Breaking the Barriers in Total Customer Experience

[Full disclosure – You might want to take this with a grain of salt since he’s my dad.]

Joe Pine kicked off Tuesday with an introduction to how experiences are the new offering in this economy.

We have progressed from the commodities market, to an industrial economy focused on goods, to a service economy, and now to a market that values experiences. The value of an experiential offering is based off how much time consumers are willing to spend with you.

The recession isn’t slowing down this progress; instead, it is accelerating the shift to experiences being what consumers truly want. With limited spending money, people are realizing they don’t value “stuff.” They value shared experiences with loved ones. Soon, experiences will become the predominant economic offering and even generate more jobs.

Experiences aren’t always experiences in real time and space. Companies like Layar use digital technology to enhance experiences. There’s been an explosion of this technology – it’s a migration from reality to virtuality. We need to figure out how to use technology to enhance experiences by fusing the real and the virtual and exploring the “Multiverse” (explained in his book, “Infinite Possibility”).

Here are Joe’s tips on designing experiences:

- Make the experience cohesive

o Use the design principle of THEME:

§ Theme

§ Harmonize impressions with positive cues

§ Eliminate negative cues

§ Mix in memorabilia

§ Evoke all five sense

- Make the experience rich – hit the sweet spot of the experience

- Make your experience individual – experiences happen inside of us

- Make your experience authentic – be true to self

- Make your experience compelling

o Embrace dramatic structure of Exposition, Inciting Incident, Rising Action, Crisis, Climax, Falling Action, and Denouement

Measure the success of an experience by how much time a customer is willing to spend with you – whether in real life or in the virtual world.

“With technology it’s limited only by our imagination, and to that there is no end.”