Per Østergaard Jacobsen · efficiens · CBS
The customer journey has been my field for forty years, through CRM, customer experience, data and loyalty. Customers no longer choose alone. I speak and advise on what that means for the business.
Why me
CRM in the 2000s. Big Data in the 2010s. AI now. The same wave every time. New technology, high expectations, and an organisation that was never redesigned. More than half of these projects fail, and they almost never fail on the technology.
I am the director of efficiens, an independent Danish advisory firm, and an external lecturer at the Department of Marketing at Copenhagen Business School, where I have taught since 2008. I have written 16 books on customer data, CRM, customer relationships and loyalty. The first one came out in 1999, sold more than 50,000 copies and was published in six languages.
I do not come as a vendor. I have no software to sell you.
The most expensive equation in business
Just as true in 2026 as it was in 2005. Only the name of the technology has changed.
The same processes, the same incentives and the same data quality as before the investment.
The platform is bought, the licence paid, the consultants sent home.
Everything as before, only with a larger bill and a disappointed board.
Speaking
Talks are built on studies from CBS and research, and on data from real companies. Audiences do not leave with a sense that something is happening with AI. They leave with a list of what to do on Monday.
The gap between AI talk and AI practice is wider than anyone cares to admit. Built on the CBS studies from 2025 and 2026 on what organisations actually do, and where mindset gets in the way. Takeaway an honest placement of themselves on the scale
A new actor has arrived between you and the customer. An agent that searches, compares and increasingly acts on the customer's behalf. What happens to marketing, sales and loyalty when the decision is not made by a human? Takeaway agent switching as the new churn
Are you mentioned at all when a customer asks an assistant about your category? Few companies know. We measure it in the room. Takeaway their first measurement, taken live
Most companies know where customers complain. Fewer have put a number on it. The friction account worked through on stage. Takeaway the method that puts money on dissatisfaction
A question, not a claim. Twenty five years of failure rates above 50 per cent meet a technology promising to solve everything. What survives, what disappears, and what simply changes its name again? Takeaway a basis for judging the next investment
Forty years of experience with why CRM investments rarely deliver what the business case promised. It is about people, culture and process, and a little bit of IT. Takeaway an acid test of whether the organisation is ready
The data landscape reveals the organisation. What you measure, what you keep, who has access, and what is never used says more about your strategy than the strategy document does. Takeaway a reading of what their own data says about them
On the promise and the trouble with CX measurement. NPS, CSAT and the rest are methodologically sound, yet often measure something that does not move the business. Takeaway an audit of their own measurement system
The customer journey as a loop rather than a funnel. Where friction appears, how often, and what it costs. Takeaway the journey mapped with its real breaking points
The difference between fenced repeat purchase through points, subscriptions and apps, and genuine preference. Built on one of the largest Danish studies of loyalty programmes. Takeaway what actually keeps their customers
On customer profitability and the whale curve as a management tool. Who do you make money on, and who costs more than they bring? Rarely the ones management expects. Takeaway that profit and revenue are two different things
Or something else entirely
The titles above are starting points, not a menu. If you have a concrete challenge, an investment to decide, a customer loss nobody can explain, or a strategy that never landed in the organisation, I build the talk around that instead.
Tell me about your situationPractical
Advisory and analysis
Most advisory work runs aground because nobody knows what is actually the case. So we usually start by measuring something. All four can be commissioned on their own.
Mindset test · internal
Testing the strategic mindset of the company, its leaders and its employees across four orientations. Built on the research behind Disrupt Your Mindset. More than 10,000 managers have been tested.
Try the testMindset test · external
The same model turned towards customers and their mirror images. Inform me, listen to me, involve me, enlighten and engage me. More than 100,000 customers tested across industries. This is where friction shows up.
Ask for a quoteFriction in the journey
The friction account calculated on your own numbers. How often something goes wrong, what it does to behaviour afterwards, and what it adds up to over a year. Includes a review of your existing CX measurement.
Ask for a quoteLoyalty and profitability
The whale curve calculated on your customer base, and an assessment of whether the loyalty is bought or earned. Built on one of the largest Danish studies of loyalty programmes.
Ask for a quoteBooks
Written with Professor Torsten Ringberg. Published in Danish. All the templates, spreadsheets, figures and prompts from the book are freely available on Client Compass. We cannot write a book about machine readability and then hide the tools behind a sign-up form.
Earlier work includes CRM 7.0 (2026), Loyalitet i turbulente tider (2023), CRM 5.0 (2020), Disrupt Your Mindset to Transform Your Business with Big Data (2017, English) and Performance Management in Marketing (2009, English).
Get in touch
Tell me the date, the place, the audience and the occasion, and I will come back with a suggested angle. I answer my own mail.
efficiens · Birkedalen 13 · 2960 Rungsted Kyst · Denmark
Company reg. no. (CVR) 32491251