To Achieve Digital Transformation, Start With a Customer-Centric Mindset

If you’re the fellow at the end of this queue, how are you feeling about your bank’s big technology evolution? Too often, I see business leaders stymied by concerns that digital transformation will be time consuming, overly expensive, and just too hard to tackle right now. These cautious executives settle instead for “lift and shift,” performing the same old operations with legacy-plus-one technology that’s—at best—just a little bit better.

It’s simply not good enough. The problem begins with a focus on technology as utility, rather than on what it was supposed to be doing for the customer (and the business) in the first place. “Better software that can do more stuff” is an outdated way of defining digital transformation. In fact, it’s customer behavior that has been digitally transformed, and customer-centric brands use technology to evolve to meet new consumer expectations.

Today, a customer-centric mindset is built on data: Where is the customer? What matters to her right now? What has she responded to, and what has she opted out of? Skilled data analysts listen closely to understand the customer’s context—and that’s a different skill set than simply sending out emails and push messages. Memorable campaigns begin with an idea that’s anchored in a genuine understanding of the customer, which is then surrounded by an interdisciplinary team that includes data scientists, product engineers, and creative and media talent, as well as the marketing technology practitioners who put the idea into action with messaging.

We are all customers, so we know the difference between a great experience and a poor one. When it’s great, the experience is relevant, respectful, and timely. It adds value to life and gives time back to us by its efficiency. Poor brand experiences, on the other hand, end up at the back of the queue for our attention.