I recently had the great opportunity to talk with frog design on customer experience. Our days are peppered with so many acronyms: CX, UI, HCD, AI, MR….. what’s really important at the end of the day?

You can view the full interview here. To me, designing an outstanding customer experience boils down to:

1. Humility: Being open to what we don’t know or haven’t experienced. A deep inquisitiveness to better understand the daily lives of those we serve, in order to better delight. It’s only when we understand, that can we become empathic to solve for what our customer needs… and design against those needs in a relevant, meaningful and delightful way. 

2. Customer first: In successful corporate environments, conversations aren’t about our strategy and what we hope to accomplish. Verbage isn’t about what we hope to achieve, or how many X’s we have Y’ed. Rather, it’s about what customers need and want, and what we need to do to deliver just that. 

3. Common vision: When teams are aligned to one joint set of KPIs, it’s much easier to row together. Setting people and organizations up for success means we define meaningful, aligned targets and clearly communicate them, consistently. When everyone’s headed toward the same goal, they are collectively set up for success.