Many of you may be familiar with the concept of design thinking: a methodology, these days not exclusive for designers, that helps people understand and develop creative ways to solve a specific issue, generally business oriented. This approach to thinking is now extending to CXM, and increasingly being used by The Customer Edge in our engagement with clients.
 
Design thinking involves a set of principles that are applied to a problem. In the CX sense, it involves developing empathy with the customer and devising a responsive, and flexible organisational culture.
 
The key principles of design thinking are:

1. Focus on customer experiences, especially their emotional ones: to build empathy, a design centric organisation empowers employees to observe customer behaviour and draw conclusions about what people need and want. These conclusions are difficult to express in quantitative language; but utilise emotional language (such as desires and aspirations) instead to describe brands, products/services and customers. A traditional customer value proposition is a promise of ‘utility’. An emotional value proposition is a promise of ‘feeling’. The aim is to positively impact user experiences. This focus on delivering great customer experiences isn’t limited to marketers and strategists – it permeates every customer facing function within the organisations. In essence, it is the culture of the business.
   
   
2. Create ‘models’ to examine complex problems: design thinking, first used to develop physical products, is now being applied to complex intangible considerations, such as customer experience. The use of customer journey maps and customer experience mapping are examples of tools and models for building an understanding of the customer experience.
   
   
3. Use prototyping to explore potential solutions: Whilst tools such as customer experience mapping explore the ‘problem’ space, prototyping explores the ‘solution’ space. In short, prototypes are a way to communicate ideas and potential solutions to customer issues and problems.
   
   
4. Tolerate and cope with failure: a design culture is ‘nurturing’ and doesn’t encourage failure. But recognises that the iterative nature of the design process is that it is rare to get things right the first time. The culture of a customer centric business acknowledges this process and allows employees to take (calculated) risks in the prototyping process.
   
   
5. Exhibit thoughtful restraint: many products that are built on an emotional value proposition are simpler than competitive offerings. This restraint is grown out of deliberate decisions about what the product or service should or should not do relative to the target customers. The aim is to offer customers a clear and simple experience.

Of course, adopting a design thinking culture has its challenges. Firstly, the whole organisation needs to embrace design thinking as a core element of its culture. In doing so, they need to overcome several hurdles. These include accepting more ambiguity, embracing risk as transformative innovation is inherently risky; resetting expectations as design thinking – as powerful as it is – doesn’t solve all problems. But it does help organisations cut through complexity and helping organisations imagine the future.
 
Finally, adopting this perspective isn’t easy – especially as on a whole of business basis. But doing so helps create a workplace where employees can respond quickly to changing business needs – in particular, addressing the ever changing and evolving customer needs and expectations.
 
At The Customer Edge we embrace design thinking in our approach to solving problems as we work with many of our clients. Why? Simply because it helps us to achieve better results for our clients.

​I recently returned from an adventure to climb Mt Kilimanjaro in Tanzania …and just for the record, I did make it to the summit but that's a story for another day.

Post Kili, we headed to Zanzibar for some well deserved R&R.

Checking into the Fumba Beach Lodge we were greeted by a charming manager, Shamouil, who welcomed us on behalf of the owner of the hotel (now I should point out that whilst this is not a high-end resort, it is part of a chain of lodges). What followed was the best ‘hotel induction’ I have ever experienced – and over the years I have stayed in a lot of hotels around the world.

What was it that set this experience apart from all the others? 

Quite simply, it was very personal. We were taken to the beach front bar, and given a welcome drink… in itself, not unusual. However, we were then asked what each of us was expecting and wanted from our stay at the hotel.

Everyone in our party talked about what they wanted to do…and it was all duly noted. We were then escorted by Shamouil (please note, not ushered on by one of his team), on a tour of the resort facilities addressing each of our individual needs in the process. We ended with a briefing on the features and facilities of our bungalows that we would call home for the next few days (facing the rolling waves just a few metres away!). As Shamouil went to leave he said; “I will now leave you to settle in – be aware of the monkeys as they like to ‘borrow’ things. If you need anything at all, please contact me directly. I will see you in the beach bar at 5pm for sunset drinks”. Cynically, I thought: Of course you will…I’ve heard that before.

We all re-grouped for lunch – the service and food was excellent. Relaxed and unfussed befitting of the environment. Our friends – unprompted – opened with: “Wow. How good was that briefing by Shamouil?”.

A wonderfully relaxed afternoon by the pool – looking out over the ocean – only interrupted by ‘tea’ at 4pm.

Arriving at the Dhow bar (made from a traditional Zanzibar boat hull) at sunset, we were in fact greeted by Shamouil. My cynicism smashed! We enjoyed a drink with him and good conversation. I commented on how good I found the experience with the check-in and how thorough the introduction to the resort was. Shamouil was humble; “It’s just what I do”, he said. He told me that he had worked in all aspects of the hotel business; starting by washing dishes, all the way up to management. Along the way, he had learned that the hotel business was “all about people” and “understanding their needs”. And that he wants everyone who stays at the Resort to have a “great experience…after all, that’s what brings them back”.

This focus on the ‘customer’ – or ‘guest’ as Shamouil preferred – was infectious. There was a management intern on ‘work experience’ and she told me that she had quickly learned from Shamouil’s example; he was ‘fanatical’ about delivering great service, she told me.

Shamouil and I chatted several times during our stay; when it came time to check out of the resort, Shamouil and his team were there to say goodbye and to thank us for staying with them. It was like leaving the home of good friends.

So, why am I telling this story?

Because, in this age of technology aided CXM, it is refreshing to receive an experience that is driven out of a genuine interest in the customer. And it’s easy to differentiate ‘genuine’ from a ‘manufactured’ experience.

As we say at The Customer Edge, it all starts with the right mind set.
 
Andrew Thornton
Co-Founder and Director