experience and (5) the deployment of relational processes and tools (loyalty programs, CRM solutions, online communities, etc.).
We will see how much customer relationship management must be renewed to meet these new challenges. In particular, we will focus on the first four topics mentioned above, which, according to the authors, represent a true “tsunami” in marketing thinking and practice. The other five focus on marketing, brands and markets and communication in their societal and environmental dimension. We will discuss them in the last section.
1.1. AI, robotization and algorithms: what are the effects on customers?
If there is one area already impacted by AI, robotization and algorithms, it is the customer relationship. The possibilities for collecting, storing and exploiting data are increasing almost exponentially:
– CRM (Customer relationship management) has long integrated customer data from transactional systems (orders, etc.), loyalty programs, satisfaction surveys and call centers. The development of digital marketing has therefore provided a more complete view of online customer journeys (opening, clicks, conversion, opinions, etc.). The Internet of Things (IoT) will further increase the volume of data collected, inform us about the real uses of products in private environments (cars, homes, cities) and provide a link between the real world and the virtual world. In retail in particular, Beacon technology already makes it possible to analyze mobile phone users at the point of sale – via Bluetooth or geolocation techniques – and can send them personalized and contextualized communication in real time.
– The development of remote IT servers (IaaS for Infrastructure as a Service, PaaS for Platform as a Service, SaaS for Software as a Service), mainly the cloud, has made it possible to considerably reduce the cost of storing customer data and to benefit from unparalleled
2
computing power. The cloud market is growing at an annual rate of nearly 50%, and in this market, Amazon Web Services had a nearly 34% market share in 2018, which is as much as its four pursuers combined: Microsoft, IBM, Google and Alibaba.
– Data accumulation makes it possible to consider the implementation of AI within companies. Digital and IT players have invested heavily in this field: Google with DeepMind, Amazon with Alexa, Apple with Siri, IBM with Watson, Salesforce with Einstein, Tesla with Tesla Vision, etc. AI allows you to solve problems and perform complex tasks, especially in the field of customer relations. Several concrete applications are becoming available to a larger number of companies: (1) chatbots – or conversational agents – make it possible to automate responses to the simplest requests for information and complaints; (2) predictive analysis makes it possible to predict future customer behavior, such as customer defection, and to plan for corrective actions (appointment scheduling, service recovery, etc.); (3) the personalization of content (advertising, email, SMS, etc.) is increasing according to customer profiles and their online and offline experience; (4) facial recognition can help identify customers online or at the point of sale, for example; (5) improving the user experience, for example through tasks performed independently (autonomous vehicles, for example).
Jérôme Baray provides (Box 1.1) an overview of the uses of AI in marketing and customer relationship management.
Box 1.1. Artificial intelligence: a marketing tool for customer relations by Jérôme Baray, Professor at the University of New Caledonia and researcher at Larje
Uses of AI in customer relations… Until recently, we were talking about data analysis, multidimensional statistics, data mining, operational research and expert systems, but how would AI differ from these techniques? What will be the consequences for marketing practice and the future of customer relations?
The expression AI was proposed in 1956 by mathematician and science fiction writer John McCarthy at the Dartmouth conference in the United States, although the original mathematical and computer model of the biological neuron was designed by Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts in 1943. Many scientists have tried to clarify the meaning and scope of AI: for some, it is defined by its works and corresponds to the ability of a computer or robot to perform tasks usually performed by an intelligent being. The AI would recognize itself in a machine simply because it is intelligent. Thus, AI would recursively define itself as the ouroboros that bites its own tail. For others, AI is defined by its tools. A distinction is usually made between weak artificial intelligence, which tends to develop increasingly autonomous digital systems because of engineering sciences, for example in the form of algorithms capable of solving complex problems. The computer program thus simulates human intelligence. Software capable of playing chess is part of this category. Strong artificial intelligence or artificial cognition would have both a true intelligent behavior with understanding one’s own reasoning while experiencing true feelings and self-awareness. These autonomous systems, such as humanoid robots, would be able to communicate with each other and with their environment and develop strategies. The notion of artificial consciousness is the subject of profound metaphysical and philosophical discussions.
Weak AI would be the one with the most immediate applications in terms of marketing and customer relations and can take nine forms of implementation: expert systems, knowledge representation, knowledge management, automatic natural language processing, formal calculation, human reasoning simulation, problem solving, pattern recognition and learning. There is a certain buzz in the media about AI, while researchers in psychology, psychiatrists, neurologists and philosophers do not even agree on the very old notion of intelligence. The writer Om Malik, a specialist in new technologies, noted in an article in the New Yorker newspaper: “Much like ‘the cloud’, ‘big data’ and ‘machine learning’, the term ‘artificial intelligence’ has been hijacked by marketers and advertisers. A lot of what people are calling AI is actually data analytics, in other words, business as usual”. How can marketing and customer relations mobilize AI tools?
The question within marketing departments will soon no longer be only to access consumer data, but to develop new super tools capable of processing this mega data (big data) aggregated with all competitors in the business sectors and centralized to be available to each of them. Only companies that have developed AI coupled with human intelligence and are able to process these continuous flows of data on consumers, their purchases, their profiles, all gathered in huge data warehouses or distributed in clusters on different web servers (nosql architecture) will be likely to win the game by adopting the best strategies and game tactics.
AI covering the many data analysis techniques has already significantly changed the way the four components of marketing mix are approached, particularly in the context of digital marketing:
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The product
: AI has made life easier for online consumers for many years by submitting specific product or service proposals in seconds on the web based on their profile. Thus, customers can both obtain an offer exactly designed as per their desires and the company has the image of a service that responds well to the expectations of its customers. The company gains an undeniable competitive edge by successfully offering the right product to the right people, where competitors are unable to align an adequate offer and thus miss out on sales. AI is not a technology of the future, but it is current and will continue to develop, particularly with the IoT. Connected objects that were once considered gadgets are becoming more accessible. Following thermostats and light bulbs, we are seeing fridges, toothbrushes, augmented reality glasses, bottle openers, sofas, mattresses, contact lenses, forks, interactive mirrors, umbrellas and even connected condoms. Distributors will be able to know in real time the contents of the refrigerator and propose to supply it at the right time from individual stock management. On the other hand, 3D printers interacting with AI will be able to revolutionize manufacturing methods that are close to custom-made, whether it is producing everyday objects, clothing or even homes because of a giant printing robot.
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Price
: various pricing software programs (Paarly, Brennus Analytics) already boast of using AI “pricing intelligence” to adjust prices in real time in different sectors of activity such as e-commerce shops, retail chains, industrial groups, food processing, energy, telecoms, tour operators and insurance companies. They monitor competitors’ prices on the net for hundreds of thousands or millions of references by analyzing trends and developments, promotions, new products, joint products, joint brands, level of competition on brands and product ranges, inventory levels, stockouts and replenishment. Smart pricing uses machine learning and competitive intelligence to practice intelligent and adapted pricing. Some researchers point out that price algorithms could naturally seek tacit agreements on pricing between competitors and therefore call for regulations in the form of audits or liability rules that could also lead to new marketing-related professions such as ethicists.
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Promotion
: the detailed knowledge of consumers through the study of their behavior already makes it possible to refine media choices and advertising messages as part of promotional campaigns. On the Internet, advertising such as dynamic banners (dynamic creative optimization) can appear at the right place and at the right time by adapting the target audience and their expectations because of an Internet user tracking system (cookies, IP tracking) and predictive marketing using AI to anticipate purchasing needs. Apart from the optimization of Internet campaigns, the AI used in promotional campaigns still appears to be in its infancy, as it uses many of the human’s own creative resources.
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Distribution and customer relationship management
: chat rooms are set up on the web or in the form of telephone support by large companies and some SMEs to advise on the choice of products or services in order to relieve call center congestion and limit costs. They are therefore used to automate repetitive tasks with low added value to advise the customer in the context of after-sales service or to direct them toward certain products, services or brands. As the consumer still feels the need for human contact in particular situations, these intelligent conversational agents are unlikely to mark the end of call centers.
1.2. Business model renewal: what are the impacts on customers?
The rapid emergence of a platform economy is now disrupting operation for many industries. For example, in tourism, Airbnb manages 4.5 million homes in more than 80,000 cities and will be targeting one billion users per year by 2028. Booking.com covers nearly 85,000 destinations and more than 2 million hotels and accommodations worldwide. The rise of the Internet had initially enabled tourism professionals to do without traditional agencies and they address their customers and prospects directly. Then, in a second phase, new players, including online travel agencies and peer-to-peer collaborative platforms, aggregated information and offers, captured traffic on search engines and positioned themselves as key intermediaries. Even if this phenomenon is not new, we are witnessing an accelerated phenomenon of disintermediation–re-intermediation in many sectors [LAM 16].
Different types of platforms have emerged from digital transformation [NIC 17]: SEO platforms and search engines (Google, Yahoo, etc.), social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter), dematerialized audiovisual directories (Spotify, Deezer, Netflix), communications applications (Skype, Whatsapp), video sharing platforms (YouTube), payment systems (PayPal), marketplaces (Amazon, FNAC, etc.) or crowdsourcing platforms (eYeka, etc.) and crowdfunding (Ulule, etc.). More recently, collaborative platforms (BlaBlaCar, Le bon coin, Airbnb, eBay, etc.) have also undergone unprecedented development and have enabled exchanges and transactions between peers (peer-to-peer) to be encouraged. As we can see from the previous examples, platforms have become essential and have disrupted all industries (communication, publishing, cinema, travel, commerce, finance, etc.) and purchasing and/or consumption practices.
This emergence of platforms has had several major consequences on customer relationship management:
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Value chain reorganization
: customer relationship management has generally aimed to establish a direct relationship, sometimes one-to-one, often without intermediaries, between suppliers and their customers. In recent years, a process of re-intermediation has been underway. Platforms have frequently interspersed themselves as major and unavoidable players in data access and the implementation of a communication strategy. Platform operators have succeeded in capturing part of the value chain at the expense of traditional intermediaries [ACQ 18]. For example,
Booking.com
has a strong position in hotel market access, selling 550,000 hotel stays per day, on average worldwide, aggregates large volumes of data and collects more than 16% commission on hosts’ revenues. This group also subjects hoteliers to rules that prevent them from competing with it (pricing, etc.). Platforms thus constitute new screens between customers and their suppliers. They potentially exploit information asymmetries and limit themselves to providing access to their online interfaces for managing customer acquisition and retention campaigns.
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New forms of domination
: with the development of platforms, many fear the development of monopolistic effects and the emergence of new forms of domination (the case of GAFAs is the best example). The fear of many companies (media, banks, insurance companies, energy companies, etc.) is that they will be “disintermediated” by new operators who will be placed between them and their customers and this will prevail because of their ability to access and process customer information. Even if the fear of a situation where a single platform operator would “take it all” is probably exaggerated [BEN 16], the ability of brands to influence and control their customers is, in such a context, considerably reduced.
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Free for users:
the platform economy is based on the search for network externalities [ROC 03]: in two-sided markets in particular, the more suppliers there are, the more demand there is and vice versa. The challenge for platforms is therefore to reach a critical number of users, by all possible means, and in particular through free access to services (Google for example). The digital world is thus gradually spreading a “habit of free access” that is not well-suited to the business models used by many companies. How can the price of an online service, such as a game, be effectively legitimized when all other entertainment experiences are free? While everyone is trying to find other sources of funding (online advertising, freemium technology, etc.), for many players, the emergence of platforms coincides with a destruction of value and a devaluation of their services.
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New trusted third parties
: platforms frequently act as trusted third parties between suppliers and their customers. For example, the customer buying on Amazon’s marketplace usually does not know the seller concerned and relies on the platform’s reputation. Trust is also generated through the establishment of customer reviews that enhance the credibility and reputation of the various vendors. While many experts see this as a sign of increasing customer empowerment, everyone can also see a growing role for platforms in market access and information literacy. For example, it is easier to find an evaluation of thousands of sellers on the Amazon marketplace than to access a rating of the Amazon website by its own users. Consequently, on platforms, it is more a question of the reputation or e-reputation of the seller and brand than of emotional, enduring and reciprocal trust [NGO 10]. Trust here takes a more impersonal and transactional form.
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Unequal competitive play
: as Bénavent [BEN 16] points out, platforms benefit from a “long tail effect” and can afford to offer a considerable variety and diversity of offers. While a hotelier will seek to optimize their occupancy rates throughout their hotel chain, Airbnb or
Booking.com
may offer a plethora of accommodation offers, some of which may be very little used. Indeed, overall sales of catalog background products can represent a significant sum of the turnover. Then, the challenge of the platforms is to develop a science of matching, to match the multitude of requests with the multitude of offers offered, in terms of prices for example. This power, in terms of data collection, aggregation, storage and processing (especially via AI), is still the preserve of large companies or digital platforms.
Thus, the emergence of a platform economy is changing the way customer relationships can be managed. The very idea of a continuous, direct and individualized relationship with a customer is being challenged. Exchanges are becoming more and more indirect and transactional and customer acquisition and loyalty campaigns are carried out via interfaces where the brand only has limited control. The data are massively controlled by platforms, which benefit considerably from it. Blockchain now proposes to decentralize data storage and management and to limit the possibilities of control and influence of the major digital players. It is also a possible avenue for managing multipartner loyalty programs [KOW 17]. The future will tell if this will result in a more fair distribution of value.
1.3. Accountability to customers and citizens: why and how?
The digital transformation of our cities and lives brings many technological innovations (IoT, big data, omnichannels, etc.) that increase tenfold the possibilities of data collection, exploitation and use in a multitude of fields (trade, consumption, mobility, security, energy savings, etc.) and lead to the development of a host of services for all citizens (search engines, online administrative procedures, remote purchasing, bank account management, news monitoring, etc.). Their success is such that no company, consumer, citizen, or organization can reasonably do without smartphones, computers, tablets and permanent access to the Internet, applications, social networks, etc. These technological advances are undeniably promising and their success is no coincidence. But this digital transformation also raises certain risks and can (1) create new information asymmetries between companies and their customers, (2) infringe on privacy and personal data (cybersecurity, exploitation and disclosure, etc.), (3) pave the way for new forms of opportunism (pursuit of personal interests at the expense of those of users), (4) facilitate the exploitation of the most vulnerable, especially those who do not master this environment (low digital literacy), (5) create new unfair situations (inequalities, discrimination) and (6) generate, in return, a crisis of trust and extremely negative behaviors (disloyalty, revenge, vandalism, aggressiveness, boycotts, consumer group activism and resistance, etc.) [NGU 11, NGOA 15]. While French law seeks to limit these risks (for example through the recent Règlement Général sur la Protection des Données[RGPD3], 2018), it still seems to lag behind the digital giants, the latest technological advances and the rapid transformation of practices that results from them. It is, therefore, becoming urgent to develop an ethics of digital transformation and to empower all stakeholders, including consumers. Companies face several ethical and managerial dilemmas:
1)
Should the technology be made transparent?
As noted by Turilli and Floridib [TUR 09, p. 105], transparency has two contradictory meanings: it can refer to forms of visibility of information and the possibility of accessing information, intentions or behaviors intentionally revealed by a disclosure process. But in the IT and information systems disciplines, transparency refers to a condition of invisibility of information, for example when an IT application or process is said to be transparent. For example, spyware (cookies, IP Tracking), used to track if customer behavior is transparent in the latter sense (invisible to users) but not in the former sense (no voluntary disclosure of information). If it is a question of improving the experience, making customer paths more fluid (information, purchasing, complaints, etc.) and facilitating access to services, the technology must indeed be invisible to users. But if the objective is to reassure customers and maintain trust, it is probably desirable to provide clear information about the collection of personal data and to explain how it is used. This question will arise particularly in the field of IoT because, unlike computers, smartphones, tablets or terminals, the consumer is generally unaware of being connected and emitting signals. Can and should we, as proposed in the RGPD, seek the informed and explicit consent of all?
2)
Who is responsible for transparency?
According to Portes [POR 18, p. 142], “a company will be all the more transparent if it (1) discloses information that is intelligible (clear, relevant, concise), visible (easily accessible in terms of navigation, prioritization) and contextualized (when needed), (2) provides objective information (comparable and unmanipulated), negative as well as positive customer opinions so as not to affect decision-making, and offers the possibility of obtaining feedback from other consumers (through a chat feature on its website for example), and (3) is open-minded by giving customers the freedom to chat with them on all communication channels (social networks, website, e-mail, telephone, etc.) by allowing immediate, instantaneous interactions (automatic call back, etc.) and by allowing the participation and collaboration of its community in improving its offer. Thus, according to Portes [POR 18], the company is not the only one responsible for the opacity/transparency of its technologies and practices. Consumers and citizens can be co-producers and co-creators of transparency by disseminating opinions and information on the web on a massive scale [POR 17, POR 18]. In democratic countries, the Internet has massively accelerated the disclosure of information and encouraged the development of more horizontal communication between companies and their customers [NGO 16].
3)
Should consumers be informed?
From the user’s point of view, the technology is generally not apparent and obvious, except through the digital and mobile tools (a mobile application for example), to which they have access and over which they have some degree of control. Technology is more often “out of sight” and unaware of the sensitivity of users: they do not often see the technologies in place but also constantly leave their own digital traces or emit signals, which can be used to promote a product or develop new market and non-market services. It is, therefore, often difficult to question users about a technology that surrounds them and yet is largely unknown to them. With smart cities, for example, asymmetries of information and power will increase and user resistance mechanisms could increase, which goes against the very idea of co-creation of value and collective intelligence. On the other hand, if it were to make the smart city and its technologies visible to its users, this could have perverse effects and generate, for example, more anxiety and stress, create a climate of mistrust or make any strategy of influence counterproductive… even if it is morally desirable (promoting soft mobility, improving waste collection, etc.). Thus, as soon as it is mentioned, this invisible and insensitive technology is the source of all phantasms, illusions and irrational fears for many users. In her doctoral thesis, Portes [POR 18] shows that by being clearer about digital practices, the company runs the risk of damaging customer confidence. In terms of transparency, it is therefore necessary to determine more precisely “what must be seen”, “what to see” and “what is worth seeing”.
4)
Can we “enlighten” consumers?
In practice, the notion of informed consent questions the willingness and ability of consumers to understand the digital environment. First, the desire and need for access to digital services leads to an automatic and indiscriminate acceptance of the conditions of use submitted by companies. Resignation and self-interest often prevail over collective privacy considerations. Admittedly, individual (adblockers, etc.) or collective (boycotts, etc.) resistance practices are developing but remain largely in the minority at the global level. Second, not all consumers are equal in face of the digital age. Analyzing the digital divides that cross continents and countries, Ben Youssef [BEN 04] highlights in particular four levels of inequality: (1) inequalities in terms of access to equipment and infrastructure, (2) inequalities in use linked to digital literacy gaps, (3) inequalities in efficiency and performance and (4) inequalities in learning capacities in this digital environment. Affirming that the consumer can be enlightened is thus more of a stylistic exercise than a real pragmatism. Without effective pedagogy adapted to the most vulnerable, digital transformation can only accentuate social gaps.
5)
Should we communicate on digital technologies and marketing?
Communicating on science and digital innovation is now becoming a perilous exercise in which everyone is confronted with radical and ideological opposition. The example of the connected electricity meter (Linky in France) shows how widespread mistrust has become and how it affects the methods for accepting and adopting innovations, even though some research shows rather positive effects on energy consumption [SCH 17]. While some, struck by the digital divide, aspire to be more connected, others alternate between attraction and repulsion for technology and those who carry it (industrialists and digital giants in particular). This ambivalence of people toward technologies requires more consultation with users, an understanding of their concerns and reticence and a better control of crisis communication in the face of collective actions brought by highly organized and determined groups. This mistrust is coupled with a sometimes difficult relationship with digital marketing practices. By mobilizing more local, social and mobile technologies, practices are increasingly hidden (covert marketing practices or stealth marketing), since it is not always possible for users, customers, citizens, etc., to determine the source, credibility and intentionality of the communications and influences they receive [SPR 08]. Generally speaking, in a context where the media universe is very competitive and saturated with information, these communication tactics refer to practices similar to “guerrilla” ones, such as buzz marketing, product placement, writing false opinions, etc., whose objective is to reach targets through hidden and indirect means. With the increasing possibilities of tracking and locating customers, these practices will expand (growth hacking, for example), which raises real managerial and ethical questions [XU 11].
Digital transparency is only one aspect of the transparency that some people want. The demand for transparency also concerns the prices and costs of products, the origin of supplies (supply chain management, made in) and the internal operations of organizations (social responsibility) [NGO 15]. In other words, the challenge is to establish a new social contract between companies and citizens and to seek consensus in a climate of renewed trust. For Bertini and Gourville [BER 12], the challenge is to share value with customers better, to think about long-term relationships rather than short-term transactions, to be proactive and flexible with customers, to promote transparency and to manage equity in the markets. Thus, we could return to the ethical and legal foundations of relational marketing: equality between partners, respect for promises, the morality of duty and aspirations, equity, trust, a sense of responsibility and the commitment of multiple partners in relational exchanges [MAC 78, GUN 93].
1.4. Practicing open innovation with customers
Innovation is the cornerstone of progress and economic development. It is also one of the most risky steps for a company. The failure rate of new products and services is still high (70–80%, according to TNS Sofres) and most managers complain about their low return on investment. There are multiple forms of innovation that involve products/services, organizational processes or even organizational forms (collaborative platforms, for example). Some are aimed at improving operational efficiency and meeting current needs (operational innovation) while others are projected into the future and allow the company to prepare for it (exploration innovation). What is the customer’s place in this field of innovation?
Open and collaborative innovation is developing rapidly and involves heterogeneous actors with complementary skills (large companies, start-ups, laboratories, universities, etc.). Since the work of von Hippel et al., the integration of the customer, user and citizen, into the innovation loop has become a prerequisite and a condition for success. It is important to listen to customers before and after the launch of innovations [HAM 13]. In the ideation phase in particular, two methods are frequently used to co-create value with users: “design thinking” applies design methods to stimulate team creativity, while “crowdsourcing” leads to crowd solicitation, usually via online platforms (Agorize, eYeka, etc.), in the context of calls for R&D or communication projects [HEM 16].
