X: The Experience When Business Meets Design

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DIGITAL FIRST

TO DESIGN EXPERIENCES YOU MUST EXPERIENCE THE JOURNEY FOR YOURSELF

You’ve got to start with customer experience and work back toward the technology.

—Steve Jobs¹

In 2003, Bernd Schmitt, a professor at Columbia Business School in New York, introduced “Customer Experience Management” as “the discipline, methodology and/or process used to comprehensively ‘manage’ a customer’s cross-channel exposure, interaction and transaction with a company, product, brand or service.”² It’s time to move beyond the concept of managing to that of designing.

These days you want to define and enliven experiences for customers—but not just react to or simply manage them. This process is defined by a strong emphasis on innovation as a competitive differentiator—and, crucially, a value proposition to customers.

This design process must start by asking, Do you really know the quality of the experience you’re currently offering? Have you gone through the experience personally, across multiple devices and real-world scenarios, to see and feel what it’s like as a digital customer to do business with you? You might be in for an unsettling surprise.

THE THREE Ds OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

In November 2005, Harvard Business School published “The Three Ds of Customer Experience” by James Allen, ...