Customer's New Voice: Extreme Relevancy and Experience through Volunteered Customer Information

PART III Engaging Tomorrow’s New Voice

Tomorrow’s consumers will bear little resemblance to yesterday’s consumers in how they buy products and services to fulfill their wants and needs. The information consumers generate both intentionally and incidentally will continue to increase exponentially with the continued rapid evolution of technology interconnected by the Internet. To put this in perspective, present-day consumers already hold in their hands not only tremendous computing power but also a gateway to the world’s information.

Tomorrow’s consumer will not only have direct access to virtually any type of information but also experience continued rapid escalation of personal computing power with the proliferation of low-cost embedded sensors in everything from clothing to wristwatches. The resulting consumer data exhaust and direct information-sharing potential will eclipse today’s consumer information environment.

Their information will reside in a personal cloud of which they will have full and transparent control and ownership. Data from their smart objects, sensors, wearable technology, commercial transactions and interactions, health, and a myriad of other digital information will reside there. Their digital life will be there as an information “onion” that they will use to peel back layers of purchase intentions and context to a select group of suppliers as needed. To a large extent, these will be real-time, locally expressed buying intentions that will be shared ...