Being either sick or just plain busy and without any energy, I really haven’t been paying much attention to blogs lately. I just happened to stumble across Mark Bertil’s not-too-recent blog post about user experience of a bookstore. But … I think the term “user” isn’t correct in this case. It seems too limiting in the case of a bookstore (or any retail store for that matter). A website can focus on user experience but an organization itself must focus on something greater.
Be it a website or retail floor that serves as the platform, the customer should be the focus and their unique experiences are what businesses and organizations want to derive insight from in order to achieve their goals or objectives.
To be honest, aside from the odd local bookstore that actually cultivates, in my opinion, some form of authentic community — majority of bookstores (and the big box stores) I walk into are pretty standard, I notice two primary types of customers. One that is browsing — simply identifying their next reads, needs and wants, and the other that is seeking something specific.
If you begin to look at your bookstore as a living organism — you can start to systematically (or … biologically?) identify the number of inputs and outputs, I/O ports, gates, or whatever you want to refer to them as. When it comes to your inputs and outputs, the key really is to simply be listening, identifying potential and existing problems, and working towards addressing those problems.
Those are really just the basics — laying the foundation for your customer. Similar to designing the walls and components that make up a living cell.
The next tier, stage, or level, however one would want to phrase it, involves understanding the who, what, where, when, why, and how. You name it.
Who likes what?
Who goes where?
What goes where?
Why do they go there?
Why do they like what?
How do they get there?
An organism, like a living cell or its components, needs to adequately (and in some cases pro-actively) respond and adapt to its dynamic environment. It’s no different for the bookstore or business, escalating the needs and wants of a customer requires more than a feedback loop — the no/few-questions-asked type of understanding or comprehension of what we want as unique individuals with diverse interests and motivations. This means acknowledging that the customer isn’t always right — what they say does not always mean what they really think.
Why do we need to register on an e-commerce site? An extra step that is unnecessary. True there are reasons why, but few e-commerce platforms provide customers with a solid justification.
Customer service representatives — the ones with an intuitive understanding, comprehensive knowledge, and the motivation to help — are key to identifying changes in behaviour. That said, how this dynamic intelligence and power is wielded and deployed will likely determine the level of engagement of the customer. Technology will assist — but the decision-making process is still human.
I think it would be interesting to study biology as a model for learning how to deploy an effective customer experience…
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Ehren, I am intrigued by the idea of biology as a model for customer experience. I can't think of many models that are both generic enough to be applicable everywhere and specific enough to address needs individually. Perhaps porting biology to customer experience via architecture would yield interesting tactics and strategies?
Hi Mark! Biology is a pretty broad study so I'm confident there are learnings that one could draw from and apply for customer experience. The simple nervous system of our own body for example, could be identified as a feedback loop but also as a homeostasis regulator — maintaining the chemical balance. Even this isn't directly applicable, but the essence of this idea is that the nervous system is actually somewhat decentralized rather than centralized. The brain has different regions that coordinates different parts of the body (and even the mind). I'm really just touching the surface (because I don't want to write a biology essay
) but how we apply this idea to how we coordinate our responses to issues (as an organization or business is relatively similar to a degree depending on your perspective.
Another look at biology would be the study of ants, bees, etc. and their interactions with one another. I believe TED has a number of videos on that topic too. But you are right that porting biology to customer experience directly or indirectly would possibly yield some insight or testing of customer interaction — and thus maybe some interesting results. This isn't a new idea but it's something that I feel is overlooked because a lot of people out there forget about the essence behind biology and chemistry when they're so focused on their core business.