The Tablet is now the Preferred Device for Reading and Writing Emails

A new research study finds that majority of iPad owners say it is their preferred device for reading and writing email. The survey was conducted online in the second half of 2012 among 4,400 adults aged 18 plus, of which 66 percent were women. The study found that the most preferred device for reading emails … Read more

Customer Experience Lessons from the ABCs of Life from Annette Franz Gleneicki

Annette Franz Gleneicki shared this post, this last Tuesday, December 18, 2012, on her blog, CX Journey and I had to past it along. As Annette states, “There are a lot of general life lessons that can be applied to the world of customer experience.” Here are the ABCs she shared: Accept Differences:  Customers are … Read more

25 Best Practices to Employee Engagement

The Temkin Group recently published The Five I’s of Employee Engagement. As recent research has shown us the direct correlation between employee engagement, customer loyalty and profitability, this report spells out the 25 best practices based on interviews with companies that lead in this area. Here are the results: Inform 1. Follow a thorough communication … Read more

Customer Experience Balanced Scorecard

An organization’s Balance Scorecard should include customer experience metrics along with productivity, quality, and agility to continuously improve cross-functional business processes that map to your overall financial performance goals. Customer Experience metrics may include: service quality index, quantity of complaints, service level compliance, Net Promoter Score, and more. The data from Voice of the Customer … Read more

Beyond SEO: Case Study

message in a bottle on the beach shore

In pursuit of new business, a small consulting firm was frequently asked if they had a website. Based on the demand-side information and needs of the business, the three missions of the website were to: Establish company credibility Be an easy-to-use networking tool Provide those working at the company with an easy-to-access, anywhere sales presentation … Read more

Beyond SEO: Driving Customer Attraction, Retention, and Top-Line Growth

Integrated Systems

Businesses frequently want an evaluation of their websites—mostly to know how they compare to the competition. Based on our experience, most businesses are disappointed with their website’s ability to convert visitors to loyal customers. In fact, many people say they aren’t really sure what their website does for them. To assess and enhance website effectiveness, … Read more

How Much User Experience Effort by Types of Release

The level of user experience effort that is practical for a given release depends, to some extent, on the type of release—that is, whether it is a major release, a minor release, or an update. Table 1 provides a summary of guidelines for the UX effort that is recommended for each type of release. Table … Read more

Winning in the Marketplace: Deciding How Much User Experience Effort Does It Take

You need to decide how much user research, design, and usability testing you can afford. This depends on your competitive market, business objectives, and release cycles. During the early phases of a product development lifecycle, activities include conducting market, customer, and competitive user research. User research may include surveys, focus groups, interviews, and contextual inquiries. … Read more

Winning in the Marketplace with User Experience Design

During User Experience (UX) design, develop diagrams of various users’ workflows, noting where they are similar or different. Next, based on your findings, group your customer and user types by similar roles, and create profiles or personas that synthesize users’ skills, patterns, and goals to better understand their needs. Companies in mature markets may not … Read more

Develops Prototypes to Validate Activities, Tasks, and Actions meet Your Customers’ Needs

Product designers have tools they use to define activities, tasks, actions, and operations such as activity diagrams, wireframes, and prototypes. Product Design develops prototypes to elicit customer feedback to validate the solutions activities, tasks, and actions meet their needs. Wireframes are a quick and easy way to prototype a design for feedback. Wireframes are a … Read more

Define Who, Why, What, and How: Roles, Goals, Scenarios, and Activities

The product manager must have a concise vision for the product they can clearly articulate to the product designers. Put the customers and users activities in context of the market problem the solution is solving. Markets are made up of segments. We must be able to define our market segmentations in terms of their needs … Read more

Don’t Listen to your Customers!

OK, that got your attention… Sometimes the best way to satisfy a customer’s need is to ignore their suggestions. Customers have ideas about incremental improvements to their workflow, but if we develop something that is truly innovative, our ideas probably won’t make sense to existing customers. Sometimes when we solve a market problem, our solution … Read more