Following up from Andrew Shillaber's recent post: Organisational Experience - it's fair to say that I've been thinking more and more recently about what the 'experience' of Conchango is.
We definitely 'get' experience when it is about how consumers and brands interact together. We also can think experience when focusing on how other companies interact with their employees through intranets.
And.. there are some people at Conchango who think about the Conchango to Employee experience - a few of which Andrew outlines in his post. From 'little things' like fruit being readily available in all our offices, to bigger things like weekly physio visits, freely available to all employees.
What about the experience of being a customer of Conchango though? As individuals we think about it everyday, and it's why those customers stay with us for years and years. But we haven't yet institutionalised this, other than making them a set of principles and guidelines on how we all operate as individuals. So, it's largely down to how the individual consultant interprets this. Individuals aim to please and impress our clients and to add value to their businesses and projects, and how well they do at that depends largely on the individual - and the tone, and tone of voice, of this communication is set by that individual.
However, we don't think often enough about how Conchango as a brand speaks to our customers during projects; and how we can institutionalise that experience so it comes through in every interaction our customers have with us, regardless of the individual.
Many of you have seen me talk about Virgin Atlantic's approach to experience. This takes two forms. The first is allowing the individual's personality to have free reign - one way this comes through in how the individual crew members on board flights choose to talk to their passengers. If you've experienced an amusing introductory PA announcement on board, then you've experienced that phenomenon. However, they also do this institutionally. This is largely what I talk about in presentations and is manifested in the 'little touches' you see peppering the experience, that makes you think "they really think about me".
It's time to think more about how Conchango institutionalises the magic of good experience... we do it often enough for other great companies and brands!
I will make it my personal mission!