The Eternal E-Customer: How Emotionally Intelligent Interfaces Can Create Long-Lasting Customer Relationship

Abstract

From Book: The advent of worldwide decentralized communication epitomized by Internet and cell phones has been a pervasive democratizing force. It was not Yeltsin standing on a tank that overturned 1991 coup against Gorbachev, but rather clandestine network of fax machines and early forms of email that broke decades of totalitarian control of information. The movement towards democracy, capitalism, and attendant economic growth that has characterized 1990s have all been fueled by accelerating force of these person-to-person communication technologies. The impact of distributed and intelligent communications has been felt, perhaps most intensely in world of business. Despite dramatic mood swings on Wall Street, seemingly extraordinary values often ascribed to so-called e-companies reflects a genuine perception: business models that have sustained businesses for decades are in early phases of a radical transformation. New models based on direct personalized communication with customer will transform every industry, resulting in massive disintermediation of middle layers of distribution that have traditionally separated customer from ultimate source of products and services. The underlying technologies are all accelerating. It's not just computation that is growing exponentially, but also communication, networks, biological sciences (e.g., DNA sequencing), brain scanning, miniaturization (we are currently shrinking technology at a rate of 5.6 per linear dimension per decade), accumulation of knowledge, and even rate of paradigm shift itself. And underlying technologies are becoming ever more intelligent, subtle, emotionally aware, that is, more human. Expanding access to knowledge is changing power relationships. Patients increasingly approach visits to their physician armed with a sophisticated understanding of their medical condition and their options. Consumers of virtually everything from toasters, cars, and homes to banking and insurance are now using automated software agents (bots) to quickly identify right choices with optimal features and prices. The wishes and desires of customer, often unknown even to herself, are rapidly becoming driving force in business relationships. The well connected clothes shopper, for example, is not going to be satisfied for much longer with settling for whatever items happen to be left hanging on rack of her local store. Instead, she will select just right materials and styles by viewing how many possible combinations look on an image of her own body (based on a detailed three-dimensional body scan), and then having her choices custom manufactured. The current disadvantages of Web-based commerce (e.g., limitations in ability to directly interact with products and frustrations of interacting with inflexible menus and forms instead of human personnel) will gradually dissolve as trends move robustly in favor of electronic world. By end of this decade, computers will disappear as distinct physical objects. Displays will be written directly onto our retinas by devices in our eyeglasses and contact lenses. In addition to virtual high-resolution displays, these intimate displays will provide full immersion visual virtual reality. We will have ubiquitous very high bandwidth wireless connection to Internet at all times. Going to a web site will mean entering a virtual reality environment—at least for visual and auditory sense&#!51;where we can directly interact with products and people, both real and simulated. Although simulated people will not be up to human standards, not by 2009, they will be quite satisfactory as sales agents, reservation clerks, and research assistants. The electronics for all of this will be so small that it will be invisibly embedded in our glasses and clothing. Haptic (i.e., tactile) interfaces will enable us to touch products and people. It is difficult to identify any lasting advantage of old brick and mortar world that will not ultimately be overcome by rich int