Is this the era of social or customer experience wars?

Seems like a really odd blog title right?

Well, I thought so too. 

The fun part is that it might just become true in future. 

And like Gary Vee, I want to keep this as a record that I said it first. Yeah, I really love the way Gary keeps referring back to his content to prove that he actually predicted trends way before they actually happened. 

I came across the concept of Attention Economy from Mel Robbins here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlYare4d9ZM.

And I think it is true. We are being traded based on our attention levels by Google, Facebook and other big platforms.

There are bidding wars happening among the above platforms. 

The platforms are expected to work towards gathering people and their attention. There are free and affordable Internet programs run by these same companies across the globe. 

It's claimed that they are trying to make the world better!

Give the power of the Internet to underprivileged and make the world a level playing ground. 

What I do believe is that they are just looking for more people who are going to be their future customers. Their future in simpler words. 

Just imagine this. You are running a website. Currently, if there are 10,000 users every month and you are making sales worth $1,000 per month. 

Suppose someone says you can earn double that by acquiring relatively younger traffic for half the cost. What would you do? 

I would just acquire them. 

As a matter of fact, I would acquire as much as possible!

Why?

Simple, if the younger, newer audience could bring in more sales, why not?

So that I could boost my $1,000 per month sales to over $10,000 quickly?

Yes.

Now imagine if you had a company making billions of dollars in sales from ads every month. Would you look at increasing by two folds? Of course, you would. 

Simple logic. 

Let's take another example, 15 years before it was virtually impossible to imagine that by pressing a few numbers, I would be able to talk to my friend in the United Kingdom. 

Mobiles and telecommunication systems grew. Now not only can I talk to my friend in other countries but I can literally see them and converse with them with a single click!

We could see a very similar example with Ola & Uber. Hiring a taxi, 10 years ago, was costly, troublesome and very inconvenient. In other words, you have to account for two way journey of the cab even though you are just getting dropped. The reason being the taxi/cab had to go back idle without a passenger. 

On top of it, the drivers used to enjoy Royal treatment for outstation and regular trips. In some cases, taxi's and cabs were family friends. Still, it was a costly affair. 

But now. With three taps, we can have a cab at our doorstep. We can simply sit in and get out at the right stop. The payment happens electronically, no wallet hustle. And if you had booked on a ride-sharing trip, the cost is significantly lower. Now the charge is less as you are spending only for the distance you are travelling and not as it was before. 

Interesting stuff, right? 

I thought so when I was thinking about it. 

Now coming to the topic at hand. 

Customer experiences and Social experiences.

I see this significant shift in the way customers are behaving. They are no longer sticking to populist opinions or informative commercials. 

What they are relying on is the experience they are getting!

The single-click purchase of Amazon is a classic example. Customers want convenience.  

That is also the reason that Apple has been so successful with its products and services. 

Now that I have mentioned Apple experience, talking about the iPhone is a must. For the first time, when Steve Jobs presented multi-touch in the first iPhone - I was sold!

It was the experience that mattered. 

Agree?

We should agree as the iPhone is still by far the best example of a flagship phone and great sales year on year.

Customer experiences matter. 

The second part is about social experiences.

For this, let's take the example of WhatsApp.

The growth story of WhatsApp relies on peer pressure and the ease of communication via the app.

When WhatsApp was in its early years, I used to think about its need in the first place. 

But then, I had to bow down to the pressure from my friends and install it. 

These social experiences shared by individuals and groups are crucial now. 

As a matter of fact, most Saas businesses rely on these social experiences and habit forming experiences to keep growing their subscriber base and revenue. 

Let's get to the big part now. 

There was a stage in our history, we fought for spices and trade. 

After that, we fought for mining reserves across countries. 

Now we are fighting again for resources + consumers. 

And finally, I'm expecting that we are going to start fighting for customers and the customer will be the king.

And the battlefield will be the experience provided to the customer. 

May the best "Experience" win!