FIGARODIGITAL.CO.UK
Dr Nicola Millard Head of Customer
Insight & Futures, BT
There are not many within marketing who can claim to have 'futurologist' in their job title, but BT’s Head of Customer Insight and Futures, Dr Nicola Millard, is one of them. With a doctorate in Human Computer Interaction, she is charged with the strategy and forecasting of BT’s dedicated innovation team, and researching how the many innovative developments in the digital sphere will affect the future of work. “I work for a technology company but
I’m a psychologist, and interestingly, my research often shows that digital innovation isn’t always about the technology. I think one of the rationales for having someone with softer skills in an innovation organisation, especially when you have such a technical focus, is to think about people. I’ve learned over the years that you can drop technology on people but that doesn’t mean they'll use it. They have to be persuaded that it will actually help them. “My philosophy is that our purpose
as an organisation has to be wider than just the technology, and I think we can see echoes of that across the industry at the moment. We’re asking questions about the responsibility of social media companies, the ethics around AI, the consequences for the future of work. All of these thigs are powered by technology, but actually echo across a lot of fields like psychology, economics, and politics, and this is where innovation becomes really interesting.”
FD: How has customer experience evolved during your time at BT, as consumers and organisations become more digitised?
NM: Consumer habits and behaviours have a ripple effect on the organisations that serve those consumers. And consumers like to be in control, we see that they like self-service on digital, and
now have access to lots of tools and information they didn’t have before. This changes the relationship between consumer and organisation, and often cuts the organisation out of the conversation entirely. Our contact centres are changing phenomenally, because consumers aren’t calling with simple enquiries anymore, so you get the emotive and complex issues coming through to human contacts, which is probably a good thing.
FD: Do you think this desire to self-service and cut the brand out of the equation signifies a lack of trust between consumers and brands?
NM: I don’t think it signifies a lack of trust at all, I think its signifies that tools are more powerful and we’re putting them into the consumer’s hands, and providing they’re easy to use, I think customers will use them. The level of brand trust you can enjoy as an organisation often depends on what sector you're in. But customers do cut brands out of the conversation and increasingly ask advice from each other; they don’t necessarily believe marketing or branding messages. Often, they’re asking their friends. That’s a challenge because social media is the ultimate in consumer control, and as a brand it’s very difficult to control that messaging. My response to it is to just try and deliver fantastic customer service; that’s ultimately the only control organisations have over what people are saying about them. Giving people simple tools, being easy to contact if something goes wrong, and being able to rectify issues and problems does seem to generate loyalty. Customer experience is still very important, and that will echo out into what people are saying about you as a brand.
FD: In times of great disruption, what motivates you and your team?
NM: Times of disruption are fantastic for innovation teams. When the going
gets tough, you have to get innovative. And innovation doesn’t have to be expensive; it doesn’t even have to involve technology, it can be as simple as an idea that reinvents a process, or the way you train people. I think we’re in a period of huge uncertainty and disruption, which are the perfect conditions for innovation. Of course there is risk in innovation. But it is about experimenting; how do we think differently about business problems, how do we apply new technology to them? The beauty of things like Cloud, is that you can innovate in a fairly low-risk way, because you can buy a Cloud service and if it doesn’t work out you haven’t got vast amounts of equipment that are wasted. You can just say that didn’t work, but we’ve learned a lot. But of course, you do need a culture that’s willing to fail.
FD: How do you think technology- focussed brands should be expanding their talent pools to safeguard the future of work?
NM: There are some very interesting discussions around how we don’t need to just concentrate on STEM in terms of education and skills; we need to look at STEAM. I don’t call myself a scientist or an artist; I consider myself to be interested in both. But if we can bring people who are good at telling stories into the technology sector, that will play a very important role. Start-ups often have the best stories. Having not just the technical skills, but the ability to articulate effectively, is hugely valuable, and that means we need a more diverse set of people in technology than we do currently. We know there is a diversity problem in technology. Gender is one obvious example, but we also need to think about how we bring these very different disciplines into the sector. As a psychologist in technology I’m quite unusual. I hope that at some point in the future that will become completely normal.
globalservices.bt.com
10 issue 31 spring 2018
Having not just technical skills, but the ability to articulate effectively, is hugely valuable.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67
