CX Innovation Using Lightning Demos
You've just completed your journey mapping research and have uncovered a series of pain points throughout the journey.
In the case of one of my recent clients, G Adventures travel company, the identified traveler's pain points (unmet wants and needs) related to different stages of the journey:
Dreaming about their next adventure;
Researching which travel company to go select ;
Booking their trip and associated airfare or lodging;
Preparing for travel including visa requirements, what to bring/not bring;
Traveling, the trip itself starting with being greeted at the airport to saying goodbye to everyone; and
Remembering, looking back on their trip and sharing the most memorable experiences with others.
How do you start to ideate on ways to improve the customer experience at different stages of the journey? I have found that a very useful technique is to perform Lightning Demos (part of the Design Sprint process created by Jake Knapp).
What are Lightning Demos? Lightning demos are a way of sharing out everyday experiences we all have as we engage with brands, products, services. When you are ideating on ways to improve customer experience you don't have to start from scratch! We do want to create something unique and differentiated for our individual Brands, but, often times you can do this by starting with something someone else has done and "building upon it" or "remixing" it to make it your own.
Here is the simple step by step approach to conducting Lightning Demos:
Make a list of brands, products, or service experiences you've encountered yourself or within your team that are related to the pain points your customer's are experiencing.
Give a three-minute demo for each of the ideas on the list. This can be as simple as talking about the experience, sharing an App, sharing a website, or looking at an actual email you received from a company.
Capture the "Big Idea" from each Lightning Demo sketching a simple picture as well as some simple notes to reflect on later. At this point, we are simply trying to capture the core essence of what made this an easy, enjoyable, or memorable customer experience.
In running a recent CX Innovation workshop for G Adventures travel company we looked at how:
WealthSimple's social media posts tell a brand story not just a product story (emotional connection);
ModCloth represents the diversity of its' customer based by actually using them as models on their website (customer diversity);
Facebook memories help people remember past experiences to inspire new ones and reconnect people (inspire, reconnect);
Contiki travel reviews include a reviewer profile, picture, # of tours and countries travelled (increase credibility);
Tinder uses an interactive swipe left/right interface to identify things people liked/didn't like (improve relevancy);
Expedia makes it easy to book flights, hotel, car rental, etc., either all together or after the fact (make it easy);
Skyscanner provides price alerts to let passengers know when the price drops (inform, add value);
The weather channel provides forecasts not only regarding weather, but, likelihood of rain, UV range, and allergy scores (inform, add value);
The Sutton Place Hotel personalizes its post-booking communications to guests making them feel appreciated (personalization);
Hawaiian Airlines greets its' passengers with a fresh leis and a smile (warm welcome, sense of place);
Uber in App Support provides five different ways to contact Uber (communication preferences); and
The NCAA captures the entire basketball tourney and its' associated memories with a single "One Shining Moment" video at the end of it's telecast (shareable memories).
These are just a few of the ideas that inspired the G Adventures travel company to envision ways of delivering a new and improved traveller experience pre-travel, during-travel, and post-travel. As you can see, some of the ideas came from within the industry but several came from outside the industry.
As Designers we all know that the design process requires divergence (looking at multiple ideas) and convergence (selecting the best ideas). I have found that Lightning Demos are a useful tool specifically when you are at the divergent stage of the design thinking process.
If you are looking for someone to help you look at ways to facilitate CX innovation feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn or by email at johngusiff@customercentricllc.com. I love having the opportunity to chat with others as passionate as me regarding improving customer experience!