Experience Economy Frameworks (cont)

Continuing to document the frameworks I learned while talking to Kathy Macdonald.

The Values of An Experience
People value 4 basic things in an experience: education (what did I learn? how am I different?), entertainment (did it make me laugh? did it feel fun and interesting?), aesthetic (was it comfortable? was it beautiful?), and escape (did I lose track of time? did I feel like I was somewhere else for a little while?).



Problem vs Pain
When an organization brings on a consultant, it's usually because they've identified some problem they want help dealing with. For example, a museum may say that they want to increase visitors coming through the doors on weekends. That's their problem. But it's worth digging in to what their pain is. Maybe their pain is that their revenue is steadily decreasing. Or they put a lot of resources into weekend programming and aren't seeing a return. The pain gets at why the problem is a problem.

Ways to Change the Experience
When an organization is looking at changing the customer experience, they have 3 ways to go about it. First, the physical environment: what people see when they come and how it makes them feel. Think colors, textures, furniture, light. Second, the process: how people find their way, what they can (and can't do). Think signage, walkways, admissions or reference desks. Finally, human: the people they interact with and how they interact with them. Think front desk staff, docents, guides.

The Change Timeline
When organizations recognize they have a new vision, strategy, or direction to pursue, they often want to get there right away. Practically speaking, change takes time. This framework says 3 years. The yellow scribble at the end of 3 years is the organization's vision of where they want to be. It's a scribble because, while it's got some definition, it's still going to be vague - it will shift and grow and become defined in this 3-year process.



At the beginning of the timeline is the Ending. Organizations often start the vision/strategy process by identifying that there are things they want to stop. Things that aren't working right. Next, they move into Neutral. This is where they are trying new things out (hence the squiggly lines - guess and check, trial and error). They expect some failure, they expect some success. Finally they get to the Beginning. They've identified a few things that work. They move forward, full speed ahead.

The check marks at the bottom are check points for the organization. It's easy to get discouraged and to feel like things are never going to take shape. By making a list of milestones in advance, then organizations can point those out as signs that they're on the right track.

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...