My first blog of ‘08 is inspired by a series of conversations in the first week or so of the year – where for various reasons and in different situations people keep reminding me it’s the experience that counts…
A senior exec in a big UK company said to me just yesterday that he was rather tired of vendors and consultants hitting him with poorly thought through notions in the guise of CRM, on the back of that wave of CRM systems investments. His challenge back to them seems to be – what can you offer me that actually will have a positive impact on my customers’ experience and therefore on my P&L? What a great question to hit suppliers with.
A mate of mine Chris Boyd has bombarded me (and everyone else he meets) again with the stories of why some new products and services succeed when some others don’t – in his words the money comes in when the experience drives the design and development.
A smart exec I know has thrown himself fully into his start-up to provide an innovative new service for website interaction analysis – some of his example findings reminded me that the stark reality is users look away when the experience is too hard to use.
A pundit reeling from his week in Vegas at CES has come away convinced that senior execs at the movie & TV firms and the consumer electronics companies have finally clicked that the consumer experience has to be compelling. I hope he’s right because in the world of home entertainment if something is to be “cool” it actually has to be intuitive, easy and fun.
Only 3 out of these 4 quoted the influence and success of Apple’s iPod, which is 25% less than usual but for very good reason. These conversations have been fascinating for me because I’ve been convinced of this truth for a long time, and I think many of us know it to be true but we drift away from it when the pressure is on. Well 2008 is predicted to be a tough year by many people, and no doubt for many business leaders the pressure will be on. S
o how many of us will stand by what we know to be true when things get tough – will you remember, it’s the customer experience era?
Tags: CX
