Si Elliott is a strategic marketing leader, agency co-owner and customer experience expert with over 20 years of experience helping brands build deeper, more meaningful connections. In his debut book, Customer Experience Thinking, Si shares this experience whilst applying behavioural science principles to the fields of marketing and customer experience. 

Our Editorial Expert Joanne Owen described the book as "personably-written, and packed with practical advice and digestible detail on behavioural science, Customer Experience Thinking is a terrific toolkit for small business owners and customer experience leaders."

We're thrilled to have the opportunity to pick Si's brain even more. Keep reading to uncover more about Si's background, writing process and find out who he thinks does customer experience right. 

Every purchase made on LoveReading sees 25% of the cover price donated to schools. Pick up a practical toolkit and help us raise the next generation of readers and leaders. 

Your background spans marketing, behavioural science and customer experience. What first drew you into this world, and what continues to fascinate you about how people think and behave?

I arrived in the world of marketing through a combination of higher education and a bit of a happy accident. Having studied Business Studies at university, the modules that captured my attention most were the marketing modules, so I specialised in this towards the end of my degree. Upon graduation I was delaying my entry into the working world for as long as possible, until I got an interview in a marketing agency. It seemed a really interesting opportunity. I landed the role and fast forward 20 plus years and I now own that business.

Agency life really captured my interest as it’s extremely varied, and always bringing new challenges to learn and grow. I think this really suits my inquisitive (some may say nosy) mindset. And thanks to this variety I haven’t ever felt the need to move businesses, as my role has evolved significantly over the years.

Just consider the difference in the marketing world over this time. I started out working on design for print and in store displays, with my first client being the travel agent Thomas Cook. It was a brilliant client to start out with working on weekly campaigns, and also the store rebrand rollout. Fast forward to today, and digital channels dominate the activity in the marketing world, many of which didn’t exist when I started my career. This brings a real challenge to keep up to date with technology and where the industry is moving, whilst also retaining the fundamental marketing principles that have stood the test of time. 

Throughout all of this, the core interest I have is human connection, and this has felt increasingly under pressure in recent years with the rush to implement more and more technology and AI. I want to help inspire people to stop and think more about the importance of our human experience and relationships.

You’ve spent more than twenty years helping brands build deeper customer relationships. Looking back, what are some of the biggest changes you’ve seen in how businesses think about customer experience?

Technology has no doubt had the biggest impact on customer experience in my time, both positively and negatively. For businesses and marketers the ability to communicate cost-effectively to a global audience, the vast amount of data available and capability to analyse everything has been revolutionary. 

However, the flip side of this has been a drive in the marketing industry to focus heavily on conversion and optimisation, and in places it has driven short-term mentality. Many technology platforms are an attention-based economy, so will utilise as many tactics possible to keep people online and scrolling. This isn’t always positive for the end user, and something the marketing industry needs to play a role in addressing.

Too much of the marketing narrative is about advertising, conversion and acquisition, instead of thinking about building long term relationships and loyalty with customers. My belief is that we need to refocus energies on thinking and being more customer centric, delivering excellent experiences and relationships. Over time it feels a much more sustainable approach to marketing.

One of the central ideas in Customer Experience Thinking is that businesses have become incredibly efficient, but not always more human. Was there a particular moment or experience that made you realise this was the book you needed to write?

This has been something gradually getting louder and more obvious in my mind over many years. However, in the last 5 years the negative impacts of time spent on digital media, and social media in particular, has been increasingly researched and reported. So whilst it has felt for a while that the balance of human and technology has been wrong, we are now seeing lots of evidence to quantify the impact. 

I also have two daughters who are true digital natives, and as a parent I’m very mindful of how much time they spend on devices. That certainly brought this debate to the forefront of mind on a much more regular basis, and then I had to consider the role that the marketing industry plays in these trends.

I was fortunate to not have social media until graduating university, so was one of the last generations to avoid having my formative years shaped by Meta, TikTok and the other emerging platforms. I have witnessed first-hand the deterioration in human interactive skills during my time lecturing at universities, and much of my work now is to help students to gain these skills. 

The book draws heavily on behavioural science. What do you think behavioural psychology can teach us about trust, loyalty and emotional connection in an increasingly digital world?

Behavioural science, and psychology brings us back to the human. We are human beings, not ‘users’, ‘inputs’ or ‘data points’. Over time we have lost sight of this, and this comes at the expense of the authentic human experience. 

By exploring behavioural science in our work, we can be reminded of who we are designing for, and what matters to people. Our biology drives our thinking and decisions far more than logic ever will. This is why when looking at pure economical models, you rarely see their predictions play out in the real world. Because people don’t calculate and apply logic to draw the statistically best conclusion, we are shaped by feelings, biases, context and social factors. 

So yes, an algorithm or AI may help to optimise certain factors, but to really understand people we need to dig into the psychology of us wonderful human beings.

As Daniel Kahneman brilliantly states ‘Thinking is to humans as swimming is to cats, they can do it but they prefer not to’. For me that summarises it perfectly, and explains the core of why we need to consider human decision making with behavioural science. 

Was writing a book always something you wanted to do, or did the idea emerge naturally from your work and teaching?

It gradually evolved as an idea. I spent many years working on developing principles and a behavioural biases framework, to support the work I do with clients and my colleagues. This really helped to stress test and crystalise the thinking into something digestable. At the same time, spending more than a decade educating university students, I realised I got huge enjoyment in sharing ideas and thoughts with people, and watching how the build and improve on them. 

It helped me connect with the passion I have in creating great human connections and experiences, beyond the commercial marketing level. Having found the principles and behavioural science so powerful in my work, I wanted to share this with as many people as possible. 

So a book became a natural answer to the question, how can I share this as far and wide as possible. I want people to have easy access to this information and thinking, and then hopefully it can be part of their evolution in thinking and then can take this to the next level in their work. 

What surprised you most about the experience of writing your first book?

I was fairly clear on the general content, as it is something that’s been developed over 2 decades in industry, and refined in the last 7 years into more usable frameworks. However, finding time to get this down on paper alongside running a business and raising a family was challenging. Which is why a one year project turned into three years. 

I also wanted to get the balance of scientifically based information and an approachable writing style correct. The risk was to write a very dry ‘marketing textbook’ which would have limited its appeal, and restricted the people I could add value to. Also, as my first book, I was keen to get my personality and tone of voice across for people. I’m confident about delivering speeches and lectures in my own personal style, so wanted to try and achieve that on the page. 

Finally, as it was a labour of love over several years, the world changes and I had to reflect this in my content as I worked through it. I touch lightly on AI, as this wasn’t in the public consciousness when I started, but by the end of the writing the book was the most talked about topic. So I did include some referencing to AI accelerating certain trends and challenges, but the reality is that the core fundamentals in the book will stand the test of time, irrelevant of what technology comes in the future. 

This has been the greatest, and hardest, challenge of my professional career, and I wouldn’t change that for the world.  

Did you find the process creatively freeing, emotionally challenging, or a mixture of both?

A mixture! It’s a labour of love, and as it’s something I’m very passionate about, this had the potential to be an unfinished piece of work. I could easily keep refining, changing and amending as time when on, allowing the inner perfectionist to hold back publication. An unfinished manuscript would never have had the impact I hope to with the book, to spread the word, make it accessible, and inspire others with this way of viewing the world.

Muscle doesn’t grow without resistance, and this book has certainly proved that point. It has really forced me to get my thoughts structured and easy to follow, which in turn has hugely benefitted how I use it in my work and lecturing.  

Many people know you through your work in marketing and customer experience. Did becoming an author change the way you think about storytelling and communication?

Absolutely. Much of my work is either presented in person or short form written articles. So turning to creating a book and how I story tell and communicate my thoughts and learnings was a new skill to develop. I’m confident, after many years of experience, in my ability to articulate verbally, and bring things to life. Getting that onto the page and trying to retain my personality and tone of voice has been one of the biggest challenges I’ve felt in the process. 

When I present in person I can react to the audience, elaborate or explain where needed, and feel the audience’s reaction. A book doesn’t allow you the opportunity to do this, so you have to get it right first time. It’s a wonderful new skillset to have developed (I hope!) and inspired me to make writing longer form articles a weekly process. There’s something liberating about closing off from the distractions of the world, while you wrestle with getting an idea down on paper, and trying to shape this into something other people would find interesting or inspiring. 

The book combines practical frameworks with psychology and real-world application. How difficult was it to strike the balance between insight, accessibility and depth for readers?

Tough. This was something I was very aware of. My desire to for the book to be accessible for all audiences, with something that anyone can get value or interest from. It would have been very easy to go down a more scientifically based route, and feel more like an academic textbook. However this would have drastically reduced the potential audience, and reduced the potential impact. 

I’ve also worked hard to try and include real life examples, to help lift the story telling with brands and businesses people will recognise. In many cases I lean back on global brands that most people will have personally experienced, to try and make this super relevant to their lives. 

How well I’ve done will no doubt become apparent when people read the book, and let me know what they think about it!

You’re also an educator and guest lecturer. Did your experience working with students influence the way you approached the book?

Without doubt. The work with universities has shaped the thinking and also sharpened the explanation of many of the things I talk about in the book. I’m blessed to have such a close working relationship with universities, most notably Nottingham Trent. My work lecturing and on advisory boards has allowed me to refine and stress test much of the early thinking. Yes, the academics are great, and there are far too many to mention who have contributed along the way, but actually the students have potentially added the greatest value. From working on projects exploring and challenging my frameworks, concepts and approaches, to their sharp inquisitive minds in lectures and seminars. You soon find out if they don’t follow your articulation or explanation, or indeed have a counter to the logic you’re applying. 

After a decade of these working partnerships, I can be confident we’ve built something robust, but of course always open for challenge!

In a world increasingly shaped by AI, automation and digital interaction, do you think genuine human connection is becoming more valuable rather than less?

It’s becoming rarer, so by default I believe it is also becoming more valuable. Digital media has in many places increased reach and scale, but at the expense of depth and meaning. I can now promote a brand to a global audience on TikTok to a fleeting and scrolling audience, but is that true connection? Or I can now generate more content than ever before, with less thought and consideration, using AI.

In personal relationships the cost of entry and exit is now lower than ever before, a few images and a cursory swipe to connect with someone. And then if you are no longer interested, you can just ghost them and move on. That’s not how human relationships really work, it’s artificial and shallow. Real relationships are built slowly over time, exploring commonalities and differences, and they take work. The same goes for relationships between businesses and people. The ones that really count are built on substance, time and reciprocal effort. 

So my perspective is that people will become jaded with digital overwhlem from AI, volume of interactions, and look to curate their time and experience to things that are more meaningful. We’ve seen this evolution starting to play out on dating apps and social media, people becoming more discerning and rejecting the superficial and shallow. 

You talk about reducing friction and building meaningful emotional connection. Which brands or customer experiences do you personally think get this right?

Many hotel brands do this well, and this is because they have the ability to meet people in person and really concierge the experience. But of course they have plenty of communications and elements of the experience that don’t happen in the flesh, so have to design all the experience with this in mind. Ritz Carlton are featured in the book, as they are probably best in class for that. 

I spent time with Zappos in Las Vegas, and their attention to detail on customer experience is second to none. They built a brand around the core of delivering incredible customer service, and their first brand value is ‘Deliver WOW through experience’. There are many well documented examples of where they have gone above and beyond for customers, including examples where they haven’t got a shoe in stock they find it on a competitor’s website, then patch the customer’s call over to the competitor. That really is removing the friction and disappointment, I don’t know of many brands who would actively route someone to a competitor.

Also, my time with St Louis CITY SC showed this amazing balance of everything in the stadium design to make it easier for the fan. Check-out free supermarkets in the ground, in app purchasing of refreshments to reduce waiting time, just two examples of the attention to detail. These functional touches make it simple and smooth for the fan, while at the same time building deep emotional connection with the fans (as you would expect for a sports team). Even when things on the pitch aren’t going to plan!

What do you hope readers - particularly business leaders and marketers - take away from Customer Experience Thinking?

A new way of thinking and understanding people. Reinvigorating everyone’s drive to build great connections and relationships with human beings. Focusing on putting the customer’s needs and desires at the core of their work, knowing that if they get this right the commercials look after themselves. And having a knowledge of how we can connect with people at a deeper level, harnessing the power of behavioural science. All with the ethical checkpoint that their actions are driven by that desire to put what’s best for the customer first.  

As a debut author, what have you learned about publishing, visibility and putting your ideas out into the world?

So many learnings, and I’m getting more every day the book is live and people are exploring it! I spent a long time poring over the content to get it right, and make sure it felt like my tone of voice and personality. Once I felt this was in a good place (it can always be improved, so I had to draw a line at some point) then it was time to find the right partners to take this to the world. With both the publisher and PR agency decision, I met lots of people, had lots of conversations and spent a good deal of time deliberating.

Where I ended up was working with the people who it felt a natural fit, and I was confident they ‘got me’. I decided to trust my subconscious to steer the decision.

Ultimately this isn’t a decision you can AB test, so you’ll never know the other outcomes had a different decision been made. However, I am delighted with the people I get to work with, true experts in the field, and they have taken what I’ve created and shaped how we bring this to the world. 

I wouldn’t change a thing about our approach, it has just felt right. 

Finally, if you could give one piece of advice to someone thinking about writing their first non-fiction book, what would it be?

Get started, get pen to paper and just get your thoughts down. It’s a labour of love, but all good things should be. You don’t grow muscle without resistance, and expect to push yourself hard through the process of writing. 

Set a deadline, and expect to miss it, as you start to get deeper into your writing. And on the weeks it feels overwhelming, break it down into chunks and just do a bit. James Clear’s Atomic Habits helped me with this, I ended up setting a task of writing a bit every day for 5 minutes. It’s amazing how much can be done with small consistent actions, and also once you’re started how long you actually write for.

Then find the right partners to help you in your journey. This isn’t something you can do well first time without great guidance, so explore people who can support you. 

Finally, enjoy it. You should be writing about something that interests you and is your passion. So get on with it, the world is waiting to read your thoughts.