by: Idris Mootee
Experience is unique. There is no common definition on what is CX. It is much more complex than services or products. What it means depends on the context as well the industry. There is a human dimension; there is a service component; there may be a digital interface component and it may have to do with dialogue and conversation enabled by the product/marketing platform that happened during the pre or pro-purchase.
I always see it as the art and science in the practice of continuously closing the gap between the customer value proposition and the delivering of real and perceive value from the customer perspective. Why so few products seem to be concerned with how they fit into the lives of their customers? Why so many people see products as products? Why is it that people still approach products /services as isolated entities, unconnected with everything happening around them?
Many have figured out the problems by applying core design principles ( see presentation above) to their business. Apple is the most obvious example. And according to Steve Jobs:
- When you start looking at a problem and it seems really simple, you don’t really understand the complexity of the problem. Then you get into the problem, and you see that it’s really complicated, and you come up with all these convoluted solutions. That’s sort of the middle, and that’s where most people stop….
But the really great person will keep on going and find the key, the underlying principle of the problem–and come up with an elegant, really beautiful solution that works.
That’s what we wanted to do with Mac.
This was taken from Steven Levy’s bok Insanely Great. Until you read the last sentence, you might have thought that he was just referring to the iPod or iPhone. But the quote was from 1984 (remember the 1984 product launch), and reaffirms that transcendent product design is the core of their philosophy and approach. The reason product (including many web-based products) development has gone wrong is that people stop at the worst time–when the solutions are the most convoluted. I discovered this old presentation that I presented a few years back on this subject. It talks about many of the basic design principles that people totally forgot or simply ignored. I updated it with some newer illustrations and will be sharing that here. The concept itself is still evolving and if you have something to add please let me know. Have a great weekend!
Original post: http://mootee.typepad.com/innovation_playground/2007/07/customer-experi.html