How Digital Twins Will Upend the Customer Experience
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Welcome to gartner thing cast. I'm like this wearing a today, we're expLoring the world of digital twins and specifically twins of a customer pulled from our top of mind video series. You'll hear our global chief of research, Chris Howard, interview Michelle the clue, a VP analyst on the retail consumer goods industry team and cross practice leader on the subject to discuss how business leaders can leverage virtual representations of a customer to predict future actions, reduced friction and enhance personalized experiences while also addressing the importance of data privacy. Now .

here's Chris.

i am chris hour walked to the top of mind join with another top of minder today child e is going to join me we're not going to talk about everything customer related and especially digital twin of the customer is is a topic that we've been cover garden for a couple years it's taken off really nicely and that covered so many different things that our client are interested in talking about so much shall welcome just give us a quick to introduction of yourself.

well thank you chris so i'm an analyst at gartner i do reside in the cio industrie s so that means that i get to see a bit uh what you can be inspired from and my core coverage is in consumer goods and retail yeah what.

your background what do you do do before came here i.

did a lot of stuff so i have worked out of ender i specialized in product life cycle management and this is something that i would say that in my core coverage for quite a while i worked in the distribution construction in the beginning parts of the alarm and then i moved over to the recipe base so food embarrass so i have that deep granular view but it's also how do we meet the needs how do we make sure that we hit the ceo's needs which is growth and lowering costs.

yeah in fact just before we we we're doing this i was looking at the c e o survey results that we are publishing putting on stage at this fall and growth the first is always number one but one thing that page a lot from last year year over year is attention to the customer as he is up thirty three percent from from last year which i think is really positive my feeling over the last couple of years as they we're playing up attention to the customer d but now that starting to turn but celebi ask you a pretty fundamental question customer and show what is a customer so.

it's funny that you say that because in our digital twenty of a customer team the first thing that we do um definitely cartier new or embarking a new research is define what is this we got the digital twin part down immediately the part that we have problems with is what is a customer in health care that could be a patient IT could be a provider IT could be several different things in education you first think of students but IT also could be a umi IT could be even the faculty the teachers in my world of consumer goods you think of the customer is being the consumer but for consumer goods is actually the retailer so there are several different areas and of course we have b to be and they have different versions of the customer as well so what we looked at is how do we define customers in a scalable way so we look at IT for IT could be several different things one thing that could also be is a machine and that something that most people don't think about that we have great research on machine customers as well.

yeah i hoped to actually bring the the team that rock that book and do the top of mind with them at some point in fast so another thing to top level question we look over the last few years but especially since gene i kind of hit the public conscious ness back at the beginning of twenty three um how if customer expectations changed in all of the forms that you're talking about.

so there's a lot of different things with the customer expectations one of them is an expectation to have clarity on the data points that are being captured about them and having control over what is actually taken so there are laws on that GDP r but one of the things is understanding when you get to the point that you're actually being creepy um and this is for the companies that are collecting those data points and so i would say what jenni comes a bigger responsibility and understanding the backlash that can commit you as well as are the data sources being governed properly so that the information that you're getting out is actually accurate.

yeah so IT had has been a bit of a free for all in terms of like social media platforms commerce platforms like anything you're collecting all kinds of stuff about me either directly from me or from inference or from other sources and that kind of thing and i wonder if consumers of all types are will push back on that are using any push back on this over mediated over instrument tips commercial experience.

absolutely i have a family member who obviously not going to say who he is but um he does not allow his kids to be put on any social media so there is definitely push back happening you also see what's up where they have more encryption there and they have more privacy so one of the things that we're seeing is people pushing back on that and also wanting to see how they are being monitise ed we also see that was search and there is a very popular search engine right now um that is getting some heat on how they are tracking every detail also if you have a virtual personal assistant you may notice that your social media feed your advertising changes so that's something that people are getting concerned about as well and when i talked to hotels one hotel chain said that they couldn't go with a a prepackaged virtual personal system for the room because they could not determine that they would be able to keep their guest privacy rights maintained so this is a bigger thing that we're seeing and we are definitely seeing a push back on IT and we're seeing people get more detailed in how their data is being used and wanting more transparency so that's something that company is should definitely take a closer look at.

so so i customer is a multi dimensional no IT could be a thing could be a machine i know the ones that we're familiar i did all of the forms that we have sometimes no providers are customers sometimes in the b t b situation they switch roles that kind of say there's much more data around customers and interactions and the interrogations with one another uh in this very ambient of surrounding of the customer that's why a couple of years ago i came to when i said i an idea uh what if we took the digital twin concept from industrial engineering and applied IT to the customers that something we think would be useful and you said let me try just tell tickets back to that and sort of what what intrigue about that but also just what is the digital two of the customer.

so a digital one of a customer i'll start with out first so we can understand everything else that will follow additionally twin of a customer is a virtual representation of that customer based on past interaction so what we saw before was a digital one of our product lets say we had an engine we could determine what those blue print or catrine at the engine was we could see based on usage how much they were hauling that was a truck what the road conditions were and what the weather conditions were when you would need to make maintain IT so from there we were like what about a customer if we took whatever that customer was for that industry and and we saw their their interactions could we determine what their next interaction would be and so it's a different thing so instead of having this cat you would start with a persona and then you would see how they interact so you would have to have customer engagement for that and have different platforms IT doesn't always have to be digital commerce but you would have a platform which you could gauge and manage that and then you would put IT into simulation and so that's what we call a digital one of our customer.

this is good and so of the lessons from the industrial side of there's just to repay what you just sad build up a very high resolution data representation of an object like an aircraft engine or in your piece of equipment and then with a combination of watching IT in real time and log information so past performance information you can look for things like meantime to failure or what the actual problems are if you send somebody the field to fix that is very specific and is much more productive in that way um and so by by saying looking we have people or customers in all their farms patient student machine we have a higher and higher resolution representation of them and the way that they interact and then you can use that to see when they may take an action to be pretty or he could see create a simulation environment we are using the the digital twin of the customer in certain uh macroeconomic conditions or behavior economic conditions to see how they might actually react and so how are how are our client responding to that so so.

far there's been a lot of interest and we do have some um for confidential reasons i can't say if they are but they are exploring what this is going to be like and it's very interesting to see and to talk them about IT because there's a common misconception that this is customer three sixty we've been doing.

IT forever yeah i was gonna about this kind of for a long time big fundamental different here.

though right absolutely so customer three sixty i i like to think about IT and kind of like a weather situation and we've seen a lot of weather situations recently with hurricanes ing through the us so if you want to think about cost three sixty IT is a hurricane is a ton of information coming at you and it's kind of hard to control all of IT and really you know an understanding of IT where we see this different is with the digital point of a customer instead of IT coming at you in always you are selecting what type of data sources you want to have you have the govern over you can also weed out different types of data points that are anomalies or outliers to that typical customer behavior so think of IT more of an irrigation of crops of data and analytics so instead of a hurricane coming through it's more of an irrigation of data that's coming for you so it's it's easier to read the benefits of.

and so if i'm a customer and situation then uh i am am using that to enhance my interactions perhaps are to reduce friction and environment let me take you somewhere i know which is to disney.

but i but i think about.

customer experience so like the disney park experience is one where we know they use a tuna data to actually optimize the journey through an any increasingly personalize IT right down to me so not just as a personal but to let me as a consumer i assume this kind of data representation we're talking about to something better company like disney has been doing.

absolutely so i'll go into a personal story that will related um i my disney um the park fane i do love the coasters that is my favorite Um I will actually go in our garden events like right after work or they have early park hours. I will be on that single writer line and go through a roller cost a few times. So that is my secret there .

my people right? Yeah.

my favorite one is the rocks and roll roller coaster that features eros. Mh, so you get to launch off. I go to that all the time.

So I went there one year on my birthday, and I was very excited to go. IT was right after covet lifted. So we are so very mass and everything I had scheduled that on my APP to be able to go there.

So i've got my APP IT can see my information IT knows because I wear magic being that I go on this right continuously. And as i'm going through, i'm scanning in the line, which of course, is the one thing you don't like about disease any time you have to stand in a line even if it's just for a few seconds. So i'm sending they're waiting and all of us said, my daughter is like mom luck and all of these post sters started lighting up with my name on IT.

Where are up this from? And my birthing. So of course, I was a very mature.

I was like, okay, let's look at this. This is wonderful. No, I just look like jack nicolson in's long last daughter. Like, yeah, and I wanted to stay in that line for a long time.

I didn't body from a .

privacy perspective. No, I was so excited. I'm like, i'm there in my ride. And this is a thing where this shows you how data should be used. IT knows that I love this ride.

IT knows that I love to be there, and IT has my name on there, and IT doesn't list my last name. So there is a little bit of privacy. If I didn't react, nobody would know that IT was for me and they might .

not have done IT for a different customer whose privacy sensitivities were different. 喂。

exactly. Or someone that is as nursing out as I am about that ride, because that is like my ride. But this is where we look at, how can I do things differently.

So one of the cool things also about disney is when I was over a restaurant, not only can I put in, I have an allergy, but I can see OK. Michelle is actually gonna miss this because she's in a totally different part, probably writing that roller coast again. And they can offer that timeslot to somebody else that is there.

So it's not a lay helping me, but it's helping others in the way that they use the data. And I opt in. I have the ability to opt in and share that information. If I didn't want to, I don't have to use that APP. I could just go through sandby and they wouldn't .

even know that I was there.

We're going to take a quick break. When we come back Christmas, a will die back into disgusting digital twins of a customer.

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so the beauty of the digital twin of the customer is that the benefits the customer as customer as much as IT does the provider and i think that's a real so no customer much around do i know enough about you to sell you the right thing or give you the you give you the service or you direct you in a certain way or this is a much more multi directional multidirectional al kind of relationship that you build through visual twin of a customer.

yeah and it's not just knowing them that is a big part but it's not just knowing them it's knowing what causes friction for them and how do you overcome that friction how do you even do more than overcoming the friction how you turn that friction moment into a moment of delight and that is the key to digital point of a customer is creating that engagement is getting to know them better and here's something that surprises a lot of people IT can be a wonder one IT could be a wonder mini and let me give you an example of that so at garner we travel for work quite a bit so a lot of times we stay at a specific hotel chain and when i go there for work i don't really care how much the breakfast skies i don't care if i have to make your copy how much that cause i'm there for proximity to clients or to the event and to get things done for that reason when i travel for personal reasons i wanting to find that free breakfast maybe a very happy hour maybe something in there at both of them i'm still going to be who i am i'm going to be a female traveller and still gonna my food allergy but i'm going to have different reasons and purposes for going so that IT may be a one to many for me so one of the purposes a digital one of a customer is also extrapolating could we create another digital twin a geni situation based on what we know so what would this course to need if they are a personal traveller if we have them for business what can we offer them to entice them to come.

back yes so there's a thread of hopefulness and there are in a way that you're controlling in some ways how your personal interact with the world is supposed to would be controlled for you i don't think we're entirely there yet but you know if you think about the nature of identity identity and amy you how you want interact with the world that should actually be something that we control ourselves.

i don't.

think we're there yet but i i think that seen an ultimate design would be to get to that booking so express.

for one reason i just have to interpret you four second we will get there soon i have client that are working on IT and i can't tell you who they are but what i can tell you is one of the pieces of advice that i gave them so let's just say we're going to a quick service restaurant and we're on the ad right now it's just got all of my information in there the way that it's entered what if instead IT could be similar to when you log in to say a netflix or disney or an amazon prime where you define the persona that you want to have so IT doesn't have to be your exact information that could be encrypted and in addition to that you could have other personally that travel with you or come with you to that location so this is one of the things to think about for people that are concerned about security amount what if we offered them a way to interact with us that anonymize is the information but also so for example i'm still a gene xr and i like my coffee hit my daughter is a genee SHE loves a cold so this is one of those things where we can have those personas and then they can offer things that they know fit in with those personas to have better service in those ways.

yeah i i'd be happy with just a j x line and a g z line i know what to choose and that takes us to the plastic about rescue box where where this research goes which you're starting to edge into is something we might call total experience or core customer experience how do all of these different concepts fit together and where.

does he go from here that's a great question so a lot of time they like to give on people a out of technology example of what this is to kind of give them some background on IT so cx core is knowing who you're designing for and why they matter you which is a lot of people push back on that i can be why are we awesome like this this is not a legal movie you need to know what the friction point is but the way that i would rate IT is think of your favorite band they didn't start off in arenas with fireballs they started off on a guitar or p n o finding a key that's what c x core is finding the key to your customers after that they are probably brought in some beye members at a guitar but they also had a drum set the beat they're setting the beat for that that is total experience where you can see how do they interact what are the beats in different types of interactions say for retail how often do they go to the store do they go to the store to pick up something do they get curbside do they like to buy in the store do they use a r and b r how are we seeing them interact with technology are they asking for a concise type of experience with the designer for example then we start seeing when do they drop out where do we see turn are they waiting for a promo code what's happening how do we keep them engaged from all that type of information then we can extract emulate and simulate what we think will help entice them in the future and it's not always something they cosme one of the things i tell people that you will be surprised how much exclusivity drives this so from there when you've fought the beat from the key now we're going to go in and start playing more gigs and more gigs and then we get to the point where we understand this we got a tham we're ready to go we've got the crowd enthuse and then we can start the fireballs and starting that type of excitement and drive into a big mushroom IT so i know that's not a super technical lots of digital platform technology but you can't start in an arena with fireballs you have to start with a song build your base understand them and then meet those needs.

yeah and of course we don't time to get into with a lot of technical implications underneath this what we do with our data you know issues of privacy different g o so it's a hoki ds of think that the team is also talking about so you good there is there's a whole set of architectural advice that comes along with creating.

the fireballs and that and so glad you said that okay ay so two things first one is we are building a workshop we have an amazing digital tween of a customer team that includes people like patrick hevesi who is a GDP security analyst we have bar williamsen who does privacy we have alloa who looks at the data sources in tact we have a whole bunch of people there and of course down shaban right so does machine customers so we're really getting a big team together and we're putting out a multi component ents so a modular composer as we like to say composer architecture workshop that will be out in twenty twenty five but right now we need to start with that key and the beat so we've got some great research and i'm very excited about IT because IT was a definitely team effort but chris we have something that we've never done before which i kind of think is a homer sense like dull moment how do we not do this we have the business capabilities which is the strategy the inspiration points and we worked with a lot of different people across garner in every practice on this and so we have that on the side next to that we have the technology that you will need to support this because a lot of times you know people like okay that's great a love idea how do i do that somewhere like okay well you will go to this person to talk about that next now it's all on the side and even if you're not a garner you client one of the things you need to know if you do need to put IT on the same page what are you to do what is the tech to do IT and in our research chris we also put the market guides of magic cartons in the note so you can go to the next so again put IT on the same side inventory know what you need to replace and scale up and that's what we have we have a scale up type of approach for IT and it's something that i think.

is needed yeah so IT is a fancy idea i just be but IT also has IT has substance to terms of how you pull IT off across multiple industry and so on which is why i think this is such a you know a rich vein of researching insight that we have just gonna continue to grow so thank you for a couple of things thanks for a leading this research for million for bringing IT to life i think it's been creative and fun and interesting and is engaging for for for clients but also thanks for journey here to IT it's nice to help thank you yes is great to see you and it's kind of fun to talk about this that and so everybody up there thanks for joining us and we will see you next time on top of my.

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