Ka-chunk! When customer experience design fails and how to avoid it

KA-CHUNK! When customer experience design fails and how to avoid it Joel Flom UX Australia 2009, Canberra 27 August 2009

Bit about me HELLO... - A designer - 12 years experience - Start-ups to SMEs to corporates - Experience split between Australia and US - Still figuring it out

Customer experience deﬁned

Customer experience defined “Customer experience refers to the totality of experience a customer has with a business, across all channels and touchpoints.” Peter Merholz, Adaptive Path

Customer experience defined “Customer experience should encompass every aspect of a company’s offering and consistently engage a customer across all touch points.” Joel Flom, Elavision

Customer experience defined BLUE SKIES, RIGHT? - Unified vision - Rallying point - Plenty of success stories (Apple, Amazon, Zappos) - Required to stay competitive - Customers demand it

Customer experience defined

Customer experience defined BUT... - Major challenges in creating an integrated customer experience - Organisational unity impossible to achieve within timeframes - Client not ready - Customers misunderstood

Customer experience defined

Customer experience defined SO WHO’S THE CULPRIT? - Revisit our own perspective - Empathise with the business - Stop idolising the ideal customer

Revisit our own perspective

Revisit our own perspective “...designers are very much focused on the service interface (eg. interaction with the service provider), so much that they don’t notice what’s going on behind them.” Marc Fonteijn, 31 Volts

Revisit our own perspective BLINDED BY THE LIGHT - We’re often blinded by the lights coming off the front-stage - We seek the “ideal” customer - We still get sucked into the medium

Revisit our own perspective “WEB PLUS ONE” APPROACH - “Multi-channel experiences” are often the web plus one other channel - Our vantage point is mainly from the web outwards - We're still fixated on the shiny object - Other core services get overlooked Garrett, Jesse James (2009). “How Integrated Are Your Customer Experiences?”. http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/merholz/2009/07/how-integrated-are-your-custom.html

Revisit our own perspective PROJECT-BASED UNDERSTANDING - Look at customers, the business and technical teams through narrow lenses - Perspectives are stitched together based on project objectives - Business units aren’t necessarily seen as operating outside the design problem

Revisit our own perspective “[Design thinking] is a discipline that uses the designer's sensibility and methods to match people needs with what is technologically feasible and what a viable business strategy can convert into customer value and market opportunity.” Tim Brown, IDEO

Revisit our own perspective 360° design

Empathise with the business

Empathise with the business “How did this happen? If I was running a company with the distinction and history of American Airlines, I would be embarrassed -- no ashamed -- to have a website with a customer experience as terrible as the one you have now. How does your CEO, Gerard J. Arpey, justify treating customers this way? Why does your board of directors approve of this? Your website is abusive to your customers, it is limiting your revenue possibilities, and it is permanently destroying the brand and image of your company in the mind of every visitor.” Dustin Curtis, dustoncurtis.com Curtis, Dustin (2009). “Dear American Airlines”. http://dustincurtis.com/dear_american_airlines.html

Empathise with the business “You want a redesign? I’ve got six of them in my archives. It only takes a few hours to put together a really good-looking one, as you demonstrated in your post. But doing the design isn’t the hard part, and I think that’s what a lot of outsiders don’t really get, probably because many of them actually do belong to small, just-get-it-done organizations. But those of us who work in enterprise-level situations realize the momentum even a simple redesign must overcome, and not many, I’ll bet, are jumping on this same bandwagon. They know what it’s like.” Mr X’s response, dustoncurtis.com Mr. X (2009). “The Response”. http://dustincurtis.com/dear_dustin_curtis.html

Empathise with the business “To succeed on the Web we need to change our mentality from seeing ourselves as a master to seeing ourselves as an apprentice.” Gerry McGovern, gerrymcgovern.com

Empathise with the business TOP-DOWN TO BOTTOM-UP IS HARD - Many obstacles, from organisational structure to company culture - Management suspicious of perceived value/risks - Demands a different mind-set than earlier IT programs - Invites all employees to the table

Empathise with the business DECISION FACTORIES - Decisions don’t get made - Decisions appear to have been made, but then fall apart - Decisions get made, but follow-up isn’t timely - Decisions get made, but they’re bad Martin, Roger (2005). “Why Decisions Need Design”. http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/aug2005/id20050830_416439.htm

Empathise with the business SILOS - Rarely have incentives to coordinate their activities - Often have stronger incentives to go own way - Friction between silos can be systemic - Clear division of labour (job titles with explicit set of responsibilities)

Empathise with the business MARKET MATURITY - Determine which stage the organisation is in Maturity Model Stage 1: Technology - Work out the competition’s level of maturity Stage 2: Features (not just features and functionality) Stage 3: Experience Stage 4: Commodity - Look at level is across entire organisation, not just current design problem - Understand what it will take to transition to the next stage Spool, Jared (2009). “Deriving Design Strategy from Market Maturity, Part 1” http://www.uie.com/articles/derivingdesignstrategy/

Empathise with the business MARKET MATURITY - Determine which stage the organisation is in - Work out the competition’s level of maturity (not just features and functionality) - Look at level is across entire organisation, not just current design problem - Understand what it will take to transition to the next stage Spool, Jared (2009). “Deriving Design Strategy from Market Maturity, Part 1” http://www.uie.com/articles/derivingdesignstrategy/

Stop idolising the ideal customer

Stop idolising the ideal customer BETTER EXPERIENCES NOT REQUIRED - Loyalty over time can breed inaction - “The devil you know” phenomenon - Experience is not front and centre - Relationship not required

Stop idolising the ideal customer “We don’t want interaction! We want to minimise our interaction!” Eric Reiss, FatDUX

Stop idolising the ideal customer CUSTOMERS NOT ON A JOURNEY - May interact with multiple touchpoints and series of interactions over time, but don’t view it as an “ecosystem” - Often only a means to an end - Not seeking rich interactions, but instead less interactions

Stop idolising the ideal customer CUSTOMER SERVICE = HUMAN TOUCH - Human touch still trumps online help/support - Phone continues to be top preference - Most customers don’t believe technology has improved customer service significantly - Must move away from AVR mentality

Stop idolising the ideal customer “Online, we don’t just see and read about your brand. We use it.” Kristina Halvorson, Brain Traffic

Stop idolising the ideal customer WHEN ONLINE, IT’S THE CONTENT - When online, customers predominantly interact with content, not the business - Useful, usable content - Bridges the gap between audience needs and business requirements

Stop idolising the ideal customer

Conclusion FINAL THOUGHTS... - Ensure we get a complete picture of the customer experience, not the one we yearn to see - Be a student of the business - Give the real customer what they need

Conclusion “How we approach our work is often what determines its outcome. The more it's about us, the knowers or gurus or smarter- than-thous, the less good the experience we create.” Mark Hurst, Creative Good

The End THANK YOU - Web: www.elavision.com - Blog: elavision.typepad.com - Email: joel.flom@elavision.com - Twitter: @joelflom

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Ka-chunk! When customer experience design fails and how to avoid it

by Joel Flom on Aug 30, 2009

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