Experience = sensory orgy is similar to the misconception that design = high styling
An experience needs to be appropriate.
It needs to be appropriate to customer expectation (however that is formed)
It needs to be appropriate to the organizations strategy
Getting closer to the customer through contextual research to understand there unstated and unserved needs is one way Experience Design can enable us to provide highly relevant experiences.
In many cases the most satisfying customer experiences come from companies that have a crystal clear vision (strategy) of what value they are providing. It is only through that overarching vision that every element of a company can act in an integrated fashion and therefore provide a customer experience that is entirely appropriate, the experience has integrity.
Two very good HBR articles that are very relevant to this are:
Michael Porter’s ‘What is Strategy’ and The Power of Product Integrity by Kim B. Clark; Takahiro Fujimoto
Read the rest of this for some examples…
I really felt this when I read
Michael Porter in “What is Strategy” dec 1996 HBR
He proposes that a companies strategy is a network of activities and that it is the sum of these activities that is the strategy:
Southwest airlines core activities for example:
Frequent, reliable departures
Limited passenger services (no meals, no baggage transfers)
Lean, highly productive ground and gate crews (15 minute gate turn-arounds)
High Aircraft utilization
Very Low Ticket price
Now all of these activities are connected, self reinforcing and in my opinion lead to a superior customer experience… Huh? Doesn’t it say limited passenger services? No foot rubs? No large porter to carry me to my seat? You get my point.
Now Porter was not writing this to illustrate great customer experience, he was highlighting how it is not the optimization of one activity that leads to competitive advantage in the market place, but the sum of multiple self reinforcing activities. I think this leads to a kind of experiential integrity, nothing feels inappropriate or against the grain.
We’ve all experienced a company that tried to optimize customer service and it feels out of place, or ill timed. “that you for your call to tech support is there anything else we can help you with, it is our goal to provide one call resolution, may I ask you if we achieved that in this call….
Ahhhh let me hang up for gods sake!
Anyway, I guess my point is that customer experiences are networks of interconnected events that must be aligned with an organizations strategy, which can be looked at as a network of interconnected activities.
