What’s Ahead In 2020?

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.

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About RKS

RKS is a design and innovation firm that creates solutions for clients that are relevant to the market, build the brand and create emotional connection. RKS services the full range of companies from funded startups to multinational corporations. Founder Ravi K. Sawhney cultivated a people-centric approach modeled from his work at Xerox PARC in the 1970’s, where innovative methods using psychology as an essential factor in design resulted in the first-generation touch screen graphic interface as well as many other breakthroughs. RKS came to national attention shortly after its founding by developing the production design of the animated Teddy Ruxpin, one of the greatest disruptive success stories in the history of the toy industry. Success followed success, with RKS being in on the ground floor of tablets with Alan Kay, Pocket Arcades with Sega and the game-changing dental whitening system for Discus Dental. Another milestone was the turnaround of MiniMed, developing a discreet personal insulin pump that allowed millions of diabetics to shed the stigma of being seen as “sick.” This inspired design took MiniMed from a declining $40M in revenue to $270M in three years, leading to its acquisition by Medtronic for $3.6B. The 1990’s brought a confluence of deep introspection and humanity, along with insights into how the work of Joseph Campbell and Abraham Maslow could inform design. This direction led to RKS Design’s highly acclaimed Psycho-Aesthetics methodology.
2020 trend forcast logo

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.

About RKS

RKS is a design and innovation firm that creates solutions for clients that are relevant to the market, build the brand and create emotional connection.

RKS services the full range of companies from funded startups to multinational corporations. Founder Ravi K. Sawhney cultivated a people-centric approach modeled from his work at Xerox PARC in the 1970’s, where innovative methods using psychology as an essential factor in design resulted in the first-generation touch screen graphic interface as well as many other breakthroughs.
RKS came to national attention shortly after its founding by developing the production design of the animated Teddy Ruxpin, one of the greatest disruptive success stories in the history of the toy industry. Success followed success, with RKS being in on the ground floor of tablets with Alan Kay, Pocket Arcades with Sega and the game-changing dental whitening system for Discus Dental. Another milestone was the turnaround of MiniMed, developing a discreet personal insulin pump that allowed millions of diabetics to shed the stigma of being seen as “sick.” This inspired design took MiniMed from a declining $40M in revenue to $270M in three years, leading to its acquisition by Medtronic for $3.6B.

The 1990’s brought a confluence of deep introspection and humanity, along with insights into how the work of Joseph Campbell and Abraham Maslow could inform design. This direction led to RKS Design’s highly acclaimed Psycho-Aesthetics methodology.

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