Frameworks for an Experience Economy

I had a fascinating and inspiring discussion yesterday with Kathy Macdonald, and I wanted to capture a few of the takeaways from our conversation here.

Kathy works with businesses to help them be competitive in the Experience Economy. Her work comes from Joseph Pine and James Gilmore's work in that area, best known by their book The Experience Economy (an updated version to be released shortly). She is also a master at putting ideas into frameworks that businesses can use for thinking about problems and coming up with solutions - which is something that I absolutely love and strive to do.

Through the course of our conversation, Kathy shared with me a few interesting frameworks.

First, the 5 phases of a customer: Entice (or Anticipate), Enter, Engage, Exit, Extend. Most businesses think about their customer relations starting at the Engage phase - a customer walks in the door to buy something. However, for the customer the experience starts way before. Take the analogy of buying a new pair of shoes. The customer experience starts when she realizes her old running shoes are wearing thin or her dress shoes are looking out of date - the customer anticipates the need for shoes (or, from the business side, they entice the customer to consider needing shoes). The customer Enters when she picks up a phone to call a shoe store, or finds them on an online search. She Engages when she drives to the store, walks in the door, looks for and finds shoes. She Exits when she buys the shoes, walks out, drives home, and starts wearing the shoes. Extend comes as she realizes the shoes hold up well (or don't), fit well (or don't), or when the store contacts her with a follow up or to give her a coupon or ad.

Thinking about the whole arc of the customer experience really changes the way a business sees their role and their contact points with a customer. It also gives them a sense of what background (or baggage) customers may bring with them once they get to the Engage piece, and what potential there is to Extend.

More frameworks to come later...