The Offer You Can’t Refuse, reviewed

Review of The Offer You Can’t Refuse by Steven Van Belleghem, available from his website here.

This last decade has been characterized by the introduction of 4G, social media and mobile services. These technologies have given rise to a new minimum in terms of customer experience. Customers expect ease of use, friendly and empathic staff, omnichannel services and competitive prices. In the years to come, customer experience will reach a whole new level. Naturally, technology (5G, quantum computing, robotics and AI) will play a key role in customer expectations, but it goes way beyond that.

Invisible and automatic interfaces will become a necessity but the ultimate ease of use will no longer be enough to come out on top. Automation is but the first step. But what if customers start to have expectations that go beyond convenience? In addition, companies will have to play an active role in their customers’ life journey. As a company how can you help consumers’ dreams come true and eliminate the obstacles in their day-to-day lives? And finally, companies have the opportunity to tackle concrete world problems together with the customer.

The world is facing unprecedented challenges: climate, healthcare, government budget deficits, mobility… How can a company involve its customers in the solution to these problems? The combination of automation, being a partner in consumers’ lives and solving actual social issues will be the guiding principles for the successful business of the next decade. For consumers, the combination of all these elements constitutes an offer they can’t refuse.

The Offer You Can’t Refuse, reviewed

This book aims to dig into what makes a company liked, loved, and a great one, now in 2020 and beyond. Van Belleghem argues that it is not enough to merely be good at what you do, you also have to have a clear sense of purpose and where and how you are helping the planet. In some case studies he gives this is very much the case, and he does contrast Twitter and Facebook in terms of their contrasting approaches to ethical behaviour, most recently in terms of giving a platform to untrue political assertions.

Van Belleghem hypothesis is a good one, and it would be great if more companies followed his line of thought. If they were to do so, then we would all benefit, though it is also up to us as customers and clients to also hold these companies to these values. Google’s supposed mantra of ‘Don’t be evil’ looks deeply tarnish at this stage and the challenge is for them to restore trust and credibility that has been squandered by financially driven actions. Similarly, and even more so with Facebook, who he references on several occasions.

The book is well illustrated and presented in a strongly visual and colourful style. The next question is how soon we can achieve a migration to the type of services and customer relationships that are suggested and advocated in this book.

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