There’s a birthday this week – Microsoft was started 42 years ago by Gates (who dropped out of Harvard), and Allen (who quit his day job as a programmer).

Every day we see comparisons between Microsoft and Apple; both have their die-hard fans and both fill a niche.

Both have their pluses and minuses, but with few features that truly set them apart, each is pretty much as useful to most people as the other.

What really counts now is service.

It’s simple to switch between a PC and a Mac thanks to cloud services.

You don’t need to worry so much about syncing music between computers thanks to services such as Spotify.

And now Microsoft is making sure Office apps and services are available for the iPhone and Android.

It’s why Apple is bringing its Apple Music service to Android.

And it’s why Google invests so much in the Chrome browser, which runs on both Windows and macOS and in web services like Google Photos.

How much time have you invested in your customer experience?

Every time a customer contacts your company, or your staff, there is an opportunity for a customer “moment of truth”. These “moments of truth” are opportunities for your business to make a good or bad impression on your customer and are key moments in the customer journey.

At our recent event, we dedicated two hours to a hands-on Customer Journey Session because the customer is at the centre of everything you do.  Can you truthfully answer any of these?

• I have a clear understanding of my customer needs?
• I have a clear focus on the resulting business value
• I know what’s getting in the way, or could be improved, to meet customer needs
• I design solutions that deliver both customer and organisational value