To paraphrase author and customer relationship pioneer Martha Rogers, your customers are the most valuable asset your company has. Without them, you don’t have a business. You have a hobby.
That observation, first made in the late 1980s, has only grown in its veracity over time. No technology, intellectual property or any other asset is more important than the customer, and companies spend billions of dollars a year trying to track their needs and preferences.
With the advent of artificial intelligence, the science of measuring the customer journey and the customer experience has grown more precise, with companies like Adobe, NICE, IBM and Medallia giving marketers more data and behavioral cues than they’ve ever had.