Innovative Customer Experiences: The 11-star Exercise

A workshop you can do with your team to develop innovations for customer experience.

I performed this exercise during a 3-hour workshop with my team based upon the principles described by Brian Chesky (CEO of Airbnb) when interviewed by Reid Hoffman.

The outcome was a fascinating list of ideas and an energised team who were motivated to delight customers.

Why stop at 5-stars?

Most companies focus on how to deliver a 5-star experience, or even worse how to avoid a 1 or 2 star.

⭐ The customer fundamentally fails to get what they need from your product or experience. A taxi that does not turn up.

⭐⭐ The customer gets the service but it is poorly executed. A bad meal at a restaurant

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The outcome is exactly what the customer wanted.

But if you only aim for 5-stars how are you going to stand out from the crowd?

Sit your team down and brainstorm what it would take to thrill your customers… how to go beyond 5-stars?

6 or 7-star experiences

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ – How do you deliver something incrementally extra?

For Airbnb, this is where the host greets you personally, the fridge is stocked, there is a gift on the table, and the bathrooms have all the toiletries.

The customer will come away thinking – wow this is better than I expected. I will definitely use them again.

11-stars

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Walk your team step by step to the extreme, make them dream the impossible.

9-star: They buy a car, it arrives will all the upgrades, financed, insured and delivered personally by the CEO.

11-star: They arrive at the theme park and Elon Musk is there to offer a rocket trip to the moon!

Step 3: Call to Action

Take your team back to reality and start identifying those ideas of aspects of the ideas that could be implemented.

The whole exercise will develop a sense of customer focus for your teams, build excitement about improving your business and give you a great list of ideas to experiment with.