Author: Phoebe Ng | Originally published on the Facebook Design Community in January, 2020
Long before User Experience, Architectural Design and Industrial Design were two important professional practices that drove strategic business advantage for companies. The phrase “Form follows Function” was coined by architect Louis H. Sullivan, in his 1896 essay “The Tall Office Building Artistically Considered”. It refers to the idea that a skyscraper’s exterior design should reflect the different interior functions. In the Industrial Design age, good design did not just result in an object’s functionality. It resulted in new relationships and the new phrase “Form follows Emotion” was created in 1999 by Hartmut Esslinger, one of the most influential design icons in our modern world. It was Hartmut’s design philosophy in delivering products to consumers that are more than just pure function. In today’s digital age, Hartmut’s phrase still rings true.
The definition of Customer Experience is the impression a company leaves with its customers, resulting in how they think of the company’s brand across every stage of the customer journey. For commerce, these stages occur in the journey from awareness, shopping, consideration, fulfillment to post-purchasing activities such as repairs, returns and product end-of-life. Customer experience is everywhere in our physical and digital products. Everything that we do leaves a perception of our brand with the customer.
The words Customer Experience have been morphed into some kind of magical ingredients over the years. As I recall 13 years ago when I called Dell computer for service, someone was on the phone with me for 3 hours to diagnose the problems and walked me through the steps to do a repair on my own. The ingredient “human patience” was a great customer experience then. As our world has become more digital, services need to scale. Self-service experiences have become the center of customer experience to give users the efficiency and control they need. In commerce, thanks to Amazon providing experiences such as one-click purchase and hassle-free returns, it has raised the bar of customer experience with consumers across the commerce industry that are now expecting an enhanced level of service.
These examples provide key insights highlighting the evolution of Customer Experience:
Yet many business research reports suggest that there have been few, if any, meaningful improvements in customer experience over time. Despite the fact that companies have learned more about their customers through advanced technologies and data analysis, something still seems to be missing. The missing ingredient is Emotion. This is not a tearjerking kind of emotion. It is an invisible power that helps strengthen each decision our customers makes during the customer journey. UX tends to be more specifically focused on individual products or services like a website, an app, or the OOBE. It is the experience that a user has when they interact with that product. Three levels of Customer Experience Capacities: UX is the vehicle to make customers happy in their journey of interacting with the products we offer to them. 1) Single-Interaction Level — referring to the experience the person has using a single device in order to perform a specific task. This is the area most UX Designers’ work focuses on. 2) Journey Level — which captures the person’s experience as she works to accomplish a goal. A customer journey is the end-to-end process the user goes through and can be in a single channel or multi-channels. 3) Relationship Level — referring to all the interactions between the person and the company, throughout the life of the customer relationship. It is at a company level that fosters the ongoing relationship with its customers by anticipating their needs and proactively delivering the right content and service offerings at the right time, even after their purchase. Seven Experience Facets: UX is the catalyst to ignite the invisible power in our customers. The composition of catalyst can be defined into seven key areas. More than utility and usability alone. Products which are usable, useful, findable, accessible, credible, valuable and desirable are much more likely to succeed in the market place. One day, Giulia was interacting with her customers when they were talking about Portal. Out of curiosity, she went to the Facebook Shopping site. With very little English understanding, she started her conversation with the site in Italian: “Vorrei comprare un Portal, ma non so quale?” Giulia was able to navigate the site, found information about Portal and other products with ease, could seek recommendations from an expert, could understand the tech-specs of the products and the manufacturing ethics. She purchased all Facebook products she needed in a single order, and chose label-free, box-free pick up in a US store where it was near her son’s house. She felt extremely confident about the purchase. Everything from interacting with the site to gaining knowledge about the high-tech products was natural to her. Superhuman and superpowers, indeed. The non-techie grandma was given the superpowers to be a technical and knowledgeable researcher, her own trusted advisor, and delivery person. The positive emotions Giulia had, enhanced the effectiveness of her activities with the site and inspired her decision-making. 1) Catalyzing single-interaction level designs 2) Introducing meaningful UX Metrics 3) Growing a human-innovation mindset
Giulia is a native Italian speaking grandma and runs a small restaurant. Her son moved to the US twelve years ago after he got married. Giulia is going to visit her son and grandchildren in the US.
Moving into 2020 and as I am thinking about the design roadmap, I have some thoughts to help AR/VR Commerce and our business to elevate customer experience in our products and services.
Putting the customer first with great Customer Experience is always ideal for any business. The needs from great customer expectations are higher than ever and increasing as the customer becomes even more empowered. Customer experience is an area that requires constant nurturing and care. As the AR/VR Commerce team is getting more mature, we must put a greater focus on customer experience strategy to help our organization and business realize a positive impact on customer loyalty, higher retention and increased revenues. Start building products and services from our heart to tackle the hearts of our users.