Experience Redefined
Experience is a personal and unique feeling that an individual senses at every touchpoint.
Experience is personal. Even the exact same event will deliver different experience to different individual due to different background. Experience is unique, because no experience is the same. It is like a river: “upon those who step into the same rivers, different and again different waters flow.” Heraclitus says that nobody can step into the same river twice. This applies to everything, especially experience.
Every touchpoint makes a difference, based on experience.
Positive experience is about consistent expectation breakthrough. It is not easy to deliver and maintain experience consistency due to expectation escalation. When the first touchpoint experience is positive, people expect better experience, if not the same, from the next touchpoint. If it cannot be maintained, then the next touchpoint experience will be negative, even when efforts put in second touchpoint is the same as that of first touchpoint. Consistent positive touchpoint experience leads to winning.
Neutral experience is about expectation breakeven. It happens when touchpoint does not yet exist, when expectation is just met, or when people have had enough negative touchpoint experience from the past and finally give up completely on the touchpoint chain. The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference. When the experience is indifferent due to complete disappointment with past negative touchpoint experience, the touchpoint chain is already terminated. The chance of chain re-activation is minimal.
Negative experience is about expectation breakdown. One negative touchpoint experience can ruin all previous efforts in building positive touchpoint chain, especially in the world of information rich and time poor. People show no mercy to even mildly negative touchpoint experience.
Relevance is an indispensible ingredient in creating the first touchpoint. Without relevance, it is almost impossible to initiate anything. Commonality makes irrelevant relevant, and it is built by understanding needs and wants. Understanding requires communication and empathy, and one critical component of communication and empathy is active listening, but not just hearing.
Relationship, or touchpoint chain, is built on consistent positive touchpoint experience.
