Experience Designer

Too often, the corporate leadership responsible for shaping a customer’s brand experience isn’t even in the target audience for that product or service.

You know that to improve customer loyalty, drive growth and protect margins, it’s more imperative than ever to create real value for your customers. Especially if your business, product or service seems to be drifting ever-so-steadily toward commoditization.

You – and your people – feel hamstrung, scrambling to keep up with the minutiae of competitors’ offerings and prices.  While at the same time, you sense you’re losing touch with your customer, and maybe even your frontline employees.  And when you peek into the future of your business, the vision is just a little unsettling.

So where to start to stop this negative inertia?

Start With Customer Experience Design

Design in the customer experience sense doesn’t mean painting pretty pictures or simply changing the way things look. What’s the definition we favor? Design is a problem-solving tool. Customer Experience Design begins by getting clear on the outcomes customers prefer, what employees need, and what the business does best and desires most. When you find the sweet spot that raises the tide for all three constituencies, you know you’ve got a good design–and customer experience strategy too.
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If you’re building something new—from scratch—the design work starts with understanding the customer and flows from the outside in. If you’re revitalizing or retooling an existing operation, the work starts on the inside (where change is the hardest—and most rewarding) then flows outward.

End With Customer Experience Design

Customer Experience Design also helps negotiate the necessary commitments across departments so that the intent of the new design can be fully realized. We don’t only design the experience, we design for adoption as well. This is one of the things that differentiates us from anyone else in the market. It’s what makes up your Customer Experience Strategy when we’re done.

Here are a few of the tools from our Storymining® methodology that yield consistently high quality and high profit experience designs. Please inquire about others.

  • Undercover Shopper - gets you an invisible front row seat to your business. Your Experience Designer lets you step into your customer’s shoes so you can see how your business processes-and your people-treat your customers. You get concise, on-brand, actionable feedback along with recommendations and an action plan. You will discover small changes in the way the business works that can unlock your employees’ time, energy, and passion while providing a better experience-and better returns-at the same time.
  • Experience Pilot - offers a practical, focused, pilot-sized experience installed in your business. We establish a clear understanding of customers’ desired outcomes, encourage sponsor buy-in, and then prove to your organization that customer experience will work as a strategy and as an implementation tool. You get clarity about Customer Experience through a compelling story and an easy-to-understand visual roadmap everyone can follow. You and your team also get roll-up-your-sleeves, hands-on support throughout design, build, and implementation to make sure you get the most done in the least lime at the appropriate investment level.Read More
  • Second Opinion - gives you, the business unit or brand leader, an opportunity to have an objective (and creative) expert check your team’s customer experience ideas, plans, and assumptions before making a launch decision. You get honest, truthful feedback. Your Experience Designer calls it like he sees it, doesn’t hold back, and shares everything he can to help you bulletproof your Experience Designs before committing the funds to build them.

Does It Hurt?

Uncovering the sins and flaws that lead to a bad customer experience can be a little discomforting.  But any short-term pain is quickly overcome by the realization that your brand is now focused on creating loyal customer advocates, distancing yourself from your competitors, and maximizing revenue and profitability.