Tag: customer experience

What does is mean to “help brands be their best inner selves” once the brand positioning is set?

There is an important overlap between brand strategy, culture, and team management. Once a new brand positioning is established, it’s only as good as the structures and people who integrate and practice it. A fully functioning brand needs to work on the outside, for your customers, and on the inside, for your people. 

Here are 3 somewhat non-traditional ways you can support internal problem-solving, energy and vibes, and creativity inside your organization, whether it’s just you or you + many:

Host a horrible, terrible, very worst ideas summit.
When seeking new solutions to hard problems, an invitation to bring bad ideas to the party might enable the most internally critical people (and therefore quiet ones) to share an infant solution, which can, with a supportive team, grow into a better, better grown-up one.

Throw a framing party.
What? A framing party reminds people that every interaction comes with a message that tells a story and can influence outcomes. When we work more formally, we have briefs, check-ins, and other support to help us stay aligned and on mission. Still, when it comes to our independent day-to-day actions, we are nearly unconscious, and if we have had a bad morning or some unexpected personal event, we bring the residue of that experience with us. Most of us have felt it from others.  Like a skunk run over on the road, it’s hard to get that smell out of your nose or that feeling coming off your coworker out of your head, but we do it too. The sign on the door for this problem would read, “You are responsible for the energy you bring into this room.” It’s a wake-up call that we unconsciously walk around, holding and dispersing energy. Ask yourself what you’re trying to accomplish the next time you walk through a door. What frame of mind will support you and others? Giving yourself a brief moment of thought and reframing between events can vastly change how you show up and the outcome of your presence. 

Pause for better ideas.
I am frequently asked by people where and how creative ideas arise. The belief seems to be that they are brought on by things like sunsets and balconies with glasses of wine – no, no, no – wine increases my silliness and volume but not my ideas. The ideas come after a pause. The process starts with a problem to solve and a brief, then curiosity and questions, then input, which takes many forms and can be but is not limited to research, information sharing, interviews, site visits, exploration, and then, full of information, like that moment after consuming a big meal, I want to rest. And it is this rest period that is the magic. When your brain has been primed by the brief and fed full of information, it can work in the background while you do everyday life things like chores, driving, showering, cleaning, and walking here and there. And then, after a bit, ideas emerge. I capture them on napkins, voice memos, paper notebooks, and scraps. Stickies are great, but moleskins are better. It feels like magic, but it’s how our brains work, every brain, not just mine. (see how Dali, Einstein & Aristotle leveraged the concept here) Resting is a necessary part of the equation. Yay, micronaps.

What tricks and tips have you found work to inspire yourself and your team? 

 

Can I borrow your eyes for a moment? Using empathy to better understand and engage your ideal customer.

To win eyeballs you might want to first imagine they are yours.

It’s very easy to look at perceived behavior and data, and project what people want. But it’s another thing to empathize with the experience of your key customers to better understand where they might be coming from and what they need from you.

You want their attention, their eyeballs, but what you really need are their eyes.

To better understand how to get their attention, imagine first that you can borrow their eyes and look out. While you’re at it, borrow their shoes as well. You don’t need a degree in cultural anthropology, as fascinating as the Yanomamo people and indigenous tribes of Africa can be. Instead try pausing for a moment letting go of your own view of the world, and your own beliefs and stories of how things work and simply imagine that you are your target customer.

What is that customer thinking about when he/she wakes up? What is their biggest challenge of the morning or day? What do they need most? And how does what you do solve for that need?

Use data. Use empathy. Use both to gain broader insights into the real challenges your customer faces and how you can help solve them.

“Is there a greater miracle than to see through another’s eyes even for an instant.”

-Henry David Thoreau

 

 

 

 

How do users really experience your brand?

The repetition of traveling daily to one place, driving into the same building or walking into the same space can cause an unintended blindness to what is in front of and around us. Understandably, most people are moving through life, intently focused on the next action steps needed to achieve their goals. This practice repeated contributes to success, but over time, can also contribute to oversights that can damage the perception of your brand.

How is space related to your brand, you may be wondering?

“The impact architecture has on a person’s mood is huge. Arguably these are the fundamentals of architecture: not how it looks, but how we feel it, through the way it allows us to act, behave, think and reflect,” says Dr. Melanie Dodd, program director of spatial practices at the Central St Martins art school.

Given that your mood can positively or negatively affect your entire day, why not leverage this information to benefit the perception and experience of your brand?

Below are 7 simple steps to help you see your environment and pivot where necessary to make a more positive impression.

Take a walk.

Start to gain objectivity by stepping away from your space and re-entering along a new or different path. If time permits, take a quick walk around the block and come back inside through an entrance not normally taken.

Settle into a moment. 

Find a place to sit, ideally with a view of the busiest area. Put on your Margaret Mead hat and get curious.

What is the flow of users?

Where are they coming from? Where are they going? Where are they congregated? How does this behavior inform the placement of your signage, both fixed and temporary? Is anyone lost or confused? Is the flow of movement efficient?

A visitor will most likely not tell you that a sign could be in a more helpful place, or include a more clear message, but watching traffic flow for just 5 minutes during a busy time of day will.

How are people using the space?

Furnishings? Accessories? Signage? Is there anything that can be added, moved or removed to improve the user experience?

What do you hear? 

Watch and listen to interactions with staff members: How are valets handling car flows? How are security and staff members handling check-ins? What phrases, questions, comments, and expressions are you hearing by those passing by?

Is there music? Is there clanging? Is there a buzz of energy or a din of chaos?

How does what you see align with your original vision?

And how is what you currently see aligning with users needs? Or not aligning?

Celebrate, ideate and take action.

Make a note of what’s working well or better than you envisioned. Reach out to staff or managers to pass on positive feedback and reinforce what’s working.

Address neutral or negative observations with a 30-minute afternoon brainstorming session. Bring issues to light and invite team members to share ideas for shifting the user experience toward the positive and in a way that is more aligned with your original vision.

Periodically repeat the steps above, to remain attentive to and nurture the brand you have so carefully built. Leverage the power of space to convert customers to a happy army of brand advocates.

Share your story.

Have other ways that you find objectivity in the familiar? Or tips for furthering the connection between your audience and your brand through curated spaces? Send us an email, we’d love to hear more.