04/05/2026
Disclaimer: this was not written using an AI “correct” prompt, Skills, Research and it is not part of a Project previously fed with information.
We all know - we are in a world of noise. So much that it seems that who’s speaking louder is the leader and tells the truth. Add to this the “Spam frenzy”, “AI recommendation”, “Personalised Customer Journeys” - and this is just scratching the surface.
Now, invert the paragraph above with reality: AI is still hallucinating, AI Adoption in organisations is still under expectations, we’re seeing Fake News, Deep Fakes and we’re expected to filter them out.
Next, imagine that a customer is facing all of the above - and we expect our customers to make “the right decision” (aka buy our products or services, don’t churn or even become more loyal).
This is the moment when we should go beyond the invaluable skill of asking ourselves questions as a form of critical thinking.
Go beyond the first “Why?”. I dare to say, go beyond the “5 Why’s”.
Change the direction of “Why’s?”, go beyond the first thing you hear, flip the direction of the “Why?”. No, I will not say that 360 thing. Look at the “Why?” from multiple angles. Challenge the "obvious" perspective.
This is adaptive critical thinking, because it makes you think beyond what just a few years ago seemed obvious.
I dare to say that now we’re dealing more than ever with what I would call an “obvious credibility crisis”.
With all the above in mind, let’s get back to customers, to what they're facing: from news to brand messages, from personal needs to brand needs - it becomes harder to still claim decisions are purely emotion-driven.
So, when thinking about your customers, I dare to challenge you: how many “Why’s?” can you flip to really understand a customer’s reality?
by Mihai Dragnea.
Founder & Author, This is Retention.
Photo by The 77 Human Needs System on Unsplash
