FROM THE EDITOR 

When I think of the customer experience, I imagine a warm handshake or smile from someone I'm dealing with, empathy about my concerns, expertise, etc., but two experts I spoke to recently say I'm greatly overstating the importance of the softer side. They say the key for customers these days is simple: They want speed. 
 
Fast. Faster. Fastest.
 
Jay Baer, long a guru on the customer experience, says speed is almost as important to consumers these days as price. David Samuels, chief commercial officer at Pie Insurance, a startup that initially focused on workers' comp for small businesses and recently added commercial auto, says the company draws on some 18 to 20 data sources and has built algorithms that let it make decisions automatically on more than half the submissions it receives. A spokeswoman says decisions are made automatically for 73% of class codes.
 
Of course, while speed may be the most important thing, it's not the only thing, and Jay and I run through the whole list in this month's interview. Here is his summary:
 
"Customer experience doesn't actually exist. It's fake. We made it up. We treat customer experience in business as if it's a knob you can turn or a switch you can flick. It is often referred to as if it is a holistic business construct, but customer experience is not a thing. 
 
"It is ALL of the things. It's arguably hundreds of different decisions that you make in your business every single day.  People toss out advice: 'You should be better at customer experience.' Well, yeah, but that's useless advice.  
"If you think big about customer experience, it's never going to work."
 
And, yes, most of the interview is like that. It's well worth a read.
 
Cheers,
Paul

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