CX Art and Science

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

A COLLECTION OF SHORT ARTICLES FROM LENATI’S CX PRACTICE by Paul Conder. Conder. Erin McMonigal, Editor Editor

(C) 2014 Lenati LLC

PREFACE There was a time - not that long ago - when customer experience was simply the thing that happened at the end of an industrial production system. Factories made products that were purchased by customers through uncomplicated,, linear networks of uncomplicated distribution. Services were delivered on a strictly person-toperson level. And the difference between products and services was completely clear.

Every layer of that system has shifted in less than one generation. Distribution has repositioned its center around the customer rather than the factory. Channels have fragmented and recombined r ecombined into intersecting digital, physical and hybrid networks. The lines between product and service have been blurred.

When changes happen this fast, it’s easy to get get a little apprehensive. At a recent retail convention, the most common theme for keynote speeches was “Is Retail Dead?” How much has been written about the death of the music or film industries as their products become digital? Or about the “death of privacy” as more transactions go online or disappear from view completely?

Controlled demolition of the abandoned Woodwards department store, prior to redevelopment. Vancouver Canada 2006. Photo by Tannoy.

We tend to be more optimistic. When photography was invented, many in the art world forecasted the “death of painting.” - and within a few generations we saw Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, Monet, Pollock and Rothko. Those who can evolve will thrive.

by Paul Conder, Lenati LLC. 2014

 We define customer experience as the aggregate of a person's  We perceptions, feelings, feelings, memories and associations around their engagement with a brand.  All competitive businesses businesses are somehow dependent on their customer’s experience to drive their growth and prosperity. prosperi ty. I can’t think of any exceptions exceptions,, past or present. Even businesses that are focused on a basic need - for example healthcare or grocery retailing - use experiential drivers in some way to set themselves apart. Some monopolies are are known for neglecting customer experience - but once they are forced into competitive environments environm ents they tend to smarten up quickl quickly. y. Telecommu elecommunicatio nications ns companies have made this shif t, some better than others.  At the top level, level, treating your customer customer well just seems like the right thing to do - for altruistic reasons if for nothing else.  e interactions that happen every time a business makes a connection  with a customer add add up to aff ect ect much more than the individual transaction. transacti on. It has been shown that loyalty, brand perception, perceptio n, spending, likelihood to recommend and overall satisfaction are all aff ected ected by CX - but I believe that there there is a much bigger story. At the top level, customer experience is really about making personal connections with people - treating them with respect, with consistency, consist ency, with dignity, with foresight foresi ght and with style. But to make the business case, there need to be a c lear way to measure the financial impact of improving customer customer experience. So the question shifts from f rom “why do we make experiences better for people?” - to “how much is an experience actually worth?” For a question this big it’s important to get a lot o f opinions - so we have scrubbed recent research and combined it with our own findings to give a top-level view of real-world business impacts f rom diff erent erent industries...

A CEI survey found that 86% of customers are willing to pay more for an improved experience, but only 1% feel they are having their expectations met by vendors. (Source: Forbes “CX: the Chicken or the Egg”)

86% of leaders interviewed by Forrester Research place customer experience as their top strategic priority. In another study, Forrester found that better CX can deliver more that $1Billion in revenue growth to large businesses. (“Differentiating on Customer Experience” Forrester, 2012. and “Make the Business Case” 2014)

The Harvard Business Review found that focusing business activities on

a holistic customer’s journey (as opposed to developing individual touchpoints separately) is 30-40% more strongly correlated with customer satisfaction - and 20-30% more strongly correlated with business outcomes such as revenue, repeat purchase, reduced customer churn and positive word of mouth.

Peppers and Rogers found that CX has emerged as the single most

important aspect in achieving success for companies across all industries - both B2B and B2C. (“Return on Customer” Don Peppers, Martha Rogers 2006)

 (Alex Rawson, Ewan Duncan, and Conor Jones, HBR, Sept. 2013)

Deloitte found in its research on cross-channel selling that the use of

Lenati CX engagements have resulted in over $1 Billion dollars in new

mobile devices in retail influences 36% of sales, or approximately 1.1 trillion dollars of revenue.

business for their clients, and have connected with over 100 Million customers worldwide. (2014)

(Deloite “the New Digital Divide, 2014)

Tesco chairman Sir Richard Broadbent was quoted as saying "customer

experience is more important than our products" CapGemini discovered that over 50% of customers of financial

institutions are at risk of switching banks based on customer experience.

(Sunday Times, Nov. 2013)

customer experiences yet many are stuck in an execution chasm, unable to implement new CX strategies.

87% of companies in the process of implementing a CX strategy who were surveyed by the Temkin Group in late 2013 saw positive business results in the first year. They also found in a separate study that nearly 60% of large companies have ambitions to be industry leaders in CX within three years.

(Oracle CX Survey, 2014)

(Temkin Group Research 2013)

(CapGemini 2013 World Retail Banking Report)

Oracle found that businesses can lose 20% of revenue from poor

1.

Building a Customer Centric Business by Paul Conder, Lenati LLC. 2014

2.

Customer Experience is a personal thing, and is not something that can be “created” by a company. It is the aggregate of a person's perceptions, feelings, memories and associations around their engagement with a brand. Each customer brings their life’s memories and associations to each interaction, and so it is inappropriate to say that th at we create specific experiences for each customer. We can only aff ord ord the customer the chance to engage. CX is similar to branding in this way. Companies Compani es put a lot of eff ort ort into creating their brand - but people's perceptions of a company are personal, and belong to people not the company. Engagement and understanding between people and  businesses is becoming deeper - but in ways that are are more complex and less predictable. When channel models were more monolithic and uni-directional, companies were able to separate their customer face from their operations with an opaque curtain between the two.  e explosion in digital communication channels means that people can see the totality of the company including behind the curtain. Every facet of the company needs to be understood from the customer's point of view - it’s all on display. display.  is goes far beyond service interactions with sta ff  or  or engagement with a product. Customers have expectations that need to be met around a company’s ethics, values values and where and how it conducts its business.

3.

4.

 A “Customer “Customer Journey” is the framework framework of customers’ customers’ interactions and experiences while engaging with a brand. It’s not just a physical journey. It also includes all the interactions with digital di gital media, social interactions, word of mouth, service interactions – the works. Mapping the Customer Journey across available channels (omnichannel analysis, in retail terms) is the key to understanding how the experiences can be enabled, communicated and focused.  Touchpoints  Touchpoints are are only physical physical or digital enablers enablers in the   ff  ord  the  Touchpoints a   the customer the Customer’s Journey. Touchpoints opportunity to carry out a certain pattern of interactions. (In the field of design, they are called “a ff ordances”) ordances”) Every touchpoint designed into a website, app, app, retail interior, hospital, office, store fixture, airport, smartphone or table setting is put there to enable certain interactions, carry certain messages, and pattern certain behaviors. Many companies focus on their touchpoints when they speak about customer experience because the touchpoints are the items that the company produces in the end - and there is a lot of thought, eff ort ort and money put into building things like websites, sales networks and retail spaces. When the focus is placed too strongly on the touchpoint, the bias is towards the th e operational aspects of the company – not what the customer is actually thinking, feeling, saying, doing or spending.

5.

 Any point in the customer’s customer’s journey journey has the potential potential to  Wee have seen drive the customer away from a company.  W companies insist that long service wait times allow customers the opportunity to “explore” and “engage.” - When in reality about half of them were leaving within a few moments of entry.  e operational obstacles were enough to blind the company’s leadership to the real impact this experience was having on their thei r business.  is is an extreme example - but  we have seen many companies companies su ff er er from similar blockages in connecting with their customers.  e customer’s experience can be directly linked to the

6.

 Wee wrote about this in the previous customer’s spending.  W article we published called c alled “What ’s an Experience Worth?” Worth?” Companies are seeing an enormous upside in revenue and loyalty by framing their products, services and systems around the customer’s experience.

 ere is no such thing as an o ffline customer.  Whatever

7.

industry you are in, you can be sure that your customer can be present in several channels, sometimes at once comparing you to your competition, and learning about what others say about you. For the companies that see every aspect of their business as customer-facing, this is their best opportunity to make a connection.

 e value in aligning alig ning the customer’s customer’s experience to sales

8.

performance can be massive. In our projects, we have seen sales increases, improved brand perception, more positive reviews, increased loyalty and retention AND simplified operations by taking a customer-centric view, generating billions of dollars in new business.

9.

Customer Experience is not about projecting a made-up theme for your company’s brand. Many companies jump to the idea that the customer should be delighted or surprised at each step - but attempting to make this happen in the real  world is often cumbersome and contrived, creating a brand perception that is fake, insincere and inauthentic. For the customer it can feel like the company is trying too hard. Like that kid in school who wanted so desperately to be friends and seemed to stick to you like glue.  eatre was often used metaphorically as an approach to “staging customer experiences.” Much of the most famous writing about CX, for example “  e Experience Economy” by Pine and Gilmore, caught on so well that the language in it permeated business and creative culture in North America but sometimes the original context was missing. For many, many, the first taste of CX strategy demonstrated the artifice and superficiality of a Broadway theatre production - and often in complete misalignment to the brand or the product.  e same authors later wrote a follow-up book called “Authenticity” which was aimed at reigning in i n this trend.

 ere are three key areas for measuring CX:

1. Customer input helps us understand what the  - capturing c apturing perceptions, customer is thinking and feeling  opinions, preferences, feelings, associations and reactions.  is can also include input on subjects like their likelihood to recommend the th e company, brand cohesion, or their general satisfaction.  is first area is extremely useful, but can be prone to errors that are typical for surveys - for example coverage, (size and quality of the sample) response, (problems related to the way questions are asked) and non-response (customers providing erroneous responses - sometimes because they are being asked about a subject that isn’t of any consequence to them.)

10.

2. Observational research helps us understan understand d what the customer is doing . It includes everything from field observations, online analytics, tra ffic and browsing patterns, social listening data, dwell dwell times - anything anythi ng that can be observed with a minimum of a ff ect ect to the customer’s behavior. behavior. While this might seem more objective, it leaves out the more personal aspects to the experience - favoring behavioral data. 3. Financial data helps us understand how the customer is spending . It can be correlated to the first two areas, creating performance or value-based models. For a deep dive on CX research methods, see “  e New CX Toolbox” Toolbox” - available at Lenati.com/cx

SUMMARY: Customer experience is not about layering themed touchpoints into the customer’s journey. Nor is it really about surprising and delighting your customer at every step. For the most part, CX is about making a personal, meaningful and relevant connection with a customer. Other times it’s about simply getting out of their way, and letting your relationship evolve naturally.

 ere has been a great deal

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF ENGINEERING EXPERIENCES DESIGN THINKING AND CX by Paul Conder, Lenati LLC. 2014

written about “design thinking” in the past few years. Much focus has been placed on its value value in helping define business strategy, with design firms around the world claiming that they have evolved beyond their role as developers of products into a new role as business visionaries. visionaries. It seems nearly nearly every firm with a design design practice has a “proprietary and unique” problem-solving process that will unlock the magic combination of Customer Experience, Brand Vision and Strategy - transforming any company into the next Apple.

 is

is only half true.

Design is a process that helps people develop systems that o ther people  will use.  is process can be applied to software, buildings, spaceshuttles, tea kettles and organizational structures. CX design is about applying design’s problem solving capacity to align a business to face its customers. It needs to work across channels, touchpoints and media making it di ff erent erent from other fields. Software designers make software.  Automotive designers make cars. CX designers enable enable experiences. But no one owns owns this process. Its origins are ancient. ancient. Its e ff ects ects are ubiquitous in the modern world and permeate every facet of our lives.  is is the story of how this process came to be, how it works, and how

it can be leveraged to build a better connection between a business and its customers.

ORIGINS  e design process, a term that’s used almost

interchangeably with “design thinking,” turns up in some form in several several disciplines. Ign al-Haytham  was an eleventh century Persian Scientist who debunked theories on optics developed by such scientific heavy-weights as Ptolemy, Euclid and  Aristotle. But just as importantly, importantly, he he articulated the process process behind his  work. - Empirical evidence drove his ideas, which were tested tested using an iterative process of experimentation, continuing until he knew his ideas  worked in the real real world.  is was one of the first well-documented examples of the scientific method - and while he wasn’t the only one to  work this way, way, his successes in the field field combined with his his well-known intellectual rigor helped spread spread the word. Some version of this process can be seen in fields as diverse as mechanical engineering, physics, visual art and customer experience design.  e basic principles are: 1. Learning as much as you can about a problem or opportunity  - We will call this area of focus Discovery 2. Asking questions, developing hypotheses, creating concepts to test - We will call this area of focus Ideation 3. Testing those ideas to learn from them - feeding learnings back to step 1 - We will call this area of focus  Testing  Testing  A version of this is taught in virtually every design, art, engineering and science school in the first year.  e process itself is renamed from f rom field to field, but the components remain basically the same. - In science it ’s called “the scientific method” - in engineering it ’s usually referred to a “problem solving process” and in design it’s i t’s usually called c alled “design thinking” or “the design process.” No one owns this process - but the perspective that each person or team brings to it is what makes it unique.

photo NASA

FROM PRODUCTS TO EXPERIENCES Despite its ancient history and diverse origins, today the design process is usually associated with the field of industrial design, consumer consumer product development and with the broader field of invention.  e focus here is on developing manufactured products. products. But there was always an understanding that those products have to work for people. At each phase of the process questions around how people value, purchase, use, store, maintain maintain and eventually dispose of o f a product would sit side to side  with how the product product actually worked worked to satisfy those needs.  e question “would the user like it?” would would have the same weight as “does it  work?” For this reason, reason, designers designers became schooled in how to understand understand users needs, market trends and cultural frameworks.

photo: Nic Redhead,

 As design went beyond the focus on the product to focus on the person, each phase in the process was a ff ected. ected. Discovery  centered  centered around research into user’s needs, perceptions and wants. Ideation employed Ideation employed techniques like role-play, role-play, use-cycle-analysis and participatory-design (bringing users into the creative sessions.) And testing  involved  involved taking mock-ups of the product concepts to the users to see how they would interact with it and to capture their their thoughts on its value. Each area of focus started to employ techniques f rom the social sciences to help connect people’s preferences preferences and perceptions to the product.

 e design process was later adopted by

people who were designing software. As they worked to make new technologies usable usable and valuable to a larger audience, they grabbed hold of the tools that had long been employed by industrial designers and applied them to non-physical products.

One of the most important tools that was adopted by this new group was the “journey f ramework.”  is set up a visual representation of each step of the user’s experience.  e product wasn’t the primary primar y focus here - it  was about mapping mapping the interactions, experiences and perceptions of a user in the real world, and predicting how a product should intervene in those interactions - patterning the behavior of the user and delivering some kind of value to them. Larger maps could be constructed that showed showed the systems that supported the product, the the lifecycle of the relationship between the user and the product, multiple users interacting through the product’s features, cyclical patterns and repeated interactions etc.  is tool (often resembling a kind of stor yboard or process diagram) helped systematize the design process. Ideas could be worked out as part of a larger system of interactions. It’s hard to imagine the development development of today’s software or interactive products without this tool, and without the larger process to enable it.  is technique is the origin of customer  journey mapping  which  which is a key process for anyone in the field of customer experience.

photo by SparkCBC

 Within a few years, the process that used to be known for designing teakettles was used for designing interactive systems and experiences - even businesses. Its business applications connected marketing and customer insights with operations and distribution - helping entire companies to become more customer-centric.  e process is making things work for people - but now, the things  were  were fast dissolving into services, environments, software and media - the  people  were  were becoming more and more diverse and inter-connected - and the channels  through  through which people connected connected were fragmenting and overlapping. Who could possibly be an expert in all of these fields at once?  e simplest answer is “ no

one.”

Bill Buxton has developed the idea o f a “Renaissance Team.” - In essence, he said that the design challenges of today are too complex and involve too many disciplines to be solvable by a single expert.  e Renaissance Team Team takes over f rom the notion of the Renaissance Man.  e collective knowledge of a diverse group trumps the lone genius. photo: Eddao,

 e process, the teams who applied it, and the types of

problems it was aimed at solving, all evolved simultaneously. simultaneously. It became a unifying force for innovation behind extremely diverse teams and and businesses. Where it used to focus on physical products, it became a powerful methodology for developing complex, people-centric systems of any kind. It shifted the conversation away from the supply chain and towards the customer. customer.

 You  You usually enter enter here. If you do, it’s good to have a clear problem or opportunity identified identifie d first. However, these will likely shift as you go through the process.

 e

design process is usually modeled as a linear sequence. sequence. But from our experience, that’s not how it works in the real world. In this model, the structure of process - made up of the basic building blocks of discovery , ideation and ideation and testing   - becomes less and and less rigid. It’s not about following three steps in sequence as much as shifting focus f rom place to place, depending depending on the needs of the team and the types of questions they are asking. (Others have pointed this out too, for example, Tim Brown from IDEO.)

RY OVEproblemc,ulture, C DIS the text, er

h n m earc , co sto Resortunity and cutever r opp eholde se whae sense stakerns. Uols mak pattarch to text. rese our con for y

n

r, i NGs on paapleworld. I T a TESour iden the reou can i y ck y Testlab anduch as d it ba e m h t rn as st. Fee Lea the te tem. fromthe sys into

 You  You should probably exit here.

ns

tio ONptual soalcuhes I T A e ro IDE p conc , app nity, ,

elo lem rtu ng Dev e prob e oppo omethi r h t to alize th to do sa bette to reer ways foster betthods to met rience. e exp

Sometimes you enter here - for example when a great idea comes your  way and needs needs some research research and testing to prove it out - most literature on the design process tries to play this down because it is di fficult to predict  when you will have a great idea.

Making the process work has a lot more to do with the diverse capacities and perspectives of the team than about a formalized stepby-step process. Even the team itself isn’t static. Di ff erent erent people - the client, analysts, researchers, stakeholders, and sometimes the customers themselves - come into the process to o ff er er their perspective when it ’s relevant to the problem.

DISCOVERY. Research the opportunity, problem, context, culture, stakeholder and customer patterns. Use whatever research tools make sense for your context. RY OVEproblemc,ulture, C DIS the text, er

h n m earc , co sto Resortunity and cutever r opp eholde se whae sense stakerns. Uols mak pattarch to text. rese our con for y

In much of the literature on customer experience design, there is an emphasis on problem solving. But there is a lot more to customer experience than solving for existing problems. problems. In order to foster a great experience, a good first step would be to identify and eliminate known painpoints - but that in itself will not be enough to compete against other companies who focus on moving towards opportunities in the market, cultural cultural or technological shifts, or to better satisfy a customer need. Worse still, it can be very di fficult for companies and teams to align on (or sometimes even notice) real problems without substantial evidence being compiled first - leading to a chicken-and-egg question - you can’t start the research without identifying a problem, and you can’t settle on a problem area without research. Our team uses a wide set of research tools, from ethnography and “voice of the customer” to online analytics and e-commerce performance statistics to build a deep understanding of the customer in the real world - identifying better opportunities to engage, but also building knowledge of the terrain. Our next article, titled “ e New CX Toolbox” will feature a deep dive into our customer experience research methodology.

IDEATION. Develop conceptual approaches to realize the opportunity, to solve the problem, build better ways to do something, and foster a better experience for the customer.

ns

tio ONptual soalcuhes I T A e ro IDE p conc , app nity, ,

elo lem rtu ng Dev e prob e oppo omethi r h t to alize th to do sa bette to reer ways foster betthods to met rience. e exp

Ideation has always been a sort of “ black box” - the moment  when the magic happens, happens, out of sight of the client - when a new concept comes out of all that knowledge.  ere has been a lot  written about creative tools that can help spur this along - rapid rapid  visualization, generative approaches, approaches, free-association, lateral lateral and  visual thinking, oblique strategies, brainstorming - techniques to get a group to work up new, more diverse ideas faster.  ese techniques help to frame up new questions about the customer and their context - or to gain a di ff erent erent perspective on an opportunity.. I would like to say that these tools will be e ff ective opportunity ective in the hands of anyone who has access to them - but unfortunately, that’s not the case.  e success of all this comes down to the creative capacity of the team and its individual members in the end. I don’t believe that creativity is something that “some people have and others don’t” - I feel strongly that it ’s something that is learned. And it comes in a lot of forms - many confuse drawing ability  with  with creativity   - a mis-conception that has kept many important points of view out of the conversation. Success here comes from being inspired by the group around  you, the richness of the knowledge knowledge at hand and what you have have taken from the people you have worked with in the past.  e best approach is to build a team that makes up for each other’s blind spots - the more diverse the better - and let the group learn their way to a solution together.

TESTING. Test your ideas on paper, in the lab and in the real world. Learn as much as you can from from the test. Feed it back into the system.  e importance testing as a part of the

process cannot be overstated. In a perfect world, this is where the team should be spending the majority of their time. It is the only opportunity to make a mistake, learn from it, and improve on tactics without exposing them to the entire customer base. Still, it’s amazing how many companies fail in this critical step. step. So much emphasis is placed on research and creative - often this part gets downplayed - or worse yet, overlooked completely.

e key to getting this activity r ight is to prototype initial Testing  breakout. n

r, i NGs on paapleworld. I T a TES r ide the re can you in you k Testlab anduch as d it bac the n as mst. Fee r Lea the te tem. fromthe sys into

concepts quickly - using simple, inexpensive inexpensive means - and to let them fail.  en, feed the learnings back into ideation and discovery quickly to get new concepts.  is is why the process isn’t linear - it needs to not only feedback on itself, it needs to do so unpredictably. unpredictab ly. In I n a recent project, we developed a simple set of prototypes that could be tested and modified ver y easily.  e models were reworked on the fly based on customer input and observation, and quickly evolved into designs that delighted customers at a fraction f raction of the cost of the or iginal concept. - But they were nothing like what we imagined in the first place.  Testing,  T esting, ideation and research research were layered layered on top of each other, other, not in sequence, to get a better result that we couldn’t have anticipated. For a deep dive into testing and prototyping methods, see our next article “ e New CX Toolbox.”

SUMMARY: CX DESIGN IS A PROCESS THAT HELPS TEAMS SHIFT FOCUS FROM PRODUCTS TO PEOPLE.  e design process puts a di ff erent erent

spin on the scientific method. method. It is a self-correcting system, where hypotheses and new i deas come in, and tested, validated validated research comes out - to be fed back in to inform the next round of new ideas. A CX designer’s role is one of keeping keeping focus on how people, products and systems interact - using the process to explore new ideas before they are brought to market.  ose ideas become the building blocks of brands because they will be the main touchpoints for customers. For that reason they can have a great deal of value to both the customer and the business.

 e

diff erence erence between CX design and all the other types of design (architecture, graphic design, service design, industrial etc.) is that a CX designer is not tied to a single medium. Architects work in construction, graphic designers work in 2D m edia, service designers create service systems, industrial designers work in manufacturing. manufacturing. But a CX designer  works hand in hand hand with all of these professions (and several others) others) to create a holistic experience for a customer across all media and channels.  is design thinking needs to be combined with analytical horsepower and fluency in business management in order to understand the financial impact of the work. It also needs to be mixed with a deep understanding understanding of research methods to build an understanding of the customer, their preferences and patterns. In our next article, “ e New CX Toolbox”, we will discuss these research and analytical methods in greater detail.

BETTER RESEARCH MAKES BETTER BUSINESS For any customer experience initiative to be successful, the project team needs to be very well informed about the customer’s preferences, opinions and behaviors.  is is fostered by a complex network of channels, environments, touchpoints and media.  at’s a lot of moving parts, and a lot of diff erent erent interests to keep in check.

Six Research Toolsets for Building a Better Customer Connection by Paul Conder. Lenati LLC. 2014.

It never ceases to amaze us how much there is to discover  when we embark on a new CX project. Many ideas that seemed to be “givens” dissolve the moment we get into the field and start talking to people. Over the years, we have developed a working set of tools that help us get a better understanding of the customer. customer. It’s unlikely that you would ever use them all on a single project, so knowing how each tool can extend your capabilities to understand the customer is key to framing up a project. Before getting into the toolbox, we need to start by asking what aspects of the customer’s experience we want to examine, and  what the scope of the project will be.....

FOUR CONDITIONS.

PERSONAL CULTURAL

From what we’ve seen there are four conditions that need to be satisfied to foster a customer experience that is mutually  beneficial to the customer and the company company.. Personal.  e customer will be giving their time and their money in exchange for a product, service and experience - they deserve to be engaged in a way that is relevant and valuable to them. Profitable.  e balance between operations costs and sales conversions needs to be positive and worthwhile in the long term. ectively Practical.  e company needs to be able to e ff ectively operationalize the approach in the real world.

PROFITABLE PRACTICAL

Cultural. For the customer, the experience needs to be appropriate for their cultural framework and how they see themselves in it. From the company’s point of view, the aggregate of all these experiences makes up the building blocks of their brand and its place in the world.

    A     I     D     E     M     L     A     I     C     O     S

E     C     O     N     D  E    O     M     M    I     O    C     G    R   

                   E                    I L                    B          O                    M

      E       R       U       T      C       E       T       I       H      C       R      A

      T      C       U       D      O    E       R    C       P    I     V

   R    E    S

A  P    H    I    C   

S  O   C  I  E   T  A  L 

PERSONAL

B R A  N   ND     E N  NV    II  V   R  RO    N  O   M  N   E  M   N  E   T  N T  A  L

   N  G    I   G    S  A    S   T  H    E    M   O  U   M   O  F   R  D   O   W

 S  I  N G   I S   T  I   R   E    E   D  V  A  D  N G  S I N A N D I S  M E R C H

CULTURAL

LIFECYCLE

WEB DESIGN

I N  NT  T  E    R  E   I  R I  O  OR     S P  R PA   C E  E 

 C  H I C  O G RA P  T E C H N

PROFITABLE   R  K   W  O   E   M   F  R  A    N   E    I  O    T   V  I  C   C   R    U    G   S  E    R    N    T    I    S    R    N    U      S     T   C  O       E    C    A       M       I    F       T    U    N       D    A      A    M       E       L

PRACTICAL

      N      O                    K       I                    R       T          O       U       B                    W       I                    E       R       T                    M      S          A       I                    R       D                    F

         S                    P          O

R          +       D          C          O          S          T          S         

S  A  L  E  S   M  E   T  R   O    I  C  S   P    E    R    A   T    B     I    O    U     N    S     S   C    I     N     C       E     O    A      S     S    P       S     T    I       S    T       G     A      L      C       O       S       T       S      

O     A     L   S    

 When a customer interacts with a brand, each aspect of the customer experience is modified through diff erent erent media and channels. Each of these can be extremely complex in themselves, can overlap each other, oth er, and are generally managed by large diverse groups within a company. company.  ese groups are often siloed into isolated management structures, with a lack of communication between each other. When a single tactic, aimed at fostering a positive customer experience requires a holistic approach to be successful, many management teams are unable to get a complete  view of the terrain.  To  To define a research approach approach - and to define the tools needed to follow it through - it’s important to ask some questions about the current state customer experience, for example:  What do we know about the current customer  journey and their profile?  Where are the problem areas or opportunities that we can identify now?  What do we know about customers customers perceptions, preferences and behavior patterns? How does customer perception drive spend?  What and how do we need to test? What are our priorities in research areas? •

•

•

•

•

                         S                          C                          I                          T                          Y                          L                          A                          N                          A                          E                          N                          I                          L                          N                          O

    P     U     O     R     G     S     U     C     O     F

C    U    L    T     U    R     A    L   P     R     O    B    E     S   

L  I  F    E    C  Y    C  L   E   M    A  P    P    I  N    G  

P  E  R   S  O  N   A S   A N   D  S   C E  N   A R   I  O  S   P H  H O  OT  T  O     /  O   V  I  ID    E  D E   O  O E T  TH     N  H NO    G  O   R  G    A  R AP    H  P    Y  H Y  BR AND ANAL Y S  SI  S 

    A     I     D     E     M     L     A     I     C     O     S

E     C     O     N     D  E    O     M     M    I     O    C     G    R   

                   E                    I L                    B          O                    M

      S                   IC              T              Y       L       A       N       A       E             IL       B       O       M

      E       R       U       T      C       E       T       I       H      C       R      A

   R    E    S

S  O   C  I  E   T  A  L 

   R    E     M    O     T    S    U    C    E    H     T    F    O    N    E    C    I    T  I  O   A    O     V   O  C    V    R  O   N G    N   P   I  G   P  P  I   S   M A  P    E   Y    Y    D   N  E  O  U  R   R  J O   E  R   M   T   T O   H   T  H  C  U S   O  U

   N  G    I   G    S  A    S    E    M   M   O  F   R  D   W  O

PERSONAL

B  R A  N   ND    

    S     C      I      T      Y      L      A      N      A      L      A      I     C     O     S

      T      C       U       D      O    E       R    C       P    I     V

A  P    H    I    C   

E N  NV    II  V   R  R O  ON     M  N ME     N  E NT  T  A  L

       A        T        A        D        N        O        C        A        E        B

  I  N G  S  I   I S   R  T  I   E  R  A  D  V  N G  S I N  D I S  R C HA N  M E R C

CULTURAL

LIFECYCLE

 HIC S U R V E Y  RA P HI  NOG RA  EC H NO  T EC

 RIO S  NA RI C E NA  D SC  NA S A N D S  SO NA  P E R SO

WEB DESIGN

I N  N T  TE    R  E    II O  R    R  O R S P  P AC E  E 

 C  I C  G R  G RA P H  E C H N O  T E C

PROFITABLE   R  K   W  O   M  E   A   R    R    N   E  F    I  O    T   V  I  C   R    U  C   M  E  R    G   S  E  R  O    R   T    N    T    I    S   U S    R    N    U   T C      S   E  T     T   C  O   R       E    C  C   E    A       M  S  E       I    F       T    D    U    E    N    L       D    A    B      A    M       E    N  A       L

PRACTICAL

   P   E    P   A    I     R    N    A    F    A    T  I  O   A    S    V    R    D      Y    E     L      A    E      L    B  S    I   O    F      R    D      E    L      V    E     O    F  I     S      N     O      I      T      A      R      E      P     O

 N G  I N  M A P P  Y C L E  C  E  F   F  L I

      N      O                    K       I                    R       T          O       U       B                    W       I                    E       R       T                    M      S          A       I                    R       D

       H        C        R       R        A       O        E              T        S       A        E            R        R       E        G       P        N             O        I        T       E        S       H        I              T        X        E       F       O       E             IC       O              V

R          +       D          C          O          S          T          S         

S  A  L  E  S   M  E   T  R  I   O    C  S   P    E    R    A   T    B     I    O    U     N    S     S   C    I     N     C       E     O    A      S     S    P       S     T    I       S    T       G     A      L      C       O       S       T       S      

                   F          S                    P          O

                         Y                          A                          L                          R                          E                          V                          O                          T                          N                          I                          O                          P                          H                          C                           U                           O                          T

L             E             A             D             E             R             S             H             I P                    W             O             R             K             S             H             O             P            

O     A     L    S    

AUT OM AT E  ED   E T  T HNOGR AP HY 

C U  U S  ST  T  O    M  O   E  M   R  E    D  R I  IA  A   R  RY  Y   

S  E    C  R    E    T   C   U    S  T    O    O  M    P     E    E     R    R    

A    T     P      I    O    E      N    R      S    F      O    O      O        V     R      E     P         M      R     E        L    A      A    R        N      Y     A        C      T        E      I        O        D      N        A      T      S        A      A        I      N        N      T      D        E      P         G     R      R        A      O        T      C        I      O      E        N      S        S        A        N        A        L        Y        S        I        S       

  e CX Toolbox  -

the components of which are shown here in the outer ring - is a set of processes and research tools to aid in the Discovery and  Testing  Testing phases of a CX project.  e toolbox is aimed at giving a company a better understanding of how it connects with its customers in the real  world, the experiences that customers are having as a result, and how all of this relates to business goals and profit for the company. In the Ideation phase of a project there are many creative tools - for example brainstorming, visual thinking, oblique strategies etc. - that we will cover in a future article.

The CX Toolbox splits nicely into six toolsets - each one with a different area of focus. These are not not necessarily used in a linear s equence - for example customer input could be obtained at several points in a project as concepts are developed.

1.

EXISTING INTELLIGENCE STAKEHOLDER WORKSHOP LIVE DATA INTEGRATION EXISTING RESEARCH INTEGRATION BRAND AUDIT SEGMENTS, PERSONAS AND SCENARIOS

2.

CUSTOMER INPUT VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER VOICE OF THE OPERATOR FOCUS GROUP WEB FORUM CUSTOMER DIARIES OR PROBES (MOBILE AND ANALOG) PARTICIPATORY EXPERIENCE DESIGN

3.

OBSERVATIONAL DATA AND FIELD RESEARCH ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH PHOTO / VIDEO ETHNOGRAPHY FIELD SAFARI SECRET CUSTOMER FIELD OBSERVATION - MOBILE ENABLED

4.

ANALYTIC INPUT ONLINE ANALYTICS SOCIAL ANALYTICS BEACON DATA AUTOMATED ETHNOGRAPHY AND ANALYTICS MOBILE ANALYTICS

5.

VISUALIZATION CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING PERCEPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS OVERLAY TOUCHPOINT / AFFORDANCES OVERLAY OPERATIONS OVERLAY (STAKEHOLDER MAP) LIFECYCLE MAPPING CUSTOM DATA VIZ OPERATIONS AND PROCESS ANALYSIS

6.

DESIGN RESEARCH LAB SIMULATION ROLEPLAY PROTOTYPE INTERVENTION SOFT PROTOTYPING PAPER PROTOTYPING MECHANICAL TURK PROTOTYPING FIELD PROTOTYPING ALPHA AND BETA TESTING

Photo: Mark O’Rourke

1. THE EXISTING INTELLIGENCE TOOLSET

helps integrate the knowledge that is already embedded in the company into the Discovery Phase of a CX research project. Every company has a set of prior learnings, colloquial knowledge, existing research and financial data that can provide context and key insights for understanding how the company currently connects with its customers.  ese tools can also be used to bring stakeholders stakeholders into the conversation conversati on who otherwise would not be heard. Additionall y, these tools can be used to help the company identify gaps in its customer knowledge, to better grasp the company’s brand and corporate culture, and to help build consensus amongst the key stakeholders.

TOOL

USES

STAKEHOLDER WORKSHOP

•

•

BUSINESS DATA INTEGRATION

•

•

EXISTING RESEARCH INTEGRATION

•

•

BRAND AUDIT

•

•

SEGMENTATION AUDIT

•

PERSONAS AND SCENARIOS

•

APPROACH

LIMITATIONS

 To draw out existing knowledge from leadership and key stakeholders.  To build dialogue and directional directional consensus within the project team.

Develop and facilitate a set of workshop activities aimed at fostering a conversation between diverse stakeholder groups on key topic areas and project questions. Document and share results across the project t eam.

Can be more useful for building a cultural understanding of the company than generating new findings or ideas.

 To integrate current current transactional data, purchasing patterns, loyalty program data and other available metrics into the research.  To continuously update CX outcomes.

Review existing data availability at the start of the project, to ascertain reliability and depth of information to aid understanding of real-world patterns. Inventory and integrate useful data sources, translating as needed.

Non-compatible and outdated data systems can require investment to translate or lead to limited results.

 To leverage work work already done by the company around customer patterns and behaviors, service and operational systems.  To understand past successes and challenges

Inventory past research into customer patterns, segmentation, marketing and sales strategy. strategy. Critique and filter by current relevance and alignment with project direction. Integrate findings to guide new research.

Existing research can be based on out-of-date customer needs, technographic or cultural criteria.

 To understand how the company is perceived inmarket, and how leadership sees it evolving.  To understand gaps between brand brand vision and the actual perceptions in-market and in-house.

Build a view of how the company is perceived inside and out - this can vary enormously with required scope. scope. It could start with simple stakeholder input, but scale up to focus groups, social listening and secondary research.

Relying on a company-centric  view can lead to an idealized  version of the brand, far removed removed from actual customer perceptions.

 To understand how the company views and groups its customers, their needs and drivers - providing insight on how to reach out to new customers, and better engage existing ones.

 Assess current customer segmentation, and how useful it is in building a model to acquire or engage customers. If needed, research customer base to off er er insights on how to build a more accurate and useful model.

Existing segmentation models, if built for another purpose, might not provide a useful framework for improving customer engagement.

 To build iconic profiles that are representative representative of customer groups or segments - providing a set of criteria that define who the customer is, aligned  with their wants, needs and motivators.

Using research about customer segments and behaviors gathered through ethnography, surveys and other means, compile representative profiles of typical customers that describe each group. group. Answer the question “who is this?”

Many companies have built personas without deep research to support them, leading to highly idealized, erroneous profiles being put in use.

2. THE CUSTOMER INPUT TOOLSET

incorporates the customer’s point of view into the Discovery Phase of Phase of a CX design project. For all tools show below, it is critical to work with a sample of customers that is as representative as possible of your actual customer base. As with any research design, the answers  will only be as good as the questions questions - the quality quality of the data data will be dependent dependent on the sensitivity of the researcher not just to the experience of the customer generally, but also their experience of the survey.

TOOL

USES

VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER

•

VOICE OF THE OPERATOR

•

FOCUS GROUP

•

WEB FORUM

•

CUSTOMER DIARIES OR PROBES

PARTICIPATORY CX DESIGN

•

•

APPROACH

LIMITATIONS

 To draw out customer opinions and perceptions about a company, its products and services.

 rough

a combination of surveys (eit her in person, via direct intercept or online) and / or facilitated group  workshops - record, tabulate and analyze a sample group of customer’s answers to questions about t he company.

Many topics in CX are too subtle to be summed up consciously by a customer in an inter view, and need to be discovered in other ways.

 To build an understanding of the employee’s experience, with the pretext that a sta ff  member  member can only deliver high-quality service if they are empowered and enabled to do so.

Similar in approach to Voice of the Cust omer, above above except with a representative sample of staff  instead  instead of customers. Use the opportunity to draw out both insights about the customer’s experience and that of the staff  itself.  itself.

 ere

 To collect input from a group of either staff  or  or customers to understand their perceptions of a product or service before it is launched.

 Assemble a group of representative customers or potential target customers and work through a series of activities aimed at drawing out th e group’s opinion around their experiences engaging with a product or service.

Many customers have di fficulty imagining a future state, and so will be better at giving feedback based on existing paradigms onl y.

Similar in some ways to a focus group, but conducted in an online environment - constraints of time, cost and location c an be greatly reduced.

Bring a representative group of customers together in an online setting, either by video or simple chat, to engage in an open conversation about their experiences.

Communication, cross-pollination of ideas and empathy between participants in an online environment is limited.

 To build a detailed personal view of the customer’s experience and a document of a continuous customer’s journey.

Distribute either paper or digital (app-based, including photo, video and sound) diary tools to a sample group have them record their experiences in their own words as they engage with a product or service.

 ere can be a tendency for

 To bring the customer’s own insights into the creative process directly.

Bring a group of customers into the actual design process through the discovery and creative phases. Encourage their input, especially into new concepts.  is usually  works best with “expert customers” who are passionate passionate about the end result.

can be an implicit urge for staff  to  to impress their superiors or please the researcher, researcher, resulting in some problems being downplayed.

inconsistent documentation from person to person - creating a data set that is skewed. Choose your participants wisely!  An example of a well constructed group was for the development of Lego Mindstorms - see the case study here: archive.wired.com/

3. THE FIELD RESEARCH TOOLSET

is used to build a r ich set of observational data about customer behavior for use in the Discovery Phase of Phase of a CX project. Most of these techniques are derived from anthropology or sociology.  e term “ethnography” comes from the late 19th century, when Western researchers interested in the cultures of indigenous peoples found that they could only understand their subjects if they made observations up close - observing behavior and interaction in the real world rather than basing their research on hearsay or conjecture.  is thinking has been adopted into the field of Customer Experience - with teams of researchers being dispatched to watch customers in the field, hopefully hopefully without significantly altering the terrain as they make their observations. While these techniques were originally developed for the physical environment, they have been adapted to call centers, online and other service areas.

TOOL

USES

ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

•

PHOTO/VIDEO ETHNOGRAPHY

•

FIELD SAFARI

•

SECRET CUSTOMER

•

•

ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH (TABLET ENABLED)

•

APPROACH

LIMITATIONS

 To build a deep understanding of customer behavior patterns in the real world.

Deploy observers into a representative sample of field locations to observe customer behavior in the context of the service environment, without disrupting the cust omer or context. Record observations for later analysis.

 is

Similar to the above, but using photo and video to extend the reach of the study and document findings in real time.

Use photo and video techniques to create a more extensive document of customer behavior patterns at several locations at once.  is can be augmented with automated systems to show density and velocity of customer traffic.

 e

 To draw out the insights from a group of customers, the first time they engage directly with a brand - recording both behaviors and personal input.

Bring a target group of customers into a service environment for the first time - record ethnographic observations during the engagement AND customer feedback afterwards to get a clear idea of first impressions.

Similar to customer voice techniques, customers can only give feedback on things they engage  with on a conscious level.

 To document the customer’s journey journey first hand,  with the benefit of a researcher’s POV. POV.  To minimize the eff ect ect of the presence of the observer on the outcomes of the study itself.

Deploy a group of researchers into the ser vice environment, disguised as real customers, and prepared  with an observational framework and scenario to engage  with the service. Record observations for later analysis.

Similar to ethnography, ethnography, above - but using the recording capacity and speed of a digital handheld or tablet device to record high volumes of observational data in real t ime.

Using a tablet, handheld or similar device, build a custom framework that records ethnographic data, allowing the researcher to record more data with less encumbrance in the field. Lenati has developed a proprietary tablet-based ethnographic research tool (T-BERT) that can be customized based on client needs.

approach can yield a very high quality view of the customer’s behavior - but can be expensive to implement across a broad sample. collection of video is the least expensive part of this process reviewing and analyzing it involves significant time and resources.

 e acting ability of t he

researcher can limit the test. Staff  can  can react negatively to being observed if the test is discovered.

Cost of developing the recording app might not be justified by the potential benefits of having more data. (Lenati’s system gets around around this challenge by being pre-built)

4. THE ANALYTICS TOOLSET

analyses observational data collected from digital sources to inform the Discovery Phase of a project. It can also be used to create a cross-channel model, integrating data from other sources including field research and financial data. For example, links can be found between touchpoint design characteristics, customer behaviors and revenue. Or relationships between online and offline behaviors can be linked with spending across channels.  e amount of data that can come from studies like this can be massive, so having the analytical chops to find real patterns in the data is key to a project’s success. success. For a deeper dive in this area, see our article “  e Phygital Customer” available from lenati.com/cx.

TOOL

USES

ONLINE ANALYTICS

•

SOCIAL LISTENING

•

•

BEACON DATA

AUTOMATED ETHNOGRAPHY

•

•

MOBILE ANALYTICS

•

APP ANALYTICS

•

APPROACH

LIMITATIONS

 To build an understanding of your customer’s customer’s behavior online, particularly in the context of ecommerce.

Integrate search engine analytics, website data, clickthrough data from online advertising, cookie data and other online sources to understand patterns of interaction around your online brand.

Blocked cookies, ad filtering and privacy networks can block or misrepresent data for some users, resulting in some skewed results.

 To listen in on public channels of social media to learn what your customers say about you.  To respond in real real time in the customer’s medium of choice.

Use readily available platforms to make real-time observations of public social media channels - searching for mentions of your company, services, promotions or products. Many companies (for example Burberry) Burberry) are able to respond in a few seconds to comments/complaints.

Not all social channels are able to be scanned, and each network skews to a diff erent erent demographic and user profile. You probabl y aren’t listen ing to your entire customer base here.

 To use low energy bluetooth signals from a mobile device to track the near-exact location of customers in a physical environment.

Install a network of beacons into the environment, capable of tracking the position of opted-in smart phones. Use the data to understand customer patterns and to push relevant off ers ers and messaging based on customer locat ion.

Beacons can only track users that have opted in, and are on the network. Many customers are hesitant to be tracked.

 To use surveillance systems, either through wifi positioning or video, coupled with real time image processing, to capture movements and dwell times of customers in a physical space.

 ere

are several services available (for example Nomi, Swarm, RetailNext and Euclid) that off er er customer traffic analytics integrated with sales data. For more information, information, see our article “In-Store Analytics Solutions” at  lenati.com/cx.  lenati.com/cx. Data from these systems can be integrated directly into CX research projects, or used to create live dashboards of customer patterns.

 While this technique can give a lot of useful data, it is not a replacement for field observat ion,  which can capture a much deeper set of behavioral information - right the way down to emotional cues and social interactions.

 To understand patterns of customer interaction through mobile channels.

 ere

are three areas of study to integrate - anonymous mobile usage data purchased f rom telcos, mobile website analytics and wi-fi usage in the service environment.

Many customers feel that even anonymous tracking via mobile is an invasion of their privacy.

 To draw out purchase patterns, browsing behaviors, loyalty data and other behavioral metrics  while using a proprietary app that a customer has installed on their mobile device.

Develop and promote the use of an app that provides a clear benefit to the cust omer (past purchases, assisted browsing, loyalty programs, special off ers ers etc.) and collects key usage and purchasing data from those who opt in.

 Tracking app app usage patterns only  works for those who have opted in, and this is typically a very limited and skewed sample.

5. THE VISUALIZATION TOOLSET

helps CX research teams during the Discovery and Ideation Phases find Phases  find patterns in customer behavior by creating images from the research data - related to the physical, digital digital and service environment. environmen t. For a deeper dive into customer journey mapping and related techniques, visit lenati.com/cx. lenati.com/cx.

TOOL CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING

PERCEPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONS OVERLAY

TOUCHPOINT + AFFORDANCES OVERLAY

OPERATIONS + PROCESSES OVERLAY

USES •

•

•

•

•

LIFECYCLE MAPPING

•

CUSTOM DATA VIZ

•

APPROACH

LIMITATIONS

 To build a clear picture of how groups of customers interact with your company and your brand, calling out moments of engagement, challenges and opportunities to make a better connection along the way.

Map the experiences the customer engages in along their  journey, as observed in the research. Base this on real world findings, not on imaginary personas. Keep your focus on the customer’s POV and use language that emphasizes the subjective, the active and the personal.

 is

 To visualize the customer’s journey from their point of view, layering customer voice data into the  journey map to anticipate expectations and brand perceptions at each step.

Incorporate data f rom customer voice research around customer perceptions and expectations at each point.  Answer the question “What are the customer’s needs and  wants here? How are we meeting them?”

 is

 To tie the customer journey to the digital and physical touchpoints that customer encounter  To correlate painpoints, painpoints, softspots and opportunities with digital and physical space.

Map the digital and physical touchpoints - from large scale (e.g. architecture) to small and personal (e.g. mobile app) into the framework. How are these items helping to enable the customer experience? If they aren’t why are they in the customer’s space?

Overemphasizing this part of the customer journey map can lead to an operational bias in how it is  viewed, shifting focus away from actual customer patterns

 To map the operational framework behind the customer journey, accounting for service interactions, the staff  journey,  journey, operations and capital costs, workflow. workflow. Digital and physical.

Repeat the above process to match the service and operational framework to customer journey. journey. How can this be streamlined to improve service and provide a better customer connection?

Focus needs to be placed on the operator’s journey and associated support systems - not a complete  view of every back of house system.

 To extend the understanding of the customer  journey to include the entire relationship with the brand - from first contact to maturity.

Zoom out to show the framework of acquisition and engagement pathways for each segment.  is is likely such a large scale that it shouldn’t be incorporated into the  Journey framework discussed above.

Capturing data for a map of this scale - often spanning years of engagement - can be a challenge.

 To enhance the view of specific aspects of the customer’s journey - using data visualization techniques to find previously undiscovered patterns in customer behaviour.

 is

 ere can be a tendency to

technique should only be used to solve for very specific problems or opportunities to seek out patterns in the data - and it is very dependent on data analysis tools that are available. Jump 3 pages ahead to see an example.

is a fairly abstract view of aggregate data which can confuse some viewers - for a more granular approach, consider storyboarding.

layer (and others) will only be as good as the data from previous VoC research - but VoC can be very subjective and di fficult to obtain.

create beautiful visualization from all this data - that might not carry much relevant information.

PHYSICAL DIGITAL

PRODUCT and SERVICE OFFERINGS

SELECTING

 

PURCHASING

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCES ACTIVATION

TRYING CUSTOMER PATHING

DISCOVERING/  SELECTING

SEARCHING ORIENTING

PRODUCT ENGAGEMENT PURCHASING

LOCATING

OPERATIONAL ZONES

MOBILE  SOCIAL

TOUCHPOINTS AND AFFORDANCES BRAND CUES AND MESSAGING

FOLLOW UP 

IN STORE 

ONLINE 

MOBILE  SOCIAL

PRODUCT RETIREMENT

SOCIAL

6. THE DESIGN RESEARCH TOOLSET

provides techniques for informing a test of CX concepts during the Prototype / Testing phase of phase  of a CX project. In the process of creating a new CX strategy, this stage is often downplayed due to the high cost of creating a functional prototype - but many lower-cost options are available to get the bugs worked out and inform the research and design teams.  e toolset below is arranged in order of cost, from the lowest to the highest.  is is usually the same order in which these tools are employed - testing more ideas faster and cheaper at the beginning - and testing the more refined ideas using more accurate methods later in the process after the first ideas were weeded out. In fact, the first few tools are commonly used in the previous Ideation Phase of Phase of a project to inform the team about their ideas as they work.

TOOL SOFT AND PAPER PROTOTYPING

LAB PROTOTYPING

MECHANICAL TURK

WORKING PROTOTYPE INTERVENTION

FIELD PROTOTYPING

USES •

•

•

•

•

APPROACH

LIMITATIONS

Using extremely simple and inexpensive means to test basic concepts for customer interaction.

Devise the simplest and the least expensive ways to test an idea - for example model an app using a pad of paper and marker to represent the interface, or create cardboard and acrylic mockups for physical objects or environments. Modify the models quickly as the concepts are assessed.  ese models should be s een as “sketches” of ideas disposable, inexpensive and quick. Move on t o more definitive prototypes when the best path is chosen.

Soft models can be easily misinterpreted by those who aren’t accustomed to mock-ups produced by inexpensive means.  is can lead to misunderstandings around the purpose of the test. Also, many features cannot be tested eff ectively ectively using simple media.

 Testing a concept in a controlled environment environment  without aff ecting ecting the perceptions of the general market.

In a studio or wo rkshop environment, work through test scenarios like ser vice interactions, mock-up environments, digital interfaces etc. Run subjects through the scenarios, using similar methods as described for the discovery phase of the project.

 e

 Testing an interactive system without having to go to the expense of building out the AI or database portions - replacing them with an operator who is out of sight of the subject.

Build a mock-up of a digital interface on an appropriate hardware platform - but allow the role of the computer to be played by a member of the research team through the back-end of the interface, connected through a network. Collect data on test subject’s preferences and behavior for use in further developing the interface.

 Without clear guidelines, it is easy for the operator to overstep the abilities of an actual digital interface, giving a false sense of “do-ability” for a concept.

 Testing a fully functional prototype in a real-world environment, intervening in a customer journey  with a realistic model of a concept.

Build implement and test an accurate working model of the concept in the actual environment - this could be an environment, a physical touchpoint, digital interface,  website or app. Use previous toolsets as applicable to gain insights on customer patterns and business impact.

More extensive testing in multiple loc ations, testing for variations by market, geography, geography, etc.

Repeat the working prototype test , but at multiple locations, sampled to be representative of the company ’s

controlled environment can produce findings that do not replicate in the real world due to unforeseen environmental interactions.

 e

cost of building fullyfunctioning prototypes can seem  very high for many types of touchpoints. However, these last t wo tools represent the last opportunities to eliminate any potential mis-steps before they intersect with the customer. P lan for the cost and

AFTERWORD: PEOPLE > TOOLS  While these toolsets can be extremely powerful in the hands of an experienced research and design team, t eam, it’s important to remember that they are only a means to an end.  eir value lies in how much they help build an understanding of the customer. customer. “ big data” as customer  ere has been a lot of attention paid to “big insights have become more and more more data-heavy. data-heavy. Our analytical capacity has exploded in the last few years. It has a lot of potential upside for business, and that has had a lot of press.  With all that attention, we need to guard against the allure and the power of the tools themselves overwhelming our industry and relegating something as broad-reaching as “Customer Experience” to some kind of digitally-enabled game of o f numbers. But overall my concern is outweighed by my optimism, fueled by the potential I’ve seen in these tools to foster better design, better business practices, and stronger connections with people.

THE NEW PATHS TO PURCHASE Customers aren’t connecting with companies the way they did even a few years ago. It ’s difficult to overstate the enormity of the change as companies adapt to new channels, and try to meet their customers on their own ground. And this change is only going to accelerate as new channels come into being and recombine to face the customer. customer. All we know for sure is that most companies (over three quarters of them according to Forrester Research, 2013) 2013) are  working hard to evolve their approach - and that the approach will probably be partially obsolete by the time it is crystallized into sales and marketing tactics on the ground.

TEN WAYS TO CONNECT WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS IN AN OMNICHANNEL UNIVERSE by Paul Conder Lenati LLC 2014

Older models, which are still taught in s ome form today, often  visualized the customer’s customer’s path to purchase purchase as an inverted pyramid or funnel, with customers following a simple linear linear path. Every point of contact was about moving the customer to the next step, and then driving the sale. A few years ago this was a reasonable  way to look at the process.  We could see this changing  We changing as early as the mid 1990s as the web  was adopted into into business and everyday life - but the seismic shift in customer patterns didn’t peak until the online world became simultaneously social and mobile.  at’s when e-commerce came off  the  the desktop and collided head-on with other, more mature channels.  e physical overlapped overl apped with the digital. Now, an entire generation has been raised in a “phygital” culture culture where anything is accessible, from several sources, through any channel, at any time.

1. OMNICHANNEL CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAPPING the ways your customer connects with your company. How many diff erent erent moving parts are involved in fostering that connection? Everything from customer service to interior design design to social media channels to web interactions to traditional media all come into play. You even need to consider the operations opera tions and infrastructure that supports all these connections - where are your products manufactured? how much energy do you use? how do you support a customer after-purchase? - and how all of these operations can become visible to your customer, especially when things to wrong.

 ink of all

 e key to creating a holistic view of

your customer’s journey is to build a map of each of their interactions over time, and and across channels, from their point o f view. As channel models become more complex, newer newer models of customer journey mapping have been developed.

OLD MODEL

FOLLOW THROUGH

CONSIDERATION

AWARENESS INTEREST

PURCHASE

Consider two paths to purchase. - One typical of a customer a few  years ago, and one now. now.  e first case might look like this:  Awareness was  Awareness was built through traditional media and word of mouth Interest was Interest was reinforced with possible contact with a sales touchpoint touchpoint Consideration usually Consideration usually involved person-to-person consultation. Purchase was Purchase was also in person at a physical location. Follow-through was Follow-through was usually spotty, if it happened at all. A bill  would be sent in the mail, most one-time purchases purchases had no followthrough, large purchases warranted a phone-call. • • • • •

photo: Garry Knight

In our second case the customer’s journey might look more like this:  e customer becomes aware becomes aware of  of a brand through social media. She becomes more interested through interested through repeated contact through multiple multiple channels. She may simply purchase online purchase online at this point - or.... She may need first-hand contact  with  with the product or service - in which case she reserves it online, and  visits a physical location. During the visit, she uses her smartphone to connect  with social media. She looks at competitor’s pricing on the web. She uses the company’s app to access a promotion. She compares online pricing. pri cing.  e customer decides to purchase. During the process, a second o ff -site -site product has caught the customer’s interest. - No problem. - It will be ordered and shipped to her directly from the e-commerce site. During the process, she has opted in for sharing her information with the company.  is is used to follow up with up with her in a personalized way. •

NEW MODEL

social customer support

•

•

linkedin linkedin

blog

FOLLOW UP

e-commerce site website

INTEREST

•

PURCHASE

linkedin

loyalty (app)

•

twitter

AWARENESS

website

CONSIDERATION

e-commerce site blog

IAL C SO

app

•

website app

B WE

PURCHASE?

ON S PER N I

P AP

 e first customer’s journey could be visualized on a simple linear

path.  e second model requires another dimension dimension that tracks options through various channels, many of which are in play simultaneously. simultaneously. As always, it is important to visualize this journey from the point of view of the customer themselves. Painpoints and and softspots in the journey should be considered as you go, developing developing a clear brief for fo r creative.  ere are many ways to visualize this - the one pictured here is only one example. For a deep dive on customer journey mapping, see our articles “ e New CX Toolbox” and “Customer Journey Mapping” - both available from lenati.com.

2. ALIGNING MANAGEMENT ACROSS CHANNELS Many companies - and the agencies and consultancies that work for them - took a siloed approach to building out their companies as channel options started to grow.  is probably made some sense at the time making separate business units for each channel allowed for rapid growth in the short term. But that didn’t help the customer. Let the fun begin: A conversation a customer was having in one channel didn’t carry over to another. “I was on the website - I put all my information in, and then your site crashed my browser - now I’ve been on hold for an hour and you need all my info again!!?? $%*@! ”  ”  Prices and promotions don’t align. “It costs how much if I buy it from you?  your own website has it for half that!”  After a wonderful, personal experience learning about a service, the experience at purchase is lengthy and horrible. “Why do you need my address from five  years ago for me to get a new phone?” 

Usually these problems stem from how the company is organized and managed. Each channel is operated separately by people who aren’t coordinating with each other around the customer’s journey and the company’s brand. None of them are empowered to work across channels to make a better experience - and the company’s operations and supply chain take precedent over building connections with customers. We’ve seen some companies where each VP is somehow  visible in the design of their website or store store interior.  e result is clutter and disorganization. In the long term, there is only one way to combat this problem - f rom the top down.  e top leadership of the company needs to have a clear  vision for how the brand manifests manifests itself across all channels, and then bring the silos into alignment. CX integration = integration of services = co ordination of teams. Photo: Lauren Manning.

3. REDUCING EFFORT vs SURPRISE & DELIGHT  ere are two competing approaches to cross-channel customer

experience - and they are both valid depending on the customer’s context.  ere seems to be some confusion around which approach best suits each channel. First is the premise that customers should be surprised and delighted at everyy step of their journey. Customer service, ever ser vice, website, app, and especially in-person interactions should be of the highest quality, personalized, compelling and memorable. I believe that this approach stems from older service models, where the industry benchmark was high-service, one-to-one interactions.  ink of the kind of service you  would expect from a high-end tailor. - In-person channels channels can demand personal service. ser vice.  e second approach relates to how much e ff ort ort is required on the part

of the customer. In his book “ e Eff ortless ortless Experience” Experience” Matthew Dixon explains that expensive initiatives on the part of brands to stage compelling experiences often lead to no improvement in loyalty - or  worse. According to his research, research, a customer service interaction is four times more likely to foster disloyalty than loyalty. loyalty. He found that 57% of inbound calls to call centers come from people who were on the website and couldn’t find what they wanted. If you are booking an airline ticket online or paying a parking fine, the last thing you want is to take the time and e ff ort ort to be delighted and surprised by call center sta ff . Sculpture by Yayoi Kusama, Photographed at Naoshima Japan.. Japan..

REDUCE EFFORT WHERE YOU CAN. IF NOT, ALIGN EXPERIENCE TO BRAND.

In CX design, the approach you take should be dependent on the channels in question, the characteristics of brand, and on the expectations of your customer. customer. Most transactions or queries especially those in digital channels - improve with increased simplicity and ease of use.  e less information the customer needs to provide, the lower the wait times, the less keystrokes, the better. But this isn’t always the case for in-person experiences. A luxury purchase guided by the personal touch of a well-trained sales associate, the brief conversation with a barista, or the extra moment spent with a family doctor can all be worth that extra bit of time and eff ort. ort.  ere is a tendency for designers to aim to make every experience this compelling - which unfortunately can lead to a lot of misplaced investment - but sometimes this connection is the essence of the brand. In architecture, there there is a saying “if you can’t hide it, make it a feature” - in other words, anything that is visible to the visitor needs to be meaningful, and and everything else needs to disappear completely. completely.  e same can be said for CX - reduce the customer’s e ff ort ort where  you can. Everywhere else, align the experience experience to brand.

4. CREATING CONSISTENT EXPERIENCES ACROSS CHANNELS  e explosion of communication channels has altered how we interact  with brands and with with each other on a fundamental level. level.  We can be present present in multiple channels at once. once.  We can bring competitors into once-private conversations. conversations.  We can be extremely extremely well informed.  We are in social relationships relationships with hundreds hundreds of people around around the world.  We have a diff erent erent system of values than we did a few years ago.  We have very high expectations expectations  And we are extremely fickle.

People tend to consciously notice the channel they are using only when something goes wrong - a website crashes, there is a long wait in the emergency room, or the call-center drops a call. Once a channel has been adopted and the novelty of it wears o ff , its use becomes second nature. All of the customer characteristics mentioned above above are usually only noticeable from the outside - for example from the point of view of a company that is trying to do business in these channels and needs to build systems to allow people to do what now comes “naturally.” “naturally.” Our customers are way ahead in understanding understanding how this should all work. It’s our job to catch up. Older communications channels (TV, radio, print) e ff ectively ectively broadcast the same message to a large group - and newer channels (web, social, mobile) enable more of a conversation between companies and people. So aligning experiences across channels starts with being ready to have a consistent conversation wherever the customer is present.  e next points are all

hinge on that principle.

Real time visualization of major internet nodes by PeerOne Hosting iPhone app. peer1.com

5. MESSAGING

 You can assume that the customer has access to an enormous  You amount of information about you and your company. company. - So at all points and all channels, you need to be ready with a consistent message about: product service pricing

fulfilment and delivery  follow-up operations

•

•

•

•

•

•

 is

is usually the first place companies fall down in an omnichannel space. Getting this right is the “low hanging fruit.”  While top-down approaches are not as in-favor as they used to be, they have their advantages here - a strong customer-centric  vision from the top management needs to be disseminated through every facet of the company for this to work.

6. TRANSPARENCY

 With all the information about your company that is online and with many customers (especially younger ones) becoming more conscious about who they the y do business with, the way your company does business is every bit as important as what you are selling. Your brand, your ethics and values, where and how  you operate your business are are all on display. display. Window-dressing and a veneer of social responsibility responsib ility don’t cut it. Your company needs to be everything it claims. Real time visualization of major internet nodes by PeerOne Hosting iPhone app. peer1.com

7. DATA COLLECTION  ere

has been an explosion in the amount of data that can be collected about your customer’s patterns and preferences. Insights can be collected and collated across channels - from behaviors, pathing, emotional cues and dwell-times in a physical environment (hospital, retail space, airport) to online browsing and social media patterns, there is no shortage of information available about how your customer is connecting with you. In response, customers expectations are shifting in two opposite  ways: Concerns about privacy around how the data is used and collected. Higher expectations of service now that the data is available.

•

•

 ere

is no one-size-fits-all method that will tell you what kind of data your customer expects you to collect and how they will expect you to use it. Some industries - for example finance and healthcare - need to be extremely sensitive and cognizant of privacy - but the potential upside to the customer could be enormous (even life-saving) if all the right service providers can get access to the right information about the customer at the right time.  is balance needs to be carefully considered for each business, and co ordinated throughout the organizati on.

Real time visualization of major internet nodes by PeerOne Hosting iPhone app. peer1.com

8. CHANNEL OPTIONS

In the simpler path to purchase model illustrated earlier, customers had much less choice in i n which channels they used. - It  was easy to confuse this limitation with the idea that the company company controlled the choice of channel itself. Now with the proliferation of channels it has become evident to even the most backward company that the customer is actually the one in control.  is

doesn’tt mean that you need to be present in every doesn’ ever y single possible channel. Much of the shift towards digital has been driven by potential cost savings as older, physical or more labor intensive channels become repurposed or obsolete - while still resulting in a much-improved customer experience, combining digital and physical channels. Some examples of omnichannel thinking:  implemented an app-based system to hail and pay for Uber  implemented limousine service - bypassing many of the hassles typical in the customer’s experience of a taxi, taxi , while greatly cutting costs.  American Airlines used social media to alert the public about shut-downs during super-storm Sandy- getting word out quicker and to more people at less cost. It is now one of the airline’s key communication channels.  has been questioning the role of their Royal Bank of Canada  has physical locations as more ser vices go online.  e response is a digitally-enabled streamlined service framework in banks that off ers ers highly personalized ser vice, with many transactions being accomplished cheaper and easier online. •

•

•

9. THE POWER OF THE PERSONAL PROFILE

Notwithstanding the previous point about the balance between privacy and service expectations - customers seem to be less and less tolerant of companies that are unwilling to create a personalized experience. For this to work across channels, a secure and robust profile about the customer’s history, preferences, and interactions with the company needs to be constructed - with the customer’s permission. It also means that it needs to be shared  very carefully - on an as needed basis - with all services that come into contact with wit h the customer. is can mean: •

•

•

•

•

Reducing service/wait times by using profile data to preenable a transaction. Curating and recommending choices for the customer based on previous purchases or social input. Increasing sales motion by opening up more channels for a customer to connect. (e.g. order from mobile, pick up immediately at a location of their choice, make a recommendation when they arrive, follow up by email.) Eliminating the need to provide information repeatedly when switching between channels. Providing incentives or rewards to increase loyalty.

gel electrophoresis of DNA, photo by MNolf.

10. OPT-IN

Many data collection methods may look great from a company’s point of view, but can be intrusive (or downright creepy) from f rom the point of view of the customer. customer. Wifi can allow you to track the movements of people in a physical space through their phones, cookies can track people online, cameras can be installed almost anywhere - but for every new technology there is an example of a company that has gotten into a public-relations nightmare by implementing them without the customer’s consent.  e safest approach in

almost every e very case, at least until another cultural shift comes our way way,, is to ask customers to opt-in to t o the program. Be completely transparent about how the data is being collected and used, and stick to your own rules r ules without exception. It may be appropriate and helpful to provide incentives or loyalty/ rewards to the customer who opts-in, in exchange for the information that is collected.

 While this seems like a fairly new area of focus, it has actually been in common practice in several industries. For decades, financial institutions, airlines and charities have been designing programs where the customer knowingly exchanges information for rewards. photo: Maximilian Schönherr

AFTERWORD: LET THE CUSTOMER DRIVE THE CHANGE

“I am enthusiastic over humanity’s extraordinary and sometimes very timely ingenuity.. If you are in a shipwreck and all ingenuity the boats are gone, a piano top buoyant enough to keep you afloat that comes along makes a fortuitous life preserver. But this is not to say that the best way to design a life preserver is in the form of a piano top. I think that we are clinging to a great many piano tops in accepting yesterday’s yesterday’s fortuitous contrivings as constituting the only means for solving a given problem.” ! Buckminster Fuller 

 Taking  Taking an omnichannel omnichannel approach to your business needs to to be driven by the customer’s needs and expectations - followed by a search for better opportunities to meet them. Technology can play a role in this, but for each of the points raised in this article, the most important aspect is how the business faces the customer. - not the technology and tools to make it happen.  e

unfortunate tendency is for technology to drive change. According to a study by Altimeter A ltimeter Research called “Digital Transformation”, Transformation”, as corporate budgets for digital marketing, automation, automation, mobile and social media increase, many companies are letting the technology drive the change rather than customer preferences.  is can result in a patchwork of technology, which is misaligned to the customer’s expectations and patterns. In the field of technology, it’s easy to be blinded by the novelty of a new trend without understanding what its significance or meaning  will be once that that novelty has worn off .  e key to avoiding this is to start with a deep understanding of what  your customer’s patterns patterns and needs, needs, and where they will likely be in the coming years. Designing new ways to meet them is a form of intervention in the customer’s life - you are placing a new bridge along their path to allow a connection that wasn’t there before. Map their  journey and establish the the value proposition to the customer before committing to rolling it out. Constructing the bridge can be a lot of  work, but it’s work that’s that’s wasted if it has no no value for the customer. customer.

photo of geodesic structure by Michael Day

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

ABOUT LENATI Lenati is s sales, marketing and customer experience strategy consulting firm, helping clients build a stronger customer connection. Competitive advantage today depends on a company’s ability to deliver a rich set of interactions across the customer lifecycle, ultimately creating value for the company company and the customer. customer. We have assembled a deeply experienced group of professionals, blending consulting, analytics, design and industry backgrounds, delivering innovative solutions to help your organization make an immediate impact in the marketplace.

LENATI LLC 100. 1300 Dexter Ave N, Seattle WA 98109 USA 1.800.848.1449 lenati.com [email protected] All articles written by Paul Conder, edited by Erin McMonigal All photos and illustrations by Paul Conder except where noted.