Service/customer touchpoints are almost never the responsibility of one team or individual. Take Telco A for instance: grossly simplifying things, there are VPs and divisions for everything: products, services, marketing, consumer, B2B, customer services, design, retail, IT, real estate, logistics, engineering,  maintenance sub-contractors, procurement…
OK, corporations need to organise their ocean of people and activities into manageable parts, but usually they end up with lots of self-contained puddles which don’t network very well.

But customers, oblivious to this complexity, see only BRAND and SERVICE.

It’s no good to invest on a new brand campaign if your customer-services are done by some careless contracting company, not aligned with your brand values. It’s no good pushing your customers towards self-service if your digital channels are badly designed and inefficient. All the touchpoints need to be aligned and complement each other, as they are “the company” in the eyes of your customer after all.

There is where you, CEO, need a champion. If it can be yourself, even better. But you need empowered service champions who can can make sure your vision survives the messiness of divisions, hierarchies and P&L structures which discourage people to have common objectives.

For us, customer experience designers, there is nothing more rewarding than seeing our concepts implemented. But beyond our contribution, it is this strong champion (or champions) from the ranks of our client who will make it a reality.

If you read this blog you probably know I work with digital UX design, a field (and market) that has been growing steadily in size and strength, even during this long economy downturn. The strange thing is that it has been a silent growth.

Everyone uses digital products and services (like everyone used to enjoy watching creative ads), our clients certainly see a huge value in our work, but somehow UX design hasn’t become famous as a professional choice.

There is a lot of demand for talented interaction and visual interface designers, it pays well, and it’s damn interesting and creative work. So why is it under the radar?
I think we need to do a better job of communicating all this goodness to the mainstream. I’m just building upon a larger debate about defining what we do and finding talent, which has been going on in Europe.

How would you explain and sell a career in UX design to those bright young things (before they waste their talent somewhere else)?

Food and drink which benefit from hard times:

• Chocolate – sugary candybars in particular
• Takeaway and convenience meals
• Pizza delivery
• Pasta, rice and pulses (instead of grills and salads)
• Pasta sauces
• Frozen foods
• Beer
• Tap water

Changes in Health patterns:

• “People are physically healthier in times of recession,” according to Christopher Ruhm at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. “Death rates fall, people smoke less, drink less and exercise more”.  People have more time to prepare healthier meals at home.
• Heart attacks go down. Back problems go down.
• Sales of laxatives go up – constipation problems increase in stressful conditions.

Going up in business and education

• Online shopping (global bargain hunters)
• Cost-councious food retail
• White label anything
• Repair services (clothing, computers, etc)
• Specialization courses and higher education, free, subsidised or low cost

Changes in behaviour and personal preferences

• Marriage – The number of divorces go down – People need to work their issues out as they can’t afford expensive lawyers or to live in separate homes.
• More creative activity – More people have the time, and there is a tendency to do more meaninful things…
• Music preferences: People tend to switch to “longer, slower and more meaningful themes” during downturn periods according to a study by Terry F. Pettijohn II, a professor of psychology at Coastal Carolina University, who analysed Billboard No. 1 songs from 1955 to 2003.
• Bunnies:  Playboy’s Playmates tended to be more mature looking, heavier and taller at hard times compared to the good times, according to the same study – also showing that people look for reassurance.

Good news for the environment:

• Less driving, less traffic (less CO2 emissions)
• Tap water instead of bottled (less plastic waste)
• Less waste in general: energy, food, packaging…

A couple of the articles that inspired this post:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/19/weekinreview/19lewin.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/14/credit-crunch-high-street

Import/export entrepreneurs in Spain, you would have a definite customer if you brought here:

• Sainsbury’s fresh ready made curries (all 50 varieties ) from the UK
• Sausages from Simply Sausages (UK)
• Marks & Spencer deli/convenience food
• Selfridges – the whole shop (UK)
• BBC and Channel 4 (it sucks that you can’t access the online service from a foreign IP)
• Treacle tart (UK)
• Rio juice bars: 100 varieties in strange personalised combinations (Brazil)
• Sonho de Valsa bombons (Brazil)
  
• Havaianas flip-flops at 4 euros (Brazil)
• Live samba bars (Brazil)
• Brooklyn Industries stuff (haven’t really lived there, but who cares…)
• Decent bandwidth internet access for a decent price.

That says it all – these are toys you will want to squeeze and bite (but won’t). These are for staring at, rearranging and showing off. Getting one won’t do. You will crave for more.

There, my first post had to be a heartfelt praise.