Ten Different Types of Innovation (cont.) 10
C. Experience (focus on customer-facing elements of an enterprise and its business system - 4th of 4 types)
10. Customer Engagement (how you foster compelling interaction, ie focus on the point of interaction with the consumer and on how to connect and delight them)
Need to understand the deep-seated aspirations of customers and users as a basis for developing meaningful connections.
Using the following tactics:
- social media (channels to communicate with customer)
- graceful simplicity (making life easier for customers)
- trusted partners (customers become partners in the process)
- packaging (extending and elevating the customers' experience)
- autonomy and authority (grant users the power to shape their own experience)
- community and belonging (facilitate visceral connections to make people feel they are part of a group or movement)
- curation (create a distinct point of view to build a strong identity for yourself and give your followers exactly what they want)
- experience automation (reduce complexity and focus by delivering specific experiences exceptionally well)
- experience enabling (extend the realm of what is possible to offer a previously improbable experience)
- experience simplification (reduced complexity of focus on delivering specific experiences exceptionally well)
- mastery (help customers to obtain great skill or deep knowledge of some activity or subject)
- personalisation (alter a standard offering to suit a customer's identity)
- status and recognition (offer cues that convey meaning, allowing users, including those who interact with them, to develop and nurture aspects of their identity)
- whimsy and personality (humanise your offering with small flourishes on-brand, on-message ways of seeming alive), etc
NB The above tactics can be used individually or in combination.
Indicators of success are when the organisation
- takes something arcane, difficult, more complex and makes it easier for users to accomplish or master
- has offerings which tend to take on an identity and life of their own
- has offerings that often confer a unique identity, status, sense of recognition on users
- invites customers to explain how a product or service has become part of their lives
Some examples include
- Apple (initial showing of new hardware and software for developers and affiliates occurs at Worldwide Developers' Conference. This conference allows Apple's partners to experiment with new developments and provide feedback)
- Blizzard Entertainment (developer of multi-player online role-playing games like World of Warcraft (WoW), Battle. net., Mists of Pandaria, etc
"...much of the game's content is designed to encourage collaboration between players, who team up with virtual groups of real people to vanquish wily and dangerous enemies, all to advance through progressive stages of the game. From the beginning, Blizzard's founders have emphasised the importance of focusing on engaging players in a powerful and compelling way..."
Larry Keeley et al, 2013
- Mint.com
"...the online financial management system makes the complex seem simple via the auto-updating formation of the user's personal accounts, tagging and categorising purchases, identifying savings opportunities, and automatically creating budgets..."
Larry Keeley et al, 2013