From Jeff’s Desk: We Live in the Experience Economy

By Image4 Marketing, posted on June 24, 2024

jeff's desk: experience economy

As you’ve probably seen, both Image 4’s positioning statement and the title of our blog is “It’s About the Experience”. That’s because we’re leaders in creating marketing and sales solutions for the experience economy.

The Experience Economy is happening today, as consumers and businesses parse their interactions differently – acquiring commodity information and goods via a platform or tool (your phone), and seeking out experience, in the form of human interaction, for the complex, important, and difficult exchanges that are part of all our lives.

But is this really an advancement? Or is this more of a return to a pre-Industrial Revolution method of community and human interaction? I had the opportunity to think on that a few weeks ago, as I travelled to our office in NYC. When I arrived in NYC, I discovered my company credit card had been put on a security hold – certainly a common inconvenience in today’s economy. So I grabbed my cell phone, called the security office at our corporate bank, and thus began one of the most annoying, complex, and unfulfilling experiences I’ve ever had. I suspect most of you can relate to this on some level.

The call center was in India, and the connection was very bad. The support person had a very limited set of parameters through which he could assist – and my problem needed his Supervisor. It turns out that the Supervisor needed information from me to which I had no access to – our finance office was closed, and I couldn’t get a list of our last three transactions to the penny…you get the idea.

After nearly an hour of this, I gave up. So far, a terrible customer support experience. BUT! I was in Manhattan and the bank has offices there. So, off I went to 23rd and 6th to the local Wells Fargo branch.

Again, the experience began fairly sketchy – a long line, 4 teller windows that still had bulletproof acrylic, bad lighting, no seating…and only two service personnel. Worse, no privacy whatsoever. A young lady was sobbing at the front of the line discussing a fee on a bounced check that hit before her paycheck was deposited, and in the other line, a small business person was getting thousands of dollars in cash handed to him – in a public line in NYC.

My designer soul was screaming to itself – these are complex, strained, risky interactions and they were being conducted in front of 6 other people. The space in which we were was terribly designed (or, not designed at all) to support this type of interaction.

After 40 minutes, a “banking specialist” appeared from elsewhere in the building, brought me to a cubicle, and Leon, the Banking Specialist, walked me very thoughtfully through solving my problem (Leon is a rockstar – I hope Wells Fargo management reads this and promotes him).

A human interaction had rescued all of the systemic cutouts that the corporate entity had put in place. From a poorly-designed and terribly executed phone support system, to undertrained and under-resourced service staff, to a terrible in-branch design and interaction, every interface with the brand delivered a really poor experience.

Ultimately, one professionally caring, well-trained individual had surmounted all the institutional roadblocks and delivered not only a solution, but a positive, thoughtful experience. Yet it’s not enough. I appreciate Leon for his individual capacity to empathize and deliver a solution, yet my Brand Experience was so poor that I cannot recommend a colleague to this brand.

To bring this back around, let’s reflect on our starting point; transactions and commodities are no longer the measure of your Brand. Experiences are the measure of your Brand. Most of us now shop and bank on our phones. Yet, there are many complex situations and problems in our daily lives that need an experienced, empathetic human to assist. Creating the right environment so we can ask the question, “How can I help?” will be the brand differentiator of tomorrow.

Because, today and tomorrow, It’s About the Experience.

 

 


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