How often should we get feedback from the user/customer? In too many projects user feedback is something that is "nice to have", or collected at the end of the sprint from project stakeholders who may not even speak to the customers/users. The problem: The lack of feedback means we walk a precarious tight rope of creating something customers/users do not want and may not even get used. What are embedded user feedback loops? An embedded user feedback loop looks at collecting f

Why don't departments which work directly with customers (i.e. Marketing, Sales, and Operations) typically talk about agility? The question is, what do these departments actually care about? The Problem The problem is when businesses think of these things, they don’t think of agility as the solution. Typically the 'business' will set up an improvement program to address a whole raft of internal and external pain points. The challenge for them is to determine which pain points

I recently had the fortune of completing an engagement delivering current and future state customer journey, and an experience design capability uplift. Coming from a background in agile coaching software development teams, putting on the design thinking hat was a fascinating experience. The CXD Labs ‘Customer Value Framework’ shares a similar process to the Design thinking approach popularised by IDEO; except it includes the 'operate' phase of the customer's experience. Desi

Store attendants welcome the first customers of the day as doors open at the Mitsukoshi department store, operated by Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings Ltd., in the Nihonbashi district of Tokyo on June 29. | BLOOMBERG This is one of a series of observations I've gathered from a short time in Japan, and even in that short span of time, I've learned countless lessons that I would love to see more in the Western world and will be using it more here in CXD Labs. It was 10.35pm and we we

Recently, CXD Labs embarked on a customer journey mapping exercise with a telecommunications company and the outcome of the analysis resulted in a handful of recommendations for the executives to consider. All the recommendations had its own challenges, but backed up by customer feedback, data and analysis, we believed that the recommendations would make a difference to the customers experience. However, inevitably we all looked at the research and couldn't help but think "Th

McKinsey and Company recently released a report they've been conducting since 2008 (US Consumer Sentiment Survey), the report I've enjoyed reading in particular is the "Meet today's American consumer", discussing certain consumer behaviours based on the current economic climate in US (and comparing certain elements with global trends). In CXD Labs, we love research reports like these - however, throughout reading the report we were wondering how these statistics and findings

Uber has gained a global following by releasing a mobile application that has disrupted the taxi industry. Alongside other comparable companies such as airbnb and Zappos, these companies tackle problems with the customer experience at its core. So we thought what better way to demonstrate what we can produce by presenting to you the journey of a typical Uber customer, using our own framework. Before we start, here are a few points to note: We modelled this Customer Journey ba