In his latest post for the Network, CX specialist and blogger Marcio Rodrigues discusses the importance of trust to the customer relationship, and the need to mirror customer values and behaviour in order to achieve desired outcomes.

Big data, unstructured data, high performance analytics. The big buzzwords but unlike some corporate bombast, this discourse signifies deep and transformative change for the insurance industry.

With privacy and data protection high on the popular agenda, customers are increasingly asking questions about how their data is used. We asked some of the top speakers at this year’s 20:20 CX Summit; how to sell Big Data to your customers?

The Financial Services industry has spent much of the past five years imagining what the bank of the future will look like. Marketing expert Yann Gourvennec believes this future focus leads to too much emphasis on tomorrow and not enough on today. In this challenging and thought-provoking article, Yann tells us why existing technologies and enthusiastic customer adoption mean that the bank of the future should in fact be the bank of today.

Customers have not just demanded a seat at the table, they have taken one.” Here, Robert Tas, Chief Marketing Officer at Pegasystems, examines the implications of this change for your business’ management and governance, considering the case for the Chief Customer Officer, and how to involve the entire organisation in transformational change.

John Sills, Senior Consultant at The Foundation considers what it really means to be a customer-centric organisation and how this is best translated into growth, taking in a few lessons from the recent general election along the way.

In this strategic survey of digital disruption, the CEO and Chairman of Enterprise Information Management (EIM) specialists OpenText discuss the future of digital technologies, their impact on enterprise, and the role EIM can play in delivering successful digital change.

Susan Ganeshan, CMO at Clarabridge explains why a CX Management is crucial to understanding how your business is being received in the real world.

Robert Tas, Chief Marketing Officer at Pega Systems, reflects on the future for C-suite marketers and considers how they can evolve to avoid extinction.

Brett King, CEO & Founder of mobile bank Moven, told us that digital needs to move beyond a department, to become part of the DNA of all banks. This means the new key skill sets in banking will be data crunching, story telling and experience design; and for bankers resistant to change, his advice is that, "it's probably time to start looking for a new job".

Learn more about gaining the upper-hand with MiData - a government initiative…

Taking a innovation-led approach to Big Data, Peggy Barthes-Streit, Head of mData at the UK’s largest mobile network, EE, explores the future of analytics. Insights include the revolutionary potential of the ever-expanding Internet of Things; how to boost your ROI on advertising spend with the help of m-data; and how data visualisation is essential to reaping the rewards of data analytics.

Getting the right leadership and operating model to deliver outstanding customer experiences remains one of the enduring challenges for many service-oriented businesses. Here, Jeanne Bliss, named one of SAP’s top Customer Experience Influencers of 2014, presents the first chapter of her book exploring the virtues of the Chief Customer Officer role, and how it can deliver for your customers and your business alike.

Steve Pateman, Head of UK Banking at Santander examines the state of digital maturity across Europe, discusses the benefits of customer-centric over product-centric banking models, and tell us why banking must learn from best practice players in media and e-tail.

Adopting a refreshingly bottom-line approach to Big Data, Vince Jeffs, Director at Pegasystems outlines the key challenges in analytics, and considers how you can extract the most value in the context of ever-expanding data sets and unprecedented analytics capabilities.

Last week, customer experience expert Ian Golding had the pleasure of travelling to Kuala Lumpur with two different airlines; Emirates and Etihad, giving him the perfect opportunity to directly compare two brands delivering a similar experience – the results may (or may not) surprise you.

A video case study of how the Life & Pensions industry is embracing digital change, with insights from some of the industry’s top C-suite strategists. 

In the age of Big Data, how should companies approach the cultivation, storage and use of customers’ data to deliver personalised experiences? In this article exclusive to the Network, Arnel Leyva, Chief Marketer at autoGraph.me, encourages a reassessment of personalisation orthodoxy, suggesting a transparent and respectful approach to data collection that will strengthen customer relationships.

In the last few years, digital transformation has grown to become an impossible-to-ignore buzzword, and a core competency of many management consultancies. For those focused on the customer experience, the potential benefits of digital change are many, as technology promises to deliver greater flexibility and a more bespoke service to customers. Here Allister Green, who has been instrumental in delivering digital change at Cumberland Building Society, writes about keeping the customer at the heart of your digital strategy, and remembering who the technology needs to serve.

Continuing with our theme of CX metrics, Michael Lowenstein, Thought Leadership Principal at Beyond Philosophy makes the case for moving beyond single-figure measurements into a more sophisticated model incorporating customer sentiments, granularity, and actionability.

Exclusive to the Network, Mark Evans, Marketing Director at Direct Line, tells us how the company are addressing industry commoditisation with a focus on the customer experience. Direct Line are aiming to differentiate themselves with a service-led proposition that plays across all of the customer touch points - social, digital and contact centres - helping to breathe life into their brand promise and ensuring it goes deeper than just a clever creative campaign.

John Hinder, digital consultant and former Head of Digital at Royal London and Martin Currie, explores ways you can elevate your B2B customer experience with an effective channel strategy, a single view of the customer and impactful content marketing.

Marcio Rodrigues, Customer Propositions Director at Vizolution, draws on military folklore to explore the value of gathering intelligence, sifting through the noise, and how intelligence helps deliver successful change programmes

Martin Dowson, Director CX Strategy at Comotion brings us back to basics! Read more about why investing in your customer journeys without first fixing the basics could spell disaster.

Due to an increasingly digital world, retailers must change and focus simply on 'delivering what customers want most'

Ben Green, Santander’s Head of Innovation considers what’s next for mobile banking, from making purchases easier and cheaper to addressing the security concerns of late adopters.

There is a fine line when it comes to tracking customer behaviour. Read what not to do with your customers data or run the risk of overstepping the mark into customer invasion.

As omnichannel models proliferate, so do the points of customer interaction and the marketing and customer experience opportunities that go with these. Here Adobe, global digital marketing experts and sponsors of the 20:20 Customer Experience Summit, talk about the emerging ‘touchpoint marketing’ model, and how it can help your business negotiate an increasingly complex commercial landscape.

Adrian Swinscoe kicks off our big data debate with a controversial angle. Read about the threat of big data on your organisation.

John Lewis is “obsessive” about generating role clarity. Retail Director Andrew Murphy outlines how simplifying roles and responsibilities results in effective workers and staff who are clear about what they have to do. Too much complexity can lead to confusion and inconsistency from staff.

Steve Pateman from Santander reflects on the challenges of going digital and considers the importance of hiring the right people, measuring the experience and getting the balance between pricing and service right.

Marks Evans, Marketing Director at Direct Line surveys the digital consumer landscape, where customers are active across multiple platforms, subject to thousands of branding messages daily, and where the average attention span has more than halved in the last decade.

Hear how President Obama used local relationships to build trust with voters in the build up to the 2012 election.

Vince Chaney, Managing Director of Bennetts explains how his firm has gone about building its social presence, and why it ultimately led to them building a platform of their own.

We caught up with Brett King – Founder and CEO of digital bank, Moven – and got the low down on the main challenges and opportunities facing the banking industry in becoming digitised.

Greater competition has forced FS firms to take a hard look at themselves. Many have come to realise that the crucial ingredient that had been missing in their recipe for success is true customer-orientation.

I love you, Gas Bill. Run away with me, Delivery Driver. Soothe my fears, 5p Off Baked Beans Coupon. Emotions are powerful things, but they’re not always the most important part of an experience.

Vince Chaney, Managing Director of Bennetts, the bike insurer, discusses the questions you need to answer to develop a successful social media strategy.

With new products and initiatives to meet rapidly shifting consumer preferences as well as new technology that continues blurring the lines among social, mobile, CRM and loyalty programs. Is there still a role for the traditional published loyalty program?

We caught up with Kitri Srivastava of Hiscox at our Operations and Technology in Financial Services event and asked her, should organisations embrace omnichannel and be in every channel?

Alison Wilkes, general manager of FIS took part in our recent Omnichannel Banking Webinar. We took the opportunity to ask her, once and for all, ‘what is the difference between a multichannel and an omnichannel service?’

The average American belongs to 18 different loyalty programs, and yet 77% of loyalty programs that focus on awards alone are failing within the first two years. The root of this problem is that there’s a big difference between human loyalty and corporate loyalty.

Stop fiddling with your pricing, stop tinkering with your technology and stop fishing for likes on Facebook. Start engaging with your customers one on one: Checking on them, hearing what they have to say, letting them know that their business matters to you, and that they matter to you.

Anne Boden, former COO at AIB Bank gives her views on the challenges of delivering omnichannel, and why banks haven’t quite delivered it yet.

Having loyal customers is fundamental to the long-term success of a business. But how do we deal with the numerous studies that have been done that show that loyalty amongst customers is decreasing?

Nigel Doust, Chief Executive of Blackbay, discusses a modern and memorable high street experience

What actually is omnichannel and how does it differ to multi-channel? Anne Boden, former Chief Operating Officer at AIB explains.

Other companies are converting leads with social media. Trust that you can too with these top tips!

John Lewis, with its distinctive green and white logo has long been the undisputed retail King of customer satisfaction for many many years. Yet even John Lewis fail to master omnichannel with its channels still not yet integrated.

For most brands, omnichannel is an excuse and not a real strategy. It’s often what brands do when they are too afraid to make real changes or take the necessary risks.

The key to a good omnichannel strategy is to only use it when it can enhance what you are already doing, in a way that creates a more seamless and frictionless experience.

A word of warning from Adrian Swinscoe, resist being sucked into the latest omnichannel craze or run the risk of compromising your company’s future success.

At 20:20 Customer Experience Summit, we took the time to sit down with Jeff Foley, Director of Product Marketing at Pegasystems to talk service centres, case data, metrics, automation, single view of the customer and how you can stand out from not only your competitors but also huge brands leading in CX.

The consensus from our omnichannel banking panel: Omnichannel is an important element of a superior customer experience.

We caught up with Shep Hyken this Tuesday, to gain his insights on how the role of social media in CX is evolving. To use social media effectively, companies now need to move beyond the read and react strategies they have developed over the last few years, and become proactive users of social media channels, with a sound grasp on content marketing. Shep shared tips for success, and best practice examples he’s seen first-hand. 

Commercial Director of AXA Group, Gareth Howell warns companies to not simply jump on the Big Data bandwagon but think strategically about how best to use data & analytics and the skills required.  

Underlining the importance of investing in digital, Marketforce have pulled together a compelling case for the pace of digital change!