I had the pleasure of attending an event last fall that was sponsored by my current employer that was facsinating. The speaker for the evening was a guy names Brian Solis. Not many people in the customer service or customer experience space yet know of Brian, but those that do, are fanatic about him and his message. Brian is an engaging and intelligent business person who is spreading the message and the concept of Designing Shareable Experiences.
The premise of what Brian is getting at in his talks and with his message is that more and more people are sharing the experiences that they have. This in of itself is nothing revolutionary. As we all know, there are a multitude of outlets to share your experience, either positive or negative, with the rest of the world. But what Brian is pushing for with his clients and the Customer Experience community is that every company should be thinking about Designing these experiences so that your customers don't design or define them for you.
I had not really ever thought about Experiences from this perspective, but he is absolutely right on and I am seeing more and more of this thinking starting to make it's way into the way that service organizations design processes.
See, in the past, service organizations have thought about the customer experience in terms of designing only a process that makes is easy for customers to engage with them. Or they have thought about how they can make the process of communicating seamless. Or they have thought about design in terms of simplicity of interaction. But, very few that I have worked with or heard talk about designing experiences ever really talk about designing Shareable experiences. Again, looking at your processes not just with simplicity or ease of use in mind, but designing so that each and every touchpoint is a mechanism for someone to share their experience with your brand.
What I love about this concept for service is that, as we all know, service is the most important moment of truth in a customer journey with your brand. This is the moment when your customer is most vulnerable. When they need you more than ever. The moment when you can design for an experience that they will want to share with everyone they know. And here is where the nuance comes in. It is not just about designing an experience that people will really like or will love. It is about designing an experience that people will share. Just because people had a great experience, doesn't mean they will be willing to share it. But, if someone has an experience that they loved or even liked, but it was also creative, different, unique or jarring in a good way, then they will want to share it. And this is what you need to design for.
So the take away for all the service execs out there is this, are you designing experiences for your customers that are something they will want to share with their network? If not, you should be.....
