Orange is the new Black - or CX is the new CRM

Gartner's relaunch of the long-running CRM conference with a focus on customer experience (CX) was a resounding success. While there were 300 to 400 participants at the CRM conferences, 700 experts from all over Europe came to London last week. What has caused this boom, you might ask - after all, the conference business is not really a growth market. In his introduction, conference chairman Ed Thompson, Distinguished Analyst and Director of Gartner, was able to give a conclusive answer. In recent CEO surveys on the relevant top topics, customer experience regularly ranked among the top three mentions. It is also interesting to note that the majority of participants are middle and senior managers and that the business side in particular is very well represented. In the past, Gartner conferences were very one-sidedly attended by IT people.Gartner conferences: Guarantee for high information densityThe concept of the two-day event is structured in a sequence of short presentations and thematically in five parallel streams. This means that it is easy to find your way through the wealth of presentations and can set priorities accordingly. These streams are interspersed with keynote speeches by external experts or Gartner seniors, and the five streams are labeled as follows:

• Customer Strategy
• Customer Data&Analytics
• Customer Experience Design
• Customer Experience Channels
• Workshop sessions

Some key messages from the conference

• Will marketing develop in the direction of "reverse segmentation"? In other words, in the future, companies will no longer segment customers, but customers will use algorithms to segment possible/suitable providers.
• In the future, it will not be about digitalization, but about how to create added value for customers using new technologies.
• Best practice is good - but "new practice", i.e. innovative solutions, is also increasingly needed.
• The consumer will gain even more influence because opportunities such as "crowd" and "sharing" play into the hands of the individual.
• Digital giants such as Apple, Amazon, Alibaba, Google and Facebook are becoming even more important and will directly or indirectly influence 20% of all business activities in five years' time.
• The classic automotive industry provides a valuable illustration of how consistently and quickly business transformation can be accomplished.
• The shortage of digital scientists will limit digital development (especially IoT).
• New digital solutions very often try to position themselves between existing customer-provider relationships and thus make existing companies obsolete.
• Customer Experience GAP: 80% of CEO's believe that their company delivers a very good customer experience - just 8% of customers agree.
• A positive customer experience requires a high level of employee commitment.

Three questions for conference chair Ed Thompson from Gartner:MK What development in CRM/CX over the last five years has surprised you the most?ED THOMSON I am very surprised that the "Head of Customer Experience" function has established itself so quickly and clearly. I have also noticed that customer focus is no longer seen as a fig leaf for making profits, but that companies are taking a more credible interest in customer issues.MK How does the digital transformation affect the customer experience?THOMPSON Essentially, I see three levers that influence CX. Business model innovation, digitalization of the customer interface, modernization of the infrastructure, e.g. with a focus on the cloud.MK What are the biggest challenges when it comes to customer experience?THOMPSON It is still the rigid silos that prevent the necessary horizontal permeability. In addition, the multi-channel conflicts have not been resolved and the metrics are still very one-sidedly limited to financial parameters - customer experience metrics are missing.