Few organizations have the resources necessary to transform operations, business models, and customer experience all at the same time. They need to prioritize. Focusing on the transformation of the customer experience should be first. This is not because it’s necessarily the easiest, but because doing so is far more likely to keep a company viable than changing other aspects of business.

This guide to the Fall 2019 issue of MIT Sloan Management Review summarize the issue’s key articles. The articles discuss finding better ways to collaborate; how to give customers what they’re looking for; the organized ecosystem of Dark Web cybercrime; and how algorithms can reduce bias.

The must-reads MIT SMR editors are most excited about this week, including: Why emotion is a key ingredient for getting customer experiences to stick, what we can learn from Germany’s platform economy, the best leader for your digital transformation effort might not be the obvious candidate, and more.

Research has shown that memorable experiences can drive customer decisions as much as price and functionality. Yet there have been few meaningful improvements in customer experience over time. The missing ingredient? Emotion. Customers want their choices to align as much with their feelings and senses as with their values and ethics. The rational approaches taught at most business schools — offer more value for money, add features, make service more efficient — are not enough.

To win over skeptics, champions of AI-driven customer service need to show more benefits than just saving money. There are economic, technical, political, and cultural barriers that savvy managers must overcome in order to successfully integrate AI into their company’s customer service systems.

Many different factors determine how consumers balance data privacy against a desire for personalized products and services — age, geography, and education among them. Companies can help their customers feel more comfortable with the data collection needed for personalized service by understanding customer values and maintaining transparency and good communication when it comes to data collection.

As AI moves from the hype stage to implementation within organizations, retailers and marketers have new competitive opportunities with customer centricity. AI enables companies to apply data about their customers’ wants, needs, and preferences to customize their offerings, create personalized shopping experiences, and make the purchase process simpler and more convenient.

The future of customer service will allow bots and humans to focus on what they do best. For chatbots and virtual agents, that is handling routine cases quickly and efficiently. For the human supervisors, that is solving more complex problems, using empathy and emotional intelligence.

Few business websites offer features that simplify transactions, create deep customer relationships, and drive sales growth. To succeed, they need to personalize and customize their online selling process through high-performance technology and customer-centered business models.

Organizational change is difficult. Some 70% of change efforts fail, and awareness hasn’t improved the odds of success. But there are exceptional companies, making strides with everything from digital transformation to employee engagement to diversity and inclusion. And they have one thing in common: They are customer-obsessed. When customers are truly at the center of your business, change proceeds from one organizing principle: What’s best for them?

Companies aspiring to organic growth leadership in their industries should start with a coherent, affirming innovation narrative and reinforce it with action. The authors tested 18 well-known innovation levers and identified the four that organic growth leaders use most to stay ahead of competitors: (1) invest in innovation talent, (2) encourage prudent risk-taking, (3) adopt a customer-centric innovation process, and (4) align metrics and recognition with innovation activity.

Digital customer service agents (known as virtual assistants, chatbots, or softbots) are typically used to sift through and process only the most straightforward customer inquiries, such as requests for basic information. At most companies, complex issues get passed along to human agents. In that regard, public sector agencies in Australia are ahead of the curve: They are using digital agents to handle complex inquiries from citizens, and businesses stand to learn much from these applications.

Three principles show how successful retailers are responding to digital disruption and using insights to improve customer experience — not just in the end-of-year rush, but year-round.

Digital customer service is becoming more widely adopted, but one place it falls short is in the language and phrases it uses. Many digital service platforms use words that alienate customers rather than engage them; selecting customer-centric language for chatbots and service platforms can make a significant difference in customer satisfaction.

When it comes to transformation, many organizations struggle with a dilemma of digital growth happening at the expense of customer satisfaction. By moving to a platform-based approach, companies can align tech investments and new features with the customer experience.

Loyalty programs provide great value for companies by driving higher sales and boosting brand affinity. However, companies employing traditional “earn-and-burn” rewards programs for customers may miss out on long-term benefits. Tailoring programs to offer great customer experience is key — and when companies implement both types of benefits into their programs, they’re more likely to beat out competitors and build brand loyalty.

Emerging technology and new business models have created new ways of serving customers and allowed digital leaders to disrupt traditional companies. Disruption rarely comes out of nowhere, however: There are common patterns to learn from and three major signals to recognize in evaluating the risk for your industry.

As companies rely more and more on AI-driven chatbots to communicate with customers, they need to consider ways to make computers’ communication and understanding better and more natural.

At the same time that many traditional retailers are closing offline stores, digitally native vertical brands such as Bonobos and Warby Parker are aggressively expanding into offline locations. And both online and offline retailers are converging in experience-oriented “showrooms.”