in, but also how to coordinate people, processes, and technologies to support and connect them.
This gets even more interesting when you look at the opportunities to mix and combine channels. A simple example is reflected in secure authentication experiences. In Figure 1.5, a user forgot her password to an online bank account. A typical pattern would be to ask her to fill in some information, such as the last four digits of a Social Security number and a bank account number. If she gets that right, then she is presented with the option to receive a passcode by email, text, voice, or (in unfortunate situations) by mail. This security requires the user to interact with two channels: web and text, web and email, mobile app and text, mobile app and email, or web and mail. The end-user here is trying to get one thing done—recover a password—but multiple channels are leveraged for security while offering the option of which channels to support user preferences.
FIGURE 1.5 Most online banks offer customers the option to combine the web channel with text message, voice, email, or IVR to complete the password retrieval process.
As much as companies try to organize and optimize investments, people, and processes by channel, they don’t exist in isolation. Customers maneuver among them, and smartly combining them can lead to innovation and delight. Yet, to be able to orchestrate experiences across channels, you must understand each channel’s unique material.
Channels Reflect Interactions, Information, and Context
To design for good product and service experiences, you must know the capabilities and constraints of the different channels at your disposal. Designing a form delivered via a mobile channel is very different than designing one delivered in print. Creating advertisements for web, outdoor, and television requires different skills and expertise. This means that organizations need specialists for each form to be defined, designed, and executed. These specialists are typically organized by channel (i.e., digital) and then by a specialty in that channel (i.e., web, mobile, etc.). A hierarchical taxonomy of channels based on technology, however, gets muddy fast in the context of defining and executing end-to-end experiences.
As an exercise, list common channels in your business by media, and you will find overlap, redundancy, and conflict. Some of these channels are defined by their context of use (mobile), some by the means of interaction (tablet), others by their technological means of distribution (web), and still others by the content or information they distribute (social media).
A better approach is to define channels by three qualitative facets—interaction, information, and context.
• Interaction: What means does the customer use to interact with you? Examples include touch devices, mouse and keyboard, keypad, or voice (see Figure 1.6).
• Information: What is the nature of the content being provided to, or exchanged with, the customer? For example, social media.
• Context: What is the context—from environment to emotion—in which the interaction is happening. For example, physical stores.
FIGURE 1.6 The materiality of a channel creates opportunities and constraints.
A channel may be defined by one or more of these facets. Thinking explicitly about each channel through this lens ensures that you are not overlooking the unique material of a channel and how best to leverage it to support customer needs.
Channels Support the Moment
The concept of channels is just that—a concept. Channels help functions and support reaching a company’s objectives—from marketing to operations to products.
This is where the challenge rears its ugly head again. Channel specialists, working in isolation, lack an overarching view of what customers will experience in other channels. They see their channel as the primary (if not only) point of customer interaction, not as one of many possible enablers for meeting customers’ needs.
Put another way, defining channels as destinations obfuscates their supporting role of enabling and facilitating customer moments in different contexts. A customer shopping in a physical store while using her mobile phone to talk with her spouse and comparison price-check via an app does not represent three separate users in three different channels. She is a single person in a decision moment in which each channel can help or hinder her experience.
When a passenger books a ride with a ride-sharing service, she receives a confirmation message. This message can be delivered by text, push notification, within the application, or via a phone call from the driver. Each option, delivered via a channel, supports what really matters—the passenger knows the car is on its way (see Figure 1.7).
FIGURE 1.7 Multiple channels can deliver a confirmation message. Which channels are used by a customer depends upon their needs, context, and the capabilities of their mobile device.
Viewing channels as serving customer moments can empower you and your team to work backward from customer needs to which channel(s) will best facilitate meeting those needs. Instead of starting with one channel—digital—start with your customers’ needs, context, and journey. What role could print, mobile, web, environment, voice, or people play to support those needs? Can you combine channels in interesting ways? Can you build bridges between channels that help customers move forward easily?
And, most importantly, how do these channels support great customer moments?
Changing the Channel-Centric Mindset
Evaluating your channels in this way creates the opportunity to rethink the relationship of the individual channels and how they may work together. You can readdress how they are defined or what each channel’s role could be in a customer’s end-to-end experience. At a minimum, you will shift your vantage point from channels as destinations to channels as moment enablers. This conceptual foundation is an important first step in changing the channel-centric mindset.
As discussed, this mindset creates barriers—both conceptual and organizational—that make defining and designing good end-to-end experiences difficult. Changing how your institution organizes people around channels and functions (rather than customers and journeys) is a long game. However, as shown in Figure 1.8, you can begin engaging your colleagues immediately by turning your world 90 degrees and looking at it from a customer’s perspective.
FIGURE 1.8 The framework on the bottom positions channels as enablers of an end-to-end experience, not parallel worlds.
Customers do not contain their actions to one single channel. Stating this to your colleagues will not set off fireworks, but showing it will flip on light bulbs. The next chapter will go into greater depth about how to use a simple framework—a touchpoint inventory—to inventory and visualize
