{"id":232281,"date":"2015-08-12T20:07:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-13T03:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/feedproxy.google.com\/~r\/CxJourney\/~3\/cN9J233AumQ\/outside-in-vs-inside-out-thinking.html"},"modified":"2019-08-09T21:44:28","modified_gmt":"2019-08-10T04:44:28","slug":"outside-in-vs-inside-out-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customerthink.com\/outside-in-vs-inside-out-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Outside-In vs. Inside-Out Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the world of customer experience, what’s the difference between outside-in and inside-out?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Inside-out thinking<\/strong> means your focus is on processes, systems, tools, and products that are designed and implemented based on internal thinking and intuition. The customer’s needs, jobs, and perspectives do not play a part in this type of thinking; they aren’t taken into consideration. You make decisions because you think it’s what’s best for the business – not for customers. Or you think you know what’s best for customers.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, outside-in thinking<\/strong> means that you look at your business from the customer’s perspective and subsequently design processes, tools, and products and make decisions based on what’s best for the customer and what meets the customer’s needs. You make decisions because you know it’s what’s best for your customers. Why? Because you listen to them, and you understand them and the jobs they are trying to do.<\/p>\n

It might be inside-out thinking<\/strong> when there’s a conscious decision to make process, policy, people, systems, or other changes that:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Don’t improve the customer experience at the same time<\/li>\n
  2. Are about maximizing shareholder returns, not about benefits for the customer<\/li>\n
  3. Improve internal efficiencies but to the detriment of customer interactions<\/li>\n
  4. Are cost-cutting measures that also negatively impact the\u00a0 customer experience<\/li>\n
  5. Might be the wrong process, policy, people, or systems to change<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    By contrast, outside-in thinking<\/strong> flips each of those points on its head and looks like this. There’s a conscious decision to make process, policy, people, systems, or other changes that:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. Improve the customer experience at the same time<\/li>\n
    2. Are about maximizing benefits for the customer<\/li>\n
    3. Improve internal efficiencies known to be painpoints when executing customer interactions<\/li>\n
    4. Are cost-cutting measures that significantly improve the customer experience<\/li>\n
    5. Are the right process, policy, people, or systems because you’ve listened to customer feedback and know how customers are affected<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      It’s clear that outside-in thinking<\/strong> is the way to go. It leads to a number of things, none of which you’ll get by making decisions that are not based on what’s best for your customers…<\/p>\n