less product, more experience

When was the last time you switched from an established brand or “trusted” provider? How bad did things have to get before you felt compelled to switch? Perhaps just one thing, like having to sit in the back of a dirty a cab, was cause enough for you to give Uber a go?

There have been several versions of this post (right) that have been shared on social media. The original is from Alberto Brea and I thought is worth sharing again because it makes such a fantastic argument for the importance of creating customer-centric experiences. While there has been both good and bad reactions to Alberto’s post, he has published a follow-up article on Medium to expand on the idea, which (especially if you disagree) is well worth reading.

The last phrase “not being customer-centric is the biggest threat to any business” really got my attention. While businesses may leverage technology to create better experiences, it is the experience itself that drives customer behaviour.

However, because of the way many of our organisations are structured, creating great customer experiences can be a challenge. Adam Richardson (HBR October 2010) claims that “Crafting a great customer experience requires enormous amounts of collaboration… in many cases marketing, product design, customer services, sales, advertising agency, retail partners must all be working in concert to create even a single touchpoint.”

But perhaps a change in perspective is all we need to realize which elements of the customer experience are lacking. Take for example Clayton Christiansen’s theory on jobs-to-be-done, which maintains that customers are less concerned with the innovative features of your product or service than they are with how it helps them accomplish a specific task. The “hanging a painting” metaphor is often used to describe this change in perspective: the customer doesn’t need a better drill-bit, they need a hole in the wall (or maybe hanging strips).

In her article “What Airbnb Understands About Customers’ Jobs to Be Done“ (HBR August 2016), Karin Dillon maintains that “Too many companies focus on making their products better and better without ever understanding why customers make the choices they do. Customers don’t simply buy products or services. They ‘hire’ them to do a job. That job is not just about function (having a nice bed to sleep in) but about creating the right set of experiences for customers. Those experiences have social and emotional components that may be even more powerful than the functional ones.”

We all serve customers in one way or another, be they external or internal. How well do you understand your customers jobs-to-be-done? What part of the experience of dealing with one of your company’s services could be frustrating to customers? How well attuned are you to not only the functional components, but also to the social and emotional components of the experience you create?