Do you know what AV & IT both have? CX!
Jimmie Singleton
The great debate of whether AV is IT. I don’t know if this is a debate that I have much of an opinion on, but I do enjoy watching the battle rage on from a distance. What I care about more though is how AV & IT currently handles their Customer Experience. It seems to be that just recently the technology industry, in general, has started to focus on CX after many years of putting it on the back burner. The industry has always been focused on the product they have and not as focused on the reason why they make that product. Every piece of technology created serves a purpose, but how do we define what is right for our users?
Start with the why
Simon Sinek has some great talks about starting with the “why” and how important this is in delivering a successful product, idea, or service. You should definitely watch some of those videos, but I will give you a breakdown of how this works. Most organizations/companies/people operate using the following process:
- The “what” is what we are offering. This could be a service, an idea, and/or a physical item (i.e. classroom technology). This is where most technical people spend their time because this what they are great at and it is often what drew them into the industry in the first place.
- The next step is knowing the “how“. This is knowing what we think we do well and how we provide a product, service, or idea that is different from others.
- The Last step is the “why” and this one is the toughest to truly define and clarify. The “why” is the core purpose of what you do. For us in higher ed, this core purpose is often to help students receive an education, but you should take this with your own perspective and get very granular with it. Define what your actual purpose is and why what you are doing matters to the people you are hoping to affect.
Now that you know the three steps that most people follow, flip the order around. Start with the why, then define how you want to do it, and then decide what you need in order to accomplish the why..
Defining your “why” is an ever-evolving process and should be analyzed often through the lens of your customer. In this debate between AV & IT, we get stuck on how much do we know about each other’s jobs and how separate or combined we should be. Each group, whether they are separate or combined, should come together to discuss the why before choosing the how and the what. Maybe we are changing network switches in a closet and that affects both IT & AV, but also think about how that change may affect the customer and what services may be affected by doing so. Obviously, there are many layers to this and it is not always super simple, but starting with the why can make this process much easier for everyone involved.
If you have any questions or would just like to discuss this further, I am always happy to chat and learn so feel free to reach out!