On Giving Your Customers Time Back for the Things that Really Matter
Patric DelCioppo — Managing Director & Marketing Technology Advisor, Accenture Song
Patric DelCioppo is a digital strategist and technologist with 20+ years of experience who gets his kicks helping large organizations enhance customer experience and front-office performance. At Accenture, Patric works as an Experience Platforms subject matter advisor, focused primarily on Marketing Technology. Patric lives with his wife and many plants in Somerville, Massachusetts. His passions include music, photography and travel.
Author’s Note: Patric and I worked closely over a 6-year period to modernize and scale up a Marketing Technology and Digital Experience function at Aetna. The capability we created together became a model for other business units across the Enterprise looking to build similar teams. To me, Patric was not just another “vendor partner” with whom we had a transactional relationship. I turned to him frequently for advice and counsel on numerous topics. He has stayed in touch — even though I no longer have a budget to spend. In that, he has proven himself to be a good human being and friend. I look forward to staying in touch with him in the years to come. Most recently, we caught up on Friday, October 13, 2023. Some highlights from our conversation follow.
What Do You Remember About How We Met?
We first met at the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas in March 2017, I think? We were right off the main floor of the trade show hall, in a side booth there. There was a crowd of Accenture folks there. You (Sohil) were just stepping into your role in MarTech and Operations at Aetna. We had just finished some work and were making some recommendations about how to evolve the MarTech platforms and Operations function there.
What Do You Love About What You Do?
At Accenture, we often play a part in implementing and operationalizing strategic roadmaps.
“For me, the most interesting part of the project life cycle is when people make the pivot from figuring out what we should do and start thinking about how we’re going to do it — and mobilizing to do that.”
When you see that light bulb go off in the room across all of your clients… you know that everyone’s (finally) getting on the same page!
What Helps to Maximize the Impact of What You Do?
In the technology consulting space, there is always an area of challenge: how are organizations going to drive adoption of transformation? It’s not just about new technology — it’s also about processes.
“But the part that doesn’t get much attention is making sure that people understand the sort of mindset shift they need to go through to make digital transformation possible.”
This requires really thinking about what transformation means down to an individual contributor level — how is the nature of that person’s role going to change?
What’s Something Cool You’re Working On?
I’m working with several financial services and healthcare clients — who are rotating their front-office technology and operations to better address customer needs.
These clients want to be more responsive and more helpful to their customers in the moment — and build a deeper relationship with them over time. They’re thinking hard about the impacts their technology choices have on customer experience. Historically, they thought about their website as being distinct from their email efforts and from their customer service representatives — but customers don’t care about that at all. You’re now seeing technologies that were historically in the realm of MarTech being deployed by Customer Service…. the lines are being blurred.
“Customer Service is the best form of Marketing… Companies are finally realizing that the best way to perform is to actually just deliver what your customers want and produce the best outcomes for them.”
Why Does This Work Matter Now?
Clients are seeing it in the data and coming to the realization: if customers are happy, there’s just much more growth potential and greater cost efficiencies for customer service. They can maintain a strong long-term relationship with customers as opposed to dealing with constant churn and having to hunt for new customers all the time.
The goal is to be more streamlined and have less distraction so that these companies can focus on the “moments that matter” — the experiences that are going to help customers achieve what they’re trying to achieve at the time. It becomes a win-win for customers, businesses and their employees.
“If we can take away some of these other distractions, maybe these customers can focus their energies on things that really matter.”
If we do this right, it will create better financial outcomes and better health outcomes for customers.
How Might This Change The World?
We all recognize that there is a lot of turmoil in the world today — across politics, economically, environmentally. There’s a sense that there’s constant competition for our eyeballs, more data that companies have around customers… and all of that can breed stress and distrust.
“If we can start to remove some of the clutter from our lives, that gives us the opportunity to spend more of our time on activities that we find inspiring and bring us joy.”
That really puts us all in a better place to approach some of the planet-level challenges with a clearer head.
Disclaimer: All views and opinions expressed in this interview solely reflect the personal experiences, knowledge and perspectives of the participants and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of Accenture. The appearance of this content on this website does not constitute an endorsement by Accenture or its affiliates of this website or Deep Sea Strategy.
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