Process + Brand = Experience

What will online communities start to look like in the future? The blurred lines between the online and offline world.

I wrote an editorial piece for Launch DFW that explores what this may look like. I think we will combine the two worlds together to have a seamless experience. If anything, the online world will complement what happens in real life.

This is already happening in the shared economy. People need to interact with each other in real life to purchase anything and have a transaction, which is building trust between strangers. Trust is the key ingredient for communities to take off...without it, there is no way to create a community. 

But I won't bore you with the details - enjoy! 

2016: Expanding Online Communities that Embrace the Best of Both Worlds

Thank your competitors! They helped create an industry for you.

We are sometimes taught to think that competition is something to fear. Competitors may get information about your product or service and use it to their advantage - either copy the new feature, exploit a problem with it and your product and try to steal customers, or other creative shenanigans.

I have never really understood that attitude towards competition. If a company would look at its own competitive intelligence teams, it would remember that the competition probably has a similar team and already knows similar things about your own company. Let's face it - the world is small and it's easy to overhear conversations at restaurants, cafes, and from loud cellphone talkers. Rumors can be cheap and easy. 

Others view competition as something to emulate - almost copy. And that comes with it's own challenges (I'm working on a webinar about that, but here are some).

• You don't know all of the reasons why a competitor develops a solution as they do - you only see the approach they took. And there may be a number of reasons why they took that approach that aren't 100% clear. For example, architectural limitations (system or database structures) and organizational/political difficulties could contribute to product approaches that have nothing to do leveraging best practices or solving a problem based on metrics.
• You inherit your competitor's problems. By implementing their approaches, you may be inheriting their problems as well. Every company has problems, but we're all great at hiding them from public view. What seems like a cool approach to you, could have serious negative impacts on your organization's bottom line.  
• You enter the world of commoditization. If you copy your competitors verbatim, you are creating the same product/service offering. And if a customer can't tell the difference between what you offer and what your competitor offers, then you enter into a price war. We saw how that turned out for the airline industry. 

And those reasons are the tip of the iceberg why copying your competitor isn't a great idea.

Competition can also be perceived as a partnership opportunity. I learned that from a client (Client A) long ago. I got a new client (Client B) that was their competitor. I asked Client A if it was ok for me to work with Client B, them being competitors and all. Client A was fine with it. They figured I wouldn't share trade secrets because I'm ridiculously honest (which is true), and I only get so technical anyway (also true). They found it beneficial for me to scope out what Client B does and determine if they may be a good fit as a partner for Client A. They wanted an introduction. 

Client A also had another great strategy - they knew I'd come up with new ideas for Client B, and some of those ideas may come in handy for Client A. I may not copy those ideas, but I'd be influenced by those ideas. And vice versa. So in many ways, it was a win all the way around. 

What changed my percpetion of competition that day was their perspective that competitors were contributors to a larger industry experience. 

If we didn't have competition in our industries, we wouldn't necessarily have the drive to make a product/service better. In a way, competition has defined our how our industries work. They have created the competitive trinity - parity, best practices, and baselines.

 

Definitions of parity, baselines, and best practices

When there is a discrepancy between your product line and the mainline competition, usually the business says that it needs to reach parity. The product team needs to get features and functionality launched that allow them to compete. It's basically being like the other kids on the block. If every kid owns a baseball, a bat, a football, and soccer ball, and you don't own a soccer ball, you aren't at parity - and need to ask you parents or Santa for that soccer ball. 

Once a company achieves parity, it is offering baseline functionality. It's the same, but a twist on perception. Baseline functionality is what customers expect to be offered. As more features get added, more features become added to best practices and become part of what's included to reach parity. Users/customers grow accustomed to these features and start expecting to them as part of the product/serivce offering. All around - this increases the users' expectations for an experience. 

This collaborative process is great for users but a challenging thing for the business. However, it pushes us all forward to make a better product that offers what the customers want to use.

Parity and baselines define best practices. Best practices are approaches that get results - those features and functionality pieces that appeal to users, help them interact with the system, and meet metric expectations and targets. Mainly - they are approaches to a system that get results from customers. 

Here's a table from the upcoming Webinar I'm working on that defines the 3. It uses an example from the travel industry not shown, but you get the idea. 

Now, just because a lot of companies have the same approaches to solve similar problems, doesn't always mean that they are employing the BEST "best practice." The best practice is successful, but unless it is tested against other solutions, it's one approach amongst many. Unfortunately, we don't always know what other organizations do for testing and often make assumptions that their approaches have been tested and are most effective. That's not always the case. 

(I'll write more about this in the future. But there have been many times that I have worked with a team to almost copy a competitor only to find out mid-development that they changed their approach.)

 

Products aren't created or improved by solitary individuals. It's a group effort - and often the group includes companies that compete against your own for customers.

Your company and your competitors are co-creating your industry. You're all contributing to write the rules of how to work best with customers and create the best product/service available. Some rules are based on systems, some are based on ideas they tried - and seemed to work.  

If it weren't for your competitors - you wouldn't have best practices, baselines, parity. There wouldn't be something to work from, something to test and see if there is a better solution to a problem. We all keep each other moving forward.

Competitors are nothing to fear; we should embrace the challenges they bring to make us better.

A nice looking UI is like wearing a nice shirt. But does it really suit you?

Recently, I hired a style consultant because I needed a personal branding refresh. I felt that nothing in my closet suited me. Each morning was a struggle to put an outfit together.

The process I experienced to co-create this new style with her with wasn't just about buying new clothes, her telling me what was in or out of style this month, and what would look good on me. She had to get to know me as a person.

• The style of the home where I lived
• What I did for work
• What I did for fun
• How I socialized with friends
• My life perspective
• My goals and dreams

When I saw where the process was going, I realized that what was in my closet didn't match my thoughts, my actions, my speech - nothing. My look was distinctly separate from me, the person today. There wasn't much in common between the two except that I owned the clothes.

Anyone experiencing me was having a disjointed experience, and that wasn't doing me any favors. The look made one statement; my personality and actions made a different one.

I was like a company that had a logo and colors that didn't match the experience the customers were having. 

For example, one UI may look super slick and modern, but the company's processes are antiquated with fax machines and paperwork. Another UI may look traditional, but the company has new mobile approaches that are unexpected. You have to wonder if the approaches unexpected because they are so new, or are they unexpected because after one look at the company's brand, it seemed so conservative that you were going to need to fax that in?  

(I'm guessing option 2. I'm always amazing how Chase bank has new banking features mainly because they are a bank with old-fashioned baggage. But I'm never amazed that Capital One is doing something new - it seems perfect for them because they are so new and shiny.)

Sometimes I think we focus too much on the look of an app. It's like we focus on choosing a great outfit, but we don't focus on it being suitable and feeling right.

Sometimes before you can wear a particular style outfit, you need to do some personal work. You need to shift your beliefs or you need to work on your self-esteem and confidence (e.g., to really pull off a power suit, you need to have the confidence to go with it). 

Anyone can put on a Versace shirt, but is Versace (or Armani, or any designer piece) right for you? 

An app may feel simple with a lot of white space and light colors, but that doesn't mean that the users understand what to do at the site once they are there. It may be the best UI design approach, but functionally, it's not easy to understand to get started. And that's a shame.

Then people wonder why no one uses the app even though it looks great. We need to understand that great experiences go deeper than the screen. They go into the processes of the company - what it does, how it works, how employees communicate.

Sometimes company branding can sometimes be based on external forces:

• What are the competitors doing?
• How do others brand themselves?
• What's the hot color today?

But branding should really be about the employees and how they see the company and the product.

• How does the company describe itself? How do the employees describe it?
• What words does it use to describe what it sells?
• How do the employees engage with each other?
• How does finance communicate with customers (especially those who don't pay ontime)?
• How does customer support and service treat customers? Do they do the minimal work required or do they go the extra mile?

And like how you need to sometimes be in a crisis to know who your friends are and what they are REALLY like - you don't experience what a company is until you NEED to interact with customer service because something went wrong.

I had this experience with Shoptiques. (Here's another experience - and why I love them!) 

They have a nice site and offer pieces from boutiques around the world. But their real value - and their brand - really comes from their service.

I was originally going to pick up this shirt at a local boutique, but I couldn't find it. I then asked to get the shirt shipped to me and I was hoping to get it before I left on a business/pleasure trip. Unfortunately, I didn't. While I was on the trip, Shoptiques called me to see if I got the shirt. I couldn't believe how much they cared and remembered to find out if I got what I wanted. 

That is what makes them unique and makes me rave about them to everyone. They have the most personal customer service ANYWHERE.

I'd like to work on more projects where we talk about how we want someone to feel or think about after they visit an app or a site. I understand that a product needs to ship and is often "born" allowing a user to accomplish some basic functions and goals. I even encourage my clients to do that because everyone needs to start somewhere - and starting at parity isn't a bad place to start.

But over time, you have to allow your app to develop character.

There has to be something you offer that others don't that makes you unique and unforgettable - like people do with their personalities.

And a cool navigation device or a fun image isn't what will make your app memorable. Interesting, yes. Fun, yes. Memorable and recommendable - I'm not too sure about that.

We need to talk about what the user REALLY wants to do and how the app can make that happen - not what the product manager wants to achieve, not what's cool, not what in style today.

• What do we want customers to say after they are done using the app or site?
• What will encourage someone to want to use it again? What does the user find to be useful?
• How did that person feel when they used it? Did they feel like they got something done?
• Does the user feel like you care about them and what they are doing?

Or the simple, million-dollar question: If the company/produce was your best friend, how would you describe it based on its actions/functionality alone?

We almost need to rethink branding to focus a little less on its style and a little more on reflecting the personality of the company itself (and typically, that personality is reflected in every touch point with a customer). We need to take a page out of my style consultant's book and get to know the employees and how they work to create a brand - a corporate personality - that truly reflects the uniqueness of that company. 

• The phone line
• The forums
• The brochures and collateral
• The billing structure
• The support team.
• How it communicates and what it says
• What it gives away for free
• What it charges for

The look and feel needs to match that. Otherwise, your company will wake up one day and not like what it's wearing and not understand why, until a branding consultant comes in to get to know the company and find the right way to express itself. 

 

I started writing about this a long time ago - I didn't know that I was writing about customer experience. It didn't really exist then, but here's the start. Enjoy! 

Travel as the visitor observer vs the visitor participant. The shared economy.

I had dinner with one of my clients while visiting the Bay area, and my experience with AirBnB and FlightCar came up. I shared how the travel experience was very different staying in someone's home and using someone's car than staying in a room and using a car owned by a corporation. I described it as the trust economy; he described it as the respect economy.

He had a great point. I looked up the definitions of both words: 

Respect

• a feeling of admiring someone or something that is good, valuable, important, etc.
• a feeling or understanding that someone or something is important, serious, etc., and should be treated in an appropriate way
• a particular way of thinking about or looking at something

Trust

• belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc.
• an arrangement in which someone's property or money is legally held or managed by someone else or by an organization (such as a bank) for usually a set period of time
• an organization that results from the creation of a trust

From the perspective of the person renting, it's about trust - trust that the person who will be inhabiting the space or using the car will take as good - or better - care of it as you will. 

From the perspective of the person renting, it's about respect. That person who is renting these expensive things see them as valuable and important as the owner.

Some would say it's sharing, and in a way it is, but sharing implies free. This is for fee. Peer-to-peer transactions are less about an interaction between 2 people and more about connecting with another member of the community that you wouldn't normally meet on the street. The Internet and these businesses are providing tools to enable these connections to make the world smaller.

In many ways, these sites are serving as a type of social connection/community tool. And they are a hit not just because they are less expensive alternatives, but because people crave community. Social media connects us, but not really. We all crave to be part of a community in some way. Humans are social animals; we are created to connect and bond with others. 

I think this is part of the new/old way to travel in a community rather than traveling anonymously. In the distant past, people traveled in a more social way - they were more connected, staying in boarding houses (B&B), traveling on horses, carriages, walking, trains. It was more communal transport.

With modern travel methods, there is less of a sense of community experience. During a flight, yes - we are all in a tin can for a few hours - but community ends there. A hotel and car rental activity is a fairly solitary experience - and a lonely one. It's traveling with anonymity.

By traveling with anonymity, we are traveling as a "visitor observer" rather than "visitor participant." And let's face it - richer travel experiences come from participating in the community you are visiting in some way. It's fun to talk to people who live in a different location and learn about their experiences. It's fun to live your daily routine somewhere else with different smells and sights. It's fun to experience a new way of living. 

And this gets back to how you define living - are you traveling to escape your daily life or expand your experiences to a different location and people? (I'm usually not escaping my daily life; and if I am, I prefer the anonymous traveler option)

 

So how does the anonymous travel experience compare to the more community-based experience?

What you get when you stay at a hotel/corporate room:

• A private room and bath as if you have your own studio apartment - sometimes with a kitchen
• Service to keep the room - and your belongings - neat and tidy
• Anonymity. You may get to know the front desk staff and others, and be friendly with them, but they only work at the hotel. They don't own it. Most times, a corporation owns it, or people who don't live there own it. It's rare that you get to know the owners.
• If something in the room breaks or you spill something in your room, "the hotel" will figure it out and take care of it. 
• You try to be quiet in the middle of the night hours, but if you are loud, you don't know your neighbors and you don't really know the people who work at the hotel. And it doesn't really matter because most likely you won't see them again anyway. 
• Again - anonymity. You don't know these people and most likely, you won't see them again. 

What you get when you stay with AirBnB:

• You rent a separate room outside of the house, almost like an apartment, or you rent a room inside someone's house. Either way, you are a member of their household. Or you are using someone else's household.
• You don't necessarily get daily housekeeping. You need to keep yourself neat and tidy. 
• You aren't a stranger. You meet your host and in some cases, are sharing the same space with them.
• You are polite and let your host know if something breaks, you make a spill, or something happens. You are responsible for your actions.
• If you are loud in the middle of the night, you may wake up your hosts. And they probably will speak to you about that. Awkward!
• You know your hosts - you can message them before you arrive, you meet them when you are there, and they are more than happy to assist you with anything at all. And you may see them again.

(I thoroughly enjoyed my experience through AirBnB! My host was awesome and the place was gorgeous. It was a great way to experience living a different life for 3 days.) 

If you get a car through a car rental company: 

• A corporation owns the car. They own a fleet of cars that get rented and returned each day.
• If something happens, the car company or the insurance will deal with it. And they have people on staff to do that.
• If there is a little scratch, they probably won't notice. The rental company has dozens and hundreds of cars.
• Do I really need to get the best insurance? I'm a decent driver. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? Between the insurance and the corporation that owns it, it's good.

If you rent a car through FlightCar:

• A real person owns and uses the car you rented.
• If something happens, insurance will take care of it - but what a hassle for the owner!
• If there is a little scratch, most likely the owner will see it. If there is one, I should either fix it or tell them to get it fixed. 
• I really should get better insurance. I mean, what if something happens? Then I'll feel responsible for that person's car - what they drive every day. Wow - that's horrible! 

(Using the car was fun - I felt more connected to San Francisco. I knew that someone owned the car and used this every day. This was theirs. I wasn't using a car that could have been in another state a short time earlier.) 

Based on these descriptions, some would say that AirBnB and FlightCar make travel aggravating because you are worrying about someone else's needs. Why do that when you can be anonymous? 

Because community can be rewarding.

I have been traveling for business for a long time. At one point, I lived in a hotel for about 6 months for work. Sure, it's fun. Who wouldn't want to be like Eloise of the Plaza? I didn't make a bed or pick up after myself for a year. It sounds like a dream, but at the same time, it's a very lonely, detached existence. You have an insane amount freedom, but no sense of responsibility for being part of your surroundings - no sense that others have a connection with you or depend on you for anything.

You are an entity observing people living their lives. You left your life somewhere else and you are a visiting observer. During that time, when it was the weekend, I had no one to hang out with because everyone was living their lives, running errands, cooking, having family time. When you travel anonymously, in a way, you suspend life for a time period to experience observing how other people live in another place. 

By using someone's things when you travel, you are inserting yourself into their life for a few days. You are part of the community in that location - you become a visitor participant. When you go to the museum, visit your friends, go to lunch - you have a home base of sorts, another community, waiting for you when you return for the day. I know for me, this is similar to me coming home to my apartment in a building with a strong community where I know most people on the floor I live on.

At a hotel, there are the people at the front desk who you may or may not know. You are staying there, but are you really living there? This goes back to how you define living. When I travel, I prefer to expand my experience. I'm not escaping. I prefer to live with a senses of community.