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Paying down experience debt

by Diana O'Brien, Andy Main, Suzanne Kounkel, Anthony R. Stephan
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7 minute read 15 October 2019

Paying down experience debt How brands are refocusing their values to elevate the human experience

7 minute read 15 October 2019
  • Diana O'Brien United States
  • Andy Main United States
  • Suzanne Kounkel United States
  • Anthony R. Stephan United States
  • Anthony R. Stephan United States
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  • Designing with empathy
  • Delivering on human experience
  • Connecting to the human spirit

Making marketing more effective comes from understanding your customers, workforce, and partners through a human lens. See how impactful this approach can be.

As you’re likely reading this article on your digital device of choice, you don’t need to be reminded of the omnipresence of all things digital in human life today. Instead of going to a bookstore and taking tips from fellow bibliophiles on our next read, we check online reviews and order books digitally.1 Automated checkouts allow us to circumvent small talk and eye contact with the cashier. We “like” our friends’ posts on social media rather than telling them in person that we like them. And autonomous vehicles will one day likely let us literally fall asleep at the wheel.

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Indeed, digital technologies can make it easier for us to navigate through our busy lives, but they also can erode the fundamental elements of human connection. Despite efforts to replicate human behavior and gestures through automation and AI, the essentials of human connection—eye contact, personal touch, empathy—remain irreplaceable by technology. So, when digital connections—personal and professional—lack a human touch, it can create an environment where people feel isolated, underrepresented, and unfulfilled. This can result in people opting for quick answers to narrowly defined problem sets versus more sustainable solutions that take into account what it means to be human.

We believe that the rapid pace of digital change is adding to a buildup of these unintended consequences, which we call experience debt. Why is this? As many behavioral psychologists will tell you, humans are inclined to trade the hard choice of tomorrow for the easier solution today. This is evident in the trillion-dollar debt of the US government and the United States’ collective personal credit card and student loan debt—US$423.8 billion and US$1.5 trillion, respectively.2

In the realm of technology, easier choices made today by companies can result in a heavy technical debt for them later (think cutting corners on an IT project to meet mounting business pressures or lack of stakeholder understanding of the technical implications of launching a new ERP system). This innate human tendency to put off hard choices makes us wonder how often businesses are making easier choices about the digital frontier that do not factor in the human.

Consequently, this experience debt can have far-reaching implications for the humans who navigate these digital solutions. Here are some examples: The integrity of our news feeds can be diminished by outside influencers; studies reveal that while social media can make us more connected, it can also leave us feeling isolated from society and envious of others; 3 facial recognition technology can accelerate processing times at borders and secure mobile devices, but it may be less effective in accurately identifying women and people of color;4 biased data can unintentionally lead to racially biased prison recidivism algorithms; 5 and when our technologies lack inclusive design, we can end up with products such as retina scanners that don’t factor in those in wheelchairs.6

So, how do we reduce this experience debt? If “going off the grid” or leaving it to lawmakers doesn’t work for you, then we have another, perhaps bolder, option: Pay down experience debt by elevating the human experience. For businesses, this means striving to address the unmet human need for connection by aligning customers, the workforce, and partners to a common purpose (see our trend on purpose to learn more). In this article, we explore how some core tenets discovered in our prior research on human values can help companies elevate the human experience in a manner that emphasizes the human.

Designing with empathy

John Steinbeck, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962, eloquently wrote, “You can only understand people if you feel them in yourself.” At its core, empathy can equip you with perspective. If you have empathy, you can better design for the human experience because you intimately understand how your stakeholders find meaning and belonging in products and services. Of course, it can be easier to be empathetic if you share the same values with those you’re looking to serve—this means being congruent in your values across customers, workforce, and business partners.

In fact, our prior research on human experience found the organizations that align their values best with their stakeholders are also the most successful in terms of workforce and customer satisfaction.7 Further, over a three-year period, these same organizations are twice as likely to outperform peer groups in revenue growth (see sidebar, “Quantifying the human experience” to learn more).

Quantifying the human experience

Recently, we conducted research to better understand how organizations can authentically—and empathetically—elevate the human experience.8 After years of viewing the customer experience and the workforce experience as isolated initiatives, many organizations achieved only marginal results. Thus, many began to integrate the two. However, we saw that the most effective results are achieved by aligning and connecting the customer, workforce, and business partner experiences through shared values.

To better identify—and quantify—the shared values of customers, workforces, and partners, we developed the human values compass. Drawing on more than 200,000 behavioral data points, attitudinal statements, and demographics, we found four cardinal human values: personal achievement (me), belonging (we), curiosity (unknown), and control (known). Certainly, the pairs “me and we” and “unknown and known” are inherently at odds. But as figure 1 shows, there are four more values that arise when these cardinal values interact: trying new things, learning new things, sharing with others, and caring for others.

From our work on the human values compass, we found that no matter what your customers, workforce, and partners value, five tenets contribute to elevating the human experience:9

  • Being obsessed with all things human.
  • Proactively delivering on human needs.
  • Executing with humanity.
  • Being authentic.
  • Working to change the world.

When a business can identify these values and work toward building solutions that align to them, it can elevate the human experience.

Read Deloitte Digital's article, “We’re only human: Exploring and quantifying the human experience,” to learn more.

The human values compass helps identify and quantify the shared values of customers, workforces, and partners

Delivering on human experience

During our research, we came across three powerful examples of companies that used a set of shared values to build more connected and inclusive human experiences. Businesses can draw inspiration from them to work toward delivering an elevated human experience.

  • Leadership at General Motors (GM) to change the world through “Zero, Zero, Zero.” 10 Acknowledging the power of its platform and driven by an organizational desire to influence and shape the outcomes of all the people it touches, GM declared “zero crashes, zero emissions, and zero congestion” as the company’s purpose and mission for a better world. In an era of deregulation in the United States, this statement demonstrates GM’s commitment to building a more sustainable world, placing change at the center of its vision, values, and future business.
  • Walgreens launches the “Feel More Like You” program.11 Walgreens has long employed beauty consultants to help people find the right products for any occasion. But what about those going through one of the most trying times of their life—cancer patients? Recognizing the physical and emotional toll cancer survivors go through and its impact on self-image, Walgreens created a more human experience through its Feel More Like You program. By partnering with Look Good, Feel Better (a cancer support program specializing in patient beauty needs) and the Cancer Support Community, Walgreens trained its beauty consultants and pharmacists to help patients hold on to (or reclaim) their sense of self. Services under the program include advice on hair loss, skin and nail problems, and fatigue, to name a few.
  • REI’s #OptOutside for Black Friday. While many use the Thanksgiving holiday to rush to the store or shop online for the best holiday deals, outdoor retail cooperative REI knows that its workforce and customers value connecting with others through a shared love of the outdoors. To lessen the holiday stress and adhere to its core values, REI closes all 200 of its stores on Thanksgiving and Black Friday to encourage its workforce and customers to spend time outside with their loved ones (all 12,000 employees receive paid time off).12

Connecting to the human spirit

Despite our innate desire for greater and deeper connections, the pace of digital change can make it very easy for us to disengage and disconnect from what makes us human. However, connected technology is likely here to stay—for good or for bad. Now it’s upon us—individually and at the organization level—to help ensure technology connects with the human spirit and elevates the human experience rather than dampen the spirit and down human connections.

Acknowledgments

This report would not be possible without the subject matter expertise that results from working alongside executives on the front lines to understand the impact of these trends in the marketplace and how to embrace them to drive growth for organizations.

Thank you to the following contributors:

OUR GLOBAL LEADERS CONTRIBUTING ACROSS THE ENTIRE 2020 GLOBAL MARKETING TRENDS REPORT

David Redhill, Partner, Deloitte Consulting Global CMO, Australia
Mike Brinker, Principal, Global Deloitte Digital Leader, US
Will Grobel, Director, Customer & Marketing, UK
Andrew Jolly, Partner, Digital Mix Lead, UK
Peter Sedivy, Partner, APAC Deloitte Digital Lead, US
David Phillips, Partner, Brand, Creative & Media, Australia
Pascual Hua, Partner, Deloitte Digital, China
Ryo Kanayama, Director, Chief Brand & Corporate Affairs Officer, Japan
Desiree Phakathi, Senior Manager, Marketing, South Africa
Tharien Padayachee, Manager, Marketing & Communications, South Africa
Livia Zufferli, Income & Associate Partner, Customer & Marketing, Canada
Pablo Selvino, Partner, Consulting Director, LATCO
Heloisa Montes, Partner, Digital Customer & Marketing Transformation leader, Brazil
Renato Souza, Director, Communication & Brand, Brazil
Victor Press, Partner, Acne, Northwest Europe
Jennifer Veenstra, Managing Director, CMO Program leader, US

THE EDITORIAL TEAM FROM THE CENTER FOR INTEGRATED RESEARCH

Tim Murphy, Senior Manager, US
Josh Schoop, PhD, Manager, US

THE GLOBAL MARKETING TRENDS TEAM

Anna Syrkis, Manager, Global Marketing Trends Program Manager, US
Julie Murphy, Manager, Marketing Manager, US 
Marion Cannon, Lead, Content & Insights, US
Natalie Melamed, Senior Manager, Content & Insights, US

Purpose is everything

Jennifer Barron, Principal, Brand & Growth Strategy, US
Torsten Gross, Managing Director, Customer & Applied Design, US
Richard Prévost, Senior Manager, Branding, Marketing & Advertising Lead, South Africa
David Olsson, Partner, Acne, Sweden
Ori Mace, Senior Manager, Acne, Sweden
Andy Sandoz, Partner, Chief Creative Officer, Deloitte Digital, UK
Mark Hutcheon, Director, Risk Advisory, UK

Paying down experience debt

Amelia Dunlop, Principal, Customer Strategy & Applied Design Leader, US
Ashley Reichheld, Principal, Customer & Marketing Automotive, Transportation, Hospitality & Services sector leader, US
Stacy Kemp, Principal, Customer & Marketing Strategy, US
Maggie Gross, Senior Manager, Heat, US
Megan Fath, Senior Manager, Customer & Applied Design, US
Emma Gu, Manager, Customer & Applied Design, China
Thomas Kant, Manager, Deloitte Neuroscience Institute, Germany
Olivier Binse, Partner, Head of Digital Advisory, Deloitte Digital, UK
Deborah Womack, Director, Customer & Marketing, UK
Susie Nursaw, Director, Deloitte Digital Insights, UK
Peta Williams, Senior Manager, Deloitte Digital Marketing & Insights, UK

Fusion is the new business blend

Paul Magill, Managing Director, Customer & Marketing, US
Larry Keeley, Managing Director, President, Doblin, US
Mike Barrett, Principal, President, Heat, US
Will Grobel, Director, Customer & Marketing, UK
Tom Day, Director, Market Gravity, UK
Alex Curry, Partner, Monitor Deloitte, UK
Dan Adams, Partner, MarTech & Insight leader, UK

Are you a trust buster or builder?

Jeff Weirens, Principal, Global Business Leader of Financial Advisory, US
Jeff Simpson, Principal, Customer & Marketing, US
David Cutbill, Principal, Marketing and Advertising Risk Services Leader, US
Cameron Brown, Director, Head of Privacy, UK
Will Grobel, Director, Customer & Marketing, UK
Peta Williams, Senior Manager, Deloitte Digital Marketing & Insights, UK
Wendy Stonefield, Director, Customer & Marketing, UK
Nick Purdon, Director, Customer & Marketing, UK

The amplification of consumer participation

Jennifer Lacks Kaplan, Principal, Customer & Marketing, US
Melissa Schwarz, Senior Manager, Deloitte Pixel leader, US
Balaji Bondili, Senior Manager, Hybrid Solutions & Incubation, US
Grace Ling, Partner, Consulting, China
Emma Gu, Manager, Customer & Applied Design, China
Andy Sandoz, Partner, Chief Creative Officer, Deloitte Digital, UK
Matt Guest, Partner, Deloitte Digital, UK
Monica Hu, Manager, Deloitte Digital, UK
Alex Curry, Partner, Monitor Deloitte, UK

Valuing your most important asset—talent

Jannine Zucker, Principal, Human Capital, US
Ashley Reichheld, Principal, Customer & Marketing Automotive, Transportation, Hospitality & Services sector leader, US
Hilary Horn, Managing Director, Human Capital, US
Yohan Gaumont, Equity Partner, Digital Customer leader, Canada
Will Grobel, Director, Customer & Marketing, UK
Gillian Simpson, Director, Customer & Marketing, UK
Rupert Darbyshire, Director, Human Capital, UK

Diffusing agility across the organization

Mike Barrett, Principal, President, Heat, US
Jocelyn Lee, Senior Manager, Head of AI, Heat/Deloitte Digital, US
Alan Schulman, Managing Director, Chief Creative Officer, Deloitte Digital, US
Ed Grieg, Senior Manager, Chief Disruptor, Deloitte Digital, UK
Martin Willets, Partner, Customer & Marketing, UK
Yohan Gaumont, Equity Partner, Digital Customer leader, Canada
Verusha Maharaj, Senior Manager, Monitor Deloitte, South Africa

Special thanks to the CMO Program team and the leaders of Customer & Marketing and Deloitte Digital for their insight and support through this journey.

Cover image by: David Vogin

Endnotes
    1. David Byrne, “Eliminating the human,” MIT Technology Review, August 15, 2017. View in article

    2. Credit card debt information was captured by Claire Tsosie and Erin El Issa, “2018 American household credit card debt study,” Nerdwallet, December 10, 2018. Student loan statistics were gathered from Zack Friedman, “Student loan debt statistics In 2019: A $1.5 trillion crisis,” Forbes, February 25, 2019. View in article

    3. Byrne, “Eliminating the human.” View in article

    4. Joy Buolamwini and Timnit Gebru, “Gender shades: Intersectional accuracy disparities in commercial gender classification,” Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 81 (2018): pp. 1–15. View in article

    5. Stephanie Wykstra, “Can racial bias ever be removed from criminal justice algorithms?,” Pacific Standard, July 12, 2018. View in article

    6. Memoori, “Current smart city planning is increasing the divides in urban population,” August 29, 2018. View in article

    7. Amelia Dunlop et al., “We’re only human: Exploring and quantifying the human experience,” Deloitte Digital, August 7, 2019. View in article

    8. Ibid. View in article

    9. Ibid. View in article

    10. General Motors, “For crashes, emissions and congestion, zero is more,” accessed September 15, 2019.C:\Users\sitroy\Downloads\l View in article

    11. Walgreens Newsroom, “Walgreens launches ‘Feel More Like You’ program to assist people living with cancer manage the physical changes associated with treatment,” November 19, 2018. View in article

    12. Jerry Stritzke, “REI: Closing on Black Friday for good,” REI co.op, November 20, 2018. View in article

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Diffusing agility across the organization

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Paying down experience debt

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Diana O'Brien

Diana O'Brien

Global Chief Marketing Officer

Diana is the global chief marketing officer for Deloitte responsible for driving growth across all businesses. Reporting to the global CEO, Diana leads a network of brand, communications, marketing, and insights organizations. Her responsibility is to champion the voice of the customer, surface deep insights with advanced analytics, increase sales velocity, and gain greater competitive advantage with stronger, differentiated experiences. Her goal is to align global customer data, creativity, and innovation with business strategies to accelerate Deloitte’s ability to solve customers’ most complex issues. She also leads the C-Suite CMO Program, and serves as an advisory partner to global life sciences clients. Since joining the firm in 1985, she has held a number of leadership roles across global client portfolios. Appointed in 2015 as the first chief marketing officer for the US, she reimagined marketing by combining independent marketing functions with PR, communications, and digital to create a cohesive, agile, client-centric organization. She led the ground-breaking and opening of Deloitte University, our 700,000 square-foot, $300 million leadership center and as its managing principal, was responsible for industry and professional learning, leadership development, leader succession, and community and inclusion engagement. Diana has been included in Forbes’ World’s Most Influential CMOs and Business Insider’s "Top 50 Most Innovative CMOs in the World." Her passion extends to charities related to autism and diversity. She is the chairman and founder of IMPACT Autism, a forward-thinking organization that creates and delivers life management solutions to combat the educational, emotional, and social challenges of living with autism. Diana holds an MBA in finance and a BS in behavioral management from Xavier University. She lives in Cincinnati with her husband and 22-year-old triplets. For the latest marketing insight and trends, visit CMO.Deloitte.com or Deloitte.WSJ.com/CMO.

Andy Main

Andy Main

Principal | Global Head of Deloitte Digital

Andy is a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP, and is the Global Deloitte Digital leader which includes the Global Customer and Marketing business. He also leads our Digital Transformation offering globally and in the US. He firmly believes the customer is at the center of a company’s digital experience and transformation. He helps clients imagine their futures and achieve their ambitions using our high-end creative and design capabilities and a human-centered approach, combined with our deep industry and technology knowledge. When not helping clients with their business futures, you can find Andy outside on skis or bikes, watching football (the original kind of football), hanging out at the Denver Art Museum, or volunteering at the Keystone Science School.

  • amain@deloitte.com
  • +1 303 298 6618
Suzanne Kounkel

Suzanne Kounkel

Deloitte Global Chief Marketing Officer

Suzanne is the Deloitte Global Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). As the leader of Deloitte’s global brand, marketing, communications, and partnerships, Suzanne challenges her team to push the bounds of creativity and collaboration in pursuit of healthy business growth and proud talent. Her trifecta of business strategy, technology, and marketing experience provides the essential foundation for spearheading brand, marketing, communications, and partnerships in an era of rapid change and groundbreaking innovation. After serving as the CMO of Deloitte US for seven years, Suzanne’s current priorities in her Global role include activating Deloitte’s brand in the market in bold and memorable ways, and digital and data transformation to inform marketing and sales. Suzanne works with her team to prioritize using data-driven insights to develop transformative digital marketing strategies that cover the market more efficiently, create opportunity, and drive meaningful value for Deloitte firms and their customers. Through strategic collaboration, her teams help Deloitte firms build enduring customer relationships by delivering elevated experiences at premier events. Suzanne frequently lends her voice to broader industry conversations on topics close to her CMO heart—such as the importance of having a purpose-driven brand, the influence of creativity in business transformation, keeping creativity at the forefront in times of economic uncertainty, and amplifying marketing’s voice in the C-Suite and boardroom. She sits on the Board of Directors for the Ad Council and is a member of the Association of National Advertisers’ (ANA) Global CMO Growth Council where she focuses on helping CMOs leverage data and technology to connect with customers. As an active member of her community, Suzanne is also a board member of buildOn West Coast, a nonprofit organization that strives to break the cycle of poverty, illiteracy, and low expectations through service and education.

  • skounkel@deloitte.com
Anthony R. Stephan

Anthony R. Stephan

Anthony is the Chief Learning Officer for the Deloitte US Firms, where he leads the Growth & Development portfolio of investments and experiences that include Learning & Development (L&D) and Deloitte’s strategic Partner, Principal and Managing Director development experiences. He is committed to driving exceptional business impact while advancing the skills of our people and accelerating the agility and innovation of our strategy and experiences to stay ahead of the changing marketplace, C-suite priorities, and business demands. Prior to serving as CLO, Anthony was the US Consumer Industry Leader for Deloitte Consulting LLP, where he inspired businesses to amplify the human experience, transform the enterprise, and disrupt traditional boundaries. He also previously led the US Deloitte Digital business for Deloitte Consulting LLP and served as the National Business Unit Leader for the Customer & Marketing business. Anthony also served as the Executive Leader for Project 120, a $1.4 billion L&D investment focused on pushing the traditional boundaries of innovation, technology, and collaboration to set a new standard for L&D, helping Deloitte professionals gain the business and human skills they need to serve clients with excellence, shape the markets of the future, and help drive healthy business growth. Anthony invests heavily in the growth of others and has focused on expanding his impact to help grow emotionally intelligent leaders. He has been published in outlets including the Wall Street Journal, The American Business Journal and Sirius XM’s Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School on the topic of Mindful Leadership. He has also served as the Co-Dean of the LEAD Program, a yearlong development program for new U.S. Partners, Principals & Managing Directors, as well as Co-Dean of the Art of the Story program. Anthony’s family of five children and wife Elizabeth call New Jersey home, and he takes pride in the fact that his identical twin brother, Michael, is also a principal at Deloitte Consulting LLP. In his spare time, Anthony loves watching his kids immerse themselves in the things they love, and he’s a voracious reader—he especially enjoys books and podcasts about leadership and physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health and well-being. Anthony received his Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Marketing from Albright College.

  • astephan@deloitte.com
  • +1 973 602 5377

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