Think of a cellphone. Think of buying a cellphone. Think of using a cellphone. Think of loving your cellphone, so much, the next time an upgraded version comes out – you don’t think – you just get it and adore it. Why? Because you’ve fallen in love with the experience your cellphone provides.
Now, think about your company. If you are a cellphone company, or any kind of company, you want to be in this position – of having fans so dedicated to your product, your service, that they continue to choose you over all others. When you want to discover what it is about the cellphone with the devoted fans that makes them so devoted, where do you begin? With the hardware, the software, the service?
Those who use cellphones are interacting with the hardware when they pick up the phone and press buttons. They use the software when they look lovingly at the interface and interpret what they see. The use the service when they have contact with your company. Part of their love for the phone may even come from the service over which the cellphone producer has little control – the strength of the signal they get that enables them to take advantage of being able to use their beloved in a stairwell or even in an elevator… remember, we’re talking about cellphones and creating great experiences here.
In the end, for the cellphone user, they just love their phone – or they don’t. So where does that leave competitors who want to break into this market, or who want a larger share? At Akendi we understand how to approach this kind of challenge. We understand people. We put them at the centre of everything we do. We follow a process that enables us to discern which part of your business offering is affecting the experience your customers have – with your products, your services, your space, your website. We do this through research to understand how people are interacting with your services, products, space or website and why. We apply the analysis of that research to our recommendations and to our design solutions.
Interesting analogy, but I think it depends on the particular industry and customer segment. For those companies that compete on technological innovation or for attracting early adopters, the analogy may be applicable. For that 60-70% customer base that makes a product/company profitable, the entire experience including product and company becomes more relevant. However, it’s customer habituation that is crucial to keeping customers and you do not want to make changes that make customers consciously think about a company or it’s products. It’s at that point that customers are vulnerable to being captured by competitors.
If your client is a competitor, the objective is to somehow cause a mental disruption that gives the client the opportunity to capture customers and then shift the customer back into auto-pilot where he transacts out of habit.
This strategy lowers the cost of design, development and marketing in the long run.