Thinking Customer Experience through Design Thinking

Thinking Customer Experience through Design Thinking

We have need(s) unmet. The late remembrance of a beloved birthday, anniversary, or reunion, but not having that one thing to make the day a wonderful experience. The experience of feeling at home away from home in the five-star hotel suite. The catering service experience in a professional conference or meeting, which makes you think of returning to the meeting next year. Every day of life, there are several needs, opportunities, and business needs which I will call life needs, that must be satisfied. Every individual or customer has these needs which need to be fulfilled. Let the customer experience be the driver in the design thinking on the new product, service, or process improvement. Work through the customer’s journey concerning that innovation. What experience, feelings, and expectations do you see regarding the customers or users of the products or services? Let the design brief be the North Star in the design thinking process to improve the customer experience (Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011).

According to Liedtka & Ogilvie (2011), a customer-centric focused organization must consider customer co-creation not optional. Customer co-creation should be required when funds are allocated to a growth project. Customer co-creation is the process of engaging a potential customer in developing new business offerings. It involves putting some prototypes in front of potential customers, observing their reactions, and using the results to iterate your way to an improved offering. Diversify customer recruitment for multiple independent feedbacks on the creation phase. The customer should do most of the talking about 80% of the time. Encourage safe and free feedback and provide a small menu of choices for customers to express their views. Following the recruitment of potential customers, engage individual customers one at a time for independent opinion gathering devoid of a group or peer influence. This allows the collection of unbiased customer opinions (Brown, 2009; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011).

In using design thinking to improve the customer experience, select the need, and think in bits, yes, think small, and scale the outcome for a broader customer audience. Refuse the thought of a grandeur product; it is not asserting here that thinking big is wrong. You might have a big idea and thought; however, initiate the design thinking process in small steps. In their model, Liedtka & Ogilvie (2011) suggested four essential questions to consider in the design thinking process, and they are linked to the innovation toolkit: What is? (Journey mapping, value chain analysis, mind mapping, and brainstorming); What if? (Concept development); what wows? (Assumption testing, rapid prototyping) and what works? (Customer co-creation and learning launch). Consider the selection and leading of your team critically and recognize your flow and the speed of decision-making and responsibility. Make the RACI tool integral to design thinking (Liedtka, 2011; Liedtka & Ogilvie, 2011). Routine team meetings, check-in, review, record keeping, and celebrating little wins with all stakeholders are essential (Brown, 2009).

Whether you are innovating to improve the individual or organizational customer’s experience, it is essential to identify and work through the design thinking process from understanding the customer’s needs, their lives, value offerings, and ways that organizational capabilities can be harnessed to provide the best experience to the customers. Make the customers co-creators in the process, and learn from their stories, which might ensure better offerings and improve their experiences and the business bottom line.

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?Reference

Brown, T. (2009). How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation Change By Design, Australia.

Liedtka, J. (2011). Learning to use design thinking tools for successful innovation.?Strategy & Leadership,?39(5), 13–19.

Liedtka, J., & Ogilvie, T. (2011).?Designing for growth: A design thinking tool kit for managers. Columbia University Press.