Can IOT Help to Build Customer Engagement? YES!

There’s an old joke about a driver who pulls off the road to ask for directions. The local rubs his chin, thinks for a moment, and says: “Well, I wouldn’t start from here.”

That joke died the moment GPS navigation became standard. We don’t pull off the road to ask for directions any more. We receive constant updates in real time on a map that always shows our location. Our cars are no longer just vehicles that take us from A to B; they’re also our companions who tell us how to get there—and they’re companions that we can adjust to suit our preferences. Users of Waze, a navigation app now owned by Google, can change the voice of the “person” telling them about the next turn so that their car has the personality they find most comfortable. And it’s not just directions in a pleasant voice that users of Waze can enjoy; stop at a traffic light and the app offers an ad, usually for a local business. Start moving and Waze recognizes that you’ll be looking at the road, and removes the ad. That’s targeted information delivered at exactly the right time and in exactly the right place by an object with whom we have a friendly relationship.

The Internet Of Things Turns Companies Into Companions

We’re already choosing to spend time with the voices of our things, and it’s spreading. Users of Nike+’s running app can share their progress on social media, an option that invites their friends to send them notes of encouragement. The app itself doesn’t supply the voice but it does provide a way for the user’s friends to transmit their messages based on information that they’re receiving automatically. It turns a lone jog into a social event conducted with distant companions.

Waze uses recorded voices. Nike+ uses text written by familiar people. But both create a constant sense of companionship for the user, and it’s not difficult to see how that companion can change with users’ needs. It’s pleasant to have an electronic navigator explain in a friendly voice when to make the next turn. But it’s reassuring to have an electronic nurse constantly at hand to remind you to take medication when she notices a change in your heart rate or a drop in your blood sugar levels.

Apply that same sense of companionship, reassurance and understanding to objects as varied as televisions and refrigerators, water coolers and credit cards, and businesses will have a way of being available to customers not when they remember them but when they need them.

When businesses are constantly aware of people’s needs and ready to supply them with exactly the services they want, the result should be both greater convenience and an entirely new kind of customer/company relationship. If the move away from advertising to content marketing has meant less interruption and more engagement, the rise of the Internet of Things will turn brands into an ever-present companion, always at hand, ready to help and engaged through content.

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