If you haven’t had a chance to read Forbes Five Trends Shaping the Future of Customer Experience in 2020, written by Blake Morgan, you should because she hits the nail on the head. At RKS, we have been leveraging Joseph Campbell’s work around the Hero’s Journey to create Heroic Evangelists and provide thoughtful experiences for our client’s customers. Today, users look at technology and features as an enabler to a simple and enjoyable experience, but they aren’t sold on these things. Technology that works half the time and is difficult to use every time when compared to something that helps simplify our busy lives.
There is a significant trend in services over products. Is this something that will stand the test of time or just a fad that will disappear? Retailers, car manufacturers, music, and other categories are dealing with this shift in consumer mindset.
Culture has a significant impact on the experience of customers, and the cat is out of the bag. Companies are shifting their focus on the employee experience to help drive a culture that has a positive effect internally and externally. It makes perfect sense when you think of everyday examples. Think about the experience at Chick-fil-A vs. McDonalds and Target vs. Walmart.
Cross-Disciplinary collaboration is nothing new for a design consultancy, and it still baffles us to see companies who operate in silos. Customer Service and Engineering working closely together makes sense, especially in the digital space, where product changes can be made at a more rapid pace. Having a good understanding of customer pain-points and needs is good for business, whether selling a product or service. It is something we are always striving to understand in the design consulting space so that we can create the best product and service experience possible.
The B2B customer experience has been ignored for decades, and we have been able to create a huge competitive advantage for our B2B clients who have realized this. The laboratory environment had been a significant area where we learned this pain-point over the years. Often times, these users are facing a clunky experience on their $500,000 piece of equipment and don’t understand how their $1,000 iPhone offers a simplified experience that is much more enjoyable. While many B2B companies are already focusing on creating a great customer experience, this could be the next frontier for “Design Thinking,” which has become ubiquitous in B2C companies.