Making Peoples’ Lives Better is Good Business

28 Aug, 2011 in Customer Experience by

In Hugh Macleod’s blog “Your customer won’t take a bullet for you” (love that title), he states that “If you want to benefit from a customer’s loyalty, you can’t bribe it, you must earn it. Deserve it. Focus not on upgrading your product but upgrading your user’s capabilities.” Hugh goes on and states that “Instead of ‘rewarding the customer’ focus on ‘how can I make the user’s experience and result more rewarding’?”

Especially in today’s market, where the customer controls the conversation with social media, companies need to focus on how they make peoples lives better. Not because it is ultimately the right thing to do but is it good business.

0 Comments
tagged , , , , ,

Service Design Customer Experience

14 Aug, 2011 in Customer Experience by

Service design is the process of organizing people, infrastructure, communication and the other various components of a service. Good service designs improve the quality of the interaction between services and their customers. This method is focused on designing experiences according to the needs of customers so that the service is effective, efficient, competitive, relevant, and delightful. This process includes understanding the behavior of customers, their needs and motivations. Service designers gather customer insights through interviews and by shadowing customers to determine the optimal customer experience.

The Service Design Network

The Service Design Network (SDN) was established in 2004 by Köln International School of Design, CarnegieMellonUniversity, Linköpings Universitet, Politecnico de Milano / DomusAcademyand the agency Spirit of Creation. The purpose of the SDN is to develop and strengthen the knowledge and expertise in the science and practice of innovation and improvement of services. The SDN aims to develop and establish the Service Design discipline and professional identity. To learn more visit the Service Design Network.

 Service Design Conference

The 4th annual Service Design Conference is in San Franciscothis year, October 20 and 21. To learn more, the Service Design Conference.

0 Comments
tagged , , ,

Wayfinding and Customer Experience

7 Aug, 2011 in Customer Experience by

Wayfinding encompasses all of the ways in which people and animals orient themselves in physical space and navigate from place to place. Historically, wayfinding refers to the techniques used by travelers over land and sea to find relatively unmarked and often mislabeled routes. Urban planners borrowed the term in the 1960s, where they defined wayfinding as “a consistent use and organization of definite sensory cues from the external environment”. In 1984 environmental psychologists expanded the concept to include signage and other graphic communication, clues inherent in the building’s spatial grammar, logical space planning, audible communication, tactile elements, and provision for special-needs users. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayfinding]

Universal Design New York, defines wayfinding as “the organization and communication of our dynamic relationship to space and the environment. Successful design to promote wayfinding allows people to: (1) determine their location within a setting, (2) determine their destination, and (3) develop a plan that will take them from their location to their destination. The design of wayfinding systems should include: (1) identifying and marking spaces, (2) grouping spaces, and (3) linking and organizing spaces through both architectural and graphic means.” This is a great resource that provides guidelines for how “people use circulation systems to develop a mental map.” [www.ap.buffalo.edu/idea/udny/section4-1c.htm]

I was first exposed to the ideas of wayfinding many years ago in my fine art days when my studio was in the same building with architects, photographers, glass artists, and, among other things, a firm that designed wayfinding for hospital and other architectural settings. I cannot help but think that these early exposure to wayfinding has affected the way I became interested in information architecture and how I think about navigating a website, application, device – and space.

If you are really interested in designing great customer experience then I encourage you to learn more about wayfinding.

0 Comments
tagged , , , , , , , ,

The Hidden Power of Your Customers

31 Jul, 2011 in Customer Experience by

Becky Carroll’s book, The Hidden Power of Your Customers, is not another “customer service” book.

Becky reminds us that “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” – that businesses should not let the allure of new customers keep them from fully realizing the power of existing customers and clients. Current customers – more then ever before – have the power to decide to continue to do business with you; how much money to spend with you; and the power to share with others what they think about you.

Through practical tips and real-world case studies, The Hidden Power of Your Customers offers four key strategies for retaining and achieving growth from existing customers:

  • Relevant Marketing, which requires that you listen to your customers, and then deliver the messages they want to hear through their preferred channels
  • Orchestrated Customer Experience, where you craft the right experience for your customers
  • Customer-focused Culture, in which you maintain strong company values, hire the right employees to make a difference
  • Killer Customer Service, which create positive experiences that are virally shared

If you didn’t know, Becky has this great blog – Customers Rock! – that you should follow… and read the book, too. ;-)

0 Comments
tagged , , ,

Your Customer Experience Strategy and Journey Maps

24 Jul, 2011 in Customer Experience by

According to Forrester, 86% of companies say customer experience is a top strategic priority for 2011; 76% seek to differentiate based on customer experience; 46% have a company-wide program for improving customer experience currently in place and another 30% are actively considering it.

What is the right customer experience strategy for your company? Again, according to Forrester, The right customer experience strategy is the one that will help you:

  • Paint a vivid picture of how your company wants its customers to perceive it across all three levels of the customer experience pyramid: usefulness, ease, and enjoyment.
  • Guide decisions about what you need to start doing, stop doing, or do differently in order to create a differentiating experience.
  • Justify funding and prioritize the projects that get funded.

At a recent San Diego Software Industry Council User Experience Business Information Group [www.sdsic.org] event, Jeofrey Bean, Del Mar Research & Consulting Principal, Carol Buehrens, ICW Group Principal Customer Experience and Chief User Experience Architect for Enterprise Marketing, and Sharon Carmichael, Sony Electronics User Experience Manager, described how Customer Journey Maps offers strategic insight with an outside-in perspective and how they can identify critical parts of your customer’s experience, including satisfaction, pain points, gaps and disconnects in service, emotional responses, and brand impact.

It seems these customer journey maps are a good solution to help you determine your right customer experience strategy.

 

 

0 Comments
tagged , , ,

FICO World 2011

17 Jul, 2011 in Analytics by

FICO World 2011, the leading international conference on analytic strategies for financial services, is drawing together the world’s leading experts for four value-packed days of fresh ideas and powerful solutions. At FICO World, you’ll discover analytic innovations that can help you uncover new revenue sources in this highly dynamic business and regulatory environment. Hear first hand from industry leaders who are creating game-changing approaches to balancing risk and opportunity, keeping ahead of the latest fraud schemes and prospering amid tremendous change.

www.ficoworld.com

0 Comments

SDSIC UX BIG: Customer Journey Maps and Your Experience Strategy

10 Jul, 2011 in Customer Experience by

Customer Journey Maps offer strategic insight by identify critical parts of your customer’s experience, including satisfaction, pain points, gaps and disconnects in service, emotional responses, and brand impact. To be competitive today, you need to know how your customers interact with your services, processes, products, people, and company. Join our panel of experts for this insightful session about real companies that have made themselves different, better and more profitable with customer journey maps. Panelists will discuss:

  • The difference between customer experience and user experience.
  • What Customer Journey Maps are and what it does for your company and customers.
  • Real examples of Customer Journey Maps.

Moderator:

Sean Van Tyne, User Experience Director, FICO, www.fico.com

Panelists:

Carol Buehrens, Principal, Customer Experience / Chief User Experience Architect, Enterprise Marketing, ICW Group, www.icwgroup.com

Jeofrey Bean, Principal, Del Mar Research Consulting, LLC, www.delmarresearch.com

Sharon Carmichael, User Experience Manager, Sony Electronics, www.sonystyle.com

 

Date: Thursday, July 14, 2011

Place: Intuit,  Bennett Conference Room, Bldg. 3, 7545 Torrey Santa Fe Road, San Diego CA 92129

Time: 5:30 pm – 6:00 pm – Registration, Networking and Refreshments; 6:00 pm – 7:30 pm – Program

Fee: Member: • register-prepay= $35.00 Pre register only; Non-member: • register-prepay= $45.00 Pre register only

Register: http://www.sdsic.org/events.aspx

 

0 Comments
tagged , , , ,

Does it need to be said?

26 Jun, 2011 in Career Advice by

We are all responsible for the experiences we create. Much of these experiences come down to what we communicate and how we communicate it. What makes us experience designers so good is that we give a lot of thought to our audience before we communicate to them.

But there is one (of many) things that I still find myself challenged with and that is:

  1. Does it need to be said?
  2. Do *I* need to say it?
  3. Do I need to say it now?

The first question we need to ask ourselves before we communicate a message is “Does it really need to be said?” Many times we get so excited about the message itself that we don’t always think through if this audience is really interested in it. Sometimes, what we think is a great message has just the opposite effect. So the first question we really need to ask ourselves before crafting a message is “Does it need to be said at all.”

Once we are certain that the message needs to be shared, the next thing to ask yourself is “Do *I* need to say it?” Would this message have a better chance of success with the target audience from someone other than me? And who is that person and how do I get them to deliver this message?

If you conclude that you are the best choice to deliver this message, the last thing you need to ask yourself is “Do I need to say it now?” Timing is everything! Is this the right time for this message for this audience? Should it wait for a more opportune time when the audience would be more receptive?

If this messages needs to shared and you are the right person to deliver it and now is the optimal time to deliver it then, yes, craft and deliver the message! If it doesn’t need to be said or it doesn’t need to be shared by you, or it doesn’t need to share now – then don’t!

In many cases, sharing the wrong message to the wrong audience at the wrong time will only increase miscommunication or worse… and you don’t want to party to that. You may have had this experience… I know I have. ;-)

0 Comments

Design Experiences to Exceed Expections

18 Jun, 2011 in Customer Experience by

I don’t need to tell you that industry research studies have found that the average company provides a customer experience that’s mediocre at best and infuriating at worst. We have all been on the receiving end of mediocre experience or worse.

Now days, we all know that designing interactions to meet or exceed expectations will increase satisfaction, trust and advocacy improves long-term profitability. Companies like Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Sarbucks, MINI, and a handful of companies that have made their primary business focus around customer experience get it.  These companies and their products and services change people’s lives, cause competitors to come up with inadequate imitations and transform their industries – and our lives – forever.

 

0 Comments
tagged ,

Color in Culture

11 Jun, 2011 in Color, Culture by

I have had a fascination with color and culture for most of my life. From color theory to ethnography, it is all so interesting! And important when you are designing anything for people! They are both complex and the intersection can be integrate. Here is one of the best data visualizations that I have ever seen on this.

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/colours-in-cultures/

Please give some thought to cultural context of color the next time you are creating an experience.

 

0 Comments
tagged , , , , , , , , ,
Pages (11): « First ... « Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next » ... Last »