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Did you enjoy playing with Legos when you were a kid? If so, then you most certainly did one of two things whenever you’d start a new build. Either you would just rip open the bags and pour the pieces on the floor, which led to digging in the pile for minutes on end in search for a specific piece over and over again.

Or you would have turned to the art of knolling and sorted all the pieces of the entire kit before beginning assembly. Knolling is the process of arranging similar objects in parallel or 90-degree angles as a method of organisation. This requires patience but once all pieces are laid out, it’s easier to find what you are looking for. And it looks great too.

In terms of structure, overview and organisation, knolling is a lot like data visualisation. While you can surely play with Legos without knolling, you cannot build quality customer communications without properly visualising your data. Data visualisation is very important, for your customers as well as your business. In this week’s blog we’ll tell you why.

When you meet someone special, you pull out all the stops to be the best possible version of yourself. You dress nice, hold open the door, pay for drinks and laugh at every joke that person makes. After some time however, when all goes well, you might start putting in less of an effort. There are dirty socks on the floor, you don’t hold back as many burps as before and the parents-in-law are no longer as funny as they were when you first met them.

In many regards, customer communications over the course of the customer journey can be very similar. As a result, the difference between marketing and service communications can be day and night. However, they both have specific benefits which, if combined, allow you to engage with your customers in ways that seemed impossible before.

When you look at modern advertising you’ll notice that a lot of today’s billboards, tv ads and print commercials are focused on persuading and courting new customers. That’s because in the eyes of most companies, extra customers quickly translate into extra revenue. While gaining customers indeed boosts revenue, not losing any is proven to do so faster and at a much lower cost. When someone is not familiar with what you have to offer, it will take a lot of persuading to get him to buy your products. But when somebody already knows you and has taken a liking to your products, it will not cost you a huge effort to get him or her to come back for more.

How do you communicate as a business? How do you reach out to your customers? And what tools do you need to safely navigate through the labyrinth of individual customer needs and expectations that continue to grow more complex?

They say in sports self-belief and strength of character are what separate the good from the best. You could argue that this applies to the world of business as well. Businesses worldwide approach the market claiming and believing that they know best, convinced that their own capabilities will eventually lead to success. This is the Inside-Out approach: systems, tools, processes, and products are designed with the company and its needs in mind and decisions are made based on what's best for the company and not the customer.

Just like a well-functioning team is made up of quality players who know what to do on the pitch, a company’s success is determined by the efficiency and strengths of its different departments, each completing different tasks with different skills, but all striving towards the same goal: company growth through best practices and continuously improving products and services.

Recently, I was at a two-day team time-out with the engineering team of Inventive Designers. Yes, I know, team building has a bad reputation, especially so among the typically cynical software engineering crowd. Generally, people start replaying old episodes of “The Office” in their heads and they realise that in real life it’s not nearly as funny if they are in the middle of it. However, despite its reputation I want to make the case that team building is the most important investment you can make for your people.

Today, we see two paradigms in business: Inside-Out vs. Outside-In approach.

A CCM platform should be designed to fit your needs. It should take CCM to another level and focus on three major components – Design, Communication, and Analysis.

If you have read the previous blog post 'How to turn a good day into a headache', you'll understand how frustrating it can be to provide a good customer experience without the right tools.