Customer Experience

Last week I attended a wonderful seminar on Customer Value that was put on by the American Marketing Association of Minnesota. The speaker was Lou Carbone of Experience Engineering: http://www.expeng.com/lou-carbone.htm

If you have not seen Lou speak on the subject of Customer Value you should. He had some fresh perspective on this subject matter and much like other valuable speakers was quite engaging.

Lou talked about the notion of moving from the current practice of "Make & Sell" to "Sense & Respond." It’s about the effect your products/services have on how the person feels about themselves vs. simply selling them on features and attributes (It’s the effect....not the function).

Lou spoke on his own experience with a local Minnesota airline company. The airline company is under the impression Lou is a very "loyal customer" because of his frequent use of their products / services, but in reality his customer experience is anything but wonderful....in fact its horrible. Lou shared that he does not feel good about himself following his experience with this particular airline company (I’m sure we can all relate). Thus....there is a difference between the pains of change vs. a truly loyal customer OR in some cases not having an other options available so the customer is left with no other choice.

Lou also spoke about "The Brand Canyon" which is a distinction between Brand, Service & Experience. Brand being what the customer feels about the company, Service is what the company does to the customer and Experience is what the customer feels about themselves.

One of the last things Lou shared (which I personally believe there is much truth in) is the iddea that what really drives business is emotion not rationality. Think about Starbucks Coffee. Is it rational to drive out of your way and pay $5 for a cup of coffee or is it the way that experience makes you feel?...emotion over rationality.