Do we need some new thinking around the customer experience?
Should we be thinking about enhancing the customer experience as a series of ‘S’ Curves?
S Curves (short for Sigmoid Curves) were popularised by management writer Charles Handy.
He writes, “the sigmoid curve sums up the story of life itself. We start slowly, experimentally, and falteringly; we wax and then we wane. It is the story of the British Empire and the Soviet Union and of all empires, always.”
Each S curve consists of 4 stages (i.e. start, growth, maturity and decline).
These curves are used extensively in innovation and within the startup community.
The key point of a S curve is to know where you are in relation to the stages and to start a new S curve before you reach the decline stage.
So why not apply this to enhancing the customer experience?
Any new experience initiative might work in the short term but due to expanding customer expectations it will eventually mature then decline in impact.
By using the S curve leaders can see enhancing the customer experience as a series of imaginative leaps rather than thinking in a more incremental, linear way.
By doing so the customer experience can be enhanced in a more accelerated way.