Prediction: Customer experience will overtake price and product as differentiators

According to Walker Info’s customer experience statistics list of 2017 , customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator by 2020.

That screams for how as Product Managers can we make sure that our products also focus on customer experience in order to stay competitive?

Creating memorable moments is equal to customer experience

I listened to the interview from Jordan Harbinger and Dan Heath & Chip Heath and thought that the concept of creating memorable moments is equal to customer experience and therefore can be applied to product experience in general which means this could help to add differentiation and win customers.

The core idea is nicely summarized in this book:

 “The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact”  by Chip and Dan Heath

And of course, there are companies out there who apply this in some way and fashion today. One example: Southwest Airline 

How to create memorable moments

Here an excerpt from the book/interview:

Imagine visiting Disney World with a Fitbit equivalent that counted our level of happiness throughout the day rather than steps.

“If we looked at the data that popped out at the end of your park visit, for the outright majority of those moments, you would have been happier sitting on your couch at home,” says Dan Heath, co-author of The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact. “Because parks can be a pain in the butt! There are long lines, it’s inevitably 95 degrees and humid, everything’s expensive, there’s crowds everywhere. There’s a lot of nuisance involved. But then, six months later, you look back on your year, and you’re like, ‘You know that trip to Disney? That was one of the highlights of the year.’”

So how can something that wasn’t so great in the moment be looked back upon as the highlight of one’s experience?

The Peak-End Principle

Psychologists talk about the peak-end principle, which says that when we remember our experiences, ultimately what we remember are moments — not a beginning-to-end, second-to-second playback, but a highlight reel of moments.

There’s a logic to which moments we remember — often the peaks, the end, and the transition points.

“What we remember when we’re remembering Disney is the great adrenaline rush after a roller coaster or that cute moment when Goofy came over to your little boy and patted him on the head and gave him a treat,” says Dan. “Those moments stick to memory, and all that moment-by-moment sweatiness and irritability just fades out.”

Accentuate the Positive

While not all defining moments are positive, Dan (and his brother Chip, the other co-author) accentuate the positive for the purposes of The Power of Moments to teach us how to use these principles of psychology in a way that’s helpful to ourselves and others.

“Nobody in the world is looking to create more of these negative peaks!” says Dan.

The Defining Moment Formula

When categorizing the defining moments we tend to remember, Dan and Chip came up with these four to create the defining moment formula:

Elevation. Moments that lift us above the everyday. They spark positive emotions like joy, delight, and engagement. Think birthday parties, athletic competitions, cocktails with friends at sunset.

Pride. Most of us tend to collect a souvenir or two of moments we associate with pride in our lives. Think certificates, awards, trophies, letters of approval, or things we’ve created — ways of commemorating great work we’ve done or talents we have.

Insight. Moments that rewire our understanding of ourselves or our world. Think epiphanies, realizations, and “ah-hah!” moments.

Connection. Moments that tie us closer with other people. Think personal relationships, or bonding moments like product launches or deep conversations.

We reversed Dan’s presentation of insight and pride to spell out EPIC for ease of remembrance — just in case this part of the podcast doesn’t make it into your long-term roster of memories.

Peak Moments Don’t Create Themselves

“Great experiences hinge on peak moments,” says Dan. “So when we talk about experience, what we’re actually talking about are moments. But peak moments don’t create themselves. We have to invest in them. We have to create them.”

When we’re trying to create these defining moments for ourselves or others, Dan stresses it’s usually something personal that prevails over the flashy and overproduced.

Dan relates how Spanx founder Sara Blakely’s father would ask her and her siblings this question at the dinner table when she was growing up: “What did you guys fail at this week?”

“She said he would be disappointed if they had nothing to tell him,” says Dan. “That seems like a weird question. It’s almost like he’s encouraging failure. But of course the point was he wanted them to try the things they wanted to try and not be paralyzed because they may not be good at it at first or because they may not succeed. So he was trying to, in a sense, inoculate them against the sting of failure.

“A moment like that is, to me, a peak moment for kids. Just a question at the dinner table that gets them to look at the world — to look at the chance of failure in a slightly different way.”

Ritual as a Chapter Divider

Ritual is another powerful way to create peak moments we remember, as grief counselor Kenneth J. Doka demonstrated when giving a widow an elaborate un-marriage in front of an assembly of loved ones as a way for her to move on.

“A lot of the way we make meaning in our lives is precisely these kind of chapter dividers,” says Dan, “these moments that divide the old us from the new us. What was so powerful about the ceremony for her is it provided a specific day — a specific moment — when she could say, ‘Okay. As of this day, I’m ready.’ And that’s a great example of a peak moment that was created from scratch.”

On a larger scale, culture uses rituals to instill a sense of importance to events we want to remember, such as birthday parties, weddings, and funerals.

On a corporate scale, there’s often a conspicuous absence of ritual surrounding what might otherwise be a peak moment — like the first day of work in which the receptionist isn’t expecting us to arrive until the next week and maybe there’s not even a desk set up for us yet. Dan says this is how most companies miss out on an easy way to generate immediate goodwill and loyalty with new employees — and then he tells us how The Motley Fool does things the right way.