Customer experience, the jazz way

Lessons for customer experience from a master of voice

Over the last couple of days, I have spent a little time with three exceptional musicians: New York's Refuge Trio, made up of Theo Bleckmann, Gary Versace and John Hollenbeck. I was able to take part in a masterclass vocal workshop with Bleckmann, and several of his statements on singing - like so many showbiz ideas - offer excellent insight for customer experience practitioners.

(We spoke in German, and all this is based on my brief notes, so all quotes are no more than "my best attempt" at capturing the meaning.)


The Master on backstage and frontstage
TB: "When you perform, it can feel like a flat film set. It's like behind me is nothing. But that's not true: the music and the energy is all around me."

In experience design, we often think about frontstage and backstage processes - which is a useful distinction. But the interplay between backstage and frontstage is more complex than just boxes arriving from the storeroom.

Theo's words reminded me that the spaces behind the scenes and in front of the scenes share a common energy - one which customers can sense, and staff can be motivated (or demotivated) by. Remember, the frontstage/backstage boundary is real, but it is permeable to more than just product.


The Master on keeping on track
In one musical exercise, Theo had us hold one note while he played other notes. With notes that were further away, this was easy. But when he played the semitones - the closest possible notes - above and below our note, many of us found ourselves sliding off line.

This common singer's exercise offered parallels to the world of motivation, as is being discussed on Wenovski. Wildly different notes were easy to ignore, but the nearly-the-same notes were pure seduction. Similarly, it's not the grouch in the corner who will demotivate you - he's easy to ignore. Instead, it's the people who do pretty much the right things, but with a little less fire and passion for the customer. Their path - the slightly easier path that looks oh so similar - is the dangerous one, as it tempts us to do just a little less.

It's the same with service design. "All the other companies all do it this way - which is nearly the same. Why don't we?"

Answer: because you need to be exceptional.


The Master on intent
TB: "Know what note you are going to sing before you sing it. Intention is important - otherwise things happen out of fear or habit."

I can think of no greater enemies to good customer experience than fear and habit. Fear can be fear of trying something new, or fear of looking the customer in the eye and making human contact; habit is the innovation-killer of "we always do it this way". And fear and habit together are stagnation and boring or bad service.

Theo's advice here is that intention - knowing what we want to "sing" in advance - is the best weapon against these two.

What "song" do you intend to "sing" to your customers?

Photo by Amanda Stockwell from theobleckmann.com

The Gods' View - an exercise in perspective

Can you hear me at the back?

I think I like Garth Brooks, though I've never really heard his music. As the story goes, he liked to personally check out the worst seats in his venues just before the show, seeing if the seats way up in the "Gods'" were worth his fan's hard earned cash*. It's a technique we can all use - and not just when we are on stage.

How does your customer experience work from the metaphorical back row?

Imagine you are the very last passenger to check in, the diner who gets the very last portion of soup, the very last caller to dial the hotline today. Imagine you are the absolute latest adopter, the most allergic guest, or you wear the most outsiziest size. Or perhaps you have a dicky back, terrible hearing, low bandwidth or fifty-five year old eyes? Does the experience still work for you?

It's crucial to put ourselves in the shoes of all our customers - not just the ones that look like our "typical customer" personas. This is not (only) because we want to please as many as possible, but because these end-of-the-bell-curve viewpoints and needs can tell us something about the way our experience works for everyone.

A great example from WorkPlayExperience colleague Markus Hormess: I was typing up our Book of Shenanigans, and Markus peered over my shoulder.

"Look at it at 25% zoom," he suggested. "Does the layout still make sense?"

Take a step back. Book late. Get down on your knees. Sit in the cheapest seat. Squint at your packaging.

I bet you will learn something.

Experience Monitor readers click HERE for more...

Binocular pic by Operators Are Standing By at Flickr.

* If the seats were no good, Garth would give away front-row tickets to those back-row fans, or dash up there for a close-up song during the concert. And this from one of the most successful recording artists of all time. Respect.

Experience design e-book

It's time for a small celebration...

Today, the 2,000th reader downloaded my mini-ebook, which lists some showbiz tools that anyone can use to impress customers. Thanks, folks!

If you've not taken a look yet, you can download the book here (or via the link in the left column). Just 20 pages, and it's free!

My second e-book - The Experience Director - is still in the works. Watch this space...

2000 image by Leo Reynolds at flickr

Shuffle the service to make it better

Pants first, then the shoes....

When you are designing a service or a customer experience, you sometimes have to do things in a slightly less efficient way.

In other words, you might have to work a little harder backstage to make things smooth for the customer frontstage.

Points to remember:

1. This is hard work. Sorry.
2. But it sells stuff!

I saw a wonderfully simple example of this last week.

Picture the scene: on mega-whizz German express trains they sell coffee by helpfully walking down the carriages with a tray of cups. Nice. The brown stuff is poodle-scorchingly hot, and superfast trains move oddly, so we have a guy in a blue uniform with a very careful gait and nervous expression as he teeters through the train calling out "Kaffee! Kaffee!".

Sadly, his valiant efforts are in vain, as almost nobody buys any. Ever. Everyone has their eyes down, ears phoned and is busy with their novel, highlighter pen or Great Train Journeys dvd. Our poor public servant is steadily ignored.

But if you watch the rows behind him, you will see a dramatic effect. About five seconds after he passes, people smell the java. They look up with bright caffeine-addict expressions, their hands groping in a tight back pocket for change. They lean out of their seats, ready to order and... the guy is gone.

(Actually, he is about three rows away, but it is far too uncool to call him back. So no-one does.)

The effect was proved last week, when our heroic conductor forgot something. He turned around to fetch it, and was staggered to sell his six cups off coffee within three rows. Three rows of people that he had already walked past, shouting, but who had only noticed him when their noses started speaking to their gastric juices.

Doh!

Of course, from the workflow perspective it makes a lot of sense to efficiently walk through the train just once, and waste a pretty good service.

From an experience design point of view - ie the customer's - our conductor needs to walk straight through each carriage first to let people smell that richly roasted aroma, then turn round and get selling. Thrice as much walking, but what a difference!

About a million billion years ago, a guy called Aristotle knew that the sequence of events in a story is as important as the events themselves when audiences emotions were to be excited. How does that apply to your service... from the customer's point of view?

Want to read more like this? Click here.

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Coffee&lips pic by Bitca at flickr
Coffee&window pic by charliebay at flickr

Choosing rooms for successful events

Pack 'em in tight

Apart from speeches (you know I hate speeches) and bright white light, there is one thing that really kills any event. It is:

a room that is too damn big.

I learned this lesson from bike industry guru Silvio Manicardi back in my distant youth. We were organising the publicity auction of the first road-legal NR750 ultrabike. The bash was due to take place in Milan, and I was told to book a function room.

"How many people are we expecting?" asked the boss.

"About a hundred, maybe a hundred and forty," I replied.

"So book a room big enough for seventy."

The effect was spectacular - people were struggling to get in, and standing on tables to see. Photographers were - literally - fighting to get a shot. The atmosphere was electric, and our little event felt like the hottest spot in town. The NR sold for a monster sum - securing a pile of money for Unicef and our bike's place in the Guinness Book of Records.

You can see the reverse of this effect at any half-full soccer game, or half-empty nightclub. It's an easy equation: under-filled venue equals zero atmosphere.

When you are planning an event, product launch or party and want people to have a good time, it's crucial to avoid a feeling of empty space. (This is the reason why are never going to have a hit event on your trade-fair stand, so don't even try.)

Choose a room that is slightly too small, and go for a low ceiling if you can. Warm acoustics are important - nobody wants to laugh or applaud into cold silence. Even a door onto an echoing foyer can kill the atmosphere if it is left open. Don't listen to the venue if they suggest putting in free-standing partitions to make a large room smaller. This will not take away the echoing space above, and will only make the event feel more like a flop.

And don't under-heat the space. You want people to be taking off jackets, loosening collars, and letting their hair down. It's easier to open a window than to turn up the heating...

In the worst case - and if the event is suitable - you might need to consider "papering the house", as they say in showbiz. This involves inviting free (or even paid) guests to make up the numbers. Even the Oscar-organisers have a regiment of students in tuxedos primed to fill up the seats during the boring technical awards, when half of Hollywood heads for the bar and the bathroom*.

So pack 'em in. And remember - no crush, no rush.

* Of course, not every event is as inviting as the Academy Awards, so it's hard to be sure your "wallpaper" will come. Broadway tradition says the best place to give away free tickets is at the dorms where nurses live. Students will accept your free ticket, then forget to show up. Nurses are more reliable - thank goodness.

Sardine pic by Saffanna at flickr.
Stadium shot by Amin Tabrizi at flickr.

You're only supposed to blow the bl**dy doors off!

Sir Michael Caine on experience design

I'm reading the autobiography of one of my favourite actors, and it turns out he is also a restaurant owner with some snappy ideas on experience design. From the conceptual:

"A restaurant should be like a show where you are the star when you come in, and the audience when you sit down."

To the practical:

"You should never be able to see a lightbulb."

You get your money's worth with Sir Michael.

PS There's a prize for the first reader to recognise the quote that titles this post. My money is on Andy Nulman. At the very least, he should like the picture. ;)

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Another point of view...

Stealing an idea from Hollywood

I was working with some first-time movie directors recently, and noticed that they soon figure out not to watch the actors directly. Instead, they learn watch their monitor. It shows the point of view that the film-goer will have in the cinema.

Crucially, the view through the lens is often very different to what we expect to see. That "focussed" view blocks out distractions and really tells the truth - warts and all!

So, next time you walk through your location, looking for little problems and potential improvements to the experience, try this:

1. Get a video camera and walk through, filming. Scan from side to side, up and down. Don't forget the toilets and the carpark. A day or more later, watch the film (preferably in slow motion) and see how many potential improvements you spot. Pause the film now and then. I bet you see stains on the paintwork you had forgotten you had. I bet you can tell now if that sign really is prominent enough... (Interestingly, if you have a way to reverse the film, you will notice even more details.)

2. Repeat the exercise on your knees, or in a wheelchair. This is the visual experience a child, smaller person or wheelchair user will have. (Behaviour guru Temple Grandin uses this technique when checking out abbatoirs for animal welfare approval. It gives her the "animal-eye-view", and she spots lots of potentially spooky stuff other inspectors miss).

3. If you haven't got a video camera, use a still camera, or even an old viewfinder. You needn't even take pictures - just walk slowly.

4. If you haven't got a normal camera, cut a hole in a piece of cardboard and stare at parts of your location through it. Don't laugh - this works!

5. Try it blindfold - with a guide - and pick up the auditory and olfactory experience far more sharply than usual. Where is it too loud? Stinky? Too echo-ey and cold?

Try it. You will be amazed. But don't trip.

Viewfinder pic by Rutty at flickr.
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The Big Three

How to guarantee a hit!

They say there are three surefire components to making a hit concept. They are:

1) SEX!
2) DEATH!
3) HUMOUR!

Actually, I should qualify that a little.

Sex can be replaced by nudity, or bare legs (or, in Japanese animation, little brief shots of little white briefs). Death need not actually occur - the threat of it is enough. And you do not always need all three to make a hit. Baywatch was sex and death with very little humour; Benny Hill was sex and humour with very little death; and Die Hard (or any other action movie) is death and humour with usually just one sex scene.

But if you can squeeze all three in to your concept, you will probably find yourself laughing all the way to the bank. James Bond is one obvious example - though his narrative structure helps.

And here's another one...

The Heart Attack Grill is a brilliant example of using experience design to make a thoroughly commoditised product - burgers and fries - into a hit. The fatty food is advertised as dangerous but "worth dying for", with burgers getting names like "The Triple Bypass" and cigarettes being sold as the ultimate desert. The staff are dressed as naughty nurses and dorky doctors. Any of course the neighbours are furious.

Sex, death and humour, folks - in a burger joint. The place is a runaway success - and they are getting eighty e-mails per hour asking for the franchise.

Look, gasp, and learn. Just keep your hands where we can see them.

(Another great example of a service using the Big Three here.)

Naughty nurse image by RocketCityPoet at flickr

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Marketing for the bladder

Making the most of customers who "just drop in"

We had a monster event in my town yesterday - for the first time in 45 years, our team was in the final of the cup. I'm talking about football of course, the type you play with your feet. (If you are one of those who play football with their hands, you can think of it as the Superbowl, German style.)

As might be expected, the town was packed. Everything was decorated red and black, the public viewing areas were full, and every pub, restaurant and ice cream parlour had TVs inside and out. This being Germany, beer flowed copiously, and - of course - the public toilets were overstretched.

But not as overstretched as the pub landlord we encountered at one of our favourite bars in a side-street beside the main viewing area. He was (politely, but with obvious signs of stress) asking everyone approaching his door if they wanted to buy a drink, or just use the facilities. Every one who just wanted to pee, he turned away. He must have turned away literally hundreds of fans. They took it well, but that's not the point.

Now, two things are important to know here.

1) This is a truly excellent bar with terrific food, but which is not especially well known in the town.
2) All the people he was excluding were local folks (after all, they were there to support the team).

Are you pondering what I'm pondering?

This landlord was presented with an opportunity to impress a couple of hundred local people with a good experience. Lord knows how much he would spend on advertising to get that many people to put their heads inside the door. Instead of politely disappointing the happy throng, he could have given them a cracking welcome.

It would only have meant buying in a few dozen extra toilet rolls, employing an extra member of staff to keep things clean, maybe even decorating the loos in football colours. Better still, he could have given those few hundred casual visitors a positive surprise - how about a free drink next week, or a half-price voucher for his excellent (but widely unknown) food?

Folks, if you are in the hospitality biz, all those people coming in to use the "bathroom" are potential customers. Do you want to send them home, or give them a reason to come back and stay?

P.S. The result of the game?









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Star performers

Personality-driven Experiences

Driving down the road between Roseau and Champagne, Dominica, you are likely to encounter a mighty personality.

Marvina is a successful local entrepreneur who has built up a business ("Marvina's" bar) largely on the basis of her own character. The location seems less than ideal - it's an isolated, narrow strip of land between the road and the sea,. There is no beach, no other buildings nearby, and there are far more "interesting" locations (a snorkelling beach, a fishing village) a couple of kilometers in each direction.

But it is precisely this isolation which makes the location work for Marvina - a natural star, she is able to fill all that space with her own presence. Nearly every car that drives by is greeted with a booming "Hey!". Inevitably, many stop - sooner or later. As a natural part of the ensuing conversation, she will find out your name and offer you a drink. You sit down, take a sip, and - click - you are a regular. Before you know it, Marvina will have laughingly introduced you to members of her family, advised you sternly on the snorkelling conditions and serenaded you with a sentimental gospel or two. You may find yourself helping to hang up some fairy lights or moving a heavy cooler, and you'll certainly be promising to come back soon.

Marvina's bar is not built any differently from many others on the Island. It is welcoming, but simple. After all, it needs do little more than provide her with a "stage". You don't go there for the architecture, or even for the (excellent) rum punch. You go there to hang out with - and be part of - Marvina's crowd.

(Marvina's strong personality works for her outside her home territory too. In her oft-repeated TV interview she wears a natty hat, tells the world how wonderful the Prime Minister is at keeping his word, and thanks him profusely for promising to help her build her deck. Get out of that one, Mr Skerrit.)

Marvina's bar is going to be a success. It would work equally well if she were managing it for someone else - as long as that person were brave enough to let her be the star. Some experiences can be carried by a strong personality - if it's the right one, and if it is given room to work. If you have a Marvina on your crew, let her sing!

(I'll have a Video Blog on Marvina's bar available soon. Watch this space.)

Words or whiffs?

Is language stronger than our sense of smell?

In his famous, brave and hotly disputed memo, Starbucks chairman Howard Schulz talks about some of the mistakes that have been made in Starbucks stellar expansion - many of which can be summed up as "efficiency at the cost of the experience".

Whoever really wrote this memo, a lot of it makes sense to me. As a very British tea fan (milk, no sugar, and better make sure the water is boiling!), I have only been in a few, newer Starbucks stores. I must say I was singularly unimpressed and wondered what all the fuss was about. Reading Mr Schultz's mail and the hundreds of responses, it seems that I may have missed out on the "original" Starbucks theatrics.

But what do you think of this quote from the mail: "...aroma [was] perhaps the most powerful non-verbal signal we had in our stores..."

"Perhaps"? Back when I was a real psychologist, one of my fields was the evolution of behaviour; so pardon me while I rant a bit of bioscience...

Generally, you can say that the perceptive channels that we developed earlier in our evolutionary or developmental history work on us at a deeper, more emotional level than things we learned later.

Thusly the chemical sense that is smell (also enjoyed by our monocellular cousins) goes deeper than our sense of body language or rhythm (found in vertebrates with a familiar body pattern and a beating heart). In turn these sit deeper than our reading of tone-of-voice (mammals), facial expression (primates), words (humans) and written language (very modern humans). This is not only relevant in presentation technique...

Think about it - writing to someone is the most distant kind of contact. Speaking to them is more personal, then comes touching them, and we only want to smell our very good friends. That sequence is evolution in reverse.

Back at our Starbucks example, the "aroma" we are talking about goes right to the primitive root of our brain. Smell is thought to be the strongest trigger of memory, and is known to produce powerful physical reactions at hyperspeed, including salivation and stomach fluid production. What verbal signal can come close to that?

Howard (may I call you Howard?), we can debate back and forth whether experience or efficiency are more important in a coffeeshop setting, but I can tell you for free that the rich smells and evocative sounds of the coffee making process are a far stronger and far deeper signal than anything your partners might possibly be saying!

Doors of Perception

Entrances and exits in culinary experiences

If you've seen the Kenneth Branagh film of Henry V, you might remember the young King's first entrance. He enters, clad in a huge cloak and crown, through a pair of high double doors and backed by a blinding corona of white light. It is like the second coming.

When Judi Dench, playing Mistress Golightly, saw the shot, she is supposed to have said "My God, what an entrance. Who do you think you are?" Flustered and probably feeling very young in the presence of a Grande Dame of British theater, Branagh allegedly replied, "Well, it's not called Mistress Golightly the fifth!"

I was reminded of this recently when I was doing a show in the function room of a top class hotel. Of course, most function rooms have a kitchen or service station located just next door. After all, it makes sense to have the culinary resources close by.

Now, the problem here is one of entrances and exits, and especially of lighting. Those top-class function rooms have usually been expensively illuminated with crystal chandeliers, candles and subtle indirect lamps - while the kitchens are lit with bright white striplights.

The result? When the Star Trek kitchen doors open, every eye is drawn to them (we look to the light - a fundamental law of experience design) and we see... Klaus the Underwaiter, backlit in his majesty like Harry V. And behind him? Piles of dirty plates, flustered waiters, buckets of food waste and the sous-chef screaming at the saucier.

In creating atmosphere, nothing is more important than light. And nothing kills atmosphere faster than cold, hard, white light, especially when it draws our attention to the machinery of the show.

Of course, waiters are in a difficult place, as they have to switch constantly between showmanship, and being invisible. Nevertheless, the problem here is, well, glaring.

The first step would be to get rid of that intrusive light, either by installing more doors or baffles (wings, anyone?) or by simply changing the dang lighting strip to something warmer.

The second, more exciting step, would be to use the grand entrance effect, and decide which moments deserve the Henry V treatment. Imagine the lights going up and the whole waiting staff marching in in unison with the magnificent main course under silver covers... You could add (flavourless) smoke and a fanfare if you wanted.

"Who the hell do you think you are?"
"Why, just the best damn supper in town."