One of my jobs is to help companies recognize that competition is driving the increasing focus on customer experience, and it’s important not to be left behind.  Speaking to bankers, Jamie Armistead of Bank of the West pointed out that “Banks Are Not the Yardstick for Digital Customer Experience,” and right he is.  Other industries are way ahead of banks, in spite of some real progress.  http://www.banktech.com/management-strategies/banks-are-not-the-yardstick-for-digital/240168312

So, who do you think is doing a really excellent job of delivering great customer experiences?  Armistead points to Google as a pace setter, with its mobile apps for maps, email, and browser.  Being a frequent user of all of them, I agree.  Trying to understand some of their genius, Armistead focuses on their integration:

It seems like they continually architect their solutions to support data sharing and integration. While you may not know precisely how you’re going to evolve your customer experience over time, having solutions architected in a way that supports data sharing and integration makes evolving the customer experience that much easier.

This is great advice for all of us who are trying to proactively engage with customers.  If we build our systems to share customer data, we can know what our customers like when we engage them.  That will make their experience much smoother and more pleasant.  So, let’s build our systems to share customer data. 

This is just one strategy, but it pays to watch the leaders and be mindful of their best practices.  What a great source of ideas for improvement!