NOTA AICEX: dopo aver discusso di come Steve Jobs “non ascoltava” i desideri dei suoi clienti, ecco una visione diametralmente opposta. I vostri clienti ne sanno molto più di voi.

Do you remember the first day you realized that your customers knew more than you, that they had expert knowledge that you lacked?

It was probably a humbling and, I hope, teachable moment (with you as the teachee), leading you to think about how to build a customer experience in our age of information.

Auto dealers have had these encounters for years with obsessive gearheads who come armed with stats beyond anything a salesman has time to research or rebut.

But now, for all of us in every field of commerce, the advent of Google and the transportability of Google via mobile phones has turned your garden variety customer into an expert. Simply through the power of the customer’s thumbs. And soon, with Google Glass, through the power of the customer’s augmented eyeballs.

To illustrate, let’s cast me as the customer, rather than as service provider or customer experience designer, for a moment. What follows is a true story. Only the names have been, you know.

One Saturday morning I found myself trekking to the guitar store uptown because I needed strings for a ‘‘Baby Taylor.’’ (A Baby Taylor is a more portable version of a standard acoustic guitar.)

The clerk, who was knowledgeable in an approximate sort of way, told me he thought that medium-gauge, full-length guitar strings would work well: just cut off the excess length as needed to make them fit the ‘‘baby.’’ I had a hunch that his answer might be incomplete, and I vaguely wondered why the clerk didn’t look in his system for Taylor’s ‘‘manufacturer’s stringing recommendation’’ before advising me. I didn’t wonder for long, though, before turning the issue over to my iPhone. With just a few thumb strokes—‘‘What kind of strings should I use on my Baby Taylor?’’—

I found an official, enthusiastically detailed description of which strings to use and why the decision matters: Continua a leggere “Forbes: Costruire la Customer Experience quando i clienti ne sanno molto piu’ di voi.” →