"Inflation and the ‘Experience Economy’"

"Inflation tends to be understood as higher prices resulting either from increased costs—global supply-chain issues and hard-to-find workers—or from increased demand, such as pent-up purchases, as well as easy monetary policy from the Federal Reserve and blowout spending from Congress. But there’s another significant factor at play: Price increases also arise from growth in the perceived value of economic offerings.

...

Consumer values have shifted greatly over the years, most notably from goods and services to experiences. As I first argued on these pages in 1997 with my business partner, Jim Gilmore, experiences are a distinct economic offering, as different from services as services are from goods.

Fundamentally, experiences offer time well spent. People value the time they spend in experiences, resulting in a memory (and, so often these days, a trail of social media posts).

...

Unfortunately, the government still classifies experiences as services. The latter, however, merely provides time well saved. The disparity in value is too profound between, say, going to a dry cleaner and a concert, between having your oil changed and changing your physique at a gym, between home delivery of goods and the spending the day with your family at a theme park.

...

That’s why Walt Disney World outpaced measured inflation by so great a rate—because consumers value its experience more than the average market-basket good and are willing to pay much more for it relative to other offerings. This same effect is true for the myriad experiences that make up today’s “Experience Economy.”

Consumers also value their time more highly than they used to. They want goods and services to be commodities—bought at the lowest possible price and greatest possible convenience—so they can spend their hard-earned money and their harder-earned time on experiences they value more highly."

Trechos retirados de "Inflation and the ‘Experience Economy’"

Progressão da economia das experiências em tempos de confinamento

Em Maio de 2020 escrevi o postal "El coronavirus actúa como acelerador de cambios que ya estaban en marcha".

Uma das tendências que este blogue regista há vários anos é a da progressão da economia das experiências.

Esta entrevista com Joe Pine, sobre a progressão da economia das experiências em tempos de confinamento, é muito interessante.

Gostei sobretudo da progressão dos jogos de detectives. Pessoas que podem estar em diversos locais geograficamente fazem parte de equipa que através do Zoom procura resolver um mistério dentro de uma janela temporal.

"One of Pine’s favourite experiences during lockdown, he tells me, was by theatre and experience makers, Swamp Motel, who put on a hugely popular immersive online detective game called Plymouth Point. “You interact live with people to try and figure out what’s going on; it was a great experience,” he says. “That company has actually hired more people over the past year because what they’re doing is so successful.”

As the physical experience sector opens up, many of the lessons learned during the lockdowns will enable them to provide a better offer than before, says Pine. Here he sets out some of the biggest trends he’s seeing and what companies need to do to survive and thrive during the years ahead.

“One of the signs that the Experience Economy is very healthy is that whenever a place does open up to whatever capacity it can – guess what? It fills up to that limited capacity,” he says. “People will never stop wanting exciting and meaningful experiences.”"

De reter também a abordagem híbrida a quatro níveis. 

"Moments that shape our life"

Em menos de uma semana li “The Power of Moments” de Chip e Dan Heath.

Um excelente livro que recomendo a quem quer trabalhar o mundo das experiências.

“Defining moments shape our lives, but we don’t have to wait for them to happen. We can be the authors of them. What if a teacher could design a lesson that students were still reflecting on years later? What if a manager knew exactly how to turn an employee’s moment of failure into a moment of growth? What if you had a better sense of how to create lasting memories for your kids?
...
When people assess an experience, they tend to forget or ignore its length—a phenomenon called “duration neglect.” Instead, they seem to rate the experience based on two key moments: (1) the best or worst moment, known as the “peak”; and (2) the ending. Psychologists call it the “peak-end rule.
...
What’s indisputable is that when we assess our experiences, we don’t average our minute-by-minute sensations. Rather, we tend to remember flagship moments: the peaks, the pits, and the transitions.
This is a critical lesson for anyone in service businesses—from restaurants to medical clinics to call centers to spas—where success hinges on the customer experience.
...
to please customers, you need not obsess over every detail."

Que acaba assim:

“Once you realize how important moments can be, it’s easy to spot opportunities to shape them.
...
That’s how we imagine you using the ideas in this book. Target a specific moment and then challenge yourself: How can I elevate it? Spark insight? Boost the sense of connection? ”

"Turn disappointment into delight"

Primeiro a leitura desta carta "An open letter to Aer Lingus on the occasion of their quite dreadful service." de onde retiro, a título de exemplo:

"I was unfortunate enough to be on your delayed flight EI937 from Heathrow to Belfast City on 19/7/19, so am writing to complain about the delay itself, the way you made the delay worse, and the way you treated your passengers.
...
Your flight was scheduled to leave at 19:20. When the boards in the airport showed that it was delayed till (if I recall correctly) 22:40, I went to find some Aer Lingus staff to ask for vouchers for food and drink. Since you are obliged to provide your passengers with food and drink during this delay, of course I should not have to go searching for them: you should be making an announcement over the PA and seeking out your passengers to provide them with what you are legally obliged to. But no.
...
I should not but apparently do need to explain to you that the purpose of providing food and drink to your passengers is to make a bad experience — a severely delayed flight — somewhat less bad. Forcing your passengers to stand in a queue for hours in order to earn the privilege of asking for vouchers makes the bad experience worse. That is the opposite of compensation."

Recordo um texto re-lido esta semana, "Why Is Customer Service So Bad? Because It’s Profitable." e recomendo a leitura deste outro artigo lido esta semana "The Magic That Makes Customer Experiences Stick":

"2. Turn disappointment into delight. If your company is going to value the outliers, it must be ready to transform negative experiences into positives,
...
By resolving a problem that he didn’t cause, the night manager delivered an experience that was remembered for years. When employees are taught to be in tune with the customer’s emotions, they can notice changes in emotional state and respond quickly. As their alacrity accelerates the shift from disappointment to delight, the intervention creates a sudden contrast that makes experiences sticky.
...
By turning disappointment into delight, companies can create emotionally memorable experiences and win customers who will sing their praises."

"There is a shift from “commoditization” to “personalization”

"Experience has emerged as the new basis for exchange. Schmitt (1999, p. 53) opined that “companies have moved away from traditional “features-and-benefits” marketing towards creating experiences for their customers”.
...
This approach is based on the foundation that a consumer lives by consuming experiences offered by products, services, events or a series of multisensory interactions between customers and organizations at every touchpoint in pre-purchase, purchase and post-purchase situations.
.
There is a shift from “commoditization” to “personalization” – personalized co-created consumption experiences. The customer value is derived during the entire consumption process as “internal and subjective responses” through co-creation experiences. The organizations act as resource integrators to facilitate experience creation by providing experience environment.
...
Interaction is central to experience creation. ... consumer responses (approach or avoidance) are determined by interaction between stimulus (organizational or environmental) and organism (consumers – emotional state of pleasure, arousal and dominance). Holbrook and Hirschman brought experiential perspective and described consumption experience as “a phenomenon directed towards the pursuit of fantasies, feelings, and fun”. They further commented that “the consumer behaviour is the fascinating and endlessly complex result of a multifaceted interaction between organism and environment”. Addressing the dimensions of customer value, Holbrook explained that “Value is an interactive relativistic preference experience”. ...  “All experiences are ‘consumption experiences’ and that these consumption experiences constitute most of what we do during our waking and even our non-waking lives”
...
“The traditional system is become obsolete [...] In the emergent economy, competition will centre on personalized co-creation experiences resulting in value that is truly unique to each individual”. They emphasized on customer value derived from purposeful and meaningful personalized interaction between customer and organization. ... “The customer is always a co-creator of value. Value creation is interactional” and “Value is always uniquely and phenomenologically determined by the beneficiary. Value is idiosyncratic, experiential, contextual and meaning laden”. ... “Commercial experiences need to be considered as a product offering to avoid commoditization and price competition”.

Trechos retirados de "Customer experience – a review and research agenda", Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Vol. 27 Issue: 3, pp.642-662, de Rajnish Jain, Jayesh Aagja, Shilpa Bagdare, (2017)

Ainda a batota

"The problem, experts say, is that a lot of companies don’t set clear objectives for the experiences they create. “You have to figure out what people need,” said Sarah Hall, co-founder and partner of experiential marketing firm Harley & Company. “Then you have to decide if you want to create a deep emotional connection or push them towards a transaction.”
.
Many brands run into trouble by mimicking competitors’ strategies instead of figuring out which experiences make the most sense — and sales — for them. A café is only worth operating if its regulars are also purchasing margin-driving products. A successful restaurant won’t save a struggling department store chain unless diners hit the shoe floor afterwards. An in-store panel discussion will only create goodwill if the mission of the panel meets the mission of the brand.
.
“It's about questioning and redesigning every aspect of how the store works and how it sells what it sells,” said retail industry futurist Doug Stephens. “It's an intensive process that begins by breaking down the entire customer journey into its smallest micro-moments and then, within each of those moments, designing experiences that are surprising, unique, personalised, engaging and, most importantly, repeatable.”[Moi ici: E recuar a 2008 e ao primeiro e ao segundo texto sobre a batota]
.
Remaking the in-store experience often means a significant (and expensive) overhaul.
...
Experts underscore that good experiences are only worthwhile if they are accompanied by good products."

Trechos retirados de "The Pitfalls of Investing in Experiential Retail"

Ainda mais temas para o futuro do retalho e da produção

Parte I e parte II.

"The decline of Payless can be attributed partly to broader trends in the market. The brand’s stores were largely located in malls, and there has a general decrease in the amount of foot traffic at large shopping centers over the last few years.
.
But there’s also an important shift happening in consumer behavior. People are moving away from poorly made, inexpensive fashion items. For decades fast fashion, epitomized by brands like H&M and Forever21, churned out cheap, fashionable clothes that customers could wear a few times before chucking out. But as I’ve reported before, many fast fashion brands are now on the decline.
.
Payless was the shoe equivalent of fast fashion. The brand was not known for the quality or durability of its product, but competed largely on price. As a result, customers could buy whatever boot or heel was in season, and expect to throw it away months later. Consumers appear to be tired of this approach, partly because it is so environmentally unsound. While Payless has spiraled downwards, a flock of brands making high-quality, eco-friendly, durable shoes like M.Gemi, Allbirds, and Rothy’s have been thriving."

O impacte desta evolução no retalho, nas marcas, na produção, nos materiais e design - pense nisso!

Trecho retirado de "What the Payless bloodbath says about the death of fast fashion"

Mais temas para o futuro do retalho

Parte I.

"Payless ShoeSource this week filed for Chapter 11 protection and said it would be closing all 2,500 store locations across North America as well as its e-commerce operations. With over 16,000 jobs lost, it is one of the largest retailer liquidation to date, according to the Wall Street Journal.
...
 we need see these closings as a sign of change and heed the lessons wisely, because what "killed" all three [Moi ici: Payless, Toys R Us e a Sears] is not just Amazon or the internet, but a new business paradigm."

Ontem vi este video sobre o Revolut e N26 e é o mesmo fenómeno: "a new business paradigm". Ter especial atenção às palavras do economista Vinay Pranjivam e os trechos que se seguem, retirados de “Unlocking the Customer Value Chain” de Thales S. Teixeira.

Ontem de manhã li estes trechos:

"The Concept of Decoupling
...
Wondering precisely how disruptors were unsettling small parts of incumbents’ businesses, I turned to a basic framework that my colleagues and I teach our students: the customer’s value chain, or CVC. A CVC is composed of the discrete steps a typical customer follows in order to select, buy, and consume a product or service. CVCs vary according to the specifics of a business, industry, or product.

Traditionally, consumers completed all these activities with the same company in a joint or coupled manner.
...
What I realized, as I thought about these examples, was that disruptors had posed a threat by breaking the links between some of the stages of the CVC and then “stealing” one or a few stages for themselves to fulfill.”

Trechos iniciais retirados de "Valuable Lessons Learned From the Closing of Payless Shoes"

"the name of the game"

Há-de chegar um ponto de viragem, (será que já chegou?), em que o dinheiro gasto na economia das experiências vai provocar mossa na economia dos bens, ainda que o dinheiro não fique parado.

Um padrão, "Tours4Fun Launches Handcrafted Vacations, a Custom Travel Company for Specialty Groups and Independent Luxury Travelers" [Moi ici: Gosto do nome Handcrafted Vacations]:

""Personalization is the name of the game when it comes to the travel customer experience."
...
"We've experienced a tremendous increase in demand for customized vacations in recent years," said Kevin Du, Trinity Travel Group CEO. "With Handcrafted Vacations, we're well-positioned to continue meeting our client's ever-growing desire for unique and innovative travel experiences and itineraries. In addition, our new division enables us to reach more markets while expanding our personalized travel services to a broader range of audiences, ages and special interests."

E, "X-treme Luxury Travel for Billionaires: The Rise of Luxpeditions":

"Experiences are the new possessions. Transformational travel is the new authenticity. Expeditions are the new vacations.
...
"A Luxpedition is for those who want their Bear Grylls experience during the daytime but, at night, want to blast away the dust, dirt and sweat with a power shower and slip beneath crisp, clean sheets." [Moi ici: Recordar a oferta durante o dia e durante a noite no postal de Dezembro de 2010 que se segue]

• Dezembro de 2010 - Mais uma sugestão de modelo de negócio
• Maio de 2014 - O essencial é co-criar à medida de cada um, a sua experiência
• Maio de 2015 - "uma oportunidade tremenda de se diferenciar" (parte IV)
• Setembro de 2015 - O Douro na rota das experiências

Também por isto sou um contrarian (parte II)

Parte I.

A propósito de "Robôs destroem 440 mil empregos na indústria e comércio até 2030" e do pormenor:

"Indústria, comércio, transportes, funções administrativas e de públicas e agricultura. Estão entre os sectores onde o impacto da automação na destruição de emprego mais se fará sentir."

Sorrio e vou buscar "Report: Retailers have zero clue what shoppers really want":

"Hey, retail executive. It’s very nice of you to suggest I speak with your robot, but no, I’ll pass. It looks like there is a fully functioning human standing in the corner of your shop. Would it really be too much trouble to speak with him instead?
...
I’m not the only one who feels like this. In a report that comes as a surprise to absolutely no one but overeager retail execs, 95% of consumers don’t want to talk to a robot when they are shopping, neither online nor in brick-and-mortar stores. And 86% have no desire for other shiny new technologies either, like artificial intelligence and virtual reality. I, for one, don’t want to pop into a store to quickly pick up that alpaca sweater I saw online, only to have some sort of weird headset shoved in my face.
...
The vast majority of retail executives believe that AI and VR will increase foot traffic and sales, but 48% of shoppers say these technologies will have zero impact on whether they visit a store, and only 14% say they will make a purchase because of these technologies. This also applies to online technologies like chatbots. Seventy-nine percent of retail execs believe that chatbots are meeting shopper’s needs by providing on-demand customer service, while 66% of consumers disagree, with many respondents noting that chatbots are, in fact, more damaging to the shopping experience than helpful."

 Até parece que a batota da interacção entre humanos passa por robôs?!?!?!?!

E recordo a economia das experiências, "The experience economy is booming, but it must benefit everyone":

"The only companies that will exist in 10 years’ time are those that create and nurture human experiences. This learning and growth will come from maximizing opportunities, including the reinvention of retail spaces, new models of engagement, and an understanding of experiences as perhaps the most important form of marketing."

Criar experiências

Fala-se muito sobre a necessidade das lojas físicas criarem experiências.

Poucas vezes li um texto tão prático como "What a Toys “R” Us Comeback Could Look Like":

"retailers today face two choices: offer consumers time well saved or time well spent. Toys “R” Us failed at the former strategy in its first incarnation. In coming out of bankruptcy, the company must pursue a time-well-spent strategy, offering places where both parents and their kids enjoy great experiences.
...
For the reborn company to have a chance, it must turn 180 degrees and embrace a parent- and kid-centric strategy. It must become a stager of toy-playing experiences — enticing consumers into its new places by offering experiences that both parents and kids value. (What child wants to go to a warehouse? What child doesn’t want to play?) It should strive to maximize the time consumers spend in its places, because the longer they are there, the more they will buy. This is the essence of a time-well-spent strategy.
.
Imagine venues designed not around stocking toy packages with never-ending red-tag sales but around toys themselves with never-ending play experiences — one with spots where children can play with LEGO sets and participate in gaming tournaments. Imagine a testing lab where vendors pay to have children play with their latest and greatest toys. Imagine a studio where kids can design and create toys. Imagine becoming THE place for children’s birthday parties. (Surely Toys “R” Us could stage a far better experience than, say, Chuck E. Cheese’s, an experience that actually involves parents rather than shunting them off to the side.) In such venues, the warehouse would be in the back, out of consumers’ sight.
.
The absolute best way of knowing you’re providing time well spent is to charge admission for gaining entry to at least parts of the store"

E a sua loja, como vai passar a cobrar admissão?

Desenhar experiências

Sem muito esforço... aliás sem nenhum esforço, três artigos sobre um tema actual: a economia das experiências e o duelo online/offline no retalho

• Disney is Pouring Billions Into its Parks--and That's Worth Studying for Every Entrepreneur

"From the moment you arrive, your Disney World experience is carefully thought out. The most minute details are covered from the design of the rides to ease of transportation.
.
By mapping out any possible scenario a guest may find themselves in, Disney World eliminates the need to overanalyze. This gives way for people to truly soak in and enjoy their time on the property.
.
When is the last time you analyzed what your customers or clients experience when working with your company? Most likely, the answer is "not often."
.
Evaluate the experience your customers have with your brand. The more you can create a memorable and enjoyable experience the likelihood of them returning as customers, again and again, goes through the roof."

• In the era of online shopping, the retail store is immersive theater

"“What I see in this store, and I hope you do too, is the most experiential and immersive expression of the Nike brand,”
...
“This is basically all about inspiration, and this will be version 1.0, call it, of what we’re doing through the personalization and customization experience,”"

• Experiential new ways of buying fine wine and spirits

"In the spirits room, whiskies from Scotland, Ireland, England and Japan are grouped by style rather than region – “fresh fruit”, “oak spice”, “smoke” – to encourage experimentation.
...
 “You can buy so many things these days ust sitting at home on the couch, so we differentiate ourselves from online by focusing on the experience,”"

Fazedores de experiências - a alquimia do futuro

Acho esta estória uma mina de oportunidades para os que tiverem olhos para ver. Diz-se que vamos a caminho de uma economia de experiências:

“When Doug Dietz set out to visit a local hospital that had recently installed a new magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine, he had little idea of what life was like inside a children’s ward. [Moi ici: BTW, a sua empresa faz isto? Vê os produtos ou serviços a serem usados no contexto pelos seus utilizadores?] A soft-spoken midwesterner with a wry, endearing smile, Doug is a twenty-four-year veteran of General Electric (GE). He works as an industrial designer at GE Healthcare, where he is responsible for the overall machine enclosures, controls, displays, and patient transfer units.
.
“I see this young family coming down the hallway, and I can tell as they get closer that the little girl is weeping. As they get even closer to me, I notice the father leans down and just goes, ‘Remember we talked about this, you can be brave,’” Doug recalled. As the MRI began to make a terrible noise, the little girl started to cry. Doug later learned that hospitals had routinely resorted to sedating young patients because they became too scared to lie still for long enough. As many as 80 percent of the patients had to undergo general anesthesia.
.
After witnessing the anxiety and fear his life-saving machine had caused, Doug resolved to redesign the imaging experience. His boss at GE, who had visited Stanford’s d.school while working at Procter & Gamble, suggested that Doug fly to California for a weeklong workshop. Doug knew he couldn’t launch a big research and design (R&D) project to redesign an MRI machine from scratch. But at d.school, he learned a human-centered approach to redesigning the experience. Over the next five years, with a new team, Doug would elicit the views of staff from a local children’s museum, hospital employees, parents, and kids and create many prototypes that would allow his ideas to be seen, touched, and experienced. Testing and evaluation with young patients and interviews with their parents then revealed what worked and what didn’t, helping Doug to generate even more ideas in a continuous cycle.
.
The result was the Adventure Series, through which young children were transported into an imaginary world where the scanning process was part of an adventure. Hospital wards included “Pirate Island,” “Jungle Adventure,” “Cozy Camp,” and “Coral City.” in one of them, children would climb into the scanner’s transfer unit, which had been painted like a canoe, and then lie down. The normally terrifying “BOOM-BOOM-BOOM” noise of the scanner became part of the adventure—it was the sound of an imaginary canoe taking off. “They tell children to hold still so that they don’t rock the boat, and if you really do hold still, the fish will start jumping over the top of you,” Dietz said. Children loved the experience so much that they begged their parents to let them do it again. Sedation rates went down by 80 percent, while parent satisfaction rose by an astounding 90 percent. A mother reported that her six-year-old daughter, who had just been scanned in the MRI “pirate ship,” came over, tugged on her skirt, and whispered, “Mommy, can we come back tomorrow?”"

Fiquei a pensar, com um pouco de contextualização, com algum investimento no cenário conseguiram aquele:

“Mommy, can we come back tomorrow?”

Em quantos outros sectores um "human-centered approach to redesigning the experience" pode fazer milagres?

Esta manhã, a caminho da camioneta para Bragança passei pela Confeitaria do Bolhão e juro, quase 12 anos depois, ainda me recordei desta cena e deste título: "I'm not an order taker. I'm an experience maker!"

Excerto de “Leap”. de Howard Yu.

"we travel to have experiences"

Simplesmente extraordinário, "Falconry and fire-swallowing: How Airbnb's "Experiences" are transforming the platform".

Ainda ontem escrevia num postal:

"O importante, para subir na escala de valor, é deixar de vender o que se produz e passar a focar no resultado que se obtém com o que se produz"

Entretanto, à tarde, a caminho de Bragança, encontrei o artigo acima:

"Ten years ago, Airbnb disrupted the hotel industry and changed how people travel. Now, it's selling what you do on vacation as much as where you sleep. There are thousands of "Experiences" around the world to book on Airbnb — everything from walking with wolves to aerial yoga and even, as CBS News' Jamie Yuccas found out, flying in a vintage airplane." 

Recordar:

• As experiências estão em todo o lado (Setembro de 2011) 
• Mais uma sugestão de modelo de negócio (Setembro de 2010)

"Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky launched the "Experiences" feature two years ago. He says it's now growing 10 times faster than the company's core home rental business.
.
"Three out of four millennials, young people, said they'd rather buy an experience than a physical good. And so I think the experience economy is this huge wave," Chesky said. "We want the experience to be so good that you do them even if you live in the city."
...
"We don't travel to sleep in a house or a hotel, we travel to have experiences.""

Para reflexão

"Experiences, which offers users activities hosted by locals — like a photography workshop or a cooking class — is now doing a million and a half bookings on an annualized basis. It’s growing much faster than Homes did, according to Chesky, who shared the data point that three in four millennials said they’d rather buy an Experience than a physical good."

Imaginem quando os hospedeiros por cá começarem a oferecer mais do que o espaço e se concentrarem no pacote completo.

Trecho retirado de "The experience economy will be a ‘massive business,’ according to Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky"

"Experiences won’t just sell products. Experiences will be the products"

Esta semana durante uma conversa percebi que para algumas pessoas que lidam como fornecedores do retalho ainda não é claro o conceito de economia das experiências.

Entretanto, encontrei mais um texto interessante sobre o tema, "Why Retail Is Getting 'Experience' Wrong":

"Customer experience is not only the new frontier of competitive differentiation but also, as I’ve often asserted, the future of how physical retailers will generate revenue. Experiences won’t just sell products. Experiences will be the products. Yet, for all the violent agreement about their value, the customer experiences we most often have when we shop are mediocre and forgettable at best.
...
Most retailers assume customer experience is primarily an aesthetic concept and more about how stores and websites look and feel.
...
Other retailers assume that customer experience simply means better, friendlier or more personalised service.
...
True customer experience design means deconstructing the entire customer journey into its smallest component parts and then reengineering each component to look, feel and most importantly, operate differently than before and distinctly from competitors. It means digging below the surface within each moment to understand the underlying customer need and designing the exact combination of people, place, product and process to deliver delight in that micro-moment."[Moi ici: O artigo lista 5 características da construção de experiências de loja]

Recordar:

• Um mundo polarizado (parte VI)
• Um mundo polarizado (parte V)
• Um mundo polarizado (parte IV)
• Um mundo polarizado (parte II)
• Acerca da evolução do retalho 
• "What would we do differently if we charged admission?"

Pensar e gerir a "experiência do cliente"

Aplicável a tantas empresas em tantos sectores:

"IDEO's architects revealed that patients and family often became annoyed well before seeing a doctor because checking in was a nightmare and waiting rooms were uncomfortable. They also showed that Kaiser's doctors and medical assistants sat too far apart. IDEO's cognitive psychologists pointed out that people, especially the young, the old, and immigrants, visit doctors with a parent or friend, but that second person is often not allowed to stay with the patient, leaving the afflicted alienated and anxious. IDEO's sociologists explained that patients hated Kaiser's examination rooms because they often had to wait alone for up to 20 minutes half-naked, with nothing to do, surrounded by threatening needles. IDEO and Kaiser concluded that the patient experience can be awful even when people leave treated and cured.
.
What to do? After just seven weeks with IDEO, Kaiser realized its long-range growth plan didn't require building lots of expensive new facilities. What it needed was to overhaul the patient experience. Kaiser learned from IDEO that seeking medical care is much like shopping -- it is a social experience shared with others. So it needed to offer more comfortable waiting rooms and a lobby with clear instructions on where to go; larger exam rooms, with space for three or more people and curtains for privacy, to make patients comfortable; and special corridors for medical staffers to meet and increase their efficiency. "IDEO showed us that we are designing human experiences, not buildings," says Adam D. Nemer, medical operations services manager at Kaiser. "Its recommendations do not require big capital expenditures."

Quem tem a responsabilidade de pensar e gerir a "experiência do cliente"?

O mais fácil é pensar que é tudo uma questão de tecnologia:

• Retailers Race Against Amazon to Automate Stores;
• This automated restaurant was supposed to be the future of dining. Until humanity struck back

Trecho inicial retirado de "The Power Of Design"

Vender projectos (parte II)

Parte I.

"Clearly, the shift to becoming a project-driven organization and selling projects rather than products or services presents sizeable challenges to corporations and their business models. Working in projects throughout my career, I have identified these as the important ones:
.
Revenue streams. Revenues will be generated progressively over long periods of time, instead of right after the sale of a product. This will affect the way revenues are recognized, as well as accounting policies and the overall company valuation.
Pricing model. New pricing models will need to be developed. It is easier to price a product, for which most of the fixed and variable costs are known, than a project, which is influenced by many external factors.
Quality control. Delivering quality products will not be enough to meet customer expectations. Implementation and post-implementation services will also have to be of the highest possible quality to ensure that clients continue to buy projects.
Branding and marketing. Traditional marketing has focused on short-term immediate benefits. Marketing teams will need to promote the long-term benefits of the projects sold by the organization.
Sales force. The buyer of the project will no longer be the procurement department of an organization. Sales will be pitched to leaders of the business, so the sales force and sales skills will have to be upgraded with strategy and project management competencies."

Trecho retirado de "Selling Products Is Good. Selling Projects Can Be Even Better"

Vender projectos (parte I)

"In the beginning companies sold products. And then they sold services. In recent years, the fashionable suggestion has been that companies sell experiences and solutions, solving the needs and aspirations of customers.
.
Companies, indeed, do all of these things. But increasingly, what companies sell are projects. To understand the difference, think of an athletic shoe company, such as Nike or Adidas. A focus on products means a focus on selling running shoes. A focus on experiences might mean they sell you a membership to a local running club. A focus on solutions might mean they figure out how to help you reach your goal weight. While these clearly offer more value than simply selling you a pair of shoes, they also have limitations. Selling products limits the revenues you can make from clients: Unless you are innovating and continually updating your product offering, customer attrition tends to be high, and incentivizing repurchases can be hard. Selling experiences provides intangible benefits that are hard to quantify and measure, often focusing on meeting the needs of one single customer, preventing any mass production. Selling solutions became popular in the early 2000s when customers didn’t know how to solve their problems. But today, in the internet age, people can do their own research and define the solutions for themselves.
.
A focus on selling projects would mean helping someone do something more specific, such as running the Boston Marathon. Nike could provide you with its traditional sports gear, but in addition it could include a training program, a dietary plan, a coach, and a monitoring system to help you achieve your dream. The project would have a clear goal (finish the marathon) and a clear start and end date.
.
And that is just one type of project. More so than products, the possibilities with projects are endless."

Treco retirado de "Selling Products Is Good. Selling Projects Can Be Even Better"

A experiência é o truque

"Whoever gets the experience right will be the winner, because people don't always want the least expensive thing, and early majority and late adopter customers don't appreciate the newest technology, but everyone wants a great experience. Since experience can be improved in any product or service, in any industry or situation, the opportunities to improve customer experience are virtually unlimited, and simply waiting for the right entrepreneur or innovator to come along."

Trecho retirado de "Why You Should Spend Bigger on Customer Experience Innovation"