It is an illusion to think you can create a ‘one size fits-all’ solution for the users of your products or services. It is self-deceiving to think that there is an average customer whose needs and behaviour is exactly as the rest of us. Today’s customer regardless of who they are (client, patient, student, voters), what they do and where they are, want to be treated uniquely. They desire a delightful and personalised experience as they interact with your system, services or products, failure to do so, is an invitation to under-performance against your competitors.
Anyone familiar with a typical Molue bus (yellow and often rickety) or motor parks in Nigeria, will attest to a common sight of hawkers selling different herbal concoctions or medicine inside the bus or at the bus terminus. To attract their customers and sell their solutions, they creatively use different styles including nicely composed lyrics to gain customer attention. An interesting thing about their so-called ‘medicine” is the claim that a single mixture of this concoction can cure diverse types of diseases. If you curiously asked them what it does, they would list all form of diseases hence the world “Gbogbo nise” in Yoruba…meaning it does everything, which is akin to a “one size fits all” strategy.
Many uninformed and disadvantaged people patronise these herbal hawkers, unbeknown to them the long-time effect of consumption of this herbal mixture is kidney problems. The mixture rather than helping the consumers to alleviate their problems, only help to create other problems for the consumers.
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Image credit: The Guardian
Let’s pause a little here, how do your services, products compare to this ‘gbogbo nise” (one-size-fits-all) strategy? Your system, services or product are hired by consumer to create value or as Christensen Clayton put it, to help them to do a particular job. However, as no one customer is completely alike the notion of using an average customer to determine how to serve the rest is akin to a “one-size-fits all” strategy. Isn’t this true in the way we design citizen-centric, patient-centric, client-centric services? What about our educational and government services?
Except you strongly see your customer or user beyond the number, your ability to create a unique and delightful experience for them will be delusional.
Regardless of the industry, one size does not fit all, actually it is “one-size-fit-none” and rather than helping your customer to solve a particular problem, your services or product may be partly solving a problem to create other problems.
How do you intend to satisfy your clients/customer this year, bearing in mind consumer sophistication, constantly changing economy and changing consumer behaviour? For such a long time we have crafted our message to satisfy mass market, design services to fit a group of people, roll out product for mass market, in this type of service customers are just numbers.
If you intend to achieve better outcomes, kindly pause and get out of your conventional method of doing things. How do you start to achieve this?
Get Out of your comfort zone: Recently, a friend who runs a consulting firm was compelled to open an account with the bank (as is the norm with the Nigerian Banks). . However, he was unable to activate his account due to what the bank termed irregular signature on the mandate card. This is a guy who hasn’t stepped into banking hall or used cheque book for years. Narrating his ordeal he said, “How do we get these people to change?” In this day of analytics and digital technology, it is high time to do away with obsolete practices especially in the light of huge resources on digital transformation. To create a delightful experience that wins more customers, you must step out of your comfort zone; you must challenge your age long practices, and creatively think of ways to personalize your services and engage your customers uniquely.
Board and Management involvement: customer experience (CX) transformation project is too big to be left at the sole discretion of the middle management. Capacity building in customer experience management is not a job for just the middle manager or the CMO alone. The board and the executive management must take the lead if they intend to achieve better value with their system, services, or products. The executive management should beware of arrogance of ignorance, they should roll up the sleeves, go to the field to understand the nitty gritty of the functionality of their products, services, or system. Failure to do this will either make them defensive of the gap in their knowledge, blindly approve a system for which they don’t know much about or defend an outdated inherited system. If your organization intends to escape the ‘one-size-fits-all’mentality then your management should be humble enough to walk in the shoes of the customer, to understand how the system works, how services are delivered and how product functions.
Be conscious of human difference: one of the greatest contributions that biometric technology has made to human developmentis to prove that we are uniquely different. Fingerprint, Iris scan, facial pattern recognition, retina scan identification are technologies that prove that we are different. Isn’t it insightful to therefore design experience that appeal to individual uniqueness? If we go back to my friend and his ordeal with the bank over irregular signature, one is tempted to ask the question isn’t the bank biometric technology enough to facilitate recognition or an authentication? While signature can be forged very easily, biometric cannot be forged.
CONCLUSION
Be conscious of the fact that a one size fit all strategy fits no one. As you think of serving your customers better, develop a creative means that provide them with personalized experience. Regardless of your industry, you can create a unique and delightful experience for your customers.
Olukunle A. Iyanda PhD, FCA, SNFLI.
Founder/CEO, BROOT Consulting Nigeria Limited.
Human-Centric Design Led Innovation Consultant.
