How Does Your Technology Shape Experiences?

How does your customer experience your business? How does tech help facilitate or exacerbate that experience? 

Is your website mobile aware? That is to say easy to view on mobile devices, click-to-call options, immediate capability to chat or leave a message, or, self-service an appointment? 

On the other hand, is it not? Where mobile users have to resize the screen, cut-n-paste a phone number, or email you to contact you?

When people visit your service counter, how quickly does it take them to check out? Do they have to perform an endless array of clicks and checks and confirmations? Or is it slick, fast, painless? Is there a counter at all? 

What kind of experience do you give when invoicing your customer? Are they presented with a variety of online and offline payment options? Do you make it easy for them to review their invoices, dispute them, review their statements, pay you? Or are you still expecting a check to be dropped in the mail? Or cash to be exchanged? Or physical check to be written?

When doing business with you, are you taking their order by pen and paper, or, electronically? Or, do you have to wait, crack open a laptop, login, perform a bunch of rituals to open a document, edit it, and finally get down to business? How is the process of conducting your business elevated by technology, or, distracted by it?

How does your use (or ignorance) of technology shape consumer expectation? Do they expect you to be slow, make mistakes, deal only in paper receipts? Or can they expect you to be faster, respect their time, pass receipts electronically? How are you changing your business processes to meet changing consumer expectations?  

What kind of consumer experiences are you creating anyway? How does that impact your brand? What people are saying about you?

R

Controlling Time

Time is scarce.

There's only so much of it and we're all (more or less) proportioned an equal amount of it. There's only 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week, 8,760 hours in a year. That's pretty constant.

So there might be a couple of considerations about time when developing a technology plan:

1. How can you and your staff maximize the use of time (personal efficiency)? How can the technology solutions you implement allow you to do more, to be more productive, within an ever-smaller slice of time?

2. How can you reduce the TRANSFORMATION time of a business? Those who went to business school know what I'm talking about. Classic business model, right? We take inputs and transform that raw material into outputs. When investing in technology, how can it increase the speed of transforming raw material into finished goods? 

3. How can you minimize time for the consumer? How can you invest in technology to both reduce their time commitment to do business with you? Whether or not that's reducing the amount of time in a check-out line, forgoing a phone call to self-service their needs on a mobile app, texting instead of emailing, self-check-out, a mobile-aware website, paying by a mobile device rather than a credit card ... all of these things reduce the time invested in doing business with you. That effect on the consumer-end of things is a strategic advantage.

4. How can you change the experience of time? Time is finite, yes, but the way we individually experience time is quite difference. How can you use technology to transform the experience that a consumer has with your company so that the time spent feels unique and extraordinary? That could be anything from what Disney does at its theme parks to using technology to tailor an experience that's all about that customer. 

5. How is your control of time related to your brand promise? Does your brand speak about trust, commitment, service, quality? How does your use of technology leverage time to fulfill your promise?

Time Isn't Just Money

If you believe the old nugget that time is money, Technology planning and strategy attempts to look at how time can be controlled and manipulated to ensure certain financial outcomes - attempting to optimize the use of time for you and your customer is a laudable goal. That's certainly true and just one side of the problem.

However, I believe that there's another qualified dimension to this problem of time: the way we feel about it. The way we experience it. People have no problem dropping large sums of cash in your pocket if you're able to deliver a consistent, amazing experience. Consider how you'd feel if:

A hotel concierge referred to you immediately by name, knew your arrival time and your preferences (as you booked everything easily from an App on your smart phone), had entertainment and dinner reservations automatically lined-up for you, a courteous bell-hop ready to help with your bags, then prepared in-stay linen, beverages, consumables like toothpaste and toothbrushes, towels, climate control ... every detail, just the way you like it, and expedited the checkout process through automated system. The stay was comfortable, easy, frictionless, effortless. Time was perceived much more relaxing. Technology surrounded this service capability. That perception is what will keep them coming back.

Now compare that to:

You have to make a phone call because the website reservation system is broken; you arrive and nobody expected you or knows who you are, and they're not particularly aware of your needs - nothing you like or want is in the room and you must go in search of it, maybe even buy it from a local grocer; arrange entertainment and dinner on the fly; stay in a room that doesn't have the right temperature; nobody at the desk could be found after several phone calls; breakfast was indifferent; the check-out process actually required a visit back to the concierge desk.  Time would be perceived as taxing, tedious, complex, a challenge. There was little technology involved with this delivery, and that terrible perception of time and experience is what will drive the customer away.

Use Technology to Control Both the Efficiency and Experience of Time

I think it's important for business owners and managers to look for opportunities where "time is money" and it can be made more efficient for both them and the customer, obviously, yes. Still, I think it's equally important for business owners to consider how time is relatively perceived and how their technology investments could be used to alter or manipulate that perception to add not just an efficient dimension to time, but, a quality dimension to time.

R

Controlling Your Costs as a Small Business Tech Strategy

How JetBlue Paved a New Path in an Old Industry

When I'm teaching, I like to tell a story about JetBlue.

In the early 2000's, many of JetBlue's competitors were offshoring customer service. The strategy was effective in reducing the cost associated with delivering customer service, but satisfaction ratings were way down. The customer offshore experience included line condition quality, language barriers, and lots of hassle over relatively small matters. Airline customers weren't happy and they dreaded making the phone call.

JetBlue wanted to offer a different experience. And in 2004, JetBlue did something different. They invested in technology that would allow Customer Service Representatives (CSR's) to work part-time and from home, using their own equipment, their own Internet connection.  Doing so would allow JetBlue to tap into a labor market of fluent English/native speakers, and best yet: they'd be contractors instead of employees, reducing JetBlue's overhead in managing FTE (Full Time Equivalent) employees.

What Did JetBlue Do Differently?

JetBlue employed a cost containment strategy. You guys remember me talking about that stuff in June, right? They spent a little money on IT solutions that'd allow them to grow and be competitive, but in the long run, would be cheaper than, say, owning their own call center and staff.

Small businesses can use technology in just the same way. Think about it: where can tech be applied in your business that'd allow you to increase customer volume yet not introduce additional overhead? Good examples:

• U-Scan machines at grocery marts that push labor back on the consumer;
• Self-ordering technologies at restaurants, bars, and casinos;
• Social media marketing - let others sell your business for you;
• Quick-pay technologies like Near-Field Communication and other standards that'll allow consumers to pay from their cell phones;
• Apps on mobile devices that engage the consumer in everyday functions;
• Telecommuting and VoIP telephony solutions - phones, anywhere, anytime;
• Supply Chain Management (SCM) and routing software for maps using GPS - allowing your delivery vehicles to get exactly where they need to be, and to monitor them;
• Website solutions that allow a customer to answer a question or perform a transaction without calling you;
• Cloud based business solutions that don't require you to purchase software, servers, specialized networking hardware, or systems maintenance;
• Business without physical overhead - no leased space, taxes, or utilities.

Why Don't You Zag Instead of Zig?

The possibilities are truly endless. And the idea is to think different from your competitors. To do something and offer a competitive value that is unique and distinctive. What you want to look at:

• How can an investment in technology today yield a lower commitment to labor, yet, allow you to take on more business volume?
• Where can an opportunity be found to be smarter about a business process? Where greater information could result in better decisions, fewer errors, and less cost?
• Is there a technology that enables the consumer to self-service their needs with you?
• Is there a technology that enables you and your workforce to work from anywhere?

Just a couple of good ideas. Next time: growth and alliances.

R