ABSTRACT
The Platonic Ideal of the Customer Experience actually exists. As businesses around them flicker in and out of existence, these institutions glide through the decades, with category-defying margins and patrons who would sooner switch churches than shop elsewhere. A company might legally be considered a person. However, a bundle of physical and intellectual property is an unlikely participant in anything as warm and fuzzy as a relationship. The more successfully that our marketing imbues a brand with identity and personality, then the more people shift customer expectations toward this standard. In a world where the customer experience is informed by data about each unique potential customer, forward-thinking companies are modifying the customer journey to reflect an understanding of that person they are speaking too. There are still web stores that behave like a digital version of a catalog, leaving it to the user to flick through product listings.
