Digital capabilities in sales and service channels have increased over the last two decades but still fall short of their potential. Digital technologies, such as websites, interactive voice response (IVR), mobile applications, chat and voice bots are substituting human interaction. However, none of the capabilities is effectively orchestrated. Marketing may own the app. Customer Service teams work on adopting a chat. Bots are built without a clear strategy. It causes limited and inconsistent customer self-serve capabilities.

Digital capabilities are falling short

Three themes drive best-in-class digital CX outcomes in sales and service. <ul><li>Meet customers where they are. Customers want to interact with businesses the same way they interact with friends and family, using mobile channels.</li><li>Reevaluate your voice calls. Very few companies have taken steps to make digital engagement the easiest and most effective means of engagement.</li><li>Look holistically at contact centre operations focusing on the following five areas.: talent acquisition, training and development, measurements of success, workforce management, quality management.</li></ul>

Scaling digital

Consumer demand for digital is increasing. Companies that use digital capabilities in a customer-centric manner will soar.

Stashed ideas

How the World’s Leading Brands are Finally Winning with Digital and Artificial Intelligence

Navigating through the Covid-19 pandemic in March 2020 caused organisations to work remotely and find ways to cut spending. However, companies significantly increased their spending on digital technologies for employees. Over 50% of midsized companies increased their spending in this area, and 69% plan to increase their digital tools in 2022. Yet, many of these investments will not generate substantial business impact because they lack a sustained and successful focus on improving digital dexterity.

Increased spending on digital technologies

Digital dexterity is the mindset and behaviours that accelerate digital business transformation. The pandemic showed the importance of digital dexterity for company success. Face-to-face interactions, paper-based processes and analogue tasks vanished and were replaced with digital constructs. A 2018 survey found an open mindset and agile ways of working are vital for optimised digital dexterity. However, only 16% of leaders and 9% of employees have high digital dexterity.

Digital dexterity

<ul><li>Leaders need to communicate the organisations need for digital dexterity.</li><li>They should ensure that workflows, incentives, budgets, and policies promote digital dexterity.</li><li>Organisations should build digital capabilities such as collaboration, data literacy, workflows, and information creation and retrieval.</li></ul> The goal is complete transparency with employees about the right tools to use and the expected digital skills.

Laying the groundwork for digital dexterity

<ul><li>Show employees the value of digital dexterity. Employees are more inspired to develop a skill when they see how it will serve them.</li><li>Foster digital dexterity by connecting employees to people or projects that can help them build new skills in practice.</li><li>Organisations can identify employees to act as "digital translators" to help guide leaders and employees.</li><li>Encourage employees to coach others in key digital skills on the job.</li></ul>

Building digital dexterity in the workforce

The hybrid era means employees need to be more comfortable than ever with tech. Here’s how to help them develop the skills they need.

How to Build Digital Dexterity Into Your Workforce

Make sure you use every app on your home screen every day. For example:<ul><li>Phone, Messages — Self-explanatory&nbsp;</li><li>Clock — for alarms</li><li>Your to-do app&nbsp;</li><li>The messaging apps&nbsp;</li><li>Meditation app</li></ul>

Minimalist Phone: The Home Screen

When your phone does tap you on the shoulder, it isn’t because your phone has anything useful for you.&nbsp;On the contrary, it usually has something useful for someone else: notifications for coupons that help stores sell products, notifications about posts from acquaintances and ex-friends you don’t need to see, notifications from games that want you to waste your time, and notifications from apps to spend money on in-app purchases.

Use Your Phone When It's Good For You

Apps are engineered so that you spend as much time on them as possible.&nbsp;Social media is designed to have endless scrolling, buttons are placed right where it’s easiest to tap, and apps are full of bright and stimulating colors.

Don't Use Your Phone For Long Periods Of Time

This is not the first time I’ve written about digital minimalism. It feels like I can’t go a week without spotting someone’s phone out of the corner of my eye, overflowing with hundreds of unseen…

What My Minimalist Phone Looks Like

Elizabeth Gilbert teaches how to be creative despite fears and uncertainty and where innovative ideas actually come from.An absolute must-read for anyone who is holding themselves back from pursuing her dreams and hesitating to take the next big leap in life.“Creative entitlement simply means believing that you are allowed to be here, and that — merely by being here — you are allowed to have a voice and a vision of your own.”

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert

The book is not only packed with inspiration that will empower you to go out and live your best life, but it also includes actionable tasks and ideas on how to find your passion, or element, as Robinson calls it.The ideal read for anyone who is still on the path of finding his passion and calling in life.<blockquote>“If you’re doing something that you love, by the end of the day you may be physically tired but spiritually energized.”</blockquote>

Finding Your Element by Ken Robinson

This is a fantastic piece that will convince you to speed up your decision-making process, no matter how important the decision seems to be.Gladwell describes how most of our decisions are based on our gut feeling and what happens when we listen to our intuition instead of over-thinking and creating endless pro-contra lists.“If we are to learn to improve the quality of the decisions we make, we need to accept the mysterious nature of our snap judgments.”

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

21 Lessons For The 21st Century summarizes today’s highlights in terms of politics, culture, and economics in a way everybody can relate and still make up their own opinion.<blockquote>“In a world deluged by irrelevant information, clarity is power.”</blockquote>

21 Lessons For The 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari

This book is the ultimate must-read for anyone who wants to level up her performance and life in general.“Be more intentional about who you want to become. Have vision beyond your current circumstances. Imagine your best future self, and start acting like that person today.”

High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard

It’s basically a look into all the lessons Oprah learned throughout the past decades.She openly shares all the struggles she faced and the lessons learned on her path to becoming one of the most influential people of today’s wold.<blockquote>“What I know for sure is that every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and step out and dance — to live free of regret and filled with as much joy, fun, and laughter as you can stand.”</blockquote>

What I Know For Sure by Oprah

This one is a fantastic step-by-step guide on how to create a happier, more joyful life without much effort.Rubin describes her own happiness project, which she practiced for 12 months and openly shares which strategies best worked for her and how you can apply them as well.“The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It’s more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted, yet everyone takes the happy person for granted.”

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin

Jen Sincero talks about topics like the law of attraction and <a href="https://medium.com/publishous/how-i-manifested-my-first-5-000-month-on-medium-88966064b346" target="_self">manifestation</a> in a way everybody can understand and apply the lessons.An absolute recommendation for anyone who wants to make the universal laws work for them and finally attract all their biggest desires.<blockquote>“You’ve gotten to where you are right now by doing whatever it is you’re doing, so if you’re less than impressed with your current situation, you clearly need to change things up.”</blockquote>

You Are A Badass by Jen Sincero

The 4-Hour Workweek is a bible for personal growth and business.Ferriss teaches so many strategies on how to live better and build lasting, automated businesses. This sounds like too much to cover in a single book, but he truly delivers the value.&nbsp;<blockquote>“Doing less meaningless work, so that you can focus on things of greater personal importance, is NOT laziness. This is hard for most to accept, because our culture tends to reward personal sacrifice instead of personal productivity.”</blockquote>

The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss

Best books to read in 2020: Must-read books about personal development, creativity, business, and how to succeed in life. Books to read for a better life.

If You Only Read A Few Books This Year, Read These

Paul Graham argues that explosive growth is the only measure of success. “Making it” means one of two things: go public or sell. But a startup has about as much chance of making it as a single sperm has of fertilizing an egg. 90% of startups fail. The majority die within 20 months of their last round of funding. Success equals the amount of money raised, or the profits made upon exit — never mind whether any value is generated in the world beyond capital.

90% of startups fail

“The tyranny of the quantifiable” describes the current ethos of venture financing.In such a system, what can be measured almost always takes precedence over what cannot: private profit over public good; speed and efficiency over enjoyment and quality.

The tyranny of the quantifiable

Outside of bootstrapping, or relying on wealthy friends or family, or having connections to the limited network of mission-driven angel investors, there’s a dearth of options for tech companies seeking financing: It’s venture capital or bust. In an alternative version of the future, we create a new model: We invent another style of investing, one that recognizes founders with long-term, wide-ranging visions. We focus not only on how much money is raised, and on investor returns, but also on how we generate value for users, elevate communities, and build a more equitable and inclusive system.

Alternatives to venture capital

Startups, like the male anatomy, are designed for liquidity events. Consider the metaphors: “seed” funding, “up and to the right” trajectories, “acceleration,” “exit.” Paul Graham’s seminal essay…

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