Customer experience design
Designs the experience a person has with a company along their whole journey, before, during and after buying, and across all channels.
What problem it addresses
Each department of a company looks after its own channel, but the person goes through them all in a row. If they aren’t designed together, the experience breaks when moving from one to the next.
Principles
Before, during and after
The experience starts with the need and continues long after paying.
Every touchpoint
Including those the company doesn’t control, such as reviews or what other customers say.
Not just reasons
What the person thinks, feels, does and perceives counts, and so does who is with them.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Map the whole journey, including what happens outside your channels.
Avoid
Measuring only satisfaction after purchase: the experience starts much earlier.
Don’t fall for it
Don’t measure each channel separately: the experience breaks in the handoffs between them.
Connections
Authors and works
- 1998
B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore
Argued that experiences are an economic offering of their own, distinct from products and services.
- 2016
Katherine N. Lemon and Peter C. Verhoef
Organized the experience into three stages (before, during and after buying) and four types of touchpoints.
Sources
Original sources
- Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (1998). Welcome to the experience economy. Harvard Business Review, 76(4), 97–105. View source: Pine, B. J., & Gilmore, J. H. (1998)
Academic reviews
- Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016). Understanding customer experience throughout the customer journey. Journal of Marketing, 80(6), 69–96. View source: Lemon, K. N., & Verhoef, P. C. (2016)
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