Introducing customer experience 3.0: Can brands be built on empathy?

That’s Bruton’s potted history of how the CX discipline has grown up in the world of marketing. But as the discipline’s grown up, she says, we’re entering a new paradigm – call it CX 2.0 – focused not on efficiency, or on personalization but (of all things) empathy.

Now, as Bruton shared on a panel at today’s Predictions event at The Drum’s London HQ, it’s “it’s about emotional intelligence. It’s about being really connected and having intent with that connection, understanding the consumer far beyond the data about them. That means listening with a bit more depth, having understanding and… dragging, kicking and screaming, the humanity back into what is a data-obsessed industry.”

As a result, for Bruton, the brands leading CX into this 3.0 world are not necessarily those with the most sophisticated CDPs or most detailed personalization strategies, but those leading with the most sensitivity to the concerns and motivations of their consumers: the likes of Ocado for helping the elderly unpack their shopping, or Lego sensitively responding to feedback and offering replacement parts.

Leading with this human-connection-grounded thinking, says Graham Sykes, global executive creative director at agency Landor, reveals a universe of opportunities to create connections. “Through the entire brand ecosystem, there are exponential possibilities to create the right emotions, connect with people and be memorable. The challenge for brands is to orchestrate those emotions, to own them, and to make them a mandate through every single interaction.”

Is there a risk, though, that a world of brands clamoring to be your best friend becomes, well, creepy? Maybe, says Sykes. “I don’t want American Express to be my best mate, but boy, do I want it to understand where I’m coming from. I had an issue yesterday. It sorted it out brilliantly. It was a human on the end of the chat, not an endless number of phone calls. So it’s not just empathy. Empathy gets thrown around as almost the antidote to tech, but actually, it’s inspiration; it’s learning; it’s confidence; it’s reassurance. Depending on what category you’re in and what pain points your audience might experience, you have to consider the full spectrum of emotions.”

What matters most to people depends on the brand and the category, says PeteAitken, head of customer strategy & insights at Kantar. Take banking: it turns out, Aitken says, that “the digital experience is the number one thing that people really care about,” prompting leaders in the space like Lloyd’s, Monzo and Nationwide to invest in digital experience and reap the rewards – by delivering an empathetic and differentiated CX, Aitken says, “their perception of difference skyrockets… and that’s propelled them to a very salient position in the market.”

“The perception of difference is an incredible predictor of the growth of these brands,” says Aitken. “We’ve seen that with Lloyds. We’ve seen that with Nationwide. We’ve seen that in a market that is very commoditized. The only way to really differentiate is to do something that feels very unique.”

These are ideas that Johanna Gerhold, brand & communications director at HelloFresh, says her team tries to put into action every day. “Customer experience is probably the biggest thing that we have,” she says. “Because if it goes wrong, we’ve ruined someone’s dinner”.

This modern approach to CX, for Gerhold, is one that can’t be owned by any individual or team – it needs to be endemic throughout the organization. “We’ve got a really complex ecosystem of different parts in the organization that all need to work together. It’s logistics and it’s the packing and it’s the shipping and everything else… If your tomatoes are squashed, it’s all for nothing”.