Recently, Uber and Airbus announced a partnership to offer on-demand helicopter services for film festivals, trips to the Hamptons, and other high-end events. Whether you think the move is “bougie” or not, it’s hard not to admire their innovation. The transportation industry is shifting rapidly, from the future of driverless cars to ride-sharing, and both Uber and Airbus are continuously adapting to better serve their customers. They saw an opportunity and took it, engaging with a community of customers in a new, potentially daring way. Many companies are not in the position to adapt on the fly like this — but they could be. All it takes is a shift in perspective. 

To compete successfully in today’s global economy, you have to be focused on customer experience from the beginning, and that means operating with a mindset focused on possibilities, not limits. At Bluewolf, we have an exercise we like to call the “Art of the Possible.” While many companies operate according to a legacy mindset, the Art of the Possible is about moving beyond current practices and embracing new ideas to keep pace with customers and an ever-changing business environment.

Take your mission statement and replace your company’s name with Uber. Now, recreate that statement while imagining that you have all of Uber’s resources at your fingertips. How does it look when you don’t hold back and create a future freely and confidently? Take a step back and analyze how to achieve those goals, making note of which ideas and attitudes have to change in order to move forward. Often, it’s not that companies lack the ability to make a change, but are caught up in old ways of thinking about their business and their customers. 

Challenge yourself to think about the modern customer experience. It’s not a one-time event, and customer expectations evolve rapidly based on their last, best experience. It’s no longer enough to have continuous innovation—you have to provide instantaneous innovation. When you put customers first and constantly evaluate your business through their eyes, you’ll be poised to adapt proactively, not reactively. Berkshire Hathaway Travel Protection exemplifies a business model that predicted what its customers would need from them and built its customer service channel in response to those anticipated needs. 

To perform this kind of adaptation, you must have the right tools. In Bluewolf’s The State of Salesforce Report, companies with both cloud governance and ALM were 3x more likely to attribute revenue growth and 2x more likely to attribute improved customer experience to their Salesforce usage. To continuously innovate, companies must invest in governance effectiveness, ensuring that improvements always serve employees and align with a company’s desired business outcomes. 

The Art of the Possible doesn’t mean abandoning reality and building castles in the air. It’s about being open-minded about realities and customer expectations to optimize them, not succumb to them. Train yourself and your teams to become customer-focused and positioned for success. Constantly ask yourself — where are your customers and opportunities, and where do the two meet?

Take our Customer Service Quiz to learn how your customer service measures against best practices and connect with our Service Cloud experts to begin building an even better experience now.