Companies have become accustomed to thinking about their customers’ experience with their solution as a journey. A journey is one way of seeing how the customer experiences things. It’s a linear way of describing the sequence of events that are most likely to occur. There is nothing wrong with journey mapping. It’s a powerful way to think about the impact your business model has on the customer. But it’s only one lens.

The bank tellers felt it. So did the airline check in agents of yesteryear. As smarter technology advances, certain jobs are put in jeopardy. And by now, most knowledge workers—people who are hired for the expertise and acumen—are starting to realize how quickly generative AI can learn their professions and provide a qualitative alternative to their services.

Brands spend considerable time and money building purchase experiences for customers. But most of these experiences do not support the customers’ situations (or the contextual requirements that accompany the wide variety of settings where buying is possible). So, buying a milkshake in the morning could be a very different experience for the customer than buying a milkshake after dinner. Situations are what drive so much purchasing. To support customer situations, focus your purchase experience strategy on modes.

Experience strategists spend far too much time designing for the ideal and the permanent—when neither is real. In this webinar, my friend Brian Briskey and I will share two skills that all strategists should have: situational market analysis and scenario planning. You need these skills so you can help your company respond to the ever changing world, market forces, and customer needs. Stop designing for the ideal and the permanent! Start thinking about future scenarios and markets!

Qualtrics X4 Summit finished last week and one of the most exciting things introduced were ‘experience agents’. Zig Serfin, CEO of Qualtrics, made the announcement about Qualtric’s new AI features that understand context, preferences, and journey touchpoints—and that can take action in real-time on concerns that people have. Bravo! Well done Qualtrics. This is exactly what experience management needs, and, if I may, exactly what I described in 2017 in  The Collaboratives as the future of channel strategy.

For twenty years Stone Mantel has been the home of forward looking insights into experience strategy. As we pondered twenty years of insights, our crack team of experience strategists have honed in on four trends that will create value for your company. Listen to our most recent webinar about technology, engagement, transformations, and tools that will shape experiences of tomorrow.

Real, lasting value comes through understanding what is time well saved, time well spent, and time well invested. In this post, I hope you will find useful ideas on how to increase the value of the time customers spend with you through ‘meaningful elements’ like authenticity and ‘little things.’

Modes signal context. Context is how intelligent solutions know what to customize. Say, for example, a person decides to watch a movie. They choose it from their queue. That choice signals to the software several potential modes the person is likely to be in. They are also providing clues about their context: watching a movie might mean they are relaxing or have dimmed the lights or would appreciate more robust surround sound. When customers are in modes, they want their tools to pick up those clues and adjust accordingly.

If you were to ask a customer 25 years ago what makes an experience meaningful, they would likely reply by saying things like ‘they remembered my name’ or ‘they upgraded my experience.’ But when we asked that question today, what people describe is very different. This post focuses on how people create systems for their life, how those systems create balance, and what the implications are experience design.

Discover how AI is transforming healthcare experiences through:

- The 8 "healthcare superpowers" consumers want most in 2024

- How AI agents can create "genius" healthcare experiences

- Real-world applications in clinical support, diagnostics, and consumer health

- Practical implementation strategies for healthcare organizations

In this episode, experience strategists Dave Norton and Aransas Savas speak with Blake Morgan, the “Queen of CX” and a leading futurist in customer experience, about her latest book and insights on the future of customer service. Blake explains why customer service levels are at historic lows despite post-COVID digital transformations and emphasizes the need for companies to remain customer-centric during economic uncertainty. She introduces her WAYS framework for building effective CX strategies and discusses the critical role of empathy and human connection in an AI-driven world. Additionally, Blake highlights the essential connection between employee experience and customer loyalty, showcasing how businesses like @Trader Joe’s thrive by investing in their people. This episode offers invaluable insights for CX leaders and anyone passionate about fostering customer-centric cultures that endure.

In this episode of The Experience Strategy Podcast, we’re joined by George Barnett, strategy expert and author of The Strategy Toolkit, a newsletter that includes excerpts from his books on strategy, plus insights, analysis and strategy for the 21st century. We look at how business strategy has changed over the last 20 years and why customer experience is now so important for success. George shares stories from his work, showing how focusing on customer experience can help businesses grow and attract investors. Tune in to the episode as we discuss: 

• Why some common ways of measuring customer happiness might not work well

• How to use CX to attract investors 

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in making customer experiences better and ways to have a bigger impact on their company’s decision.

In this episode of the Experience Strategy Podcast, podcast hosts, Dave Norton and Aransas Savas explore the rapidly evolving landscape of enterprise community building with Rich Millington, founder of FeverBee and a leading expert in community strategy. With nearly two decades of experience helping organizations build thriving communities for members, customers, and employees, Richard brings a wealth of knowledge from working with industry giants like Google, Facebook, Oracle, and Wikipedia. His insights challenge traditional notions of community management, advocating for supporting existing ecosystems rather than controlled forums, and offering practical strategies for mapping community landscapes and measuring real outcomes. Tune in to this episode for a fresh perspective on creating meaningful, collaborative experiences that drive genuine value for businesses and their stakeholders.

As people engage with digital experiences, their requirements grow. If there is no data sharing between the customer and the solution, their expectations grow incrementally. They want the experience to be better next time, but they recognize the limitations of tools that do not offer any level of intelligence. Consumers today often refer to solutions that don’t include data or intelligence as ‘dumb’ solutions. It’s not a pejorative. It just means that the solution wasn’t designed for smart customization. And as long as the solution gets the specific job done that the customer needs it to do, they are satisfied.

People today have systems for their lives, or life systems. They have technology, relationships, schedules, and patterns they have developed to keep the various aspects of their lives in motion and in balance. We discovered the importance of life systems while doing ethnographic research on what people consider meaningful experiences. We went into people’s homes and spent hours with them talking about their meaningful experiences.

Most taxonomies of JTBDs focus on the differences between big jobs and small jobs. And like Christensen’s model, they tend to emphasize functional needs over other needs. The Stone Mantel taxonomy starts from a different place. Instead of defining the types of jobs to be done based on the size or importance of the job, we focus on what expectations people have for different types of experiences.

In this episode of the Experience Strategy Podcast, Sarah Dusek, an entrepreneur, venture capitalist and author, takes listeners on a journey through her remarkable career in experience-driven business. From founding the pioneering glamping company Under Canvas to her current venture in global regenerative travel, Sarah demonstrates how aligning personal passion with customer needs can create industry-shaping innovations. She shares valuable insights on the power of businesses to mold culture and drive positive change, emphasizing the importance of sustainability and community impact in experience design. Sarah's discussion of her upcoming book, "Thinking Bigger," offers a compelling perspective on women's empowerment in business and the significance of dreaming big when it comes to making an impact. Throughout the conversation, she provides experience strategists with practical advice on developing strong points of view, building conviction, and creating internal advocates for successful implementation. This episode is a masterclass in experience strategy, offering lessons on scaling innovative concepts, incorporating regenerative practices, and bridging the gap between visionary ideas and real-world execution.

In this episode, Experience Strategy Podcast hosts Aransas Savas and Dave Norton sit down with Brian Anderson, Director of National Outings at the legendary Sierra Club. With over 130 years of advocating for people, places, and the planet, Sierra Club has mastered the art of crafting transformational travel experiences that drive personal growth and global impact. Packed with insights on experience design, engagement strategy, and impact measurement, this episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to harness the power of transformational experiences. Tune in now and discover how Sierra Club is pioneering a new era of meaningful, impactful travel.

Chappell Roan, the rising star who recently drew Lollapalooza's largest-ever crowd, has quickly become a sensation, breaking into Spotify's top 100 worldwide with just one album. Her success isn't just about the music—it's a masterclass in experience strategy that businesses across industries can learn from.

In the first section of Chapter 1, I argued that most of what people call strategic experience work is not strategic. In the second section, I called into question the foundational assumptions of value creation that undergird the CX movement, marketing, and even business strategy.

There’s a lot of unpacking that I need to do to convince you that the paradigm for traditional business strategy, as it pertains to customers, needs to change. I know. I know. Bear with me. I plan to lay out all of the evidence.