Designing Mobile Customer Experience: It's not Just About Your Service

If you are designing a consumer mobile app for your company, focus on solving a 'major annoyance' hindering your customer's experience, even if it's not within the scope of your product or service.

Every company wants to engage with consumers through social media and mobile. Then why do very few mobile apps get used by consumers more than once?

It's true that most people don't want to engage with companies beyond offers and coupons, unless the brand is 'brag-worthy'. Moreover, most company mobile apps are squarely focused on pushing their products & services and often provide limited value to consumers.

I was reminded of this product management challenge today when I used the Great Clips Online Check-in app for a haircut. I realized I use the app far more frequently than many other shopping apps (including major retailer's) that have been opened only once or twice on my iPhone.

Why? The app has a simple and compelling value proposition: 'This app saves  you time!' All the app does is to show you the Great Clips locations nearby with the current wait times. In one tap, you can check into the store of your choice that puts you at the top of the queue. That's it! When you walk into the store, you immediately get the service.

The app is more interesting in what it does not do. It does not prompt me to share 'I just had a great haircut at Great Clips' on Facebook or Twitter. It does not 'help me design the best hairstyle for me'. It does not push haircare products. It does not even offer any coupons or loyalty program. (though it might make sense to do that at some point!)

What can product managers and designers learn about a customer experience mobile app from this almost trivial app from a 'no-frills' store chain?

Understand the Customer Experience and Address a 'Major Annoyance': Your customer's experience starts before they ever get to your store or buy your product. In this example, it starts the moment someone wonders whether he should get a haircut that day and how long he would have to wait.

Once consumers find the hair styling experience & service acceptable, the 'major annoyance' is not in the service itself (unless a stylist badly screws up your hair!) It's having to wait around on a Sunday morning. By designing the value proposition around this 'annoyance', the app provides concrete utility that motivates a customer to use the app repeatedly.

Another example might be the game day experience of a sports fan in a stadium. All sports teams try to engage with their fans by mobile apps with offers, coupons, fan games etc. However, in user research, our product management team found that the 'major annoyances' in a football game are getting in and out of the parking lot and the long lines at the restrooms, since everyone wants to go there only when the other team has the ball! That explains why Disneyland ride waiting time apps by third parties are probably more popular than the official Disneyland apps.

Mobile apps force you to design for the most important thing you need to solve. Reducing any 'cognitive overhead' (great article from TechCrunch) is necessary, but it's still not sufficient. A mobile product manager needs to understand your customers' entire experience beyond your product or service. If your app can be designed to solve an annoying problem anywhere in that journey, it might be the trigger for customers to start using the app frequently that can ultimately drive loyalty, repeat purchase, and even social media advocacy.

Netflix for Fashion: Why Subscription is the New Disruption

Women’s fashion is the ultimate ‘social’ industry, where the only thing that matters is what everyone else thinks and talks about your outfit. Most of us also love to check out luxury items all the time – ‘windowshop’ in real life or on a mobile device. These two characteristics probably explain the proliferation of mobile and social apps in Fashion (e.g., Polyvore, Fashion Kaleidoscope, Pose, Lockerz). Even Google is jumping into action this week at the London Fashion Show. 

Amazon Prime & Showrooming: Can Mobile Apps Save Retailers?

Amazon winning the 'Retailer of the Year' award at the National Retail Federation convention at New York this week would not surprise any consumers, though it's an interesting decision by NRF mostly comprising brick-and-mortar retailers. Are they surrendering to Amazon or have they figured out a way to stop the juggernaut?

Mobile as the New Customer Service Channel

StaffingTalk.com

I remember being amazed by the exceptional customer service by American companies, when I first came to the US in 1997. The  ability to call the 1-800 number practically 24/7 to solve any problem was unlike anything I had experienced in India. However, in the last 15 years in the US, I have seen the quality of customer service plummet. Today, most people would dread calling the 1-800 number (if you can even find it!) raising the question 'Is Customer Service Dead?'

Skype Meets Siri: Is MindMeld the Future of Collaboration?

Shouldn’t enterprise collaboration be more than just adapting consumer technologies for work (‘Facebook for the enterprise’)? Most of the 'Social Enterprise' tools are for asynchronous text-based communication, while the most important type of (remote) collaboration in enterprises continues to be real-time by phone/ video conferences. Hence it was fascinating to see an advanced voice recognition & search solution from the San Francisco start-up Expect Labs at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference a few weeks ago. They were one of the finalists and according to Robert Scoble, the hottest iPad app at Disrupt!

Four Reasons Why Enterprise Software Got Its 'Mojo' Back: TechCrunch Disrupt

This is my second day at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco.  Disrupt is the largest startup conference in Silicon Valley, attended by many startups, corporates, investors, and press. Mark Zuckerberg gave his first public interview after the Facebook IPO (the conversation drove up Facebook’s price by 4.5% in after-hours trading!) It was amazing to see how passionate & hands-on product person Zuckerberg is. He said the biggest strategic mistake of Facebook was betting on HTML5 and not going native on mobile. I am not sure if all business gurus would agree, but I guess that’s why he’s a billionaire and others are just commentators!

How 'The Mentalist' Can Engage Me Beyond a Facebook 'Like'

It looks like every business wants to ‘engage’ with consumers these days, but as a consumer, I don’t think I want to engage with many companies. Sure, I like my breakfast cereal, but I ignore their plea ‘Like us on Facebook’ on the cereal box. I am very happy with my washing machine and microwave oven, but I would never tweet about how excited I am about those. This insightful article explains why - social media sharing is more about showcasing your refined tastes (skeptics might say driven by vanity and narcissism!) - like a BMW or a neighborhood Deli.

However, I am baffled to see that even the ‘refined’ brands still fail to engage with their best customers. Of course, Facebook is a great platform to talk about any brands or products with your friends, but can the brands do more? Let me try an example.