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Archive for August, 2012
TXD Manifesto Point #7: Experience Design Elevates Humanity, Improving Life, One Experience At A Time Thursday, August 30th, 2012
If you business is creating transformation as stated in point #6 of our TXD manifesto then it stands to reason that you are going to change humanity.
When you focus on the total experience of your business, you are changing your community, your team and business as a whole.
If you have talked about creating value for your community through philanthropy and haven’t made the leap yet, I would challenge you to make that part of your strategy very soon.
Your team, customers and community will thank you for it.
If you don’t have the Total Experience Design Manifesto yet, you can get it here.
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TXD Manifesto Point #6: Transformation Is The Ultimate Goal Of Experience Design Thursday, August 23rd, 2012
Often, when we talk about “experience” in business, the only thought is how to make customer experiences better and memorable. That is an extremely limiting mindset. Organizations that truly understand TXD are not only looking to improve upon what they already do but they also aim to
re-define how it is done.
TXD is about innovation, change, and creative destruction (out with the old,
in with the better).
This is where TXD looks to the future, to what could be and should be, not just
to what is. Innovating on a delivered experience includes innovating on the experience of using your product or service. The “experience” part of the equation is your gauge, a dipstick to measure progress and development. If you are not improving life, delivering the appropriate experience, your “progress” may not be so beneficial.
The best innovations tend to be revolutionary in their experience delivery, transforming society and how we do things.
Think iPod or Google, revolutionary products and ideas that deliver revolutionary experiences, a new way to shop for and manage music or a better simpler search. These companies continue to deliver transformation.
Listen to this week’s podcast as we talk about what that looks like in your business.
Also, if you don’t have it yet, you can get the Total Experience Design Manifesto here.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Is Your Website A Bad Sales Rep? Wednesday, August 1st, 2012
Total Experience Design (TXD) is a focus on the holistic experience that is delivered to your customer. This includes your online experience as well as your offline experience. Many of you have a website for your business and that website is designed to in some way enhance the sales process. What happens when your website takes away from your sales process? Let me give you an example.
Take event ticket sales in today’s market. I don’t know very many people who purchase tickets to events offline. I don’t know what the numbers are for online sales but I bet they are really high. E-mail opt ins and deal sites like Groupon let you know when your favorite event has a special promotion to get you to buy a ticket to that event.
As a baseball fan I am subscribed to our local baseball team’s mailing list. They ran a promotion a couple of months ago for free tickets. Thinking that this would be a great Sunday afternoon activity with the family, I thought about getting tickets but didn’t do so right away.
When I tried to buy tickets, I had waited too long and this happened:
Now I was not concerned with the fact that I missed the promotion. What I was concerned with was the experience that they delivered in the process. All I got was a tiny set of letters that said, “This offer is no longer for sale.” That’s it. They might as well have given me the finger.
Instead of saying something like: “I’m sorry, this promotion has expired. However, we would love to see you at the game. You can check out other ticket options here or you can take a look at some of our upcoming promotions to other games.” What I got was a dead end in the experience. Not even a link to buy tickets somewhere else unless I am handicapped.
Could you imagine if someone called your office to ask about a service offer and the person on the phone told them that you don’t offer that anymore and then just hung up on the perspective client. You would go nuts.
Small business owners create these unintentional poor experiences online all the time. In the case of the minor league baseball game, I still got tickets because I love baseball. Not everyone shares my enthusiasm for the game. The average person will just move on and spend their money somewhere else.
How is your online experience? Are there any dead ends that need to be opened up to reduce the sales friction for your buyers? Take some time and review your online presence and make sure that all roads lead to the logical next step for your customer.