My title at ACAP Health is Chief Experience Officer. Quite often, people ask, “What is an Experience Officer?” or “What does your team do?” The easy answer would be to rattle off the various roles and responsibilities. We do ‘marketing’ by providing promotional materials to employers; we do ‘communications’ by managing media relations and social media; we do ‘design’ by creating the user interface that participants see; etc. But, that just tells you the tasks we’re responsible for and some of the outputs we generate. It doesn’t explain why ACAP Health has an Experience team.
Because the work we do at ACAP Health is about improving the quality of lives, each customer interaction with our brand is important. We need to make sure those interactions are intuitive, consistent, and convey the appropriate brand image. But, the point of an Experience team is to make sure we don’t think of each interaction individually. Instead, the Experience team is focused on the sum of all the interactions. We think of the entire customer experience in totality.
As an example, think of our metabolic syndrome reduction program, Naturally Slim. When a participant gets their welcome kit, what are they thinking and feeling about the brand? What about when they first log into the site, use the food diary on the mobile app, or interact with a counselor in our online community? How do all those interactions work together in a distinctive and memorable way? The program doesn’t just provide weight loss and health education. The goal of Naturally Slim is to help participants change their lives. We want participants to start the program and quickly realize, “Wow, this is different!” Then, start learning new skills that help them finally feel like they have control over their weight, something they may have been searching for their whole life, and begin to look at their future in a whole new way.
If we simply thought about each interaction separately, we might provide a pleasant interaction and/or leave our participants satisfied. But that’s not what we’re looking for. We want to create customers who are passionate, even evangelical, about Naturally Slim. The Experience team is here to create, foster, and orchestrate memorable experiences for our customers. That means sometimes we’re creating and designing, sometimes we’re guiding and instructing, and sometimes we’re promoting and instigating — all with the purpose of creating great experiences.
I read a great quote from another CXO recently which illustrates why it’s important to think about customer experience in totality. “Whether they mean to or not, companies create experiences — some good, some not so good. If you’re not focused on creating an intentional experience, you’re creating an unintentional one.”
At ACAP/Naturally Slim, we’re very intentional. How about your company? Are you creating an intentional experience for your employees and/or your customers?
