Experience Design: the New Battleground for Revenue Growth

by Kelly Erickson



ISO-PODB and Beyond

When Shaun contacted me to write a guest-post about Experience Design, I was up to my ears in work. I dug out immediately and started to think about what I’d like to say to Capable Blog readers, because of one thing Shaun wrote:

"...experience design is becoming more and more important because the customer expects everybody's product to basically "work," so this will be one of the new battlegrounds for business"


The new battleground. It is indeed. I love quality improvement, the methods and the results. As I told Shaun one of my first proper jobs was as director of TQM for a branch of a home improvement chain. W. Edwards Deming’s theories have been with me ever since. Better procedures, better products, measurable improvements, all great — but all on the inside. The battle is for the hearts, minds, and (let’s be cold) wallets of the customer, and quality improvements are not the battleground


The Bad News

TQM, ISO 9000, Six Sigma... your customers don’t care. Even the ones who are required to make sure they deal with companies who are certified don’t care. Nobody buys because your productivity is awesome or you’re down to 2 flaws per zillion. Let me repeat: Your customers don’t care

“Quality Is Job 1” is a tired tagline (even Ford doesn’t use it anymore, as far as I can tell from a quick internet search) that is just not in tune with what your customers are begging you for

Quality, folks, is everyone’s job one. That’s the Price of Doing Business, or as I like to call it, PODB. The customer expects your product to be right, your people to be efficient, and your price to be competitive. Just raising the quality issue can sometimes backfire. Quality is so expected that saying “we are quality” makes me wonder if maybe you’re not. What if a hospital said, “we are clean?” - would you worry less, or more? You can’t compete on quality because the customer isn’t listening to you. In a marketplace crowded with messages, shouting “we’re really, really good” along with everyone else is really, really lame


Experience Is Job 1

The good news is, if you are reading this blog you have a certain level of quality in place, and you are working on your continuous improvement process right now (learning about improvement leads you toward improvement, right?)

If you’ve covered the PODB — if your product basically works — then it’s time to design your Customer Experience. Job 1 is now to provide delight to the customer (yes, even B2B Experiences can provide delight)

Getting the answers to these Customer Experience questions right can help your company grow:

  • How does your Ideal Customer hear about you? (word of mouth, signage, internet search, marketing, PR efforts...)
  • Why do they buy from you? (desperate? last resort? need? want? desire?)
  • Is it easy to do business with you? (your website, your store or office hours, telephone, in person, other human [interactive] experience)
  • Is it pleasant (fun is better), memorable, remarkable to do business with you? (what is the experience of your physical space like? What is your graphic presence like? Are your staff your biggest fans, providing amazing interactive experience?)
  • Are customers satisfied with the product/service you provide? (Check. PODB, remember?)
  • What happens after the sale? (did you create memories for the customer? can they talk about you and your product long after the sale?)
  • What if something goes wrong? (studies show that customers who have a satisfying resolution of a problem are actually more engaged customers than those who’ve never had a problem at all! Pay attention, you QC fanatics. Don’t aim for perfection. Aim for very fine, with awesome customer service to resolve problems—you’ll get a higher ROI than striving to remove that last .001% of flaws!)
  • Do you actively encourage word-of-mouth? (are you the customer’s secret source, the one they can’t wait to share with others?)


Your product is good. Relax a little, and remember the old adage: people don’t buy the drill, they buy the hole. Are you delivering a remarkable message about your Ideal Solution to the problem in all your interactions with the customer? Now focus, find the Ideal Customers, and delight them


Experience Design:

The practice of creating an integrated graphic, physical (spatial), and interactive environment, considering all points of customer engagement with a company. A customer’s experience may begin long before they arrive at your door, with word-of-mouth, telephone calls, or Internet research, and may continue long after, either directly (with a product purchased) or indirectly, through memories and conversations with others


 Creating well-designed, sincere, authentic Customer Experiences across all touch-points leads to rich customer relationships and long-term growth. (From Key Concepts in Experience Design)

That’s what we all want for our businesses, isn’t it?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson





About Kelly Erickson: No matter how high the work piles, I always leave my ears out so I can hear your stories: as the owner of VisionPoints, The Experience Designers, I'm obsessed with your success.


For more writings about Experience Design, visit the Maximum Customer Experience Blog