No Planet B - so we need Planet X

There's no Planet B - but there is Planet X. Planet Experience is the framework through which we can help make our organisations ones we can all live with; as customers, as employees and as participants in a biosphere we all rely on.

In recent and previous posts I have outlined the value of PX as the new business superpower - shaping our overall experience as potential and repeat customers (Customer Experience [CX]), as potential and continuing employees (Employee Experience [EX]), and in shaping the working culture (Workplace Experience [WX]).

PX elevates the status of the planet in our sustainable success - just as CX elevated the status of customers. No longer is the planet something to exploit, it is something to build a relationship of mutual benefit with. Through the PX filter it is something to purposefully design a relationship of mutual benefit with.

I believe this is important because:

1. It is business which can have most impact - since it is business which drives consumption.
2. Increasing transparency is revealing the impact of exploitation; of planet and people.
3. Customers are increasingly coming to care. The web has revealed our connectedness. We want our experience to be great but only if the cost of delivering it is, literally, one we can live with. I get that this is far from the case for all people in all cases - but the number it is true for is rising, and they carry a large amount of economic power.

Those that dismiss point 3 may suppose that the world is not changing around them - that the reality of climate change, reduced biodiversity, water scarcity, dwindling icecaps can be ignored with little impact on how they do business. The same mindset leads to relationships of abuse with customers, employees and society at large. And we now have increasing evidence that does not lead to economic success or business longevity. Ignore PX and you'll be revealing a lot about your opinion of your customers and employees, too.

But when all is said and done, PX is just the latest (but essential to acknowledge) expression of the long-known business fact that building relationships of benefit is the key to sustainable success. This time the planet needs to benefit, too.

I'm making my thinking on this as open as possible, deliberately. I want others to pick it up, fill the gaps, improve on it, share those improvements - for the benefit of us all.

It's too important for IP. What can you share?

Work with me!

Planet Experience - the next business superpower

The winners of the last start-up revolution achieved their success by focusing on experiences.
Their continuing success has built on designing to deliver great customer experiences, expanding, as they have expanded, to also deliver great employee and workplace experiences.

To deliver these require different priorities in everything from ops to marcomms. Having a 'digital'  or data-led business model alone will not and does not cut it.

It's why I believe to deliver a successful digital transformation (ie a modern business) your first principle is to design (everything) around the experiences you want to create. Customers, employees and workplaces experiences have been well considered - and very effectively. Great experiences have been the start-up superpower that drove the best businesses you know.

Now it is for PX - Planet Experience - to serve as your next business superpower.

Good CX has always made customers your partners. It's the trust thing. You want your customer to believe you have their best interests at heart. To do this your business has to generate win-win benefits. A customer win is a business win.

This has driven the whole customer-centricity revolution across business - the rediscovery of the customer as less someone to exploit, more someone to partner with. It has served the winners well. They understand that winning is about serving the needs of customers in a relationship of mutual trust. ie Exploit the customer and you get one big bang pay day, build a relationship of trust with a customer and you may miss out on today's pay day, for a longer term and (here's that word) sustainable relationship generating value for both parties.

Screw your customer - lose your customer.
Love your customer - keep your customer.

Some of you will already have guessed where I am going with this:
Delivering great Planet Experience will treat the planet like we (should) treat a customer - winning is about serving the needs of the planet in a relationship of mutual benefit.
The best businesses have now learned that exploiting their customer is essentially an abuse and a recipe for a short relationship.

Now they are coming to realise that their relationship with the planet requires just as much care.
A new superpower - yes because apply PX at the core of how you change or operate is becoming essential to the total experience the customer has of your brand or product.

If you want to sustain a relationship with the customers and employees who pay your bills, you will need a relationship with the planet that they can (literally) live with. Start designing for a great PX today!

Photo by Guillaume de Germain on Unsplash

Big tech vendors still failing a simple CX test

I put myself in the position of customer yesterday - trying to trade with some of the leading technology companies of our time.
I tried 20 in total.

Most of these companies would claim they would at a minimum help you understand your customer. Some would claim to be leaders in improving customer experience. Yet all but one failed a very simple test. To contact them I had to fill in an online web form.

I hate online web forms with a vengeance.
To me they say: "You customer, You must do things my way if you want to trade with me."

• They force my compliance with your data fields,
• They mean I have no record of the correspondence (you do), not even which email or phone number I have given you (that's my data that is). 
• They tell me what I should tell you.
• They won't accept the realities of unstructured data. 
• They don't allow me to send attachments. 
• They make me act in the way you want and say only what you'll allow. 
• They cost me time in later clarifications an email and attachment could have resolved.

As I came across example after example yesterday I understood how so many have so far still to go on the journey to putting the customer first (not customer centric, but customer as partner). The door to their businesses had been designed to serve those on the inside better than those on the outside.

It put me in mind of a restaurant I once had lunch at where I saw half of the customers turn away because the door was designed to be pushed rather than pulled open. Embarrassed customers tried the door and when it didn't work the way they expected, they turned and walked. If the proprietors reversed the door they would double their trade.

Food for thought for CX and UX designers.

UX starts at the front door

What's the message you've designed?

No matter how good the customer experience is within your doors, if your customer can't actually get through those doors, everything else is wasted.
I had lunch in a steak house in Milton Keynes yesterday as I prepared for a meeting with a colleague.
I was seated near the window and close enough to observe as potential diners approached the entrance.
I think I could make one, simple, physical change to that entrance and at least double conversion.
In the short time I was there (a little less than an hour) I saw at least 15 people walk up to the front door, try to open it, fail, and walk away.
People rarely see your embarrassment at failing a simple test like opening a door on the internet (so perhaps they try again and again, allowing us to get away with poor online design?). But in the real world, in front of your friends and passing pedestrians on a Milton Keynes pavement, that embarrassment is real and all that you need to prompt you to keep on walking to the next restaurant.
By the time I came to settle the bill there had been so many failed attempts to get in that I felt it fair to point out the issue to the fella taking my credit card details. To confirm my point, it happened to another would-be customer as we discussed the problem. The member of staff dashed off after that one, but they'd already gone.
To put this in context, there were less people inside dining than had failed to get it. Half the revenue was failing to get past the front door.
What, I wondered, makes this door so great a challenge?
The door very clearly states 'pull'. And the instruction is correct. And to be fair, I had managed to get in, hadn't I?
The problem, I think, is that we typically expect an entrance to open inwards. My front door at home does this and, I'm pretty sure from the pov of entering the room, so do the rest of the doors in our home.
My guess is we come to expect doors to open inwards when they are entrances - no matter whether they are covered with explanations to the contrary (signs don't work, by the way).
The episode highlights how important it is to really push out the ends of end-to-end when we map customer journeys. Sometimes you must, literally, put yourself in your customers' shoes and walk it.
So Middletons, my free piece of advice to you today is, change your entrance door to one which opens inwards. You could double your revenue overnight.