Our ideas

At the end of every year, analysts, thinkers and watchers provide their view on where we stand and what’s ahead of us in the coming year. These crystal ball readers predict our future with lots of statistical materials, like diagrams, charts and other nifty visualizations. Applied to various domains such as the internet, mobile or […]

Retail banking has changed significantly in the past fifteen years, with the standard operating model now including touchpoints and technologies far removed from traditional counter-based transactions. A recurrent focus on the customer is at the core of these changes, according to a recent post.

Despite the increasing prevalence of digital-only services, our daily lives are still comprised of many person-to-person interactions with service providers. From restaurant waitstaff to call center agents, our experience with services is heavily influenced by those we engage with. Focusing on the customer experience is at the heart of successful organizations, and good employee experience […]

Recent research published by Forrester in the Harvard Business Review has uncovered a disconnect in how customer experience professionals are aiming to deliver innovation. Despite their hard work, misguided approaches too often fail to deliver the experiences customers truly value.

Establishing the value of design in today’s large-scale enterprises is a difficult challenge. Inflexible IT structures, a change-resistant organizational culture, or perceived cost might all be to blame. An external player with clout and authority is one way to get it done, and a new approach promoted by Deloitte is doing just that.

Milan Guenther’s recently-published “Intersection: How Enterprise Design Bridges the Gap Between Business, Technology and People” takes an in-depth look at the broad set of disciplines and techniques that fall under the term “enterprise design” – a subject close to our heart.

Recently we’ve looked at the business aspects of UX management, from the characteristics of successful UX teams, to the role of the UX manager itself. An in-depth look and analysis of UX management itself seems in order.

Hierarchical structures and organizational silos are common within modern businesses, but their existence both hampers customer experience and impedes efficiency, according to some. In this post, we look at both issues, and solutions that have been proposed.

What are the responsibilities and the authority of customer experience owners within organizations? This research question was answered by senior customer experience professionals and executives from leading telcos in various continents. Telcos are allocating the most resources to customer experience. But while 92% of telecom executives say that customer experience is a top strategic objective […]

At the NASSCOM Summit 2012, process specialist Steve Towers gave the opening keynote on “outside-in thinking”. In his presentation, he stated that customers are not at the center of most companies and processes, because both are based on diagrams representing the organization and processes of a Scottish factory described by “accountant” Adam Smith.

Retail banking is nearly unavoidable service in modern life, and the hassle of changing banks means that customers remain customers despite a service experience that is usually less than ideal. But opportunities for improvement exist.

Do your customers behave differently than you’d hope and expect? Don’t simply label them as “fickle”, but instead recognize that they probably represent the “new consumer normal”; empowered by choice and rarely loyal to a given product or service.

If you wanted to instill “design thinking” into today’s organizations, integrating it into a design school curriculum might seem like a good start. But Richard Buchanan made a more astute choice, leaving a design school to teach at a management school, and ensuring that MBA students leave with a truly innovative perspective.

Branding… usability… look-and-feel… There are many tangible aspects that contribute to customer experience. However a critically-important factor is something that’s invisible to end-users, but makes itself known as soon as interactions go awry: Business processes.