Howie Howatson: Hi.

Harjot Bal: Hello.

Jennifer: So listen, I'm gonna start with the easy/toughest question in the world, what does it mean to be customer-centric? What is that?

Howie Howatson: Simply put, realizing that what you're creating is fundamentally not about what you think it should be. It should be about what somebody else needs.

Harjot Bal: To me it's really considering all the factors around the customer, and optimizing your design and your touchpoints for that person, and meeting them where they are.

Jennifer: I would argue, or at least someone out there is gonna argue, that we've always been customer-centric in design, in the sense that we're building things for people to consume every day. What has changed? Why this focus on customer-centricity?

Howie Howatson: I think, looking at the way products are created, I would argue that for a long time it was about, "We have this idea, we're really gonna do it," and it may not have been tested, it was a matter of, "Well we see a product category, there's a gap." It was done from that lens, rather than looking at an individual need, and reducing down to all it needed to be.

Harjot Bal: I think another part of it is also really looking at the business, really looking at itself and its processes, and seeing if it's really connecting with the customer in the way that it aspired to. A lot of businesses have like a five-year-long strategy, ten-year-long strategy, and they might change, their customers might change, their customers' needs might change. So it's them considering that in a holistic view.

Jennifer: Is the change now too that someone is specifically ... So traditionally, I guess you could say marketing was focused on customer, but this is different. This is now other areas of the business, deeply entrenched in that customer-centricity. Have you seen that shift?

Howie Howatson: Yes. Yeah certainly in the digital products space. Especially in service design and other topics, and ways of approaching it, have risen to preeminence.

Jennifer: So the service design is interesting, and I hear this word a lot now. I'm wondering if you could build out for me that, the research efforts, and I like this idea that it is sort of the entire customer experience, and I'm wondering if you could sort of ... it's not just a product or a singular solution, but can you talk to me about what service design looks like in action?

Harjot Bal: Sure, so some background on this. When we talk about service design it all connects to the overall experience. You have three tiers at which you're addressing this. There's the customer experience, which is the end-to-end journey, where you're looking at all the touchpoints, whether they're online or offline, and really considering how people get acquainted with your brand or your products or your services, and how they become like a loyal customer and come back to them. Then you have the more specific touchpoints. That's where we talk a lot about user experience. You'll have specific digital touchpoints that you're using to connect with your customers. What service design does is it takes those two tiers of experience and it looks for opportunities and gaps, to make sure that you're actually delivering on your intended services in a way that serves not only the business, but the customer.

Howie Howatson: That's the area where the greatest discomfort can occur for companies that are trying to embrace-

Jennifer: How come discomfort?

Howie Howatson: What you have to do is have the lack of ego to back up and go, "We need to maybe retool how we function as a business," in order to be able to address this touchpoint in a different way, to optimize their selves for what the customer needs, rather than ourselves. Not reflect our internal silos or legacy behaviors, and systems, and tools, and god-awful things that have just sort of happened because it was a solve and then it became sort of wholly writ. That can be very uncomfortable. That's change. If somebody's been doing something one way for 25 years, and suddenly, "No no no, that's actually delivering the wrong experience," that's hard. That takes a great deal of commitment from a very senior level. "We're going to change how we function in order to be in service of a customer's needs rather than our own." Because businesses will always optimize for their own needs. It's human nature.

Jennifer: But it's just so counterintuitive actually, right, because if you think to yourself, you've got organizations like retail as an example that, how could they not be thinking that way? If we take the taxi example, which is such a good one, which is it was so not customer-centric. Is it that it has ... the catalyst of that has to be someone comes in and completely disrupts, and that's what forces change? So if there's discomfort and people are reluctant to do it, how do they get there?

Harjot Bal: I think there's a lot of focus around the micro-interactions. Usually when work comes in, it's around a specific touchpoint that your client wants you to make super user-centric or customer-centric, but they fail sometimes to look at the entire journey, and to see how that fits in with the larger picture. These touchpoints are all connected. If you worry about the micro-interactions and just try to get those right, sometimes you lose track of the entire picture. I think it's really worth looking at the entire processes and the entire infrastructure that's a part of serving the customer, whether that's stuff that you have that's happening in the back end. So maybe there are specific facilities and back-end structures that support what the customer's touching, seeing, and feeling. So it's important to make sure that those are right and those are optimized for users.

Jennifer: So is it possible then, and Howie maybe I'll throw this to you, is it possible then to do a POC, dip your foot in the water, to see the immediate results from that, and the data feedback? Is that a catalyst for change in an organization that's sort of steadfast or siloed?

Howie Howatson: Well it can be a proof point, and it can create more comfort. "Okay yeah clearly we're on the right path," but to Harjot's point that's devoid of a holistic view of the entirety in a customer experience. That journey, everything hangs off of that one thing. It's the spine through which every decision should be reflecting. You're looking to see where points of friction's are ... friction is, pardon me. Where you can find lift, what are gaps? What are gaps in expectation? There's a broad bunch ... Back to the taxi concept. The reason why it was not customer-centric is because it was making due with the technologies and the things that were available as they came along. The reason why Uber and Lyft and these things, why they're so transformative and disruptive, is it rethought the whole thing and just looked at the friction points. What made it an unpleasant experience? Finding a taxi, that awkward hustle with payment at the end, and the expectation of tip which always creeps people out. All of that. It was, nobody had ever ... because it was always like that, nobody had stopped to go, "Wow this was really not a pleasant experience if you really think about it." Everyone was just used to it. It was the way the world was. So that rethink was enormously important.

Harjot Bal: Yeah sometimes innovation plays a huge role in this, and I feel like sometimes those innovations have to go beyond just those specific touchpoints and those micro-interactions, but to the business at large. Like the business that you are today might change five years from now, and you might go after a different customer base. So to make sure that you're set up for that, and you're constantly putting your finger in the air and getting a sense of where the wind is blowing, is super important in assessing that.

Howie Howatson: Especially because ... everything will change. We're looking at, like ten years ago if you told everyone they'd have a supercomputer in their pocket that would dominate their entire life and serve every bit of information ever recorded in history at the drop of a finger, no one would have believed that. So ten years from now I can't even wait to see what it is. But that indicates a need for change, or at least installing the DNA to be able to change and to be looking, like you said, to put your finger in the air, and the muscle memory to be able to pivot and alter yourself at a fundamental level. To be able to address what is actually needed.

Jennifer: What's interesting too is, and as someone in this space is, that I see now all of these new roles that are popping up as part of this process. But what I would love for the two of you to do for me and for our listeners today is to actually define what these new roles are, and what the differentiation is. I'm thinking specifically of CX, UX, SD, and UI. UI and UX drives me crazy, because it gets mixed up all the time. What's the difference between those two roles?

Howie Howatson: Well the simplest way to define UX and UI, at least the way we view it, and I think it's pretty common, UI is the visible design, UX is the invisible. UX is something that you don't know is there until it's broken and it causes friction, or you can't just do a thing. Like it just doesn't magically, simply, your expectations are met and you accomplish a task with ease, that's UX working. It's similar to code in that regard. You don't notice it until it's broken.

Jennifer: Are those roles integral to having this fulsome customer view? Like someone that actually charts it, and owns it, and champions the customer in an organization?

Harjot Bal: They're definitely a part of it. There's also other roles. Some of the ones that you were listing off, like service designers, or people who are customer experience leads. Typically there's a bunch of roles, and depending on the organization and how it's structured, and the kind of resources that you have, different people can wear different hats. Usually I would define it by deliverables, or outputs, or activities, versus by roles, because different roles will take different ownership over deliverables, depending on who's available. Essentially what you're describing is experience mapping, or journey mapping. The two are synonymous, but it's really about understanding the start to finish, and getting a sense of the user as they take part in that journey. Understanding what they touch, how they feel about their interactions with whatever it is that they're experiencing, and opportunities to improve that experience.

Howie Howatson: There's a lot of uncertainty too in the naming of things, like experience design, UX-

Harjot Bal: Lots of hybrid roles too.

Howie Howatson: They all circle around creating the experience, designing the experience. There's a focus in altitude difference, but ultimately there is all different lenses in deliverables, to your point.

Harjot Bal: Yeah, sometimes strategy will even take part in experience mapping, but it really ... every person, if they come from a different discipline, will have a different lens in creating something like a journey map or an experience map, so the best way to do it is to have a bunch of collaborators map this out and really understand the holistic picture. It's not going to come from one person, and a specific discipline. It's gonna come from a collaboration of people and just ... in experiences here we tend to do that with the client, so that it's very super-collaborative, and that we're not making assumptions but everything is validated.

Howie Howatson: There's also product management.

Harjot Bal: Oh yeah.

Howie Howatson: Which is the practice of real-time strategy ultimately. Their participation and their lens in that conversation is exceptionally important as well.

Jennifer: It's a good segue to talk about the discovery process. I know that at Rangle you have a very specific discovery process in terms of all client projects, but there's something even more important here that's new but also really powerful which is the creative discovery process. I know that you guys have a specific approach to that. Wonder if you could walk me through that?

Harjot Bal: Sure. Still sort of ironing it out, but the creative discovery can be boiled down to five pillars. So we have what the business needs, who the customers or users are, what the customers or users need, the state of the brand, and then what others are doing in the space. So really if we're able to satisfy those five pillars we can move forward beyond creative discovery and really hit the ground running and start to work on what it is that we need to work on.

Jennifer: So as part of the creative discovery are you looking at data alone? Are you talking to customers? Talk to me about what is involved as part of that discovery process, in partnership with the client?

Harjot Bal: Sure. So typically, within those five pillars you have a set of activities, or a set of outputs that you'll be involved in generating throughout discovery. Usually we don't have a fixed list, 'cause what we tend to do is we pick and choose or we tailor based on the client and based on what they have, to make sure that we're maximizing our efforts, and we're not duplicating effort. Some of the examples for, let's say the first pillar, which is called what the business needs, includes things like requirements gathering, a strategic vision, and setting KPI's and success metrics. So that's really important, even for designers. Something like requirements gathering is really important to understand where the lines in the sand are in terms of the experience that you're going to design. How far can you go? What can you push for? What do you need to be cognizant of? In things as simple as wireframes.

Jennifer: So if you're saying that companies are sort of hardwired to operate the way that they operate, and now they're partnering with someone who's going to walk them through this process, where is the biggest roadblock to having this discovery process? Is it that they don't have aligned data, or single-source data points? Or they don't have a fundamental customer journey mapped out? Where do we help them?

Howie Howatson: Actually to tell you the truth I think the first stumbling point will be internal alignment. It's always going to be the point of view of everybody, because everyone's gonna have a different view of what this is, what's important, who owns the voice of the brand in this sort of a situation. It's massively disruptive in a lot of ways for many organizations. So getting that internal alignment. Generally it has to be very top down, like this is something that's very important, so that you can then design with bottom-up participation, because it's about empowering the people who ultimately will end up making the things. The strategic decision that a transformation of this kind is occurring has to be understood as important from the CEO. That internal alignment, even with that message from the CEO, it can become confusing. It ends up being, "Well I don't see it that ways it should be like this," et cetera, et cetera. There's a lot of nudging that has to go along at first. The discovery process actually can help with that. Oftentimes people just need to be heard.

Harjot Bal: This is true.

Howie Howatson: Right? So that whole process is as much being a counselor-confidant, and empathetic practitioner of the craft, to set it up for success as you're gathering, as you're formulating the strategies.

Jennifer: Have you noticed companies making changes to their internal structure, or their creative department, as a result of this discovery process?

Howie Howatson: Yes.

Jennifer: In what way?

Howie Howatson: Well, one in particular. They focused on actually internally forming a solidified, understood UX practice, which will then evolve into a CX practice and into a service design practice ultimately. With that as a stated roadmap for evolution. That kicked off at the same time as, relatively, a really large initiative we're doing in this space with them, as their partner. It's nice to see, because it means that they're focusing on an end goal which will serve them well when we fade into the background. They've got the steam wheel in their hand for what it is they've gotta do.

Harjot Bal: I think it can also help them get organized. Whenever we launch a discovery process with our clients, sometimes there's a bunch of scattered pieces of documentation, and sometimes they're very specific to the segment of work that comes in that we're then tasked with taking ownership of. So things like personas, things like customer journey maps, might apply to the entire business, but not specifically to a touchpoint. Sometimes different departments or project leads will have ownership of different persona or different journey maps. I think they get a chance to really harmonize a lot of those deliverables, and really come to one singular vision. It also depends on what our goal is. If we plan to really help them change the overall business and multiple touchpoints then that makes a really good case for, maybe we need to reevaluate the entire business persona's journey maps, versus if it's a very specific touchpoint, then what can we do to make sure that that's connected to the larger picture?

Jennifer: So as a measure of success, or there might be someone out there thinking to themself, "No we're for sure customer-centric." How do companies know that they're truly customer-centric? Are there any key indicators that you can say, "Yeah check, we got this"?

Howie Howatson: I've recently stumbled across a great example of that, where I asked the very simple question, "Who owns the end-to-end customer journey?" There was a long pause, and the person I asked was sort of looking up at the ceiling going hmm, interesting, interesting. From across the table somebody said, "I think it's supposed to be you."

Jennifer: Awkward.

Howie Howatson: Yeah, and that was the moment where I was like okay, so there's some work to be done, because what was happening was, and financial services and the breadth of what that is, those institutions, tend to have very siloed views of how they create experiences. Each group or chunk will have an entirely separated piece of the journey, but you'll find a gap in who owns it end-to-end. That's to me I think the number one clue.

Jennifer: So who, in companies that are doing it great, who does own that?

Howie Howatson: It's different from institution to institution.

Jennifer: Oh, there you go.

Harjot Bal: Yeah it depends on the scope of the project, and sometimes there is no ownership over it, and that's okay. It can be owned by multiple people. Usually a product manager will oversee the realization of that journey map into an actual solution, but it's usually very collaborative.

Howie Howatson: You know ideally, that's a great answer, if it comes down to a single owner that kind of misses that chance for broader conversation-

Harjot Bal: Exactly.

Howie Howatson: ... and collaboration.

Jennifer: What's next? Like if we think about the horizon for customer-centric design and how things have changed so much, even in the last two years I've seen such a significant change in focus, probably brought on by multiple bankruptcies. How are things going to change? What do you see, because you live and breathe in this space, that's happening in the next two years, and where is this gonna take us? What do you think is next?

Howie Howatson: Well I think a massive increase in urgency. From two fronts. One, you pointed out there's the business pressures, or the exposure to disruption. There are a lot of businesses out there that are thoroughly successful in the model they're in, but they're not gonna see the disruption coming until it's swamped them. We saw what happened to music, we saw the pressure taxis are facing. We see a lot of places where they didn't see it coming, and suddenly a multi-billion dollar disruption happens. So you have that side.

Jennifer: Well and that brings up something interesting, which is that actually opens a door, if you've nailed down your digital experience, to create a beautiful offline experience to compliment that right? So that when you do feel like coming in and sitting down, and I think about the work that's being done with Staples which is that across all touchpoints right? Regardless of how you want to consume our brand. So maybe it's later in the day and you do feel like a chit chat, and you can sit down with a friend at a table and it's a great atmosphere and they're connected in some way. That is interesting, that customer-centricity, if you nail this part of it, you can now explore, or have time for, maybe something else.

Howie Howatson: That's a huge point, that it is ... I hate using the phrase, but it's cross-channel ... the problem is is channel, the use of channel to me is mildly annoying because it suggests that things are siloed into specific channels. The customer doesn't feel that way. They have one contact with a brand. First and foremost they want to never have to start over, and it should just be easy. Ideally it should just know them and serve them. Those are the end goals, that's what people want. Everyone is incredibly selfish when it comes to how they want to be served, or have their needs met. That's the expectation. So yeah it has to be able to cross over. That's why, oddly, we always talk about the same sort of examples. Like the MagicBand for Disney, or Uber, or Starbucks and Tim Hortons having your coffee sitting there as soon as you show up, because it's that magic of it all is just in service to your whims. There's this giant engine behind, driving this tiny little moment, but that little moment has enormous emotional resonance.

Jennifer: Sure it does, especially if it's $5 a day per customer times multi-million customers right? What about you? What are you excited about? What do you see that's coming down the pipe?

Harjot Bal: I think that, just as a lot of brands and a lot of clients have their brand guidelines or style guides, like as something that's defined. They know their colors, they know what their logo is, they know how to use their logo. I see a similar version of that happening with their experience strategy. A lot of companies are starting to define them across the board, and I feel like that's something that they'll have in their back pocket so that when people go to work with them, like companies like Rangle, we'll have something that we can already start to talk about.

Howie Howatson: That's an awesome example, and we're also seeing it manifested or being spoken of as an experience brand. It's an aspect of themselves, particularly if you're in a retail environment, that no one's considered before. Part of that's the confusion at the beginning where everyone's like, "Who owns this, is it brand?" "We own the brand, don't change the brand." Well there's this experience brand. Ultimately now, experience is brand.

Jennifer: For sure it is.

Howie Howatson: It is, and I think everyone gets that. But I love the fact that that would become something that's in a holster and people are sort of focusing on it.

Jennifer: Talk about measures of success, right? I mean if an organization is that focused and they have that already laid out, then ownership, to your point earlier, is not even relevant anymore, because collectively this is what we've decided on as our brand experience. Which is pretty powerful right?

Harjot Bal: Yup. This is how we approach customers, this is how we take care of them, this is how we get them to come back. All of that will be something that ladders up to an experience strategy.

Jennifer: Some pretty exciting things coming. It's pretty awesome. Thank you so much for joining us today. Don't forget to like and subscribe to ensure you're notified about all future episodes. Thank you so much to my guests Harjot and Howie, you guys were amazing today, thank you. I learned a ton.

Howie Howatson: Thank you.

Jennifer: Thank you. We hope that you got some great insights today too and we would love to hear back from you. So be sure to send us your comments and feedback. Thank you so much for listening, and have a great day.