The Age of Continuous Connection

New technologies have made 24/7 customer relationships possible. It’s time to change your business model accordingly.

by

Nicolaj Siggelkow

and

Christian Terwiesch

by

Nicolaj Siggelkow

and

Christian Terwiesch

From the Magazine (May–June 2019) · Long read

Summary.

Thanks to technologies that enable constant, customized interactions, businesses are building deeper ties with their customers. Firms can now address customer needs the moment they arise—and sometimes even earlier. By employing connected strategies, companies are dramatically improving their customers’ experiences, boosting their own operational efficiencies, and gaining competitive advantage.

In their research the authors have identified four effective connected strategies: Respond to desire, which entails filling customers’ requests quickly and seamlessly; curated offering, or presenting personally tailored recommendations; coach behavior, or reminding people of needs and goals and nudging them to act; and automatic execution, or anticipating what people want and delivering it without even being asked.

To get the most out of these strategies, firms must understand customers’ privacy preferences, build new capabilities, and use the learning from repeated interactions to shape future ones.

Idea in Brief

The Old Approach

Companies used to interact with customers only episodically, when customers came to them.

The New Approach

Today, thanks to new technologies, companies can address customers’ needs the moment they arise—and sometimes even earlier. With connected strategies, firms can build deeper ties with customers and dramatically improve their experiences.

The Upshot

Companies need to make continuous connection a fundamental part of their business models. They can do so with four strategies: respond to desire, curated offering, coach behavior, and automatic execution.

A seismic shift is under way. Thanks to new technologies that enable frequent, low-friction, customized digital interactions, companies today are building much deeper ties with customers than ever before. Instead of waiting for customers to come to them, firms are addressing customers’ needs the moment they arise—and sometimes even earlier. It’s a win-win: Through what we call connected strategies, customers get a dramatically improved experience, and companies boost operational efficiencies and lower costs.

A version of this article appeared in the May–June 2019 issue (pp.64–73) of Harvard Business Review.

Nicolaj Siggelkow is a professor of management and strategy at Wharton and a codirector of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management. He is a co-author (with Christian Terwiesch) of Connected Strategy (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019).
Christian Terwiesch is a professor of operations and innovation at Wharton and a codirector of the Mack Institute for Innovation Management. He is a co-author (with Nicolaj Siggelkow) of Connected Strategy (Harvard Business Review Press, 2019).

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The Age of Continuous Connection

Idea in Brief

The Old Approach

The New Approach

The Upshot

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