Hello again from Saratoga Springs, New York, The Home Base of Story Mavericks & "Rock Your Customers." As always, I hope your world is great both personally and professionally. The topic of this post has been on my mind for quite some time so I thought it was time to share a thought with you on an important principle, on storytelling and customer experiences.
Great stories like Great Customer Experiences just don't happen. They are intentionally defined, planned and designed.
Below is a paragraph originally written by the author of "Story Theater Method", Doug Stevenson, about the art and hard work of business storytelling. Colin Shaw substituted the words "Customer Experience" for "Story" , in his book,Revolutionize Your Customer Experience. I think the paragraph illustrates the point i am making in this post.
“For a Customer Experience to come alive and captivate and audience, the content, structure, and performance must be crafted strategically. The Customer Experience itself is only a beginning. Customer Experience is an art and the designer of the Customer Experience, the artist. And all artist need tools. The actor needs a stage, props, and costumes. The musician needs her instrument. The artist needs his brushes and paint. And the Customer Experience designer needs form, content, and presentations skills and techniques. The great designers of Customer Experiences distinguish themselves not just by their talent, but also their dedication to their craft. They think about their Customer Experiences constantly. They structure the sequence and flow of the Customer Experience, and experiment to find just the right words that are genuinely theirs. They work on gesture or movement until it is just right. Then they rehearse it over and over until it becomes second nature – the line and the gesture effortlessly married together. They incorporate acting skills and turn the Customer Experience into little theatrical events. In order to have an end that is amazing, you will have to spend many hours working on your Customer Experience. Your Customer Experience must be worked and re-worked, formed and re-formed. You’ll want to find the drama and comedy of your Customer Experiences and let them shine.”
I mentioned earlier in the post that this topic has been on my mind. It is the result of hearing or reading about so many promises of great experiences, or wow customer service from businesses. The words have really become buzz words that are ubiquitous and have little marketing impact.
The above paragraph written to teach the concepts of Story and Customer Experiences, by Doug Stevensen and Colin Shaw, are becoming a reality in today's business world. Study upon study of business leaders points to one very clear fact. They consider reconnecting with customers the top business priorty for 2011.
Let me be clear that I am not merely talking about customer service here but memorable, "Rock Your Customer" type experiences. The growing importance of fighting off an increasing commoditized business world of goods and services by staging experiences, was first articulated by Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore in their best selling book , "The Experience Economy". The subtitle of Pine & Gilmore's book, "Work is Theatre & Every Business a Stage", offers a great work model to stage great customer experiences. Great stage performances just don't happen.
Have you intentionally designed your customer experience?
Please share your thoughts and if you’ve done something really great in this area I’d love to share it on this blog. Thanks Much
Best to You & Rock Your Customers !
Bill
Nice way of promoting a product. :)
Posted by: essay writing service | May 20, 2011 at 06:05 PM
Thanks for your thought & compliment. Yes the experience is the marketing. Great Experiences = Great Stories = Word of Mouth Marketing. :) bg
Posted by: Bill | May 20, 2011 at 06:40 PM