The goal of customer centric design is achieving customer delight.
 
Designing for an emotional end state like delight means you need to answer for identity (who to delight), measurability (what is delight) and specificity (how to deliver delight) in the brand experience.

A. Identity (Who to Delight):

1. Identify the High Value Audience: The economic value of a customer retained over a long period of time far outweigh the costs undertaken to delight them. However, not all customers are created equal and organisations have to think about monetization while identifying ‘who’ these valuable customers are. Data sources can be transaction data, direct response mailing lists, web site visits, app user profiles etc.. Two methods that help choose ‘high value audience’ segments:

• ‘Recency, frequency, monetary’ (RFM Method) : Works on the 80/20 Pareto Principle that you derive most of your revenue from a small sub-section of your customers. Commonly used as a direct marketing tool but can also be used to help isolate the pocket of segments that show extreme behaviors (High Vs Low Recency-Frequency-Monetary combinations) and the difference in the segment behaviors will point to design improvement opportunities.
• Customer Lifetime Value :  Useful when the business depends on recurring revenue from the same customer and gaining new customers is expensive (Subscriptions, memberships, accounts).

2. Map Consumer Journeys: Understanding this high value audience journey is the next step. Empathy for the pain / pleasure points and identifying key trigger-points (that lead directly to conversion) where we could create frictionless journeys helps us create a template for the ideal consumer experience. This audit, done with deep inputs from multiple departments that are consumer facing, covers processes/ offline-online/ rules & procedures/ inter-departmental prioritisation and requires transparent data sharing internally. The entire organisation should have the capability to ‘walk in the customer shoes’ and contribute to making changes that will improve the customer experience in every way.

B.  Measurability (What is Delight) : What are the right metrics to measure design goals that are consumer emotional end-state resulting from their overall product-service experience ? In order to arrive at simplicity in goal definition the brand needs to have derived customer motivations- need states- expectations –task completion episodes. This leads to the emotion that the brand wants the consumer to have when it has solved for their need.

When Airbnb defines its goal as “To make people feel that they could belong anywhere” they are trying to solve for people who want to travel without feeling like a tourist. They would like for their ‘guests’ to feel at home, in a stranger’s home. This a simple, specific but inspiring design goal and begins to point towards the changes that need to be made in order to meet the goal. From educating hosts and training them on how to personalize the experience and helping guests live ‘like a local’, expanding the list of locations, matching for host-guest ‘tastes and preferences’ Airbnb is operating with the design goal in mind.      

What are the right metrics that help measure delight? Examples of a few metrics :

1. Satisfaction: Basic but works very well across industries. Surveys can be short and effective (Satisfaction, Task Completed, Reasons for Incomplete Tasks)
2. Customer Effort Score: if complexity is a key pain point in the category (Banking/ Insurance/ Automobile/ eCommerce) measuring how much effort was needed by the customer to complete their goals is a relevant metric.
3. Net Promoter Score: when the human component of the service is a large part of the consumer experience (Hotels, Restaurants, Retail)

 
C. Specificity (How to design for Delight) : This part of the actual design is iterative and will involve ‘design-prototype-test-design’ steps. Think of the design solutions with the specific goal in mind and through the following filters:

1. Eliminate ‘Pain Points’ : Where, when and how can these be eliminated ? Introducing simplicity, seamlessness, bite sized information and customer control of the experience helps address many of the pain points in the customer journey. People training, internal process simplification and use of technology combinations are required to standardize the design changes. Example : In September 2017, Ikea bought-over TaskRabbit (marketplace for 60, 000 workers who perform household repairs-fitting-handymen tasks) in an effort to eliminate the pain felt by consumers post-purchase of Ikea’s products. It has introduced a VR Platform (Ikea Play) that helps customers see how their furniture will look ‘in situ’ in their homes eliminating a pain point felt by customers who find it difficult to use their imagination to do so.
2. Elevate ‘Pleasure Points’: The moments of true delight should be retained or enhanced when making the design changes. In fact, building the design from the ‘pleasure points’ outwards helps to highlight the core differentiator of the brand.
3. Trigger Points : Points during the customer journey that lead directly to a conversion. ‘Buy Now’ button, ‘can we help you’ chatbot, ‘fix an appointment’ / ‘sale’ sections, ‘1 click ordering’, ‘Dash Buttons’ (Amazon) are examples of triggers. Ensuring that customers have full access to the ‘triggers’ at all times in their journey and that there are no distractions surrounding the triggers is extremely important.

​A central part of consumer centric design is constructing consumer journey maps – the journey of a consumer to purchase a product/ service as experienced by them. Agnostic of a brand imposed division of its experience into departments, offline/ online, applications, enquiries/ help-desks/ customer service, sales/ after-sales etc..
 
When building a consumer journey map its easy to fall into the trap of isolating the touch-points the consumer interacts with the brand and begin to reconstruct the experience within each touch-point. This leaves the organisation with blind-spots as its ignoring the intermission periods when the customer is still engaged in the purchase process but invisible to the brand. Research (search, reviews, retail visits, browsing, subscriptions to newsletters), information gathering (for technical expertise, customer service calls), deal hunting (comparison shopping on specialist sites, financing, opting in for alerts to discounts) are all part of the purchase process – each taking a different duration and having a unique weightage on the final decision. This customer reality requires the organization to expand its thinking to include their entire journey and map it based on ‘needs, motivations, assumptions and expectations’ of the customer at every phase.
 
How do you construct customer journeys using the design principle of empathy?
 
Step 1 : Discover 

1. Representative : Capture high traffic points. Use customer data to understand the high density in visits, pass-throughs, used utilities and services on your website-retail location-apps. High traffic represents high customer need and could unearth organisational bottle-necks.
2. High-Value: Its likely that the top 2-3 segments are more desirable to plan towards Vs all. Choose segments that are robust (value/ volume that helps meet the organisational goal) and differentiated in behaviors (high Vs low usage, bulk Vs piece-meal buy, discount Vs premium quality seekers etc).
3. Insightful: Actual observation of the segments journey with attention to tasks, barriers and completion time-ease should be supplemented by qualitative customer research in the form of focus groups and 1x1 interviews. This will help identify the list of needs-motivations-barriers in the journey. 
4. Actionable : For the high value segments, its important to develop a hierarchy of needs (importance to customer) x current state (satisfaction). Classifying the needs based on simplicity (skill required), ease (time + effort investment), control (personalization, customization), speed (response time), transparency (information sharing), trust (safety in transactions, guarantees, privacy) will also help in actionability. 

 
Step 2 : Define
1. Segment Journey by Episodes : Each segment of customers follows a unique series of steps towards purchase. Every step is an ‘episode’ within the entire journey having unique actions that start-stop to link towards the next episode (Search by itself is an episode in the consumer journey but might begin in social media-reviews and stop at brand website). Identify the steps using various data points available to the brand – search, web visits, service centre calls, CRM database, social media. Understand that their start/ pause points will vary. Also, segment behaviors will converge at critical steps (booking, coupon downloads) and diverge based on their specific needs (e-commerce purchase Vs offline). Remember – the context (time / geography / event) plays an important role in understanding journeys. Certain journeys repeat at consistent times of the year (a Christmas journey) while others are live for a specific event and repeat only of that event repeats (hurricane related purchases).
 
2. Identify Channels per Episode  : Each episode will be connected to a few channels (in-store, customer service, eCommerce site, website etc). List and weight each channel based on its importance in the consumers goal for that episode. Don’t ignore the multiplicity of channels in each episode.
 
3. Episode Trigger : Every segment moves a step closer to purchase because of invisible/ visible ‘triggers’ that motivate them to do so within each episode. Its important to identify the trigger and understand its role. Example: when a customer is searching for specific solutions and the brand appears top of the search results with relevant content the search result is a trigger for the consumer to move to the next episode in their journey. This understanding will ensure that the trigger is robustly created – the absence of the search result will only create an undesirable pause in the consumer journey.
 
4. Duration + Context : Every episode has a duration that could vary between segments. Example : for laptops, the discovery duration for technophiles could be very short while for others could last weeks. Duration and context of the duration is an important step to understand in-depth because it contains opportunities for brands to leverage and add utility. If we understand that the post discovery episode of ‘browsing-comparison-reviews’ is taking longer for a certain segment Vs others shortening the duration could significantly impact the conversion – simplification of user experience, enabling easier discovery, quick and helpful customer call backs, chatbots etc could help improve the user experience and motivate quicker conversion.
 
End note : Consumer journeys and segments are in a constant state of flux because of the introduction of new technologies, change in the environment and new expectations in experiences. Constantly R&D new segments, identifying new niche segments, discover new behaviors and therefore create new triggers. ​

With multiplicity of choices for consumers  - platforms x applications x devices x newsfeed refresh x e-mail alerts x ad messages, it seems that consumer attention is a scarce resource. But attention is the end product of a ‘time-value’ correlation (I will spend more time and pay attention for more value) and not a trade-off (I will pay more/ less attention to brands).
 
Value is the inflexible determinant of consumer attention, not time. Consumers will reward you with their attention if there is the likelihood of a value exchange (attention for entertainment, interest for information, visit for experience).  One strong candidate for a value exchange is ‘purpose’ (purpose for participation). When customers see an alignment in their values with a brands actions, they will begin to disproportionately invest their time participating in the brand via attention, purchase, advocacy.
 
A brand acting on its purpose is not altruism. The argument for brands to build or re-discover purpose is not emotional, its economics.
 
A. Profit : When Always ‘Like a Girl’ decided to speak against gender stereotyping its talking about a subject that’s extremely relevant to its core consumers – teen girls/ young women. It lit the spotlight on the issue of ‘confidence’ in young girls, making the conversation mainstream while allowing its consumers to participate and shape the discussion. But, as importantly, by using the connection of puberty to the loss in confidence amongst young girls it puts its brand promise of ‘protection during your period’ in focus. 76 million views, 12 billion impressions, +50% increase in purchase intent and +1.4% share point increase later Always proves that brands that combine purpose with product build profit.
 
B. Relevance : It helps a brand quickly align itself with like minded people telegraphically. “I believe in what you believe” is more powerful than “I understand you” and definitely more compelling that “I have something to sell you”.  AirBnB “Belong Anywhere” builds brand purpose and thereby relevance. Respect for its community has been the bedrock for AirBnBs actions and its paying rich rewards in the form of free marketing. More than 77% of AirBnBs content on Instagram is UGC and it has contributed directly to an uplift of 17% in its followers. AirBnB continues to live true to its purpose at every opportunity. Its “Belong Anywhere” idea has been activated in many ways – earlier this year during the Trump Innauguration, Super Bowl 2017  (#weaccept) and most recently in Australia with a message promoting marriage equality (Until We All Belong).
 
C. Reach
In low involvement/ high media cost categories like FMCGs attaching meaning to a brand is a strategically sound method to make your media work harder-longer for you. Laundry brands like Ariel “Share the Load” have embraced the route of brand purpose and made it a part of their mainstream communications. Sales lift attributed to the campaign was 5% with 1.5 million pledging to ‘share the load’ with their wives in India.
 
D. Captive High Value Audiences : For its Model 3 launch Tesla operated on a $0 marketing budget and clocked $14 Billion in pre-orders in 1 week ! People wanted to participate in the brand, wanted a slice of the future for themselves so much that they paid Tesla a year in advance to buy their car.
 
The argument for purpose led marketing is growing stronger. When done thoughtfully and consistently it plays a strategic role in helping brands capture the hearts and wallets of its targeted consumers.
 

​Think of your favorite restaurant, bar, gym or coffee shop. You spend a disproportionate amount of time there, making choices every time you visit. Over multiple visits your choices help create a personal record that explicitly reveals your preferences. You would expect the establishment in which you are investing your time and money to remember your likes and dislikes. Make recommendations tailor-made for you. While you may agree/ disagree with their recommendations you will certainly appreciate the availability of bespoke choices created for you.

When a brand says “We remember you and will make your experience seem familiar and comfortable, we know what you like/ dislike (over time and occasion) and we will help you choose your desired experience”  its saying “Thank you for coming back, we want you to spend the least amount of time deciding and the most amount of time enjoying your time with us”.
 
We can break down Personalisation into 3 buckets – Memory, Choice and Prediction.
 
 “Memory” is the first pillar to build given that brands know when-what-how consumers interact with them. Synthesising the signals consumers transmit with every action into a cohesive pattern of individual preferences we should be able to design personalised experiences for each and every one of them. Memory helps acknowledge a relationship and makes it stronger. Memory is the minimum reward a brand can offer for your loyalty.
 
“Choice” is the second pillar. Its about offering customisation within an available sub-set of variables (choose the content you want to see, sections you like to visit on the website, length –duration of content based on your time availability etc.). Again, its not inventing anew as much as its about the giving consumers the tools to experience your brand as they see fit.
 
“Prediction” is the third and the toughest pillar to build. Here the brand is trying to serve the optimal consumer experiences based on their past behaviors or their peer behaviors and /or the current context (location, time, step). Knowledge of patterns in behaviors and the relationship between actions (what action preceeds another and how likely is it that the second action will occur) can inform a brand about the steps it needs to take to smoothen the transitions between desirable actions. ​

“ Change might not be fast and it isn’t always easy. But with time and effort, almost any habit can be reshaped” – Charles Duhigg.
 
Behavior change in its essence is every marketers goal. Changing consumer behavior is essential in marketing where we are trying to subtly influence, inspire and inform consumers of who-why-when-how they should be changing their current preferences.
 
Many frameworks exist that help us navigate the process of creating behavior change. One that stands-out in its clarity and single-minded consumer centricity is by BJ Fogg. Fogg’s template shows that three elements must converge at the same moment for a behavior to occur: Motivation, Ability, and Trigger.

1. Motivation : When motivation is high (there is a strong reason ‘why’) the effort made by consumers to change their behaviors will also be high. It begins to subside as motivation becomes lower. The job of a marketer is to understand the core motivation level (its dynamic) and provide the right trigger that motivates a consumer to make the change. Example : if a cable broadcast provider wants to improve subscription rates amongst sports enthusiasts they would use the exclusive broadcast rights of a sports event as a motivator to entice behavior change. Asking a sports fan to perform complex tasks in unsubscribing to their current service provider and then shifting loyalty can be accomplished when the reason for the shift is ‘worth it’. Asking ‘Why is it worth it?’ before planning for behavior change is understanding the consumer through their consumer journey, lifestages and context.
2. Ability : Does the consumer have the ability to change ? The emphasis is on the brand to make it simple to change Vs asking the consumer to learn. Simplicity achieved via consumer experience design (streamlined order form, clean navigation, transparency of steps, customer service) can all help activate the change. A part of ‘ability’ is the resources available to the consumer (time, access, money, technical knowledge) and brands need to compensate for low ability with highly intuitive design to help failitate the change. Example : If a bank wants to shift its offline consumers to using its online services it needs to make sure that the online services are designed keeping in mind the range in abilities of their various consumers. The FAQ section might need to be revamped, on-line chat functions enabled, customer service call centers trained in ways that will help basic migration barriers be overcome.
3. Triggers : these are a call to action to change behavior and signals urgency to do so. In my aforementioned example of people migrating from offline to online services the trigger could be a sign at the bank that encourages transacting online during busy hours. It could be an email timed pre-tax filing periods to encourage you to login to your bank account for the first time and experience features that help you file your expenses accurately.

 
Behavior change requires consumer centric thinking for it to be successful and assumes that change will be frictionless for it to stick.
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