Someone asked me who my favourite designer is

Sitting outdoors in a Dubai bar and having a flowing conversation about art, my artist date asked me, “So! who’s your favourite designer?” I was stumped. Not only could I not think of any answer, I was well aware that I’d sold myself as having dedicated the majority of my adult life to studying, understanding, appreciating and practising Design. I’m not the kind of person not to have the odd favourite of something. Had she asked me my favourite artist, I would have excitedly reeled off a

How to Ask Questions

We’ve all hear people say, “Don’t ask users what they want because they don’t really know.” However, it’s not people’s answers to your questions that give you great insights, it’s the stories they tell you. An emotional account of a real experience in context, stories are more memorable and resonate further than any other kind of data. So why then, is mastery of the humble question so important? Questions can be used for many purposes: to challenge assumptions, fill holes in our knowledge:

6 Ways to Foster Genuine Customer Loyalty

I often do my supermarket shop at Union Coop and have found myself proudly telling others this. I mention the excellent value, the freshness of the fruit and veg, and the fact they’ll grill lamb kofta for you right there in-store. They also sell the muesli brand I like most and this is enough to keep me coming back regularly. But every time I get to the check-out and recognise my friends at the till, they ask me if I have my loyalty card. I still haven’t got round to joining, so each time they

Why and how to measure customer experience

I’m often asked about how to measure customer experience but am rarely asked why we should measure it. People just think it’s a good thing to do and they're right. To me however, it only makes sense to measure customer experience if both the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ can be answered together. The most common thought process behind measuring customer experience usually goes something like this, "We need to find out if people like our product or not and then we can work out how to improve it. So the

Do Your Own Research and Keep Doing It

The thought of speaking to your own customers is scary. If testing ideas, it means presenting them, unprotected, while someone who thinks differently from you offers their rawest opinion. If you’re out to learn who your customers are, the same applies. People will give you their most honest thoughts. They might not be the kind of customer you envisioned, they might use your product in ways it was never intended and provide a barrage of criticism. The funny thing is, this is exactly what you

If You Can't Package the Experience, You Can't Sell It

Understanding that services can be seen as products is a relatively new thing. Services, as in hotels, public transport and the mail have been around for a very long time and equally, so have products, as in computers, chocolate bars, TVs, stereos and many hundreds of thousands of other consumer goods. So why have services started to take-on the product description and why now? While the word ‘product’ speaks directly to something that is produced, we also use it to describe something that is