How crypto-currencies are creating new CX opportunities

By Steven van Belleghem , who looks at CX opportunities

Crypto-currencies are always an interesting technology to observe, as despite their rise, many people still carry a degree of scepticism about how they will change their own industry or day-to-day life. Recently however, it seems the hype is strong again, as prices climb and the total amount of spent on ‘Non-Fungible Tokens’ (or NFTs) in February alone was higher than in the whole of 2020.

Crypto-currencies creating new CX opportunities

One intriguing area is the growing popularity of personal coins, as individuals and brands try to create their own economy.

Rally.io is a new platform that facilitates this process. Rather than being the same type of investment tool as Bitcoin, however, these are designed to be an instrument to create a higher level of fan engagement. Content creators can reward their fans with coins – they represent a real financial value – or they can sell exclusive content via their own coins. I believe we’ll start to see a growing trend of artists, sport teams and YouTube stars create their own branded coins in this way in the near future.

What’s interesting is that these NFTs are exclusive, non-interchangeable digital tokens, which means that the digital asset you bought has a unique code, that acts as a kind of certificate of authentication. It means you can have exclusive ownership of a digital asset, so for example, Jack Dorsey was able to sell his first tweet for millions, just like a collector buying a unique piece of art.

The rise of branded economies

So what does this all mean for customer experience? Well these new crypto-currency evolutions give everyone the opportunity to start their own branded economy. It means that as well as sharing content online, artists, athletes and influencers have a new way to generate revenue, and offer real ownership of something.

But it is not just a way to generate money. The real value is in the ability to create a completely new level of fan engagement and loyalty, allowing customers to be actively involved in their branded economy. For example:

Exclusive content: Brands and individuals can now make exclusive content in return for their branded coins. If you’re a band releasing a new album, fans can pay a fixed number of coins to enjoy the new material before the other (lesser?) fans.

Exclusive collectibles: Kings of Leon recently NFT’d a couple of albums as exclusive collectibles, with a limited number available and owned by loyal fans. Imagine a soccer team taking a similar approach to goals – you could be the exclusive owner of your team’s cup winning goal video, owning a moment in history.

Premium services/products: Many of us will buy copies of a book signed by an author, so perhaps the author could sell access via their own personal coins? Perhaps for a slightly larger coin investment you could join their exclusive fan WhatsApp group?

Word-of-mouth recommendations: Brands have been trying to find ways to encourage word-of-mouth recommendations from customers for decades, but this could be a new way to actively reward fans for sharing online content.

My own $CXM

I always like to imagine how any emerging technologies can change my own business, and I find the idea of branded economies fascinating, so was delighted to recently be invited to join the Rally.io platform. The platform is funded by famous VC Andreessen Horowitz, the VC behind companies like Facebook, Clubhouse and Coinbase, so I have visited their HQ in Silicon Valley on many occasions.

I decided to create my own coin, but rather than name it after myself, I set up $CXM for ‘customer experience management’. The concept is that everyone in the customer experience community could potentially use it, buying and sending coins or using them to create events or motivate people to share CXM-related content.

Of course, this is all just a live experiment and we have no firm plans yet, but I believe crypto-currencies are a new field in customer engagement that the world has only just begun to explore so I am excited to see how things can develop.

Steven van Belleghem is one of the world’s leading thought-leaders, speakers and authors on customer engagement. His new book, The Offer You Can’t Refuse is out now.

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