Customer Service is User Experience

A political campaign, a not-for-profit, a business. They all have something in common: A movement. Does the political campaign have volunteers or followers? Does the not-for-profit have donors or community members? Does the business have customers or fans? In the future, change will be made by movements, not by pushing products or ideas. How does that change customer service? Maybe customer service should be reinvented within the "user experience design" ubrella. To build a strong following, a large membership, or devoted fans we need to deliver an experience. In the economy of the future, experience = value. There are too many organizations out there that are going to fail simply because they do not recognize the move from marketing and customer service to user experience design. Can you remember the last time you told a friend about a good product? How about the last time you told a friend about a great experience with an organization? See the difference? Gentle Giant Moving Company gets it. Zappos gets it. "Zappos does not have specific policies for dealing with each customer service situation. He (the CEO, Tony Hsieh) claims that the company's culture allows it to do extraordinary things. I saw him make this point earlier this year in New York City, when he told a story about a woman whose husband died in a car accident after she had ordered boots for him from Zappos. The day after she called to ask for help with the return, she received a flower delivery. The call center rep had ordered the flowers without checking with a supervisor and billed them to the company. "At the funeral, the widow told her friends and family about the experience," Hsieh said, his voice cracking and his eyes tearing up ever so slightly. "Not only was she a customer for life, but so were those 30 or 40 people at the funeral."" Inc Magazine article. Seth Godin gets it. Blog Post Video Microsoft does not get it. The Fireworks Project will be built to deliver a great experience to everyone that touches it.