Blog

Sell the Experience

May 20th, 2010

Internet Strategy, User Experience Design

This morning I came across an excellent summary of the value proposition for effective positioning of products to customers. Selling experiences instead of products is a way to provided added value, and in turn achieve increased margins.

Yahoo: Be Like Starbucks and Apple: Sell Experiences

Selling an experience is just one part of the equation, though, an experience provided to users inconsistently is not likely to succeed. In the User Experience Design space we commonly invoke the term “Service Design” – making consistent and cohesive all of the interactions that customers have with your business and brands. Case studies presented at past conferences I’ve attended have highlighted Zappos and ZipCar as prime examples of multi-channel marketing efforts yielding successful, satisfying and consistent customer experiences.

Clients often ask us to focus on “desktop” Web sites (my term for fully featured sites that users generally view on full-size screens) or mobile-specific sites/apps, but these are only part of the overall experience. The manner in which users interact with your brand and its official or unofficial representatives in other settings (e.g. social networking sites) can be just as or even more important than your primary online properties. Then there are physical representations of the brand and its products, like retail stores and direct mailings, in addition to live interactions with customer service representatives. In order to provide an effective service to consumers – one that delivers on its implicit promise of an “experience” – all customer touchpoints must be in-sync, focused on customer satisfaction and empowered to provide it.