2-Customer Experience Innovation Enablers
Prevent Identity Crisis
Accurate customer experience personas are the first step toward creating a shared vision for successful innovation. All employees should know these personas extensively, in order to innovate intangibles. The common language provided by personas can focus energy across the company for better and faster decision-making and execution.
Respect Core Essence.
Customers will reject market introductions that are incongruent with their expectations. They have expectations about the product, service, and the brand. You must know and respect customers' views of what your brand is and is not.
"Too often, innovation misses the mark because companies neglect core essence."7 For example, Evian's core essence is social status. For dance clubs, Evian initially distributed their product in bulk, with servings in a drinking glass. Soon Evian realized an essential component of the customer experience is their branded bottle. Unlabeled servings did not deliver the customer's desired outcome of social status.
"When the value proposition is defined, it should guide decisions regarding how employees are recruited, evaluated and rewarded; how distributors are incented and motivated; how trade customers are invested in; and how customers are targeted and motivated."7
"At the end of the day, all that matters is what your brand means to your target customer and, in turn, how the customer acts on that meaning. And what gives your brand meaning is your answer to the customer's most important question: What's in it for me? In five words, that's your value proposition."7
