The Experience Design Scout

Not a lot of customer experience articles coming out this week, but here are two worth reading:

• The one thing you need to know about creating a remarkable retail shopping experience. A strong brand experience is one that holds across channels. Bernhard at ‘The Customer Experience Labs’ talks about the (offline) retail experience. “Customers want to experience what it is like to own your products – your shop should be designed to help create these “product discovery experiences”. I’ve written a post about this a long time ago, just after I visited the Nespresso store in Paris. Although you can touch and try the product, it feels as if it is just a big store rather than a place where customers can learn more about the brand and its products.
• Banks face Customer backlash due to poor experience. Colin who runs beyondphilosophy’s Experience Clinic Blog demonstrates how emotions and opinions can clash with banks’ tag lines (as a  response) and other branding efforts. I’ve also written about this gap between customer worries and the way UK banks’ address these at their websites. Colin is right to say that banks should be ‘keep a low profile’ and be careful with putting ads on TV. The true solutions sit in the DNA of the firms, the way they operate and think – this needs to change, but it will take a long time before banks have transformed their customer experience DNA and act in the interest of their customers.