How to Make Customer Experience Magic with Co-Creation Sessions (part 1)

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Are you looking for ideas to help improve the experience you’re delivering to customers? Customers are often full of great ideas, but they’re waiting for you to ask!

We often focus on the negative feedback we get from customers. After all, an honest complaint is a great opportunity to improve the experience, so we should see each one as a gift! But what about all the positive things your customers are just dying to tell you? How do you get the mind-blowing ideas from customer who are waiting for a chance to provide them to your organization?

Try getting them to think BIG. It’s not just about asking the right questions on your next survey. Co-creation sessions with your best customers are where the real magic happens!

How do you go about co-creation with your customers?

It’s part customer journey mapping and part research, but successful co-creation adds incredible value for customers and brands alike. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

1. How do you define “best customers?” Get creative!

As you decide who to invite to your co-creation session, inviting a variety of customers will ensure that you will get the best ideas.

Tips:

  • The ones who have been with you for twenty years and the ones who just became customers each have perspectives that can help you deliver a better experience to all your customers.
  • Do not to discount the value of what your loudest critics have to say. These vocal customers may be hard to listen to, but they’re often the best ones to invite!
  • Be aware of your customer’s industry so you can either invite or exclude competitors.

2. Invite these customers to join you.

Schedule a few hours or a day-long event they’ll want to attend, and communicate your goals and reasons for inviting them.

Tips:

  • Plan a fun evening after a workday to help them help you.
  • Send out special, friendly invitations to help customers feel like they’ve been invited to an important event.
  • Consider a few factors to how you want the day to go. Which part of the customer journey do you want to consider the most? What prior knowledge do customers need to have? Do any known complaints still need to be addressed?

3. Build an agenda around your goals.

Are you hoping to get overall feedback from your best customers? Do you need to find out why you are losing other customers to the competition? Would you like to brainstorm on the next product or feature to offer? Perhaps there are prototypes you’d like to get feedback on. If that’s the case, introduce each section of the agenda not with a statement, but with a question.

Tips:

  • Make sure the day is customer-focused, not brand or product focused. Instead of asking “what do you think about this product?” Ask “Why did you need to take this action?”
  • Start the journey with what happens before the customer even knew they needed you.

4. Ask for some personal interaction.

Start the session by asking general questions and inviting them to talk openly about other experiences. What was the best customer experience or worst one they’ve had? What would they change about it?

Tips:

  • Reassure your customers they won’t be offending you by being truthful during the event.
  • Set the right tone and mindset for the day to gather the most honest and valuable feedback.

5. Outline the journey from the customer’s perspective.

Now it’s time to listen and ask. And ask and ask and ask….

But what should you be asking? We’ll be covering specific tips on that in Part 2 (coming Monday, January 16th!)


This post was written for, and a version originally appeared on the Clicktools blog.

Republished with author's permission from original post.

Jeannie Walters, CCXP
Jeannie Walters is a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP,) a charter member of the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA,) a globally recognized speaker, a LinkedIn Learning and Lynda.com instructor, and a Tedx speaker. She’s a very active writer and blogger, contributing to leading publications from Forbes to Pearson college textbooks. Her mission is “To Create Fewer Ruined Days for Customers.”

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