Experience Strategy Podcast: Why you need a strategic POV on your CX
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On today’s episode of Experience Strategy Podcast, hosts Dave Norton and Aransas Savas will prove to you that your business needs a strong strategic POV on your customer experience in order to thrive. Listen in to hear how brands like @Apple, @W Hotels, and @Best Buy’s Geek Squad used a compelling experience POV to innovate and drive business success.
Voiceover: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Experience Strategy Podcast, where we talk to customers and experts about how to create products and services that feel like time well spent. And now here are your hosts, experience nerds, strategists, Dave Norton and Aransas Savas.
Aransas: Hello and welcome to the Experience Strategy Podcast.
I'm Aransas Savas.
Dave: And I'm Dave Norton.
Aransas: And today we're gonna talk about a pretty essential skill to succeeding as an experience strategist. We're gonna talk about having a strong point of view on your customer and their needs. Dave's gonna walk us through some frameworks that he's been creating to help guide experience strategists who are a part of our Experience Strategist certification program.
Dave, let's kick things off by talking about experience strategy at its most fundamental level. [00:01:00]
Dave: Yeah. So a lot of companies really don't have an experience strategy per se. They may manage their experience. They may have great technology that's supporting their experience. They may have training, they may design experiences, but to have an experience strategy is something that's fairly unique for a lot of companies.
And I guess the other thing I would suggest is that oftentimes what they have as a brand strategy and then they execute against that brand strategy and that becomes kind of their experience strategy as well. But the purpose, of experience strategy is really to help create meaningful experiences for people in a way that's going to lead to innovation, it's going to lead to growth. It's going to increase the value of the experience, not just for the [00:02:00] company, but also for the people. That's really what experience strategy is about and we need to do a better job, frankly, as experience strategists of really understanding what goes into that kind of a strategy.
Aransas: Before we get into that, I want you to just define what you mean when you say people, because not just customers, right?
Dave: Yeah. No, it's employees, it may be the families of the customers. There's a lot of different constituencies that we need to be paying attention to, and so I think it's better to talk about it as people.
Than to say customers. It also, I think, helps us to humanize, which is so important, who it is that we're working with. But the principles we're gonna talk about are going to apply to employees, to any audience that the customer needs to address [00:03:00] B2B and so forth.
Aransas: And I'm excited to share too, for those of you listening, we recently launched an experience strategy podcast, YouTube channel.
So if you want to visualize a little better some of the concepts that Dave is sharing today, head on over to our YouTube channel, which you can find just by searching experience strategy podcast, and actually see some of these frameworks maybe a little more clearly than even we can just describe 'em in words, especially if you're a visual learner.
Just a plug there for the channel . So let's dive in, Dave.
Dave: So when I think about experience strategy, I'm thinking about defining three foundational things for a company one of which has to do with what makes the business model compelling for the customer, right? What is it from a brand strategy standpoint, we think about differentiation, and I'm gonna [00:04:00] talk about how we think about making the business model compelling for a customer from an experience strategy in just a minute.
But that's the first question that we have to address. The second question is, how do we describe or what describes the customer needs? And the third question is how value is maintained and grown over time through the experiences that we create that are hopefully meaningful to the customers. Those are the three foundational questions that we're always trying to address when we're doing experience strategy.
Aransas: So let's talk a little bit more about those three and why they're important individually.
Dave: Yeah, so the first question, what makes the business model compelling? We talked about the fact that in brand strategy, we're looking for differentiation. [00:05:00] Something that is distinct and easy for the customer to understand.
This is what makes us different from everyone else. In experience strategy, we're looking to create what we call a point of view. This is the topic that we want to go deeper around. I think today we're gonna be very future-focused, probably in that point of view, we're going to want to be able to make sure that point of view can actually be fulfilled by the company and it's something that everyone within the company can understand, get their heads around, right?
That's part of what we're trying to do with the point of view .
Aransas: And so I heard two main elements there that needs to be future-focused and it needs to be well aligned with a deliverable promise. So something that the company is uniquely well positioned to deliver on versus something that's just maybe an aspirational idea for their customer.
Dave: I think so, I think [00:06:00] those are kind of foundational things that your point of view is supposed to do for you. .
Aransas: Yeah. Yeah. So how does one develop a point of view? What does that take?
Dave: That's a great question and there's lots of different ways that companies historically have created really strategic point of views around what it is that they're trying to do.
I think back to some of the things that I've seen, for example, Joe Pine do ,who's the author of the Experience Economy, when he is working with his clients, he likes to talk to them about creating a theme. And the reason he likes themes is because you can create something that's compelling, maybe to the customer.
Maybe it's not quite as future-focused, but it describes, it helps the organization internally to really understand what it is that you're trying to do. It basic design principles [00:07:00] that are incorporated into it. And so having a theme can be one way to create a point of view. So when I'm thinking about developing a strategic point of view, there's some elements that I think we typically Aransas, wanna make sure are present.
First we talked about the near future need. Sometimes that's called the should statement. Some way of describing how the world should be or what the customer should experience or needs to experience in the near future. That's the first element. The second element is a description of what the company can do, going forward.
So maybe we need to realign our resources in some way. Redirect what we're trying to do. We need to train our employees in some way, shape, or form. We need to create new technologies.[00:08:00] So that's the second one. And then the third element is the impact on the business model. So if we do this, it's going to lead to what and how are we going to behave differently?
So maybe we're going to create more time value for our employees and our customers. That may be the impact on the business model. And then there can be design principles that are incorporated in, and I know the design principles are something that you are really focused on as well.
You think that's really important. We've talked about this offline. So those are the elements that I see, those four elements.
Aransas: Yeah. And what order should we be thinking about these? Is there?
Dave: The near future need. I guess it depends on the format, but I would write that statement first. I would say, here's the near future need. As [00:09:00] service and experiences proliferates, our customers will continue to place a premium on their time and attention, that's a near future need kind of statement, right? Then our company can strengthen our relationship with customers by focusing on digital or time spent with digital experiences.
So that's a little bit of a description of what the company can do going forward. Then maybe by redirecting resources, we already employ to engage our customers. We can create more time value for our customers or something along that line. And then something where we say something like our guiding principles or our guiding design principles are, and then list those principles.
What that does for you is it helps you to get really clear about what your strategic point of view [00:10:00] is, and then you can take it to the next step, right? You don't have to stop there, but at least you have a clear declarative statement regarding where things need to happen.
Aransas: Yeah, and I think it can be really difficult for companies to arrive at that sort of compelling, aligned, declarative statement, but it is work that can truly shift every aspect of the business and certainly the customer experience. We talk a lot about the hazard of politics and the intersecting points of view on how to create an experience that really matters to the customer. But I think , if we start from a place of understanding where your consumer's needs are headed, you are starting from a real place of strength.
Because at the end of the day, in order for the business to survive, [00:11:00] you have to have a customer who is engaged and values your experience, hopefully is being meaningful. And, having just completed the experience strategy trend report, I feel like in the back of my mind, with every choice we were making for that report, I was asking myself what does this mean to the roadmaps of a wide range of companies. So when we say, and I know those of you who listen to the show frequently are hearing a lot about these trends and I hope you'll keep digging into each one individually, but when we say what does it mean for my company that wellness and wellbeing have become a baseline expectation for customers. What does it mean that my customers expect me to support their micro-communities in small groups? What does it mean, right? So when we look at those trends, what they are is really they should be provocations for us to strengthen our point of view, both [00:12:00] in terms of our own understanding of our customer, but also in terms of how we energize our organizations about our customers' needs.
Dave: Totally agree with you Aransas, the Trends Report does a fantastic job. You guys have done a great job of articulating these six very important future-focused insights that if you pay attention to them and you say, what are we going to do about this? Can really start to inform a strategic point of view for your company. What does this mean for our company? And I think experience strategists have to do this kind of work, otherwise they're gonna find themselves in a place where they're very reactive. They're always trying to respond to what their competitors are doing. To what new technologies are arriving on the scene. To different external events.
One of the key trends that you talk about is uncertainty is certain. [00:13:00] And that's something that we need to be paying attention to. And for a lot of companies that should be a part of a strategic point of view for them. How do we handle uncertainty going forward? That's actually one of the topics I hope we cover in next year's collaborative.
Aransas: Yeah, I agree. And I just think the speed of change is really, changed. And so as experience strategists, we have to be better tuned in to how those expectations are changed.
Again, we just can't overestimate how deeply and forever our customer's expectations and needs were changed by the pandemic.
It was a firestarter.
Dave: I was talking to a group within a financial institution this morning. We were running through some of [00:14:00] the training that we do in our certification program with them and we were talking about how channel strategy has changed so much in the last 10 years. It was like 11 years ago you could have kind of a multichannel strategy, and today we're not even sure whether omnichannel really fits the bill. We're talking about things that happen after omnichannel strategy, and that's just a 10 year period of time.
Can you imagine if you're not thinking forward you're already five years behind. You have to have that strategic point of view. I think if you're going to be successful.
Aransas: It's so true. And then you have to say, oh, how are we uniquely well positioned to meet these needs?
Compared to all our competitors that currently exist, but more importantly, to those who are seeing the needs and are [00:15:00] building their entire business from the ground up to directly tackle that need.
Dave: Such important work and it's different work than what marketing does. Marketing does important work, but marketing needs that foundation of experience strategy in order to be really successful because that's where you're, you as a company are taking a stance on what it is that we do in a compelling way that makes the experience so powerful. And if you believe, like I think all of us do, all of our listeners do that we're in an experience economy where everyone is buying based on the experience that you create. We've gotta have that foundation and we've gotta have something that's unique to your organization.
How do you do that?
Aransas: Going back to understanding our customers. I think in a lot of [00:16:00] organizations, especially bigger organizations, there's a lot of research going on.
There's a lot of customer insight being gathered, and at least in my experience, there can be some competition about who knows our customer best. And I would venture to say that it has to be the experience strategist who know the customer best, and if anyone else is reporting to better understand the customer something is broken. Something is awry because your marketers, they need to know the customer you don't have, the customer you want to attract, but the experience strategists are the ones who need to know inside and out, not just what the customer currently wants, but what the customer will want next.
Dave: Yeah. Yeah. The you hit it right on the head. That's exactly right. They're gonna be the ones that we hope are involved in the planning and the resourcing of [00:17:00] solutioning going forward. So the company should be looking to the experience strategist and saying, okay, how are we supposed to prioritize things like customer journey work, and channel management and employee training and all of the other elements that go into making compelling experiences. And if they don't have a view, a point of view, how are they gonna do that work? They're not. They're gonna say, well, let's just see what the brand strategy says.
Aransas: I think we can get stuck in this idea of you can't build it if you can't sell it. And that's true. We don't wanna waste money on something people aren't gonna buy. But if you're starting from customer needs, then you are building something that can be sold. You may not be building it in a way that can be sold. So it's important to look at the economics and the business model as you're saying.
But the decisions always have to come from a place of customer.
Dave: I think so. I think you're [00:18:00] right. And the other thing that a strategic point of view does for you is it helps you get really clear about the what. And as experience strategists, we've talked about this before on the podcast as well.
Marketing is focused on the who from a big broad sense, the target audience. Experience strategy is focused on people and what they are doing. And so really understanding, how can we service the customer in an appropriate way, and what is the thing that in the near future they're going to want so that we can be prepared.
Does that make sense?
Aransas: It makes perfect sense. I think what we're saying is, The experience strategist is going to focus on the what, the marketing strategist is going to focus on the who and the operational leaders are going to focus on the how. However, [00:19:00] I had to use the most confusing word possible there.
However, the how is also going to be influenced by the who and the what.
Dave: I like that. That makes complete sense to me. Of course, they're gonna work in alignment with each other. If from an operations standpoint, do not have the right resources, you can't deliver on the experience that needs to inform the strategic point of view.
And I just think that so many more brand strategies would be so much more successful. If experience strategists did their part to create that strategic point of view.
I want to go back to some examples, if it's okay, of different ways to do strategic points of view. We talked about Pine and Gilmore.
They really introduced this idea of having a point of view by introducing the idea of having a theme. And whether your Geek Squad, for example, Geek Squad is all about [00:20:00] a theme, right? The brand is about a theme or your some other company like the W, they have a theme that drives the design of different spaces.
I think their theme is warm, welcoming, witty, and wired. Very simple kind of thing. But you don't have to use theming to create a strategic point of view. You can, like Apple does just have a declarative statement. I would say their declarative statements, and you can see it on their website is bringing the best user experiences, best user experience to the customers through innovative hardware, software, and services. Focus on design and functionality of the product, enhancing customer experience. Strengthen the Apple ecosystem and decreasing dependence of the business on the sales of iPhones. If you look at [00:21:00] what we're describing, that basically has everything, it's forward-looking.
It's describing where we're headed. We're not going to depend quite so much on the iPhone. We're gonna be innovative. It describes the what very well. So you can have just a simple declarative statement or you might have some kind of an insight statement. Something that says, what people want from digital channels and tools is dot dot dot.
And then build your statement out from there. So that's another kind of category, declarative statement, insight statement, theme. You could do a story, you could literally write a story for internal purposes to help bring it to life. Very compelling way to help, or you might try to do a comparison and contrast. We need to move from where we're currently at to a new place or while all of our competitors do this, [00:22:00] we want to do that. There are different ways that you can write those point-of-view statements. It doesn't have to be the same to get across what it is that you're trying to get across.
Aransas: So good, and I love that you have a wide range of options here and I suspect that most people are going to wanna do all or most of these, in order to get to real clarity because these are ultimately communication tools, right? These are a way of saying, I have a point of view now let me share it with you in a way that you can use it and translate it into the work that you were doing.
We talk about how people see color differently, and the truth is we all have a wide range of perspectives that we use to interpret what we are seeing and hearing and experiencing. And I think by having this wide range of tools, what we're offering people is a variety of ways [00:23:00] in so that we can A, ensure true alignment, but also ensure a truthful execution. Something that has integrity to the vision.
Dave: I love that. I love that. And of course the other reason to have different ways of formatting your point of view that kind of builds on what you were saying before, is you have different internal audiences.
So you know, your senior most leadership, the CEO the president, may very much want a declarative statement. While your teams that are trying to design the next iteration of your technology would prefer to have some kind of comparison type thing this is what it was like in the past, here's what it needs to be like in the future.
Yeah I think having multiple ways of showing that declarative statement or that point of view, it will make a big [00:24:00] difference and will help you to execute much more successfully.
Aransas: Ultimately, it starts as a vision, but it becomes an experience that happens on a moment-by-moment basis in a wide range of channels and context and systems and all these other tools that we talk so much about here.
So it isn't just a vision on paper, but it is a vision that needs to become an experience.
Dave: Yeah. Again, another thought that just occurred to me. We, as experience strategists we rely very heavily on two frameworks to really help us articulate to the rest of the company what it's that we're doing, the customer journey map and the personas.
And I think part of the reason why many people are frustrated with the direction of the CX movement is because those tools in and of themselves are no longer enough. And we've talked on previous [00:25:00] podcasts about some of the challenges with persona work and with journey mapping. I wonder if more organizations didn't start embracing this idea of here's our strategic point of view on the customer and on the experience. If that wouldn't help to take some of the pressure off what these journey maps are trying to do and help us to bring to life these personas in a way that they can get back to being a little bit more useful for internal audiences.
I don't know. That's something that I think we need to explore in the collaboratives with the collaborative members. But it just makes sense to me that this is a separate tool that most companies are going to need.
Aransas: I think it's the foundational work that often gets missed or disregarded because we're like, man, we've got a brand strategy.
Dave: Right, what do we need? Or people simply [00:26:00] have moved into the CX movement and they didn't have enough training, like here's what a journey map is, go do a journey map, make that happen.
Aransas: Your customer goes from here to there.
Dave: Yeah. What else do we need to know? They could be asking that kind of a thing. There's a lot more to it folks. Yeah, a lot more to it.
Aransas: Especially when we start to factor in modes, right? You start to think about the modes your customers in and how that impacts their needs from moment to moment.
Dave: Yeah, when we introduce the idea of modes to our clients, they're like, I don't know how to put that on a journey map. And I'm like, maybe it's bigger than that, maybe there's someplace else that we should be putting that. I love what you're describing, but there are a lot of good companies that are doing good work in experience strategy and have been for years.
Obviously, Apple is very successful. In the travel industry you've got some great hotel brands. Next week in the collaboratives, we're gonna have [00:27:00] Chip Connelly, one of the founders, he was on our podcast not too long ago, but one of the first people to really introduce the boutique hotel experience to the world.
And he's gonna be at our collaborative meetings and he's gonna be talking about kind of his own personal path, which I think is going be really fascinating. I don't think he ever had a journey map, frankly. I don't think he ever did personas.
Aransas: No but he had a point of view.
Dave: He had a total point of view, and because he did, he was wildly successful.
Aransas: That's such a good more example, Dave, because it's true, a strong point of view can replace personas and journey maps to some degree. I'm not gonna go so far as to say that we get rid of them, but you can succeed with a point of view without personas and journey maps. You cannot succeed with just [00:28:00] journey maps or personas.
Dave: Not over the long term, not as a growth strategy. And especially not the way that most companies design their journey maps and their personas today. Which is a completely different topic that someday we need to cover.
Aransas: And especially not when you have 15 different cross-functional hands and the consumer pot
Dave: Yet another reason to have that point of view so that those people are not climbing all over each other.
Aransas: We've talked in past episodes about the chaos that ensues when customers don't know what's happening in their experience. We're not meeting them where they are and delivering the right experience via the right channel and I think that really happens as a result of lots of good intentions. But if that is not aligned to a clear perspective on what the customer cares about and what [00:29:00] they will continue to care about, as well as how they will change in the near future based on the trends. Then we're gonna lose 'em.
Dave: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I'm excited about this. More to come on this particular topic.
Aransas: Quick recap with me. Major keys I heard here that I noted on my own notes are it's gotta be future-focused, it's gotta be uniquely well suited for your organization to differentiate. It can be used in addition to journey maps and personas, but those cannot survive without the point of view, it can be used as a cross-functional communication tool for execution. What else?
Dave: There are different formats. You don't have to always write it the same way. I think it's ideal to start with a declarative statement like Apple does, [00:30:00] but I think you can build frameworks off of this. You can describe it in different ways depending on your audience. And we talked a little bit about those different ways.
Aransas: Good stuff. If this is interesting to you listeners and this is something that you're struggling with in your own organization. Reach out to us. We would love to have you join us for the Experience Strategy certification program. This is just one of the many tools that we will be exploring over the course of this 12-week program. It really is everything you need to onboard new experience strategists in your organization, to increase this competency and leadership within your organization if you already have it, or to increase at a personal level for your professional skillset, your frameworks and tools that you can rely on to have more impact and more value [00:31:00] for the people and the companies that you interact with. So come to our website, stonemantel.co. You'll see all the details on the certification tab. And feel free to reach out to us with any questions. We are really excited to hear how your thinking about these points of view and how you're using them in different organizations.
So let's continue the conversation and we will be back with you next week for another really exciting episode.
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