Service design is Dead. The New Product is Alive. So, I changed my job title a few months ago. I dropped the ’service’ bit. I’m now just Sidekick’s Design Director. I’m now MASSIVELY EXCITED about a new thing – designing products. But not your old products. No, I’m excited about designing a new type of evolving, networked product that requires a multi-disciplinary team just to keep it alive, let alone make it awesome. I’m calling this the New Product.
Service design is dead Ok, it’s not that I think service design is dead, its just that its pretty much used up its interest for me, and I think for Sidekick. First, the uninteresting bit. Its quite an isolating view, and not very helpful for actually making change happen, and creating new cool stuff. Second, the interesting bit. Probably this is just me getting older and more experienced, but I think its also a bit that I’m reaping the rewards of moving away from strategic consulting, and towards making and inventing new things. The New Product is alive The New Product design is the new rave. So Your Service Model Sucks--Here's 4 Ways To Fix It. In our experience as economic actors, in industry across industry, we’re increasingly frustrated and disappointed. Customers, employees, owners--no one wants to deliver bad service, and no one wants to endure it. But that’s the experience we continue to inflict on each other.
Why is that? Here’s what we’ve learned: uncommon service is not born from attitude and effort, but from design choices made in the blueprints of a business model. It’s easy to throw service into a mission statement and periodically do whatever it takes to make a customer happy. What’s hard is designing a service model that allows average employees--not just the exceptional ones--to produce service excellence as an everyday routine. Our message is simple enough: you can’t be good at everything. The concept can seem immoral at first blush.
You can’t design a system that is based on the faith that all of your employees will perform heroically, all day, every day, for an indefinite period. Heroism can be a red flag. 1. What the heck is Customer Experience Management! A value-based approach. Having worked in Customer Experience for many years, one of the things that most strikes me is the level of confusion that surrounds the term; I mean what does ‘Customer Experience’ mean anyway? As one of my colleagues put it, there are a lot of people talking a lot of bla..bla…bla. The danger of this is, of course, that without a clear definition, Customer Experience risks going the way of many business trends by becoming defined by what sells most software, as we saw in Beyond Philosophy’s recent Global Customer Experience Management Survey 2011. I feel this is a significant risk, but to be honest another cause of the ‘bla..bla..bla..’ lies in the very ambiguity of the word Experience itself.
For instance, does it mean ‘Wow!’ For me what I think would be truly helpful is to look at Customer Experience not as a separate ‘process’ and a separate ‘entertainment’ thing but as one concept bound by a simple but quite revolutionary approach. Customer Experience Management: a value-based view. The 2011 Beyond Philosophy Global Customer Experience Management Survey. Click here to download a PDF version of the presentation. Twentieth century philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once reflected, “many [people] are stubborn in pursuit of the path they have chosen, [but only] few in pursuit of a goal.” But what does twentieth century philosophy have to do with customer experience? In our 2011 Global Customer Experience Management Survey, we discovered that most companies, with a few notable exceptions – are following a path.
And a path is not a goal. To clarify, our results indicate a paradoxical trend: companies with the most CE resource allocation are often providing the least effective CE. After analyzing data from more than 8,000 CE executives and more than 2,100 companies, as well as the responses to a series of 53 in-depth interviews with CE executives, we learned that while companies are allocating resources to customer relationship management (CRM), many are merely re-branding CRM as customer experience management (CEM). How so? Good customer service costs money; some expenses are worth it, and some aren't. Holiday Inn President Mark Snyder has figured out what he needs to do for his customers, and what he doesn't. "Bellmen they have no use for," he says of the people who stay at the midscale chain's hotels. "Why would I invest in bellmen at the doors for people who've already dragged their bags through three airports themselves? " On the other hand, food and beverages are a must for Holiday Inns, even though they aren't moneymakers in themselves.
That's because having a restaurant and bar in the hotel is a big part of what draws people to the chain and to its rivals in its segment of the lodging market. "That's an amenity that you've still got to continue to offer" to keep up with the competition, Mr. Snyder says. That balancing of costs and benefits is exactly how companies should approach their spending on customer service, says Bjorn Hanson, a principal with the hospitality practice of accounting and consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers. Mr. Customer service is failing consumers [infographic] Last year we wrote a post on why customer service is broken, and some of the stats in this infographic from drumbi tell the same story. For example, 60% of US comsumers don't think companies have tried to improve their customer service, while 80% have abandoned a transaction thanks to poor service. 7 Important Customer Service Trends. With the advent of social media, customers have become the voice of the brand.
With all communication, professionals need to think of the customer as having a seat at the boardroom table. Whether your focus is marketing, advertising, corporate communications or public relations, any business has to think of what the customers would say about whatever you plan to do. Conducting comprehensive consumer research prior to any campaign is more essential than ever. 2012 will see significant trends in consumer behavior that every business needs to consider.” 7 Customer Service Trends to watch and leverage in 2012 are as follows: 1.Engaging the Whole Family.
Many young family members have become equally or even more knowledgeable than their parents about what products are available in the marketplace, because children as young as three and four are using computers, tablets and smart phones. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.