Customers are more demanding that ever and Design Thinking is a good approach to how you engage your customer. Design thinking is taking a holistic approach to finding a solution to a problem that a customer may not even know they have.
Most of us have home computers and they are likely Windows compatible machines (those of you that have Macs don’t gloat) and we had difficulty setting them up on our home network. Apple, who’s moto has been “Think Different” took at different approach to the whole setup experience, a holistic approach.
Why Apple has Raving Fans
My wife got a new iPad Pro as an early Christmas present and we went to the Apple store to pick it up and to set it up. It was a Friday night and there were a lot of people in the store, setting up their iPads, iPhones and other Apple devices. Immediately an Apple employee greeted her and went in the back to retrieve my wife’s new iPad. We were led to a table, the “Genius Bar” which is what Apple calls their tech area. Set up for facial recognition, voice recognition and the downloading of previous items in the cloud was pretty easy. My wife left the store very happy.
Let’s take a closer look the steps of what occurred with Apple and how they relate to Design Thinking.
- My wife had received an email saying her iPad Pro was in the store.
- I dropped my wife at the Apple store and went to park. My wife entered the store and was immediately greeted by someone. So what? Wal-Mart has greeters. Ahh . . . but the person went to the back to get the equipment. They didn’t just say “hi” and tell my wife to wait in a queue until someone could help them. The Apple employee took action to move us along in the process of getting and setting up the iPad.
- By the time I had parked and entered the store, my wife had her iPad.
- The device was already charged. Before the iPhone came into the world in 2007, you’d get a new phone on Christmas morning, be all excited as you open the package and turn on the phone to start using it. Except it didn’t power up. You spent a few minutes fiddling with the phone to make sure you were pushing the power button when it dawned on you, the phone was dead and needed to be charged. So, you plugged in the phone to charge and went on with your day. How did you feel about the phone at that point? Disappointed,right? When you returned to the phone, 2 hours later after it had charged, the excitement was gone. Your first experience with the phone was a bad one. All that needed to be done was for someone in the factory, or in the store to charge the phone.
- Going back to the Apple Store experience. When the iPad was turned on,it immediately jumped on the Apple WiFi network. Now whether the tech had set up the WiFi previously or the devices automatically log onto the Apple WiFi as a default setting, I don’t know. But working with Windows devices I have always need to find a WiFi network and connect to it the first time. Is this a minor thing? Yes, but by it being seamless, it made the entire setup process more enjoyable.
- The iPad led her automatically through the set-up process; through set up of facial recognition to voice recognition. That wasn’t a typo. Facial recognition and Voice recognition, so the iPad knows it is you. No need to enter a password. Pretty cool, right? The item that took the longest time was the downloading of iCloud items and the necessity of waiting a few minutes to ask the tech a few questions and for him to check a few things on the configuration on the iPad. The total process took 15-20 minutes while videos placed on a giant screen and upbeat music filled the air. All in all, a very good experience.
User Experiences
Why do I tell you this? Because these “user experiences” are what consumers and businesses want. And your competitors are providing these experiences. Recently Apple passed a trillion dollars in market value. A trillion! No company has ever surpassed a trillion dollars in market value. In addition, they had $237 billion in cash as of Nov. 1, 2017. 237 billion! Only 3 companies had revenues (Wal-Mart, Exxon-Mobil, Berkshire-Hathaway) in 2017 greater than Apple’s cash hoard! When companies, like Apple,provide these type of experiences, customers will demand this type of experience from other companies, including yours.
We are in the process of remodeling our house. We buy a lot of items from Amazon. Why? Because we can choose exactly what I want: I know when it will be shipped to me and it will be dropshipped to my garage. I don’t need to be home to receive it; I don’t need to be home to sign for it.
We’re remodeling our master bathroom and we couldn’t find a shower door that we liked on Amazon. The vast majority of our Kohler and Moen bathroom fixtures were purchase through Amazon, however the shower door had to be purchased through a local retailer and then be delivered to our house. Here were the issues.
- Called the store and placed the order, was told 3 weeks delivery, so far so good. “Can the shower door be directly shipped to my house, instead of to your store, after all, I am paying for shipping”. The answer, “No”. “Can you automatically ship it to my house when you receive it?” The answer, “No,you need to call the store and schedule delivery and be there to receive it”.
- A couple weeks later I checked the invoice and shipping date was 12 weeks out.
- Called the store, they assured me the shower door would be in, in 3 weeks. Checked with the store the following week and indeed the shower door had been received at the store (within the 3 week promise date). “Great,” I said, “can you deliver it tomorrow”. The answer, “No, we’ll be in your area next week”. I scheduled a for the following week and they did deliver on the schedule day.
Now, this was relatively painless, from the store standpoint. They ordered and received the product at the store and get it to me as they said they would. But keep in mind, I was having my bathroom retiled during this time. The store added an extra week to the delivery by not being able to ship directly to me. To the store, no big deal, to me, if Amazon can do it, why can’t you? I will look first to Amazon for household items first and then to other retailers only if I can’t find what I want on Amazon.
Companies like Apple and Amazon have raised the bar on what the customer experience will be from their companies. It has also raised the bar on what customers will expect from you.
Another Example
My wife got a new Aeron chair. The chair, purchased through Amazon, was delivered fully assembled, except for some type of cover that lay in the box. No instructions, no explanation on where the cover goes, what it is for. After about 10 minutes, we figured out it is a cover that goes under the seat to cover the inner workings of the chair, but we couldn’t figure out how attach the cover to the chair. We called Herman Miller for help. The 800 number provided service for new orders, no customer support and being in the evening, the Herman Miller office was closed. And by way, it wouldn’t have matter if it was open. The 800 number was only for retailers. What did we do? We contacted Amazon to swap the chair for anew one. UPS came by the next day,picked up the old one and a few days later a new chair arrived. Herman Miller will never know what occurred,but if Amazon hadn’t fixed the problem it’s unlikely, I would purchase from Herman Miller again.
The major components of DesignThinking
Observe
The first major component of Design Thinking is observation. Henry Ford, the founder of Ford motor company said, ““If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” I believe what Henry Ford was trying to say is customers don’t necessary know what they want. The goal of Design Thinking is to help people to articulate the latent needs they may not even know they have. People are very adept at figuring out ways around an obstacle so its important to observe the actions they are taking and not just ask where a process or product needs to be improved. The customer may so used to a workaround,that they don’t realize the process needs to be fixed, until someone fixes.
To be effective in observation the team that is observing needs to have a variety of backgrounds, not just engineering, for example, with a tech product. A side note: studies have been shown that show that women are more collaborative than men, so make sure your team in diverse both in functional knowledge/expertise and gender. Have each member of the team make their own notes during the observation. Having one person make notes will result in the team capturing only one point of view.
The key is to observe the customer in action and take notes on how they interact with your product or service. This can be done with existing customers. The key is to not set up focus groups or in some way have an artificial environment for this observation. If possible, it is best to observe them without them knowing and by no means assist them to overcome an issue or an obstacle as they are working with product. And as illustrated above this observation needs to go way beyond just the product or service. It needs to cover
1. How someone gains knowledge on your company (e.g. website)
2. How they order the product/service.
3. How you communicate with your customer on the progress of the the order (e.g. send an email on expected delivery date).
4. Set up and use of your product when it first arrives in your customer’s hands.
5. Support: the ability for your customer to ask questions (with a real person), do returns if necessary. See Herman Miller example.
6. Details on how to maintain the project (e.g. Youtube videos).
7. And so on.
Think of Many Solutions
Once you have observed and have the data of the customer interaction with your product/service, it’s time to think of multiple ways to solve any issues in a simple, intuitive manner. Look at the issue from different aspects. Challenge the constraints. Challenges the assumptions. Make sure each observer has a chance to explain their ideas on how solve an issue or make the product better. Encourage the team to build on each other’s ideas. Have the team put their ideas on a sticky note and put it on the wall. Once the team has explored each idea it is time to vote on the best ideas. Provide a limited number of votes for each person and they can put their vote sticky next to the ideas they think are best. It’s okay if people move their votes during this session. They only get one vote per idea (can’t put all votes on one idea). Choose the top ideas for the next step.
Prototyping
Once the voting is done, it’s time to see what the idea looks like and this is accomplished through prototyping. There needs to be a physical representation of the idea so that everyone is able to see what the product looks like, how it works. And prototyping isn’t just for products. A service should be prototyped as well, but let’s start with products.
Prototyping Rule of Thumb
Rule of thumb: prototype needs to be cheap. Use basic material like paper, cardboard,tape and ordinary items that are laying around (pens, markers, staplers). Creating a physical representation enables all of he team to understand exactly what the creator was describing. It also engages the team to provide alternatives,modifications and additions to the product.
Also the prototype needs to be done fast. Even the most complex prototypes should be created in less than a week. Any more time allotted for the early prototype creates a desire by the creator(s) to push for their idea. The longer time that is spent on the prototype, the more ownership; the more attached the creator(s) becomes to the idea. It is way too early in the process to do this. As time goes on, the prototypes will get more elaborate, provided the product has proven itself during the early prototype stage.
Services Prototyping
For services prototype it is necessary to mock up what the new process would look like. If you’re redesigning the branch banking process, you would map out each step the customer takes as they enter the bank. Desk configuration, teller location, etc., would be designed to reflect the customer mapping.
This is what Apple did with its stores. There is no waiting in a queue to get your product. There are no cash registers(each employee has an iPad to take care of a sale). Going to an Apple store is liking going to a coffee bar. Some tables to work at and lots of comfortable chairs of a various types. A very welcoming environment. Any wonder why Apple is the most valuable company in the world?
Actions:
1. Examine the steps your customer goes through to obtain your product
a. Order process
b. The shipment of product (how the customer knows product is on the way, how they receive it).
c. Set up of the product once received.
d. How returns are handled.
e. Maintenance of the product. How is that maintenance provided? Does the customer go to your place of business, do they ship the product to you? If it is shipped to you, what do they use while the product is being repaired?
f. Disposal of the product once it has reached the end of its life
2. Have someone that is has never purchased from you, the “customer”, order the product. Be there with them as they go through the above steps. If the order process goes awry,don’t try to fix the process right then, don’t make suggestions, to correct the customer’s “mistake” in how they order, just make notes. Also, make sure your people are not aware that you are working with this “customer”, the “customer” receives the normal experience.
3. Document all the actions the “customer” takes to receive the product and set up the product.
4. Gather information on how the “customer” uses the product.
5. Ask the “customer” what steps they would take to return a defective product.
6. Have them make contact with your company for support. Document the steps they go through and identify if there are certain points in the step where the customer is frustrated.
7. Once all this information has been gathered work with you team to identify the most critical areas to tackle first.
8. Utilize Design Thinking to come up with solutions, prototype them, refine them and improve the product/service.
Leave me a comment on the blog post at alan@babyboomercashnow.com and let me know how you utilize Design Thinking in your business.