designing for experiences across channels
This is some early and raw thinking I’ve been doing about designing and delivering experiences successfully across many touchpoints. Organizations are channel-bound. Customers aren’t. This outlines components and practices necessary to deliver great customer experiences across more than a single channel. With the proliferation of new screens and new moments in peoples’ lives, it’s natural for businesses to conceive of great new customer experiences that are more desirable and scalable, and therefore much more valuable to everyone. However, organizations lack the simple practices to plan, deliver, and manage a customer experience across more than one touchpoint. I’ve obviously borrowed some ideas from business strategy, service design, brand strategy, and that wacky world of design thinking. The diagram shows some of the key concepts to define and manage. The top row plans for the experience predominately from the customer’s perspective. The bottom row is — while still customer centric — taken from the perspective of what’s smart for the organization to do. The middle is the important interaction between customers and organizations that forms the experience. The value column is key to ensure the experience is viable to the business and useful to customers. The flow column defines what the experience should be. And the change column captures the means by which you can move from current state towards a better and more valuable experience. To explain ‘evidence’ in this column: showing evidence of the future experience is often the best way of helping the organization change and move towards it. For easier viewing, you can see this diagram larger or in PDF format. Note: this is somewhat a re-post of what I originally shared on Flickr, which received some interesting feedback of where some improvements can be made.
prototyping business concepts
What’s interesting is how the entrepreneurs initially tried out (or stumbled upon?) their business venture: They combined Snapvine andEventful into a service for bands’ MySpace pages. “They added these features to the MySpace pages of client bands like Mudvayne and HellYeah, and fans loved them.” So with very little work on building out technology, they were able to quickly experiment with a service, find out what worked well, and then expand to realize the full business opportunity. Now they play a concierge service to celebs who want to engage with their fans online, focusing as much on the service they provide as the software tools that make the logistics possible. Business concepts can be easily prototypes and tested, especially with so many LEGO-like mashable services available. The question for Buddylube wasn’t about technical feasibility or even what the tools looked like, it was whether a service could become a valued go-between for celebs and fans. With little investment, they learned the answer is “yes” and the right way to go about it.
This week’s Consumed column in the New York Times Magazine is about Buddylube, a “middleman” service (part software, part consulting) that helps celebs manage their online identities across multiple social networking services.
Netflix talks
NetFlix is continuing to differentiate itself from Blockbuster, this time by shutting down its email channel for customer service and prominently displaying its toll-free number on their website. The increase in call volume is a conscious choice to improve service. They chose to put their call center in Oregon, because people seem to be more empathetic there and you don’t see the high turnover in other call center hot spots like Salt Lake City. Empathy — that’s something that Blockbuster will never try to compete on.
NetFlix is facing increasingly stiff competition from Blockbuster as the fee-loving behemoth attempts to copy NetFlix’s mail-based DVD rental service. The growth of NetFlix’s customer base has slowed, which might cause most organization to take cost-cutting measures in preparation for pricing wars. Thankfully, that doesn’t appear to be how NetFlix is thinking.
