And How to Find the Right Level, to Improve Customer Experience Daily

Why do the most common musical chords include three notes?

Because one or two is boring and repetitive, and more than three may be asking for trouble unless you’re a seasoned pro. Too much “noise” for your brain to process!

Yesterday, we talked about letting go of micro-management for an afternoon. Whether you work solo from home or manage a staff of fifty, sometimes the best way to see your business’ needs clearly is to step away, considering your direction in silence, without the distraction of daily tasks.

When you’re fresh from this mini-sabbatical, it’s time to turn up the noise level, but only in the right places.

What three notes should you practice in Experience Design?

1. Always Be Checking. This won’t be a full-blown Experience Audit daily—just keep your eyes wide open for the little details that make a big difference to customers. First impressions last.

2. Prioritize from customer point of view. Listen to your customer, and be responsive to their interests and their concerns.

3. Measure results over time. This is the only way you will know if you’ve Pinpointed the right goals and whether you’re on track to achieve them.

Take a little time with this. Many of your daily tasks already fit in one of these three “notes,” but you may not have been viewing them in this way. When you look at your to-do list in terms of Experience Design, you can approach these tasks more deliberately—and more important in an overcrowded day, you can let go of the tasks that are just pointless noise.

With the noise level adjusted, look at the big picture. For instance:

How does viewing your website affect expectations for your store? [Checking, prioritizing.]

How does a constant parade of discount ads in the local paper affect the sort of customers who call you? [Checking, measuring.]

Do surly staff take care of those little details in your interiors as if they want your business to grow? [Checking, prioritizing.]

Don’t see these as separate interior design, graphic design, customer service, and marketing issues. This Experience Design chord can help you to look at your business as a whole. In a customer’s Perception, the elements of Experience will cross boundaries.

Checking, prioritizing, measuring. 1, 2, 3, strum.

That’s the background noise for your day. After a short while, you’ll be good at playing that chord, but watch out! As any musician will tell you, when you’re overconfident, you can hit a few sour notes. So stay focused.

At some point you may be working on a complete Experience re-Design, in which case there are certainly more than three notes in the chord. Jazz! With professional help, there’s a team to keep things swingin’. On an everyday basis: you’ve got just three notes to look after. Checking the details, prioritizing for the customer’s needs, measuring results. When it gets too noisy, it’s time for another silent afternoon.

Which note do you need to hit harder?

Grow and be well,

Kelly Erickson

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