February 26, 2025 • 47 mins
Welcome to the podcast that explores the evolving landscape of change management, leadership, and transformation.
In today’s episode, I’m thrilled to be joined by Mark Abraham, Managing Director at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and author of the bestselling HBR book, Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI. With over 20 years of experience, Mark has worked closely with global CEOs, CMOs, and CXOs, helping them tackle complex business challenges and deliver breakthrough 1:1 customer experiences. At BCG, he founded and leads the company’s Global Personalization business.
Mark brings a wealth of knowledge on how AI is reshaping customer experience, the ethical considerations of data usage, and how businesses can implement personalization at scale. We explore the strategies that drive success, the barriers to adoption, and how AI can be the game changer in the dynamic world of personalization.
I am thrilled to have Mark chatting with me today.
About Mark
I am Managing Director and Senior Partner with Boston Consulting Group and author of the bestselling HBR book, Personalized: Customer Strategy in the Age of AI.
At BCG, I founded and lead the company’s Global Personalization business, helped found our firm's AI arm, BCG GAMMA, comprised of thousands of data scientists and engineers, and lead our work in the restaurant sector. As head of the firm’s Marketing, Sales & Pricing Practice in North America, I work with global CEOs, CMOs and CXOs on complex, multifaceted business challenges. Over the course of my 20+ year tenure at the firm, I have overseen end-to-end transformation programs for iconic clients in a wide range of industries and built BCG into a globally recognized leader in helping brands deliver breakthrough 1:1 customer experiences.
I hold an MBA with high distinction from the University of Michigan Ross School of Business and a BA in business studies from Oxford Brookes University.
Outside of BCG, you might find me off the grid on some of the great hikes of the world in places like Iceland, Patagonia, Australia & New Zealand or my Pacific Northwest home along with my two sons and partner, Jason. I grew up across three continents in Europe, China and US, learned five languages, and love meeting new people across cultures.
Contact Mark
Mark’s Profile
WWW
https://www.personalizedthebook.com/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The very first promise you have to start with
is empower me.
So what are you trying to dofor the customer?
In your case, you're trying toeducate them about topics they
haven't heard about yet, in adeep and thoughtful way.
So that might be the goal forempowering the customer.
In order to do that, you needto know me.
(00:21):
So what are my interests?
What industry do I work withand what do I already know?
What is my learning style?
And am I more someone who isauditory, visual, et cetera?
Those are examples of thingsyou'd want to know about me.
To serve up the information inthe best way, then you've got to
(00:42):
reach me.
This is where AI and targetingcome into play.
You've got to figure out whatchannel, what timing, what
context is best to reach me on,and this is where our next best
action tools can serve up.
You know, what do I see in yournext email, or what do I see
when I go to your website, andso on.
(01:05):
Show me is all about thecontent.
What content are you going toshow me?
And I already discussed waysyou could personalize video
content to me but creatingdynamic emails, creating dynamic
aspects of your website basedon who's coming to your website
and the logged in state or wherethey're coming from are all
(01:27):
much easier to do than everbefore, as long as you're
reusing modular pieces ofcontent from a content library.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
and then the last promise of personalization and
you alluded to this is Welcometo the podcast that explores the
evolving landscape of changemanagement, leadership and
transformation.
I am your host, ali Juma, andthis is the In a Game of Change
(01:59):
podcast.
In today's episode, I'mthrilled to be joined by Mark
Abram, managing Director atBoston Consulting Group and
author of the helping themtackle complex business
challenges and deliverbreakthrough one-on-one customer
(02:19):
experiences.
At BCG, he founded and leadsthe company's global
(02:40):
personalization business.
Mark brings a wealth ofknowledge on how AI is reshaping
customer experience, theethical considerations of data
usage and how businesses canimplement personalization at
scale.
We explore the strategies thatdrive success, the barriers to
adoption and how AI can be thegame changer in the dynamic
(03:00):
world of personalization.
I am thrilled to have Markchatting with me today.
Well, Mark, thank you so muchfor joining me in the Inner Game
of Change podcast.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I am grateful for your time today.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Thank you, mark.
Today we're going to talk aboutpersonalization, AI and maybe
everything in between.
In my eyes, you are the guru ofpersonalization.
I've recently read your bookand I love it.
In fact, I felt smarter afterreading your book somehow.
I find it amazing that peoplelike yourself the reason why you
(03:38):
put your ideas across in asimple way is because you've
gone so deep at some stage overa long period of time to be at
that stage where you cansimplify it, and then you've
written your book, but you focusin the book in the age of AI.
Talk to me about this approach.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Thanks so much.
So I had a lot of fun writingPersonalized, which is the name
of the book over the last yearand a half.
I really reflected on the lastdecade since I started building
our team that doespersonalization with brands
around the world, helping themimprove their customer
(04:18):
experience, and the timingcouldn't have been better
because, as you say, the age ofAI is here.
It's actually been here forseveral years with predictive AI
, but the idea of the book cameto me after ChatGPT got released
and the whole wave of Gen AIhit us.
(04:39):
So in late 2022, I put mythoughts together and I realized
part of my what I see in mywork and everyday life actually
underscores how much work westill have to do in terms of
applying AI to actually improvethe customer experience.
(05:00):
And most of what's out there,as you read, read articles and
books, is how to use AI to driveefficiency, when, in fact, we
should be focusing more on howdo we use AI to improve the
customer experience, which willalso benefit businesses and
drive growth.
And you see it around you everyday.
(05:20):
I mean, in my own life.
It's simple things like gettingan email that's just off in
terms of its recommendations.
How many times do we get thatin our inbox?
I bought yoga pants for mysister over the holidays and now
I'm getting bombarded withwomen's clothes recommendations.
(05:41):
Or I bought a dishwasher overCOVID and arrived broken after
you know months of delays, andthen I got flyers in the in my
mail around buying moredishwashers when the company
from the same company when theyhadn't even fixed my dishwasher.
(06:01):
There's a lot of simplebreakdowns in the customer
experience and I've done a lotof research for the book and
also for my work, and the truthis that consumers want
personalization and I'll sharethe data, but we'll go into that
in more detail.
So the overwhelming majority ofpeople say they want
(06:22):
personalization, yet two-thirdsof people say that in the last
30 days alone, they've had aninaccurate or downright invasive
personalized experience.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So there's a lot to do what happens to us, um at the
neuro level, when we receive apersonalized experience?
I mean, why do you think thecustomers want it in the first
place?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So we live in the age of AI, in a world where we're
constantly bombarded withinformation, whether it's in our
social media feed and theemails we get and the outreach
we get, the phone calls andtexts we get and I think people
just want to be heard.
They want to be felt listenedto.
And we just did a massiveconsumer sentiment study 23,000
(07:17):
consumers across 16 countriesand what we learned was that the
number one reason why peoplewant personalization is actually
joy just to make them feelspecial, feel recognized and
feel heard.
(07:38):
You know, give me some value,give me some discounts, allow me
to buy what I want cheaper.
And also convenience.
You know, when you go to amazon, you can go, do one click
shopping.
You don't have to fill in yourinformation again.
People want that too.
But in our time and in oursociety, personalization
(08:00):
underscores that people want tofeel heard and want to feel
connected with in my head thatthere is a if I feel delighted,
and I think that's part of yourframework.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Also, how do you delight the customer?
Um, it's almost close to that.
I got some dopamine released inmy body, almost, or close to
that.
I'll give you an example.
I am actually the reason whyI'm talking to you now and
(08:33):
coming across your book is theproduct of personalization.
I work with Chad Shepiti and Iactually gave Chad Shepiti
everything about me as aprofessional, as a father and
everything.
And people will say to me oh,your information is out there.
Well, my information is outthere for a reason.
And wouldn't it be great thatChachapiti would not waste my
(08:56):
time and actually give me theinformation at scale and
customize it for me andcustomize it for me.
So I was collaborating withChachi PT around personalizing
the change experience when Imanage change in the workplace
and how hard that is.
And Chachi PT said to me and,by the way, do you realize that
(09:17):
you know somebody called MarkIbrahim also wrote a book about
personalized and he's given meall this information ChatGPT
customized and personalized thatinput to me and made it really
easier for me to expand myknowledge.
(09:38):
Basically, I love that.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Okay, so it sounds like ChatGPT.
Not only was it the inspirationfor my book, but it's also
connecting me to to many others.
There's a couple of things yousaid in there.
One around sharing data, andI've studied this a lot and
customers are very willingactually to share their data if
(10:03):
there is a clear exchange ofvalue.
So the rates go up fromsomething like 30% to 90% of
customers are willing to sharetheir information If there is a
clear exchange of value.
You're going to give me betterservice, faster service, more
customized service, moreaccurate information that's
tailored to me.
Customized service, moreaccurate information that's
(10:25):
tailored to me and, as onecustomer put it to me, in our
qualitatives.
I mean, I'd have chosen to livein a world where brands have
this much information about me,but the fact is they do, and so
I really expect them to utilizethat information to my benefit.
Sorry, just on Chad GPT, I hada lot of fun with you.
Know how do I reallydisseminate the information in
(10:48):
the book in the age of AI nowand with Gen AI, ensuring the
right information was in there,and even created an Asta authors
custom GPT on my website,personalizethebookcom, that you
(11:14):
can ask any question and it'llanswer as if I was giving you
the answer.
So it's been a remarkablejourney to see how these tools
can equip us, in a very naturalway, to find the information we
need.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
So, going back to the data sharing, is that, when the
discussion happens around theethics and the privacy and all
of these things, yes, yes, so Italk in my book.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
I talk in my book.
There's a whole chapter on therisks and considerations around
AI, and there are a lot of risksto manage.
First off, I think the goal ofany brand should be transparency
(12:07):
, being clear on whatinformation they have about me
and how they're intending to useit when they're gathering that
information.
And even I think the bestpractice is to have a place
where consumers can go tounderstand what that information
is.
So Marriott, for example, ifyou go to their Bonvoy program,
they have a tab where you can goand see all the information
they have about.
You can go and see all theinformation they have about you.
(12:27):
Or LinkedIn allows you todownload all your data from the
platform and see what they havein there about you.
I think that kind oftransparency resets the norm of
it's not just all this stuffthat's behind the firewall that
brands see, but it's placing thedata and that exchange in the
hands of the customer.
And then the other piece isobviously regulations are
(12:52):
evolving.
The EU AI Act just went intoeffect and is really putting
much more onus on what are theethics of the algorithms?
Are we using responsible AIguidelines in testing the
algorithms and ensuring that theway their guardrails are set
(13:15):
considers those kinds of SEsthat might get introduced.
Now I think brands need to gobeyond the regulations, and the
best brands are focusing on atleast two parts of the puzzle.
One is around content how youtrain these models is only as
(13:35):
good as the content you feed it.
A beauty brand it was reallycritical that all the AI that
was being trained on differentfaces, different ethnicities,
different demographic typesaround this was for makeup and
(13:58):
other types of beautyrecommendations represented a
diverse audience, becauseotherwise the models introduced
bias.
Another common issue is, forexample, in regulated industries
like financial services, youcan't even consider demographics
like income and otherconsiderations when crafting
(14:20):
your recommendations.
But what brands often don't dois the checks on the backend.
So even if you didn't havedemographics as an input into
your model, let's say you're agrocery retailer and you're
putting out personalized offerswhere different customers are
getting different levels ofdiscounts.
Did the models result in lowerincome customers getting less
(14:45):
rich offers?
Is that an unintendedconsequence of how the models
are working?
Do, from a business standpoint,need to do the hard work up
front to be really clear onthose brand values and
guidelines?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
I want to ask you a question.
Imagine me as your client.
And is personalizationexpensive?
Is it difficult to apply?
Speaker 1 (15:43):
a perspective in 1989 , believe it or not called
Segment of One.
My co-author actually wrote itback then and in it he laid out
we could use technology in orderto be much more personalized in
our communications.
This was before the internetreally had the advent of
computers, and the truth is, forthe following 20, 25 years,
personalization just remained adream.
(16:03):
Then, I would say around thetime about 10 years ago, when I
founded our personalizationbusinesses at BCG, digital
natives and retailers and thosewith a lot of rich customer data
starting applyingpersonalization at scale.
One of the first brands Iworked with was Starbucks
(16:24):
building their personalizationengine, and that was the time
when Netflix was really gainingand taking over streaming with
its personalized algorithms.
So you had these businessesemerging, but it really wasn't
something that small businessescould apply or even more
regulated industries like healthcare and financial services
(16:45):
could apply, because thetechnology was really costly.
You had to custom build allthese algorithms, but also the
technology stack behind it.
Fast forward to today and whatwe see, and what my book shares
with lots of stories, is everyindustry has personalization
leaders in it, including B2B andhealth care and financial
(17:08):
services, and much moreregulated industries and also
small companies are applyingpersonalization.
There's a lot off the shelf youcan use.
There's a lot off the shelf youcan use, so recommendation
(17:33):
engines like Sunday Sky, forexample.
I'm working with a smallbusiness is doing B2B marketing
and this piece of softwareessentially takes educational
videos in this case for sellingservices and creates lots of
variations to different segmentsof customers.
So, as you are marketing yourpodcast, you might say there's
an academic audience, there's asmall business audience, there's
(17:54):
audiences in various industries, and you might do what Netflix
does, which is create a set ofdifferent trailers.
So they actually create, fortheir average TV show, a million
possible variations of atrailer.
The upfront call to actionmight be different.
Hey, this is a great edition ofmy podcast that will really
(18:18):
tell you more aboutpersonalization in the insert
blank industry.
And then you might choose asegment.
You know, let's say, you create20 different clips.
You might choose a series ofclips that's perfect for that
industry and then you might havea closing scene that's again
(18:39):
customized.
And now, with these pieces ofsoftware, you can do
combinations of this.
In fact, what's great is withgen ai, you used to have to
shoot all this content, let'ssay, inspirational content for
videos with photo shoots.
(19:00):
Now you can basically go intothese tools.
We're creating ads for fashionbrands and big CPG companies,
all using Gen AI, that arehyper-realistic and incredibly
cheap to make.
You know, you can create themin a day what used to take
months of photo shoots and tensof thousands of dollars.
(19:21):
So if the secret is lots ofcontent and then a personalized
piece of software that serves upthat right content to customers
, there's off the shelfsolutions for both that didn't
exist even a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
And that's how I see the beauty of AI.
It gives you that scale so youcan actually manage your
campaigns at scale.
But, most importantly, you canrespond to the market in real
time.
Is that how you see it?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yes.
Now I think what's importantand you alluded to the five
promises of personalization,which is basically the how to
guide that I share in my bookyes, scaling this and putting in
the technology and thefoundations is critical, but the
very first promise you have tostart with is empower me.
(20:18):
So what are you trying to dofor the customer?
In your case, you're trying toeducate them about topics they
haven't heard about yet in adeep and thoughtful way.
So that might be the goal forempowering the customer.
In order to do that, you needto know me.
So what are my interests?
(20:38):
What industry do I work withand what do I work in?
What do I already know?
What is my learning style?
Am I more someone who isauditory, visual, etc.
Those are examples of thingsyou'd want to know about me.
To serve up the information inthe best way, then you've got to
reach me.
This is where AI and targetingcome into play.
(21:02):
You've got to figure out whatchannel, what timing, what
context is best to reach me on,and this is where our next best
action tools can serve up.
What do I see in your next email?
Or what I see when I go to yourwebsite and so on Show me is
all about the content.
(21:22):
What content are you going toshow me?
And I already discussed waysyou could personalize video
content to me.
But creating dynamic emails,creating dynamic aspects of your
website based on who's comingto your website and the logged
in state or where they're comingfrom, are all much easier to do
(21:43):
than ever before, as long asyou're reusing modular pieces of
content from a content library.
And then the last promise ofpersonalization and you alluded
to this is delight me.
You need to set up a process tomake each next interaction
better than the last one.
So if I click on an email and Isuggest I'm interested in that
(22:06):
content, how will your nextemails learn that I really care
about AI and personalization asan example, and suggest other
things that I therefore mightlike?
Most companies struggle withthat last step in particular
because, especially in largerorganizations, the process can
(22:27):
be quite cumbersome.
Many teams have to worktogether, with many handoffs and
manual processes to improve anexperience.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And it's a very powerful thing when you delight,
because that's the spot wherewell, the sweet spot, I think
where, hopefully, a retention ofa customer will actually be
more likely than not.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
That's when personalization becomes magical.
Own day to day, you know.
Did you go to a hotel, forexample, where the receptionist
recognize you from last time,even though maybe it was a month
ago, and, uh, greets you byname and knows your preferences?
That's magical and that canhappen in a digital experience
as well, now, um, but it goesback to that concept of joy and
(23:18):
being recognized.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I can't remember the movie.
Every time I think about it.
I can't remember the movie.
Was it Tom Cruise when hewalked into a shop and I think a
, what is it?
A hologram or something that?
Oh yeah, something project?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I know which one you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yes, I want to ask you a question around the
delight me.
I'm going to make a statement,and I'm just formulating this in
my head right now, so I may getthis completely wrong.
Are we saying that is astraight statement?
Okay, to say that you are asgood as your last experience you
(24:01):
created for me.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
I think that is a very fair statement.
I think it's two thingsCustomers' expectations are
incredibly high, so the ease andconvenience they're getting
from shopping on Amazon the easeand convenience they're getting
from shopping on Amazon youknow they're asking for why
(24:25):
don't I get the same when Iinteract with my bank or my
health care provider?
Why do I have to fill out allof my information that you
already have when I'm applyingfor my next mortgage or I'm
going for my next visit at thedoctor's office?
That's one.
The other pieces I'd add tothat is you're only as good as
(24:48):
how much better you make thenext interaction, which is a
function of how much you learnin each interaction.
In fact, in the book, I lovemath and I love equations, and
so I boil it down to a simpleequation, which is the
personalization advantage is afunction of how many
(25:08):
interactions do you have withcustomers across your customer
base, and then how quickly doyou learn from them.
And that second piece, thepiece around speed, is what
matters even more than the firstpiece, which is scale.
If you can be a learningorganization set up to quickly
(25:29):
get the insights from eachinteraction and quickly make the
next one better, which you know, depending on the industry,
could be the same day or in afew days or a few months from
them.
That's when things becomemagical.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I love that.
The learning organization.
I think it's easier said thandone and hopefully technology
can help also can help with that.
I want to ask you a question.
Mark around.
Let's just say we invest inpersonalization.
What do we look for in terms ofmeasuring the success or the
(26:08):
return on investment?
Speaker 1 (26:12):
So this is a thing, a topic.
I think a lot about measurementof personalization, because the
truth is there hasn't been agreat way to measure
personalization for many years,and so organizations make big
investments, but they're notclear on the value, and then
(26:33):
leaders question thoseinvestments.
So, in the book, I lay out away to measure personalization,
which I call the personalizationindex.
It essentially scores a companyon each aspect of those five
promises of personalization thatit's trying to deliver to
customers.
So it's starting with how goodis the customer experience, how
(26:55):
personalized is it?
And we had a lot of fun in thebook scoring hundreds of brands.
We mystery shopped theirdigital and physical experiences
and spoke to customers and didinterviews, and all of that
boiled down into one part of thepersonalization and next score.
The other part of it, though,is those foundational
(27:17):
capabilities.
Is those foundationalcapabilities?
You know what is your data,what is your tech, what is your
AI content and agile learningprocess foundation look like,
and how good are you atdelivering the foundations of
personalization?
So that becomes an easy way fororganizations to understand
(27:38):
where do they have the biggestpockets of opportunity, you know
.
If you want it to start simply,though, I think even the first
part of that assessment isincredibly provocative for most
organizations to just honestlyassess the current experience
new customers and existingcustomers are getting in various
(28:00):
channels at various steps ofthe journey.
The other part of this is,though, while you know you can
get started with personalizationeasily and without spending
tons of money with off the shelftools, now for larger
organizations, they are spendingsignificant amounts to put in
place, you know, a datafoundation that works across
(28:22):
millions of customers or dozensof countries and across
different businesses.
They have to do integrationsacross their tech stack and they
do have large teams acrossmarketing, technology, analytics
and operations working onpersonalization.
So it's also important tocodify the value and the return
(28:43):
on investment aroundpersonalization.
So the other thing I advocate inthe book is treating
personalization like a business.
What's your personalization PLnow profit and loss statement
look like?
So you have to measure theincrementality it provides for
the business and you have to putthat against the costs and
(29:04):
investments it takes.
And the good news is it's notthat hard to measure the
business impact ofpersonalization.
You can look at what happenedto customers that got a
personalized email, let's sayagainst.
Customers that didn't, andmeasure that impact over time,
let's say against customers thatdidn't, and measure that impact
(29:26):
over time.
In fact, I find personalizationis a great way to move
customers up that brandengagement or loyalty ladder and
really follow how are theyengaging with the brand over
time.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
What industries do you think will benefit mostly
from scaling up or using AI toscale up or to hyper personalize
their services?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
So this is another question that we've put a lot of
data against, and we found thattoday, about 10% of companies
based on that personalizationindex are what we call
personalization leaders, reallyscoring high on the index.
And the good news is we findpersonalization leaders in every
(30:16):
industry.
Today the digital natives andretailers rank highest, but we
find personalization leaderseven in B2B and healthcare and
financial services, and we findthat these personalization
leaders grow 10 points fasterannually than the laggards.
So there's a real shifting ofshare and category growth that
(30:39):
these leaders are capturingbecause they're delighting their
customers.
When you project that out overthe next five years, we think
there's a $2 trillion prizeacross industries to be had.
About a quarter of that is inretail.
Another quarter of that is infinancial services and other
(31:02):
similar industries.
Of that is in financialservices and other similar
industries, but a good chunk ofthat is also in places like
healthcare and B2B and travel.
So all industries have a hugeprize up for grabs.
The ones that have richcustomer data often have a head
start.
That tends to be in industriesthat have frequent interactions.
(31:26):
But what I advise my clients inlower frequency industries like
let's take insurance, where youmight only change a provider
every five, seven years, orapparel where you might only
transact once or twice a year,is how do you create a
connection with the customerthat spans in between those
(31:48):
purchases?
If you're only pushing productsat customers, you're not going
to get much personalizedengagement.
But if you can get to know themin between those moments of
truth, you can be much morevaluable to them as a source of
recommendations, inspiration,when they are making those
decisions.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
What's your take on education and learning
experience and the studentexperience, and especially now
we've got online courseseverywhere and actually I've
been studying recently.
The amount of information outthere is quite overwhelming and
(32:33):
in my head I'm thinking theprovider that will really
understand me better.
They will get my business or Iwill study there.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
So I break it down into two parts.
The learning experience itself,and I really admire a startup
that's trying to crack the codeon this called Atypicalai.
The founders came from Googleand one of the folks who really
(33:04):
built personalization atStarbucks, and they decided they
wanted to apply the concept ofpersonalization to learning.
The name of the company comesfrom the fact that there are no
typical learners.
Everyone has a differentjourney as they learn.
They learn in different ways,they need to take different
steps to master a specific pieceof content, and so their idea
(33:28):
is to really harness all thegreat content out there because
there is so much content when itcomes to learning, whether it
be text, voice, videos etc.
And provide a platform wherethese content providers can
serve up the content in acontent library.
And then they are going to bethe platform that helps students
(33:52):
, and they focus on K through 12initially.
Uh, figure out what content topull on initially, and then each
piece they learn the program orplatform learns from.
So there might be quizzesembedded, there might be things
(34:12):
you like.
All of that goes into thealgorithms of what you're going
to see next and learn next, andit's learning from millions of
students, so it's able tounderstand.
(34:33):
Students like you learn bestwhen they saw this piece of
content next Is paired with thehuman experience around
classroom education and smallgroup student study groups that
can augment that digitalexperience.
(34:53):
I think the other part of yourquestion relates to all the
marketing that's done aroundeducation done around education.
We're working with highereducation in the United States,
where you know, college studentsor high school students have a
huge journey out of themnavigating their choice around
(35:14):
colleges and there's literallythousands of colleges to choose
from and universities arebombarding students with
information and emails andmailers and flyers.
My mantra to them is less ismore.
How do you really make everyinteraction with a student
(35:35):
tailored and valuable to standout from that sea of noise?
And I think the universitiesthat are really curious about
who is the student, what aretheir interests, how do I help
them navigate what is aconfusing and stressful journey,
will be the ones that stand out.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And personalization does not stop when we recruit a
student or onboard them.
It actually stays with them allthe way to when they finish.
But even after they finish,knowing now we're actually in a,
you know, lifelong learningwill actually be the the
ordinary thing.
So, for example, for me, likeone of the things that are
(36:17):
actually encouraging my son isthat I'm not going to encourage
you to spend four years in acollege and all of that actually
choose a direction and thenincrementally add value and
understand where you're actuallygoing.
And so I see that personalizedexperience will continue with me
(36:37):
even when I finish my study.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
I finish my study.
Yes, I love that focus onlifelong learning and making
sure you don't just think aboutone step in the journey.
It's every step can bepersonalized.
Your alumni are a communitythat can help existing and new
students on board and get themost out of their journey.
But they're also the consumersof the next steps in their
(37:12):
learning journey.
And how do you really fosterthat community?
And not just by you knowrecommending them the next
course they should take, by youknow recommending them the next
course they should take, buteven thinking about you know.
What events are you hostinglocally in their community for
them to connect?
How are you connecting alumnito each other and helping them
(37:35):
in their whether it's theircareers or their learning in
general?
What events can they go to thathave nothing to do even with
your program or course oruniversity that you're
representing, but really helpthe customer, empower me.
And then, sure, in that process, in that journey, there may be
(37:55):
times when you offer themcourses, you offer them ways to
come back to you and attendanother program or learn another
piece of content.
But we have to start customerfirst.
That's the core of the book.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
If personalization is very important and I do believe
is very important and in factit's integral going forward,
what would be some of theobstacles and reservations for
the leaders to focus onpersonalization?
Speaker 1 (38:30):
So at BCG we've studied the obstacles to change
a lot and we came up with this70-20-10 rule.
Think about it almost like aniceberg, where you see the top
of the iceberg and that's the 10and the 20.
You know your data is messy andyour tech stack's not quite
(38:52):
right and it might need work andthat's maybe, taken together,
30 of the effort it takes to getpersonalization right.
Yeah, but underneath the water,the hidden part of the iceberg,
is the people and processobstacles.
So much of this is about changemanagement and so, as I've led
(39:17):
upwards of 100 personalizationprograms over the last decade
now, it's consistently all aboutdriving that change.
I think the common mistakes thatmany companies make is
personalization is exciting.
Everyone has ideas for how tocurate that experience and make
it more tailored, and they wantto work on tons of more new use
(39:41):
cases.
And when you launch an effort,you may have dozens and dozens
of people that get involved andthen it kind of dies under its
own weight.
There are too many handoffs,too many people, too many
meetings versus really thinkingabout what is the next way you
(40:02):
want to personalize the customerexperience, what is that use
case, as you might call it, andwhat is a minimally viable
product.
You can build around it withyou know a one pizza or two
pizza team, as I call it.
You know a team that might besix to 10 people where you could
(40:22):
, uh, you know, feed them with acouple of pizzas Uh, they're
working late at night and reallyhave that team.
Be the doers that improve thatuse case and set a time limit to
you want to make progressthat's truly measurable in a
couple of months and then workon improving it every time.
(40:44):
If you can keep these teamssmall, agile, really quantify
the objectives they're driving,pinpoint them against a use case
, it's amazing what teams can dovery quickly.
You just got to remove thebureaucracy and red tape.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
You just got to remove the bureaucracy and red
tape, and you're talking to afield that I live and breathe
every day around managing change.
I am thoroughly enjoying thisconversation.
Actually, I'll take this pizzaprinciple back to my workplace
(41:26):
place, and it is very hard,though, to actually limit the
number of hands in there,because the organization
everybody wants to have a say inthese things, but I suppose
that's the role of theleadership to make those
decisions and ask for a level oftrust that we'll get things
done and we'll engage with youat some stage, you know, when we
(41:46):
get everything in place.
What would be your advice topeople in the change management
community when it comes tointroducing those changes?
Speaker 1 (42:07):
those changes.
So we have worked to perfect acouple of approaches here that I
think really work anddifferentiate successful efforts
from failures.
First off, you do need toenroll the organization and I
think having a short effortwhere you get the key leaders
together in a very immersivesession, collaborating on the
whiteboard and figuring out usecases for personalization that
(42:29):
could be prioritized.
Next, getting alignment on whateven the North Star is of,
where we want to go over thenext few years and what are the
steps we will take over the nextsix months, 12 months.
Take over the next six months,12 months and just getting a
shared understanding of thecapability gaps we might have to
deliver on that vision.
(42:49):
You know we tried to do that ina series of immersive workshops
over a few months, but thatprocess shouldn't slow down.
A parallel process where Ithink most organizations can get
very clear in that firstworkshop on a couple of things
that are quick wins around thecustomer experience and where
(43:10):
you can get together you know,uh, that one to two pizza team
of doers to make progress, uh,and that can put points on the
board.
But it's important to set thatteam up right.
Too often the issue is I have abusiness as usual process to run
.
I have quarterly targets to hit, I have a regular process that
(43:35):
I'm used to, and you need totake this team outside of that.
So oftentimes we set up what wecall personalization labs.
Take this team and put themworking side by side in a
separate space it can be hybridor virtual too and have them
working outside of the businessas usual process, unburdened by
(43:58):
those quarterly targets.
The rest of the team can thenfocus on running the usual
process and in a matter of a fewmonths, that team can launch
use cases, can prove the value,but it can also learn a lot
about what process changes needto happen, for example, content
(44:19):
we may have.
You know, we're working with apharmaceutical company right now
where it takes six months toapprove pieces of content and
we're trying to create 10x thecontent.
That's much more personalized.
So we have to completelyreimagine how medical legal
review and quality assurance isdone through that content
(44:39):
process, and we were able to getit down to 17 days through this
kind of approach.
It's, then, a lot of work totake this into the business as
usual process and reimagine andscale that, but this pilot team
can really make a lot ofprogress fast I love that.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Um, they do that in retail a lot and I worked with
the retail clients and digitalnatives.
They do that day in, day outand we should learn from these
guys.
Mark, it's been a pleasurehaving you in my podcast, the
Inner Game of Change.
I understand you're going to behere in Australia at some stage
(45:21):
to be here in Australia at somestage.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Yes, I'm coming last week of February to both Sydney
and Melbourne.
I look forward to coffee andbreakfast with you and meeting
lots of folks across Australiaand reconnecting with many old
friends.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Thank you very much.
Until next time, stay well andstay safe.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
See you soon, thank you.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Thank you for listening.
If you found this episodevaluable, remember to subscribe
to stay updated on upcomingepisodes.
Your support is trulyappreciated and, by sharing this
podcast with your colleagues,friends and fellow change
practitioners, it can help mereach even more individuals and
professionals who can benefitfrom these discussions.
(46:16):
Remember, and in my opinion,change is an enduring force and
you will only have a measure ofcertainty and control when you
embrace it.
Until next time, thank you forbeing part of the Inner Game of
Change community.
I am Ali Jammah and this is theInner Game of Change podcast.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Fantastic, that was great.
What a great discussion, andcongrats on everything you've
built.
The very first promise you have to start with
is empower me.
So what are you trying to dofor the customer?
In your case, you're trying toeducate them about topics they
haven't heard about yet, in adeep and thoughtful way.
So that might be the goal forempowering the customer.
In order to do that, you needto know me.
(00:21):
So what are my interests?
What industry do I work withand what do I already know?
What is my learning style?
And am I more someone who isauditory, visual, et cetera?
Those are examples of thingsyou'd want to know about me.
To serve up the information inthe best way, then you've got to
(00:42):
reach me.
This is where AI and targetingcome into play.
You've got to figure out whatchannel, what timing, what
context is best to reach me on,and this is where our next best
action tools can serve up.
You know, what do I see in yournext email, or what do I see
when I go to your website, andso on.
(01:05):
Show me is all about thecontent.
What content are you going toshow me?
And I already discussed waysyou could personalize video
content to me but creatingdynamic emails, creating dynamic
aspects of your website basedon who's coming to your website
and the logged in state or wherethey're coming from are all
(01:27):
much easier to do than everbefore, as long as you're
reusing modular pieces ofcontent from a content library.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
and then the last promise of personalization and
you alluded to this is Welcometo the podcast that explores the
evolving landscape of changemanagement, leadership and
transformation.
I am your host, ali Juma, andthis is the In a Game of Change
(01:59):
podcast.
In today's episode, I'mthrilled to be joined by Mark
Abram, managing Director atBoston Consulting Group and
author of the helping themtackle complex business
challenges and deliverbreakthrough one-on-one customer
(02:19):
experiences.
At BCG, he founded and leadsthe company's global
(02:40):
personalization business.
Mark brings a wealth ofknowledge on how AI is reshaping
customer experience, theethical considerations of data
usage and how businesses canimplement personalization at
scale.
We explore the strategies thatdrive success, the barriers to
adoption and how AI can be thegame changer in the dynamic
(03:00):
world of personalization.
I am thrilled to have Markchatting with me today.
Well, Mark, thank you so muchfor joining me in the Inner Game
of Change podcast.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
I am grateful for your time today.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Thank you, mark.
Today we're going to talk aboutpersonalization, AI and maybe
everything in between.
In my eyes, you are the guru ofpersonalization.
I've recently read your bookand I love it.
In fact, I felt smarter afterreading your book somehow.
I find it amazing that peoplelike yourself the reason why you
(03:38):
put your ideas across in asimple way is because you've
gone so deep at some stage overa long period of time to be at
that stage where you cansimplify it, and then you've
written your book, but you focusin the book in the age of AI.
Talk to me about this approach.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
Thanks so much.
So I had a lot of fun writingPersonalized, which is the name
of the book over the last yearand a half.
I really reflected on the lastdecade since I started building
our team that doespersonalization with brands
around the world, helping themimprove their customer
(04:18):
experience, and the timingcouldn't have been better
because, as you say, the age ofAI is here.
It's actually been here forseveral years with predictive AI
, but the idea of the book cameto me after ChatGPT got released
and the whole wave of Gen AIhit us.
(04:39):
So in late 2022, I put mythoughts together and I realized
part of my what I see in mywork and everyday life actually
underscores how much work westill have to do in terms of
applying AI to actually improvethe customer experience.
(05:00):
And most of what's out there,as you read, read articles and
books, is how to use AI to driveefficiency, when, in fact, we
should be focusing more on howdo we use AI to improve the
customer experience, which willalso benefit businesses and
drive growth.
And you see it around you everyday.
(05:20):
I mean, in my own life.
It's simple things like gettingan email that's just off in
terms of its recommendations.
How many times do we get thatin our inbox?
I bought yoga pants for mysister over the holidays and now
I'm getting bombarded withwomen's clothes recommendations.
(05:41):
Or I bought a dishwasher overCOVID and arrived broken after
you know months of delays, andthen I got flyers in the in my
mail around buying moredishwashers when the company
from the same company when theyhadn't even fixed my dishwasher.
(06:01):
There's a lot of simplebreakdowns in the customer
experience and I've done a lotof research for the book and
also for my work, and the truthis that consumers want
personalization and I'll sharethe data, but we'll go into that
in more detail.
So the overwhelming majority ofpeople say they want
(06:22):
personalization, yet two-thirdsof people say that in the last
30 days alone, they've had aninaccurate or downright invasive
personalized experience.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So there's a lot to do what happens to us, um at the
neuro level, when we receive apersonalized experience?
I mean, why do you think thecustomers want it in the first
place?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
So we live in the age of AI, in a world where we're
constantly bombarded withinformation, whether it's in our
social media feed and theemails we get and the outreach
we get, the phone calls andtexts we get and I think people
just want to be heard.
They want to be felt listenedto.
And we just did a massiveconsumer sentiment study 23,000
(07:17):
consumers across 16 countriesand what we learned was that the
number one reason why peoplewant personalization is actually
joy just to make them feelspecial, feel recognized and
feel heard.
(07:38):
You know, give me some value,give me some discounts, allow me
to buy what I want cheaper.
And also convenience.
You know, when you go to amazon, you can go, do one click
shopping.
You don't have to fill in yourinformation again.
People want that too.
But in our time and in oursociety, personalization
(08:00):
underscores that people want tofeel heard and want to feel
connected with in my head thatthere is a if I feel delighted,
and I think that's part of yourframework.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Also, how do you delight the customer?
Um, it's almost close to that.
I got some dopamine released inmy body, almost, or close to
that.
I'll give you an example.
I am actually the reason whyI'm talking to you now and
(08:33):
coming across your book is theproduct of personalization.
I work with Chad Shepiti and Iactually gave Chad Shepiti
everything about me as aprofessional, as a father and
everything.
And people will say to me oh,your information is out there.
Well, my information is outthere for a reason.
And wouldn't it be great thatChachapiti would not waste my
(08:56):
time and actually give me theinformation at scale and
customize it for me andcustomize it for me.
So I was collaborating withChachi PT around personalizing
the change experience when Imanage change in the workplace
and how hard that is.
And Chachi PT said to me and,by the way, do you realize that
(09:17):
you know somebody called MarkIbrahim also wrote a book about
personalized and he's given meall this information ChatGPT
customized and personalized thatinput to me and made it really
easier for me to expand myknowledge.
(09:38):
Basically, I love that.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Okay, so it sounds like ChatGPT.
Not only was it the inspirationfor my book, but it's also
connecting me to to many others.
There's a couple of things yousaid in there.
One around sharing data, andI've studied this a lot and
customers are very willingactually to share their data if
(10:03):
there is a clear exchange ofvalue.
So the rates go up fromsomething like 30% to 90% of
customers are willing to sharetheir information If there is a
clear exchange of value.
You're going to give me betterservice, faster service, more
customized service, moreaccurate information that's
tailored to me.
Customized service, moreaccurate information that's
(10:25):
tailored to me and, as onecustomer put it to me, in our
qualitatives.
I mean, I'd have chosen to livein a world where brands have
this much information about me,but the fact is they do, and so
I really expect them to utilizethat information to my benefit.
Sorry, just on Chad GPT, I hada lot of fun with you.
Know how do I reallydisseminate the information in
(10:48):
the book in the age of AI nowand with Gen AI, ensuring the
right information was in there,and even created an Asta authors
custom GPT on my website,personalizethebookcom, that you
(11:14):
can ask any question and it'llanswer as if I was giving you
the answer.
So it's been a remarkablejourney to see how these tools
can equip us, in a very naturalway, to find the information we
need.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
So, going back to the data sharing, is that, when the
discussion happens around theethics and the privacy and all
of these things, yes, yes, so Italk in my book.
Speaker 1 (11:41):
I talk in my book.
There's a whole chapter on therisks and considerations around
AI, and there are a lot of risksto manage.
First off, I think the goal ofany brand should be transparency
(12:07):
, being clear on whatinformation they have about me
and how they're intending to useit when they're gathering that
information.
And even I think the bestpractice is to have a place
where consumers can go tounderstand what that information
is.
So Marriott, for example, ifyou go to their Bonvoy program,
they have a tab where you can goand see all the information
they have about.
You can go and see all theinformation they have about you.
(12:27):
Or LinkedIn allows you todownload all your data from the
platform and see what they havein there about you.
I think that kind oftransparency resets the norm of
it's not just all this stuffthat's behind the firewall that
brands see, but it's placing thedata and that exchange in the
hands of the customer.
And then the other piece isobviously regulations are
(12:52):
evolving.
The EU AI Act just went intoeffect and is really putting
much more onus on what are theethics of the algorithms?
Are we using responsible AIguidelines in testing the
algorithms and ensuring that theway their guardrails are set
(13:15):
considers those kinds of SEsthat might get introduced.
Now I think brands need to gobeyond the regulations, and the
best brands are focusing on atleast two parts of the puzzle.
One is around content how youtrain these models is only as
(13:35):
good as the content you feed it.
A beauty brand it was reallycritical that all the AI that
was being trained on differentfaces, different ethnicities,
different demographic typesaround this was for makeup and
(13:58):
other types of beautyrecommendations represented a
diverse audience, becauseotherwise the models introduced
bias.
Another common issue is, forexample, in regulated industries
like financial services, youcan't even consider demographics
like income and otherconsiderations when crafting
(14:20):
your recommendations.
But what brands often don't dois the checks on the backend.
So even if you didn't havedemographics as an input into
your model, let's say you're agrocery retailer and you're
putting out personalized offerswhere different customers are
getting different levels ofdiscounts.
Did the models result in lowerincome customers getting less
(14:45):
rich offers?
Is that an unintendedconsequence of how the models
are working?
Do, from a business standpoint,need to do the hard work up
front to be really clear onthose brand values and
guidelines?
Speaker 2 (15:17):
I want to ask you a question.
Imagine me as your client.
And is personalizationexpensive?
Is it difficult to apply?
Speaker 1 (15:43):
a perspective in 1989 , believe it or not called
Segment of One.
My co-author actually wrote itback then and in it he laid out
we could use technology in orderto be much more personalized in
our communications.
This was before the internetreally had the advent of
computers, and the truth is, forthe following 20, 25 years,
personalization just remained adream.
(16:03):
Then, I would say around thetime about 10 years ago, when I
founded our personalizationbusinesses at BCG, digital
natives and retailers and thosewith a lot of rich customer data
starting applyingpersonalization at scale.
One of the first brands Iworked with was Starbucks
(16:24):
building their personalizationengine, and that was the time
when Netflix was really gainingand taking over streaming with
its personalized algorithms.
So you had these businessesemerging, but it really wasn't
something that small businessescould apply or even more
regulated industries like healthcare and financial services
(16:45):
could apply, because thetechnology was really costly.
You had to custom build allthese algorithms, but also the
technology stack behind it.
Fast forward to today and whatwe see, and what my book shares
with lots of stories, is everyindustry has personalization
leaders in it, including B2B andhealth care and financial
(17:08):
services, and much moreregulated industries and also
small companies are applyingpersonalization.
There's a lot off the shelf youcan use.
There's a lot off the shelf youcan use, so recommendation
(17:33):
engines like Sunday Sky, forexample.
I'm working with a smallbusiness is doing B2B marketing
and this piece of softwareessentially takes educational
videos in this case for sellingservices and creates lots of
variations to different segmentsof customers.
So, as you are marketing yourpodcast, you might say there's
an academic audience, there's asmall business audience, there's
(17:54):
audiences in various industries, and you might do what Netflix
does, which is create a set ofdifferent trailers.
So they actually create, fortheir average TV show, a million
possible variations of atrailer.
The upfront call to actionmight be different.
Hey, this is a great edition ofmy podcast that will really
(18:18):
tell you more aboutpersonalization in the insert
blank industry.
And then you might choose asegment.
You know, let's say, you create20 different clips.
You might choose a series ofclips that's perfect for that
industry and then you might havea closing scene that's again
(18:39):
customized.
And now, with these pieces ofsoftware, you can do
combinations of this.
In fact, what's great is withgen ai, you used to have to
shoot all this content, let'ssay, inspirational content for
videos with photo shoots.
(19:00):
Now you can basically go intothese tools.
We're creating ads for fashionbrands and big CPG companies,
all using Gen AI, that arehyper-realistic and incredibly
cheap to make.
You know, you can create themin a day what used to take
months of photo shoots and tensof thousands of dollars.
(19:21):
So if the secret is lots ofcontent and then a personalized
piece of software that serves upthat right content to customers
, there's off the shelfsolutions for both that didn't
exist even a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
And that's how I see the beauty of AI.
It gives you that scale so youcan actually manage your
campaigns at scale.
But, most importantly, you canrespond to the market in real
time.
Is that how you see it?
Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yes.
Now I think what's importantand you alluded to the five
promises of personalization,which is basically the how to
guide that I share in my bookyes, scaling this and putting in
the technology and thefoundations is critical, but the
very first promise you have tostart with is empower me.
(20:18):
So what are you trying to dofor the customer?
In your case, you're trying toeducate them about topics they
haven't heard about yet in adeep and thoughtful way.
So that might be the goal forempowering the customer.
In order to do that, you needto know me.
So what are my interests?
(20:38):
What industry do I work withand what do I work in?
What do I already know?
What is my learning style?
Am I more someone who isauditory, visual, etc.
Those are examples of thingsyou'd want to know about me.
To serve up the information inthe best way, then you've got to
reach me.
This is where AI and targetingcome into play.
(21:02):
You've got to figure out whatchannel, what timing, what
context is best to reach me on,and this is where our next best
action tools can serve up.
What do I see in your next email?
Or what I see when I go to yourwebsite and so on Show me is
all about the content.
(21:22):
What content are you going toshow me?
And I already discussed waysyou could personalize video
content to me.
But creating dynamic emails,creating dynamic aspects of your
website based on who's comingto your website and the logged
in state or where they're comingfrom, are all much easier to do
(21:43):
than ever before, as long asyou're reusing modular pieces of
content from a content library.
And then the last promise ofpersonalization and you alluded
to this is delight me.
You need to set up a process tomake each next interaction
better than the last one.
So if I click on an email and Isuggest I'm interested in that
(22:06):
content, how will your nextemails learn that I really care
about AI and personalization asan example, and suggest other
things that I therefore mightlike?
Most companies struggle withthat last step in particular
because, especially in largerorganizations, the process can
(22:27):
be quite cumbersome.
Many teams have to worktogether, with many handoffs and
manual processes to improve anexperience.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
And it's a very powerful thing when you delight,
because that's the spot wherewell, the sweet spot, I think
where, hopefully, a retention ofa customer will actually be
more likely than not.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
That's when personalization becomes magical.
Own day to day, you know.
Did you go to a hotel, forexample, where the receptionist
recognize you from last time,even though maybe it was a month
ago, and, uh, greets you byname and knows your preferences?
That's magical and that canhappen in a digital experience
as well, now, um, but it goesback to that concept of joy and
(23:18):
being recognized.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
I can't remember the movie.
Every time I think about it.
I can't remember the movie.
Was it Tom Cruise when hewalked into a shop and I think a
, what is it?
A hologram or something that?
Oh yeah, something project?
Speaker 1 (23:36):
I know which one you're talking about.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
Yes, I want to ask you a question around the
delight me.
I'm going to make a statement,and I'm just formulating this in
my head right now, so I may getthis completely wrong.
Are we saying that is astraight statement?
Okay, to say that you are asgood as your last experience you
(24:01):
created for me.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
I think that is a very fair statement.
I think it's two thingsCustomers' expectations are
incredibly high, so the ease andconvenience they're getting
from shopping on Amazon the easeand convenience they're getting
from shopping on Amazon youknow they're asking for why
(24:25):
don't I get the same when Iinteract with my bank or my
health care provider?
Why do I have to fill out allof my information that you
already have when I'm applyingfor my next mortgage or I'm
going for my next visit at thedoctor's office?
That's one.
The other pieces I'd add tothat is you're only as good as
(24:48):
how much better you make thenext interaction, which is a
function of how much you learnin each interaction.
In fact, in the book, I lovemath and I love equations, and
so I boil it down to a simpleequation, which is the
personalization advantage is afunction of how many
(25:08):
interactions do you have withcustomers across your customer
base, and then how quickly doyou learn from them.
And that second piece, thepiece around speed, is what
matters even more than the firstpiece, which is scale.
If you can be a learningorganization set up to quickly
(25:29):
get the insights from eachinteraction and quickly make the
next one better, which you know, depending on the industry,
could be the same day or in afew days or a few months from
them.
That's when things becomemagical.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
I love that.
The learning organization.
I think it's easier said thandone and hopefully technology
can help also can help with that.
I want to ask you a question.
Mark around.
Let's just say we invest inpersonalization.
What do we look for in terms ofmeasuring the success or the
(26:08):
return on investment?
Speaker 1 (26:12):
So this is a thing, a topic.
I think a lot about measurementof personalization, because the
truth is there hasn't been agreat way to measure
personalization for many years,and so organizations make big
investments, but they're notclear on the value, and then
(26:33):
leaders question thoseinvestments.
So, in the book, I lay out away to measure personalization,
which I call the personalizationindex.
It essentially scores a companyon each aspect of those five
promises of personalization thatit's trying to deliver to
customers.
So it's starting with how goodis the customer experience, how
(26:55):
personalized is it?
And we had a lot of fun in thebook scoring hundreds of brands.
We mystery shopped theirdigital and physical experiences
and spoke to customers and didinterviews, and all of that
boiled down into one part of thepersonalization and next score.
The other part of it, though,is those foundational
(27:17):
capabilities.
Is those foundationalcapabilities?
You know what is your data,what is your tech, what is your
AI content and agile learningprocess foundation look like,
and how good are you atdelivering the foundations of
personalization?
So that becomes an easy way fororganizations to understand
(27:38):
where do they have the biggestpockets of opportunity, you know
.
If you want it to start simply,though, I think even the first
part of that assessment isincredibly provocative for most
organizations to just honestlyassess the current experience
new customers and existingcustomers are getting in various
(28:00):
channels at various steps ofthe journey.
The other part of this is,though, while you know you can
get started with personalizationeasily and without spending
tons of money with off the shelftools, now for larger
organizations, they are spendingsignificant amounts to put in
place, you know, a datafoundation that works across
(28:22):
millions of customers or dozensof countries and across
different businesses.
They have to do integrationsacross their tech stack and they
do have large teams acrossmarketing, technology, analytics
and operations working onpersonalization.
So it's also important tocodify the value and the return
(28:43):
on investment aroundpersonalization.
So the other thing I advocate inthe book is treating
personalization like a business.
What's your personalization PLnow profit and loss statement
look like?
So you have to measure theincrementality it provides for
the business and you have to putthat against the costs and
(29:04):
investments it takes.
And the good news is it's notthat hard to measure the
business impact ofpersonalization.
You can look at what happenedto customers that got a
personalized email, let's sayagainst.
Customers that didn't, andmeasure that impact over time,
let's say against customers thatdidn't, and measure that impact
(29:26):
over time.
In fact, I find personalizationis a great way to move
customers up that brandengagement or loyalty ladder and
really follow how are theyengaging with the brand over
time.
Speaker 2 (29:39):
What industries do you think will benefit mostly
from scaling up or using AI toscale up or to hyper personalize
their services?
Speaker 1 (29:53):
So this is another question that we've put a lot of
data against, and we found thattoday, about 10% of companies
based on that personalizationindex are what we call
personalization leaders, reallyscoring high on the index.
And the good news is we findpersonalization leaders in every
(30:16):
industry.
Today the digital natives andretailers rank highest, but we
find personalization leaderseven in B2B and healthcare and
financial services, and we findthat these personalization
leaders grow 10 points fasterannually than the laggards.
So there's a real shifting ofshare and category growth that
(30:39):
these leaders are capturingbecause they're delighting their
customers.
When you project that out overthe next five years, we think
there's a $2 trillion prizeacross industries to be had.
About a quarter of that is inretail.
Another quarter of that is infinancial services and other
(31:02):
similar industries.
Of that is in financialservices and other similar
industries, but a good chunk ofthat is also in places like
healthcare and B2B and travel.
So all industries have a hugeprize up for grabs.
The ones that have richcustomer data often have a head
start.
That tends to be in industriesthat have frequent interactions.
(31:26):
But what I advise my clients inlower frequency industries like
let's take insurance, where youmight only change a provider
every five, seven years, orapparel where you might only
transact once or twice a year,is how do you create a
connection with the customerthat spans in between those
(31:48):
purchases?
If you're only pushing productsat customers, you're not going
to get much personalizedengagement.
But if you can get to know themin between those moments of
truth, you can be much morevaluable to them as a source of
recommendations, inspiration,when they are making those
decisions.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
What's your take on education and learning
experience and the studentexperience, and especially now
we've got online courseseverywhere and actually I've
been studying recently.
The amount of information outthere is quite overwhelming and
(32:33):
in my head I'm thinking theprovider that will really
understand me better.
They will get my business or Iwill study there.
Speaker 1 (32:43):
So I break it down into two parts.
The learning experience itself,and I really admire a startup
that's trying to crack the codeon this called Atypicalai.
The founders came from Googleand one of the folks who really
(33:04):
built personalization atStarbucks, and they decided they
wanted to apply the concept ofpersonalization to learning.
The name of the company comesfrom the fact that there are no
typical learners.
Everyone has a differentjourney as they learn.
They learn in different ways,they need to take different
steps to master a specific pieceof content, and so their idea
(33:28):
is to really harness all thegreat content out there because
there is so much content when itcomes to learning, whether it
be text, voice, videos etc.
And provide a platform wherethese content providers can
serve up the content in acontent library.
And then they are going to bethe platform that helps students
(33:52):
, and they focus on K through 12initially.
Uh, figure out what content topull on initially, and then each
piece they learn the program orplatform learns from.
So there might be quizzesembedded, there might be things
(34:12):
you like.
All of that goes into thealgorithms of what you're going
to see next and learn next, andit's learning from millions of
students, so it's able tounderstand.
(34:33):
Students like you learn bestwhen they saw this piece of
content next Is paired with thehuman experience around
classroom education and smallgroup student study groups that
can augment that digitalexperience.
(34:53):
I think the other part of yourquestion relates to all the
marketing that's done aroundeducation done around education.
We're working with highereducation in the United States,
where you know, college studentsor high school students have a
huge journey out of themnavigating their choice around
(35:14):
colleges and there's literallythousands of colleges to choose
from and universities arebombarding students with
information and emails andmailers and flyers.
My mantra to them is less ismore.
How do you really make everyinteraction with a student
(35:35):
tailored and valuable to standout from that sea of noise?
And I think the universitiesthat are really curious about
who is the student, what aretheir interests, how do I help
them navigate what is aconfusing and stressful journey,
will be the ones that stand out.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
And personalization does not stop when we recruit a
student or onboard them.
It actually stays with them allthe way to when they finish.
But even after they finish,knowing now we're actually in a,
you know, lifelong learningwill actually be the the
ordinary thing.
So, for example, for me, likeone of the things that are
(36:17):
actually encouraging my son isthat I'm not going to encourage
you to spend four years in acollege and all of that actually
choose a direction and thenincrementally add value and
understand where you're actuallygoing.
And so I see that personalizedexperience will continue with me
(36:37):
even when I finish my study.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
I finish my study.
Yes, I love that focus onlifelong learning and making
sure you don't just think aboutone step in the journey.
It's every step can bepersonalized.
Your alumni are a communitythat can help existing and new
students on board and get themost out of their journey.
But they're also the consumersof the next steps in their
(37:12):
learning journey.
And how do you really fosterthat community?
And not just by you knowrecommending them the next
course they should take, by youknow recommending them the next
course they should take, buteven thinking about you know.
What events are you hostinglocally in their community for
them to connect?
How are you connecting alumnito each other and helping them
(37:35):
in their whether it's theircareers or their learning in
general?
What events can they go to thathave nothing to do even with
your program or course oruniversity that you're
representing, but really helpthe customer, empower me.
And then, sure, in that process, in that journey, there may be
(37:55):
times when you offer themcourses, you offer them ways to
come back to you and attendanother program or learn another
piece of content.
But we have to start customerfirst.
That's the core of the book.
Speaker 2 (38:13):
If personalization is very important and I do believe
is very important and in factit's integral going forward,
what would be some of theobstacles and reservations for
the leaders to focus onpersonalization?
Speaker 1 (38:30):
So at BCG we've studied the obstacles to change
a lot and we came up with this70-20-10 rule.
Think about it almost like aniceberg, where you see the top
of the iceberg and that's the 10and the 20.
You know your data is messy andyour tech stack's not quite
(38:52):
right and it might need work andthat's maybe, taken together,
30 of the effort it takes to getpersonalization right.
Yeah, but underneath the water,the hidden part of the iceberg,
is the people and processobstacles.
So much of this is about changemanagement and so, as I've led
(39:17):
upwards of 100 personalizationprograms over the last decade
now, it's consistently all aboutdriving that change.
I think the common mistakes thatmany companies make is
personalization is exciting.
Everyone has ideas for how tocurate that experience and make
it more tailored, and they wantto work on tons of more new use
(39:41):
cases.
And when you launch an effort,you may have dozens and dozens
of people that get involved andthen it kind of dies under its
own weight.
There are too many handoffs,too many people, too many
meetings versus really thinkingabout what is the next way you
(40:02):
want to personalize the customerexperience, what is that use
case, as you might call it, andwhat is a minimally viable
product.
You can build around it withyou know a one pizza or two
pizza team, as I call it.
You know a team that might besix to 10 people where you could
(40:22):
, uh, you know, feed them with acouple of pizzas Uh, they're
working late at night and reallyhave that team.
Be the doers that improve thatuse case and set a time limit to
you want to make progressthat's truly measurable in a
couple of months and then workon improving it every time.
(40:44):
If you can keep these teamssmall, agile, really quantify
the objectives they're driving,pinpoint them against a use case
, it's amazing what teams can dovery quickly.
You just got to remove thebureaucracy and red tape.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
You just got to remove the bureaucracy and red
tape, and you're talking to afield that I live and breathe
every day around managing change.
I am thoroughly enjoying thisconversation.
Actually, I'll take this pizzaprinciple back to my workplace
(41:26):
place, and it is very hard,though, to actually limit the
number of hands in there,because the organization
everybody wants to have a say inthese things, but I suppose
that's the role of theleadership to make those
decisions and ask for a level oftrust that we'll get things
done and we'll engage with youat some stage, you know, when we
(41:46):
get everything in place.
What would be your advice topeople in the change management
community when it comes tointroducing those changes?
Speaker 1 (42:07):
those changes.
So we have worked to perfect acouple of approaches here that I
think really work anddifferentiate successful efforts
from failures.
First off, you do need toenroll the organization and I
think having a short effortwhere you get the key leaders
together in a very immersivesession, collaborating on the
whiteboard and figuring out usecases for personalization that
(42:29):
could be prioritized.
Next, getting alignment on whateven the North Star is of,
where we want to go over thenext few years and what are the
steps we will take over the nextsix months, 12 months.
Take over the next six months,12 months and just getting a
shared understanding of thecapability gaps we might have to
deliver on that vision.
(42:49):
You know we tried to do that ina series of immersive workshops
over a few months, but thatprocess shouldn't slow down.
A parallel process where Ithink most organizations can get
very clear in that firstworkshop on a couple of things
that are quick wins around thecustomer experience and where
(43:10):
you can get together you know,uh, that one to two pizza team
of doers to make progress, uh,and that can put points on the
board.
But it's important to set thatteam up right.
Too often the issue is I have abusiness as usual process to run
.
I have quarterly targets to hit, I have a regular process that
(43:35):
I'm used to, and you need totake this team outside of that.
So oftentimes we set up what wecall personalization labs.
Take this team and put themworking side by side in a
separate space it can be hybridor virtual too and have them
working outside of the businessas usual process, unburdened by
(43:58):
those quarterly targets.
The rest of the team can thenfocus on running the usual
process and in a matter of a fewmonths, that team can launch
use cases, can prove the value,but it can also learn a lot
about what process changes needto happen, for example, content
(44:19):
we may have.
You know, we're working with apharmaceutical company right now
where it takes six months toapprove pieces of content and
we're trying to create 10x thecontent.
That's much more personalized.
So we have to completelyreimagine how medical legal
review and quality assurance isdone through that content
(44:39):
process, and we were able to getit down to 17 days through this
kind of approach.
It's, then, a lot of work totake this into the business as
usual process and reimagine andscale that, but this pilot team
can really make a lot ofprogress fast I love that.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
Um, they do that in retail a lot and I worked with
the retail clients and digitalnatives.
They do that day in, day outand we should learn from these
guys.
Mark, it's been a pleasurehaving you in my podcast, the
Inner Game of Change.
I understand you're going to behere in Australia at some stage
(45:21):
to be here in Australia at somestage.
Speaker 1 (45:27):
Yes, I'm coming last week of February to both Sydney
and Melbourne.
I look forward to coffee andbreakfast with you and meeting
lots of folks across Australiaand reconnecting with many old
friends.
Thanks for having me on theshow.
It's been a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (45:39):
Thank you very much.
Until next time, stay well andstay safe.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
See you soon, thank you.
Speaker 2 (45:55):
Thank you for listening.
If you found this episodevaluable, remember to subscribe
to stay updated on upcomingepisodes.
Your support is trulyappreciated and, by sharing this
podcast with your colleagues,friends and fellow change
practitioners, it can help mereach even more individuals and
professionals who can benefitfrom these discussions.
(46:16):
Remember, and in my opinion,change is an enduring force and
you will only have a measure ofcertainty and control when you
embrace it.
Until next time, thank you forbeing part of the Inner Game of
Change community.
I am Ali Jammah and this is theInner Game of Change podcast.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
Fantastic, that was great.
What a great discussion, andcongrats on everything you've
built.
Host
Ali Juma
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