Alan Pennington - Collected Quotes

"At its most basic level trust can be described as acceptance of the truth of a statement without the need for evidence – clearly this happens over time: initially evidence is required that you will do as you say you will and then, over time, you accept that this will happen without the need for evidence on each occasion." (Alan Pennington, "The Customer Experience Book", 2016)

"Data can be a scary subject for an organisation to come to terms with: it is often seen as confusing, steeped in mystery and only truly understood by a few highly technical experts." (Alan Pennington, "The Customer Experience Book", 2016)

"Data from the customer interactions is the lifeblood for any organisation to view, understand and optimise the customer experience both remotely and on the front line! In the same way that customer experience experts understand that it’s the little things that count, it’s the small data that can make all the difference." (Alan Pennington, "The Customer Experience Book", 2016)

"[…] deliver a customer experience where the customer sees real value from how you use the data that they share with you and they will keep interacting/sharing that data and their consent for you to use it!" (Alan Pennington, "The Customer Experience Book", 2016)

"Evidence is freely available which demonstrates a gap between what the company thinks is important to customers and what customers actually deem to be the most important when it comes to making their choices. The failure to understand what is really important leads to customers receiving a sub-optimal experience and the company sub-optimising its commercial position." (Alan Pennington, "The Customer Experience Book", 2016)

"Information or data is only valuable if it can be used to provide insights which then actually drive change. Sadly the most effort and expertise and applause is given to those who design and deliver incredibly complex statistical reviews of data over time – the beauty is in the complexity and the presentation not in the usability." (Alan Pennington, "The Customer Experience Book", 2016)

"It is not about deep data analysis to predict behaviour, it is about actively designing experiences and then applying data to enable the delivery. Cumulatively making lots of little changes using very specific pieces of data will aggregate to a bigger impact." (Alan Pennington, "The Customer Experience Book", 2016)

"Remember that at the heart of the issue is that business leaders, often unintentionally, miscommunicate the goal – the challenge is how to articulate and describe what you are setting out to achieve and then to manage our human reaction to it." (Alan Pennington, "The Customer Experience Book", 2016)

"Remember that for change to happen it has to be relevant at a local and individual level" (Alan Pennington, "The Customer Experience Book", 2016)

"Remember the ultimate question you are answering is not how much data do you have, but who has it and how is it used?" (Alan Pennington, "The Customer Experience Book", 2016)

"The bad news is that companies tend to focus on three out of the four elements of the balanced scorecard and emphasis is skewed away from the customer component, which is the least understood and believed by many to be the least quantifiable." (Alan Pennington, "The Customer Experience Book", 2016)