Rewriting the Entire Customer Experience.

As I embark on my next career move as Chief Customer Officer of Formation Data Systems, I’m struck by the sheer magnitude of the opportunity. It’s the prospect of disrupting the traditional enterprise storage market and how a next generation data management layer can holistically unlock the value of traditional, No-SQL databases and AWS S3. The technical challenges and broad transformational opportunities are exhilarating.

But what gets me fired up beyond belief is the chance to truly define how a new company rewrites the entire customer experience.

Now that’s cool stuff.

To be part of a revolution in how customers obtain knowledge about: Formation Data Systems, the company, the people, and the products. Providing fuel to enable customers to make intelligent decisions and interact with a product and a company in a completely new way. 

   

In the past, IT was “sold” through traditional means of marketing awareness, campaigns, and marketing touches turning into leads, which turns into prospects, which turns into deals and sales.

We thought we were getting fancy when we started selling to LOB and IT or the populist approach of bypassing IT all together. The whole experience was an asynchronous push.  The sales “Firewall” was built to protect the customer from the technical complexities and harsh realities of the product. 

Enter the spin doctors obfuscating complexity with PowerPoint.  

I believe this cycle is antiquated and outmoded to not only how companies can and should interact with their customers, but also how customers and potential customers seek to understand disruptive technology and how it can improve their lives.

Customers expect and deserve more. 

Customer interactions should be enlightening and educational, where technical and business ideas are exchanged and refined collaboratively. Where flexible problem solving and options define customer success. 

Today, via social and affinity networks, technically savvy customers are exchanging ideas with scores of like-minded colleagues. Via these informal networks, the true customer experience begins long before a salesperson ever interacts with a customer. Customers don’t want to see high level PowerPoints because chances are they’ve already pre-read them on Slideshare.

So, after a long lineage at some of the most distinguished companies in Silicon Valley: PeopleSoft, Vignette, Documentum, EMC, and SAP, I’m truly honored to be able to take that depth of work and define the next generation of customer experience with you at Formation Data Systems.