Description
Call it rugged individualism, call it the denunciation of professionalism, but the fact remains that do-it-yourself (DIY) started out hot and has stayed hot, especially in the age of the ever-present web. The authors, who are both consultants and practitioners, give practical advice for designing and maintaining DIY functions within new and existing businesses so customers can experience the senses of competence, independence and sophistication they seek in going the DIY route. They describe likely DIY customers, the new paradigm of DIY customer experience, the roots of "coproductive experience" design, the values of DIY, means of facilitating access and structuring incentives while enhancing expertise, making the most of the principles of learning, and making the internal changes necessary to partner with customers so intimately. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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More than 65 percent of Southwest Airlines' customers book tickets themselves on southwest.com. The self checkout available in more than 1,000 Home Depot stores contributed to a 7.3 percent increase in the average customer transaction. Customers are creating do-it-yourself teddy bears at Build-A-Bear Workshops and designing do-it-yourself shoes at nikeID.com. Everyday, new ways of involving customers in businesses are emerging, evolving, and gaining wider acceptance. Customer satisfaction is high in these do-it-yourself experiences because customers save time, have more control, and achieve self-made results. In Creating Do-It-Yourself Customers: How Great Customer Experiences Build Great Companies, veteran business consultants Peter C. Honebein and Roy F. Cammarano show anyone who serves customers, from CEOs to frontline associates, how to lead the creation of truly outstanding customer experiences. This book justly emphasizes that for customers to perform, businesses must wrap their goods and services with performance-enhancing experiences. Customers need vision so they know what they are expected to do. They need access to tools that enable them to perform. They need incentives to motivate desired performances. And they need expertise so they can perform tasks competently. The authors call the orchestration of these four strategies a coproduction experience, and it forms the foundation for how businesses create do-it-yourself customers. Through the principles of customer codesign, cocreation, and coproduction, business owners, leaders, and employees can champion the ideals of great experiences for customers and become leaders in the do-it-yourself economy. The results are clear: greater customer satisfaction, trust, loyalty, and lifetime value-the cornerstones of a great company.
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