A Customer Experience Wishlist | CX Recs
By Jimmie Singleton, CTS
In the spirit of the holiday season we are here to talk about some sweet sweet wishes. Although there are a ton of AV wishes I have, I wanted to focus specifically on some customer experience wishes that I think we can all help achieve.
First Wish! Actually, listen to your customers!
This goes for everyone in the chain of customer experience and I won’t call out anyone specifically *Cough Cough… Integrators & Consultants*. I meet with higher ed tech managers, their users, integrators, and consultants all week long about exactly what we want to achieve in a given classroom. The first meeting goes great, we have talked about the use case and exactly what the user is trying to accomplish in the space. We have introduced manufacturers and found products that everyone loves using. We all leave the meeting on the same page and then go our separate ways to draw up plans for installing and deploying all of it. Then, the dreaded moment comes where we get the build back from the integrator/consultant and we are nowhere near where we left off. It is amazing that we can be so far away from what we had agreed upon. The product choices are different, the functionality is different, it is often overengineered, it’s over budget, etc., etc.. You know the drill.
So where was the breakdown? Maybe it is a fear to do things outside of our wheelhouse? Or maybe it is easier to copy and paste from another project? Whatever it is, I think it is important that we challenge ourselves to truly listen and understand our customer and understand that everyone’s use case is different. We can’t just copy and paste something that worked for someone else a year ago. Sure that makes your job easier, but chances are, this will create a poor customer experience. Meaning less return business and more headaches for the tech managers and their users. My wish for 2023 is that we can all be a little more intentional in our listening and challenge ourselves to think differently when presented with an opportunity.
Second Wish! Think about the user/customer experience, always!
Every step of the way, what touchpoints do your customers have with you? From the moment they think about starting a project, how can you make their experience better? As mentioned above, listening to your customer is an easy way to improve the experience. Some other ways are to actually partner with your users and work with them to build a full solution. Sometimes the people you talk to are extremely technical and sometimes they aren’t technical at all. What can we do as tech managers, consultants, and integrators to bridge that gap between the technical and non-technical.
One way that I have found to be very helpful is to build a proof of concept space with the users to allow them to try the product and give them a chance to break stuff. The moment you do this, you are no longer just trying to push a solution/make a sale/get it over with. Instead, you are starting a partnership where you collect feedback directly from the end users to make decisions. This goes back to not only listening to your customers but taking their feedback seriously. When you do this, you can get into some really cool situations where you get the chance to add all of those fun features such as automation, flashy displays, and all the voice capture/lift you can think of. Those are the things we often get excited about when we go to trade shows and then have a hard time expressing to users why it’s cool. The users need a chance to experience why it’s cool and why they want it. The more we can offer in a space that will take tasks off of the plate of the end-user the happier they will be. This means less headaches for the tech managers and continued business with their trusted partners. This is what we call a win-win-win. And it is a wish we can all achieve together.
Third Wish! Have a happy holiday season and enjoy time with the ones you love!
Let’s get all mushy right here at the end. I know so many people in our industry who work so hard day and night and take little time for themselves. My wish is that you take some time to decompress and spend that time with your loved ones. After all, we aren’t meant to only work. So go do whatever you love doing that is not work-related and see how you can carry that over into your work-life balance for next year.