Experience Disruptors: Störer alter Routinen oder Entwickler neuer Gewohnheiten?
Letzte Aktualisierung am 16 Februar 2023 um 11:19 am
4,56/5This article was written by the ui / deation agency and explains what is behind the term „Experience Disruptor“.
»You’ve got to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology«
– Steve Jobs
It’s Sunday evening, you’re at home, the fridge is empty and cooking would be a crazy idea anyway. Convenience wins, dinner comes with Lieferando. Because the desired dish is delivered promptly and it would take just as long to cut, stir and fry in the kitchen.
The service of the Lieferando delivery service is a stroke of luck for all those who don’t like cooking and who are uninspired, up to the point that the check-out causes problems with the payment and the desired payment method is not accepted.
But whatever? There are four other payment methods to choose from – it doesn’t stop me from placing the order. I will then be sent an email and SMS with an order confirmation. Until the delivery, I am continuously informed and kept up to date, it is suggested to me that I do not have to worry about anything from the time I place my order.
I therefore trust and am happy that I and my needs are taken care of. But what if I find out that my order has been charged twice, for example? Then of course I get angry and get out of my glorified everyday rhythm. I have to actively take care of the chargeback of my money and hope for friendly customer service.
Experience Fit Companies, also known as Experience Disruptors, try to avoid precisely this disruption. In order to provide the product and service-oriented solutions smoothly.
Was sind Experience Disruptors?
The Cambridge Dictionary defines a disruptor in a business context as:
„A company that changes the traditional way an industry operates, especially in a new and effective way“.
Product fit companies – i.e. companies that bring the best possible product to market – have evolved into experience fit companies and now not only consider the product that supports the user in everyday life or changes it, but also also the experience with the product and how it can be changed or optimized.
What’s behind it?
Customer experience beats commodity.
Experience disruptors don’t just look at a piece of the pie. They know that all factors are important to the success of the product and the brand. So you are not only wondering how you can design the best product, but also how you can create an unforgettable (positive) interaction between product and customers.
The young company Hello Fresh, which was founded in Berlin in 2011, for example, offers an easy way to try out new and delicious recipes. On the one hand it solves the problem of “I-don’t-know-what-I-should-cook”. On the other hand, it pays off on the topic of food waste, because the recipes are precisely tailored to the number of people. In addition, the product helps to save time that is so rare these days.
The recipes developed by Hello Fresh can be selected every week. Then they are packed with all their suitable foods and delivered in the so-called cooking box. The concept is handled as a subscription, which means that the customer is bound to a weekly delivery. At the same time, Hello Fresh has built in a back door so that there is no customer dissatisfaction. Users can also cancel their weekly ‚cooking boxes‘ in good time.
Ultimately, this has a bearing on the mood of the users. Because the product experience instinctively integrates into everyday processes, also thanks to the high degree of flexibility.
The value of the customer journey
This means that the customer journey is of great importance to experience disruptors. The journey is not present for the customer, because ideally it runs unconsciously. It can already be found on digital websites as soon as the customer opens the page with different end devices and all of its content is optimally adapted to the respective end device. Or in the check-out, if instead of one several payment methods such as direct debit, credit card, instant transfer, PayPal, Klarna, etc. are available.
These and other measures enable the Experience Disruptors to address more people and make the customer experience more positive. This means that customers can derive not only functional benefits from the product offered, but also added value. The added value is offered to them directly with the product or service.
Personalize to convince
A survey by Amazon shows that personalization plays an important role in the purchase decision. So, personalized UX is more than just a trend because people love to get attention, whether you admit it or not.
It is the same when you get them from your bed manufacturer, who will inquire whether you will sleep really well on the new mattress. Or from your personal Outfittery stylist who wants to know if you like your new look. Although these questions are very generic, they still give the feeling of being addressed personally. The simple trick: a personal salutation in the email.
But there are also companies such as Spotify, which uses an algorithm to put together a new and individual “Your Mix of the Week” playlist every week.
She regularly surprises users with new songs that suit individual tastes. This is where bundled data comes together that can be dynamically and potentially infinitely expanded. This results in the “best of 2020” and the “B-side” playlists for which old data are collected, reinterpreted and compiled for a new scenario.
Customers become brand ambassadors
All content that Spotify makes available can be shared by users on the Internet and thus advertise the company free of charge. It happens quite organically, without Spotify asking for it.
Other experience disruptors also actively call for their products to be posted on private social media accounts. It is not just about your own experience with the purchased product or service, but also about telling the common story with the product. The effect: Experience disruptors sell their product with the help of their customers and let them tell about it as authentically as possible. This is also the secret of success behind collaborations with influencers.
Rely on enthusiasm
Experience disruptors know that product development does not stop after purchasing the product. Rather, it is a product experience cycle. Nowadays, purchasing decisions are no longer made immediately. Customers expect to be able to interact with the product or service before they commit. The mattress manufacturer emma sells its mattresses exclusively online. Therefore, it makes it possible to sleep on the new mattress for 100 nights before a final decision is made.
Subscription providers such as Amazon, Netflix or Spotify follow a similar principle. They offer a trial month during which they try to make the streaming offer as attractive as possible before the final purchase decision is made. The customer side takes the offer to test a product first as a symbol of trust. In the test phase, users can check whether the product and service-oriented solution delivers what it promises.
Standstill? No thanks.
The goal is to design a product for customers and companies that can be intuitively integrated into everyday life. Meanwhile, the experience with the product is no longer understood as a separate area of the product, but as a part of it. It should also be emphasized that the developed product is never really finished, so that the development does not stop.
In order to be able to offer all these possibilities, regular test & learning phases and a lot of innovative ideas are necessary. For this purpose, qualitative and quantitative tests are usually carried out, which are supported with the help of hypothesis-based work, so that an iterative process optimizes the product and the customer journey.
The resulting variety in the form of new or further developed products is positively reflected in users. Because the topics of fast pace and „not wanting to commit to long“ can also be transferred to product use. Everything has to be faster, newer and different.
Conclusion
The customer journey is not present for customers themselves, even if something changes or a malfunction occurs. The customer journey takes place unconsciously. Ideally, this is so smooth that it can handle any scenario.
This is also true of personalized content, because people these days expect brands to take care of them.
Nonetheless, Experience Disruptors also ask for support and sell their products and services using social media and their own customers.
The aim is to build mutual trust. Customers have to trust a brand or a company and vice versa. To achieve this, a far more comprehensive process than perfect product development is necessary. This is exactly what the Experience Disruptors show us.
This article was written by Jacqueline Staiger. She is UX and Service Designer at ui / deation gmbH & Co. KG with a focus on hypothesis-based work, especially research methods and implementation, taking into account the customer’s business strategies in the areas of digital product development.
