The Dance of Promises and Experience
The dance of promises made by an organisation and the experience it delivers can be everything from the smooth glide of Fred and Ginger circling the floor to the awkward missteps and sore toes of a first waltz.
Experience and promises circle each other in continual motion. Where one begins and one ends should be impossible to see. But it’s not the case. Promises lead, either setting experience up to look good or carelessly tripping it up at the first turn.
The ‘quality’ product that breaks the second time you use it. The ‘friendly’ customer service person who rebuffs your questions. The lofty goals of the off-site, sidelined in day-to-day decisions. The store that shuts early. The humdinger of an idea stymied by red tape.
Amid today’s ‘hustle or be left behind’ mindset, experience is the new black. People love to feel like they are doing something, and even better if it is shiny and fun. So the allure of the process associated with experience design has enticed many organisations to forge ahead with little understanding of how to deliver the result and what promises they are making.
I’m not only talking about customer experience, employee experience is just as relevant, and they are impossible to separate. (To learn more about the relationship read ‘The employee and customer experience loop’). And also don’t ignore other stakeholders such as suppliers, partners and investors.
Before you can aim where to go, you’ve got to know where you are now. Yet, often the work to improve the experience skips the current state. In addition to disentangling WHAT the current experience looks like, clarity will only come when you also delve into HOW and WHY it looks that way.
And it needs to be an ongoing process. Every action by people in an organisation makes the future state the current state. Sure you can power up the DeLorean and try to leap ahead, but don’t be surprised if once you get there, there has moved.
Which brings me back to the interplay of promises and experience. The day the doors open for the first time, promises and experience start their dance and never stop. Every time a promise is delivered (or not) by experience it becomes the new promise. That’s good when the promise is kept, bad when it is broken.
In my brand formula, I show promises over experience. But most important is to realise their relationship. They aren’t separate entities, but a couple, circling the floor together in your organisation.
So to get a robust, resilient brand result, make sure any discussion about experience includes the promises you’re making and any discussion about promises includes the experience when you keep them.
This article was first published on SmartCompany, and this updated version can be found in the upcoming book “The Unheroic Work.”
Michel Hogan is an independent brand counsel advising organisations on the risk to their purpose and values of making promises they can’t keep. You can find Michel at michelhogan.com or click here to buy her ebook Between Making Money and World Peace.
