She’s been reading it, and blogged about it (very awesome – thanks, Valeria)! And in the process, she has some really good pointers about mapping the customer journey (which I wrote about in Chapter 11). She came up with some steps to mapping a customer’s journey:
Connect the dots between internal preparedness and external needs – overcoming internal processes and barriers that block you from giving your customer a better “journey”
Integrate what you say with what you do – “How are all of the messages you’re sending out in each medium integrating with the feedback you receive in that medium, for example? What are you learning and feeding back into the process?”
Innovate at each touch point – “What process or tool have you not updated for a long time and needs revisiting, for example?”
… and each point discusses the “moment of truth” found in each of those steps.
Last Friday, I gave two presentations at NEFLIN’s technology conference in Jacksonville, FL. The first one was Designing the Digital Experience, which is based on my book. Here’s the Slideshare version of the presentation!
A warning for my regular readers – I don’t usually stray very far from professional topics on this blog (well, unless you’ve seen my videos or pics). For the most part, I’m all about social media, technology, and libraries. However, for the next few days, I’m also turning into a car reviewer. Huh? Let me explain …
Rachel from Social Media Group recently emailed, asking if I was interested in test driving a Ford Flex! Here’s the deal – I get to drive the car for about 5 days, and blog/twitter/video my experience driving and using the car. Which works quite well with my family, since we’re headed on a small road trip to visit my parents this weekend.
Seriously.
OK. So why am I doing this? A couple reasons come to mind:
Book promotion. It’s quite possible that my posts will be linked and/or mentioned elsewhere. So I’m hoping people click through to my blog, see the link to my book … etc. More book sales is always a good thing.
I write about emerging technology … and this car purportedly HAS emerging technology… we’ll see.
They want my “authentic voice” or “experience” – if you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you’ll know I’m all about the experience! That felt right to me.
Hoping that other librarian bloggers get noticed more in the general blogosphere. We’re smart! We’ve been doing SEO/search/IA/Usability/etc for much longer than most. And we NEED to have a bigger voice in that arena. Maybe this will help us get noticed a bit more? (ok, that one’s a bit of a stretch).
And of course, there’s the “OhMyGoodnessGraciousTheyOfferedMeACarToTestDrive” reason, too. I admit, this is probably reason #1… so shoot me.
So there you have it! Enjoy … or just mark it “read” and move along…
I recently visited Darien Library with the goal of checking out their innovative approach to technology – goal achieved! Check out the video in this post (and thanks to John Blyberg for the tour and for putting up with my video camera!). While their technology is amazingly cool, that’s not really what excited me. What excited me most was Darien’s idea of extreme customer service.
During my Darien visit, I had the privilege of chatting with Louise Berry, Alan Gray, and John Blyberg over lunch (great lunch, great conversation – thanks guys!). We talked about technology, new library buildings, and how we should be serving our library customers. Louise and Alan told me about their library’s core message – extreme customer service. Basically, they want to demonstrate extreme customer service in everything they do.
This idea of a “core message” is discussed in the book Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath. Most of the book is devoted to making your core message “stick” – this is what Darien Library has done.
They even provided examples. During lunch, Louise, Alan and John mentioned an after-hours wine and cheese event they held at the library. The library was closed, but doors were open. Patrons not attending the event came in anyway … and guess what? They weren’t turned away – instead, they were allowed to check out books (RFID-based self-check-out machines help). Staff were even seen setting up new library cards for patrons. This is very different from what many libraries do. For most after-hours events, patrons would simply be told (nicely, I’m sure) to come back tomorrow.
So – one example of extreme customer service at Darien. You can find another example in the video. Watch for the mini laptops in the children’s area of the library. Those are staff public service laptops used for roaming reference type stuff. But listen to the children’s staff talk about them – kids pick those laptops up and use them. Patrons even use the public service desktop … and Darien’s staff is fine with that! When I asked about this, here’s what I heard: “why would we NOT allow that?”
John said the same thing later on in my tour (not captured on video). We were in a staff area, and I noticed someone had brought in her personal laptop. I asked what she could connect to … and John said staff can bring in their personal laptops and connect to Darien’s staff-only network. I pried a bit further, and this is when John said “why would we NOT allow that? It would simply hinder their work!” Then John went on to explain that they plan for the exceptions and fix those things, rather than lock down technology so much that it hinders the work of the library. Extreme customer service for their staff, too!
Does your library have a core message, and how does that play out? And … does your library lock technology down so much so that it hinders the work of the library? What would happen if you opened that can of worms up? Would any escape? Something to think about…
My book, Designing the Digital Experience, has been spotted in the wild! Or more appropriately, I spotted it at the Barnes and Noble in Topeka, KS.
Which got me to thinking … if you ever happen to see my book in your local bookstore, please take a pic and send it to me (or send me the flickr link), and I’ll post it here – that might be fun (or it could be really embarrassing, if you can’t find the book anywhere …
And for some related book-ish news: I’ll be at Computers in Libraries next week. CIL always puts on a great conference – lots of new emerging trends and practical, “use it tomorrow” tips, all focused on libraries and info professionals. If you are one of those, you should try to get to this conference!
I’ll be speaking a time or two as well – on Tuesday, I’m talking about designing digital experiences, and on Monday night I’ll be doing a book signing at the InfoToday booth.
OK – I know a library can be MY office … ’cause I work in one. But how about your patrons?
I was just reading Chris Brogan’s post (nice guy – I met him at SXSW last week) about where he works – frequently in a bookstore or a coffeeshop. And that made me think a bit … do his points about working in bookstores and coffeeshops work for a library too? Let’s experiment a bit and find out.
Here are his points about why he works in bookstores and coffeeshops, but with the word “library” inserted … with some comments from me:
Libraries have books, which are full of ideas. When I work here, I can pluck a book off the shelf, get an idea, and get a new perspective on my project. Yep – we have this one covered pretty well.
Libraries have fresh food and lots of people anxious to serve me the food. It means I can focus on what I’m doing and not worry about the sustenance part. Whew – my library, at least, has this one covered too. How about yours – do you have a coffeeshop in your library? More importantly … do you allow patrons to eat and drink in the library?
Libraries have big parking lots and lots of room to hold brief, cafe-shaped meetings with a few people. They’re not the best place to conduct official business, but they’re perfect for brainstorming and idea gathering and status delivering. My library has this one covered adequately too – we have a large parking lot (though it’s usually packed pretty full – we’re a popular destination in Topeka). And we have a variety of places to meet in the library – meeting rooms, smaller study rooms, and plenty of tables and power outlets. How about your library? Would anyone get “shushed” if they were holding a meeting at a table in your library?
Libraries are usually staffed with pleasant people who don’t do what I do, so they’re willing to chat for a few minutes, but won’t bury me in the details. We’re friendly, but would we chat with Chris? Probably so … but most libraries really aren’t set up for this. Desk staff are sitting at a desk, waiting for people to come to them – not walking around the library, chatting with and helping patrons (i.e., like most other service industries do).
Libraries are actually fun. How many people’s offices are fun? OK – my office is fun! And my library is fun, too. Is YOUR library fun? If not … why not?
So what’s the point here? Libraries have the potential to be GREAT co-working facilities for small business owners and entrepreneurs. Add a little coffee to the mix … add the ability to connect with others for casual conversations … and remove some of our out-of-date barriers (i.e., No talking!No cell phones!No food allowed!) … and libraries can be very relevant, cool places to “do business.”
What do you think? Would a small business owner or a freelancer want to work in your library? Are you set up to allow that?
Started off talking abut the arrow within the “Ex” of the FedEx logo and other hidden things within logos, fences, etc.
Innocent Smoothies (a juice company in England) – there’s a different message on the bottoms of some of their cartons. One says “stop looking at my bottom.”
Can do this in web design too – type about:mozilla into your firefox browser, into each version, and you get an unfolding story from a fake book about Mozilla…
… giving a live example … with audience participation, props, and a guy dressed in a gorilla suit
Showing fun ways to use css and backgrounds – when you resize the screen (twequency as example) clouds go by. Nice
Ho ho ho hat in flickr – users loved it!
Google Moon – if you zoomed in all the way, you saw cartoon cheese
They have planted “easter eggs” in websites – you have to find them, they’re sorta pointless (other than making people smile)
Transparency in web design – making things that aren’t white, but are transparent. Can be cleverly used
David Emery – his website does interesting things..
Kano Model of customer satisfaction: lots of this type of “customer delight” stuff fits in his model
Basic needs – with a hotel room, you’ll be mad if there’s no toilet paper, but lots of rolls don’t delight you. On the web, having a page that just works is a basic need
Creatives and designers work on fulfilling excitement needs
Two posts caught my eye over the past couple of days, and they’re still rumbling around inside my head … let’s see if I can pull a couple thoughts out of the cacophony.
Both posts discuss how lots of industries are at the beginnings of huge restructuring/remaking themselves or are disappearing entirely, and how much of our lives will seem like upheaval until the “new normal” is reached. No one’s exactly sure what “normal” will look like (after the recession and remaking is over) – but everyone’s sure it will be completely different from now.
Here’s the first article, and the main one setting off thoughts for me:The Great Restructuring, by Jeff Jarvis. Jeff talks about our recession – first quoting Umair Haque calling it a great “compression … as an economy built on perceived value reconciles with actual value.”
Jeff also mentions this article from the New York Times and ends up calling our current recession a “great restructuring.” Then, he lists thoughts about quite a few industries and their future. Here’s a partial list of them:
America may well not be in the auto industry soon.
Financial services will have to be completely remade
Newspapers will vanish
Magazines are in worse shape than I would have guessed and many will go
Books’ channels of manufacturing, distribution, and sales will go through upheaval
Broadcast media will become meaningless, replaced by digital delivery
Large-scale retail will shrink and consolidate and then be transformed by a search-and-buy economy
The blockbuster economy in entertainment will become harder to support as more attention and money shifts to the tail.
We should be so lucky that elementary and secondary education will also face such pressure.
And that’s just a few (go read the article for the whole list and some great thoughts).
Here’s the second article raising a ruckus in my head:Big Music Will Surrender, But Not Until At Least 2011 from TechCrunch. This article mainly gives a music executive’s perspective of coming changes for his industry, and how they currently plan to figure it out. So it’s one industry’s perspective on how change will ultimately play out for them. Interesting take.
My question to you – are you ready?
Look at that list from the first article: books, magazines, newspapers, media. All going through huge changes, all going to be remade. And all stuff that’s near and dear to our librarian hearts!
Some of these changes are already starting, you know:
Newspapers and Magazines have already started going digital. It’s just a matter of time before more/most decide to stop printing that paper thing and go completely digital.
Books… {David quickly ducks} DON’T freak out! Of course I think people will still read books. That’s a given. But have you looked around lately and seen the Amazon Kindle? Or the iPhone ebook reader that millions of people are now carrying around? I have a book on mine to read right now. Those 300-page paper things will eventually turn digital – because it’s simply a container for the content – not the content itself.
Music and movies – think LPs/8-Tracks, Cassettes, CDs or super 8, 16 ml, vcr, DVD … and compare that to iTunes or Netflix emerging subscription models. Also going digital!
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg for libraries – most of our huge buildings exist to primarily hold physical stuff. What will we do when there’s no physical stuff to hold? Will you still be able to justify that large building? That staff? (My answer to that is yes, you can … if you are planning for change now).
How are you starting to re-think your services and libraries?My library is in the middle of strategic planning, and we’re going to tackle that whole “re-think everything” approach. Looks like Darien Library has been doing that, too. How about you?
Closing thought – I live in lucky times – I get to see … basically … my whole life change before my eyes. And I get to help it change.
Joseph Pine and James Gilmore noticed this thing they called the Experience Economy. They think we’ve moved beyond purchasing mere goods and services – now, we can purchase “experiences” (hence, the experience Economy). In their newest book, they blend the idea of experience with something they call Authenticity.
But Experience or the Experience Economy isn’t the only thing this notion is called – this post will introduce you to some other similar terms.
For example, when I read their book, I didn’t see much in the way of website experience. Certainly, the underlying ideas were there, but no concrete examples were given (it was written in 1999, so I’ll give them a break). That bugged me enough to write my own book about it, and I called the website version of it the Digital Experience.
“The theory of Personality Not Included is that personality is the answer. Personality is the key element behind your brand and what it stands for, and the story that your products tell to your customers. Every element of your business, from your interactions with your customers to the packaging of your product is an element of your brand personality, and these are the elements that inspire delight or indifference among your customers. In short, personality matters.”
I heard Jane McGonigal speak last year at SXSWi 2008. She presented on gaming and alternate realities … and called it happiness. Here are some notes I took from her presentation:
Question – are you in the happiness business? Our primary product soon will be happiness… Happiness is the new capital
Four key principles of happiness:
satisfying work to do
experience of being good at something
time spent with people we like
chance to be a part of something bigger
McGonigal’s description of happiness sounds VERY similar to Pine & Gilmore’s description of experience and Bhargava’s description of a company with personality.
Ever heard of Touch Points? It’s sort of like usability … but doesn’t focus primarily on how the thing works. Instead, it focuses on the experience customers have during their interactions with the product or service or website.
Ok, one more. A few years back when Kathy Sierra was still blogging, many of her blog posts focused on this same concept – but she called it enchantment and kicking ass.
See what’s going on?
It’s not quite usability (but lives there). It’s not quite marketing (but it lives there). It’s not quite design (but it lives there too). It’s not quite customer service (yep – lives there). Not quite library 2.0 (even lives there).
There’s a convergence in many different fields right now – gaming, marketing, PR, web design, customer service, etc. – that all have, as their utmost goal, providing the customer with a positive experience … an authentic experience … happiness … attracting them with personality … enchanting them … helping them “kick patootie.” (ok, my wash-your-mouth-out-with-soap upbringing just kicked in – sorry ).
Question – how are you working to enchant your users? Not just meet their information needs … but delight them? Are you providing a positive experience, and if so – how?
Awhile back, I sent Valeria Maltoni (who writes the cool Conversation Agent blog) a copy of my book – Designing the Digital Experience.
OK – I know a library can be MY office … ’cause I work in one. But how about your patrons?
