Amber McCue argues that as products and processes become easy to copy, businesses must compete on experience design instead. She cites data showing 73% of consumers say experience influences purchases, and shares examples like Nike's run clubs and a VIP planning event that turned clients into loyal community members.
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If your clients disappear after working with you once, this is for you. And let me share something that might make you squirm a little. Your clients don't care about your process. They care about how working with you makes them feel. We're in a world where I can generate, automate, optimize almost everything. Experience is your last unfair advantage. And if you're not intentionally creating experience, you are missing out. In this episode, I am going to show you exactly how to design experiences inside your business, even if you are fully virtual. Listen, the problem right now is that almost everything can be replicated. Frameworks, deliverables, templates, marketing content is out there and it is available for people to grab, people to search up, people to pull through AI. So what makes someone stay with with your company? 73% of consumers say that experience is a key factor in purchasing decisions. And emotionally connected customers are twice as valuable as satisfied customers. It's not exclusively about satisfaction. It's also about connection, because satisfaction can be transactional. Connection is where we start to build relationship and relationships. When level one, you may deliver a service or a product. Level two, you are delivering results through that service or that product. And at level three, you are designing an experience. And most businesses never leave level one where they are simply delivering the product or the service. We've got to go beyond, especially right now when there is so much accessibility to the things that people need and want. I am going to give you a couple of examples here of how you can pull experience through into your business. One real life example that we implemented in our consulting business is that leading up to the annual planning event of the year, the Plan A thon that we host every fall in the final quarter of the year, we did something unique. We invited our VIP members into our actual team planning meetings. We called it Plan the Plan A Thon vip. It was not polished, it was not perfect. We did not pre script these meetings. It was real. There was brainstorming, there was a little messiness, there were pivots happening real time as we parse through and works through things. And the unexpected thing is that there was so much laughter. It felt so vulnerable at first. But there was a shift in the moment and people weren't just attending this and watching it. That's how I was worried at first. I'm like, people are going to be there watching as we do this. Is this weird? But we could see exactly how the things we do in our work were embodied in how we are operating as a team. And it allowed people to anticipate Things, things that were going to happen at the event. There became this connection and investment in the decisions we were making and we. I felt so unbelievably bonded to these VIPs. I can almost see them there now in front of me because their faces were up on zoom. We were connected. I could see them laughing, I could see them shaking their head, no, no, no, don't do that. Not a good idea. They weren't just participants in the event or the plan. The plan a thon they were insiders. And this is experience design. This is not more content. This is not more do, do do. This is okay. If you are stuck on seeing how you bring some of the concepts that we talk about to run your business better to life, we're gonna show you exactly how we are doing it. Exactly how we are using our tools and resources real time so that you can make that connection in terms of how you can apply it in your world as well. Now in another example, a bigger brand and product, Nike. Nike isn't just selling physical products. They are also wrapping it around with run clubs. Now they're hosting community events and getting people together to experience something together. A shared identity of being a runner. We come together, we're experiencing this together and we are doing the dang thing together. And when someone identifies as a part of this community, they're shopping differently, they're showing up differently, they're connecting differently. So oftentimes when we are buying and there isn't affinity, there isn't that connection. We may price shop, we may shop based on features even though we're looking for the specific result. And when you start to create an experiential connection around identity, it reduces price sensitivity, it builds belonging and it increases retention and longevity of that client relationship and the loyalty. Now on the flip side, when you think about experience design, there's one more thing to think about. It is not planning out too much. I have made my fair share of mistakes in designing retreats. And I've been to many retreats and in person events that are just jam packed from 7am to 10pm with every minute and every detail detail mapped out session after session. No breaks in between, no space to connect and debrief and download and integrate what I am learning into my daily life or even consider how I will integrate it. And the host of those experiences may be thinking, as I was when I was doing this, that man, I am delivering something. So much value, I am offering so much here. But people can also from this leave exhausted, overwhelmed and unsure of what Their next move is. So instead, what actually builds that connection? Unplanned dinner conversations, walks between sessions, deep talk after sessions. That a question that came up in that session prompts a beautiful conversation. What also can't be scripted and planned are pool parties where yacht rock is playing and you're dancing and doing an unplanned karaoke together. Yes, I am speaking from experience there that bonds people. It's something I will never forget. And anytime now that I mention yacht rock or anytime a yacht rock comes on and I am with this group, I am. We immediately look at each other and laugh and we are teleported back to that moment where we were, yes, doing business together at the retreat I was hosting. But even more so, we were building strong relationships. So when we come together to do business again, it is enhanced and it is deeper than because we have laid a strong foundation through experience. Experience design includes spaciousness. Experience design can include slowness. Experience design can be sometimes about what you remove and not only what you are adding. So here is a simple framework that you can consider to implement experiences into your product and service. Design delivery to design better experience, think about these five things. Number one. Anticipation. What happens before the experience? The event. Access. Do people feel like insiders? Like they're really a part of something? Number three, Interaction. Interactivity. Are people participating and a part of something? Or are they passively consuming emotion? Is there laughter, surprise? Human connection, Spontaneity? And lastly, after what happens after the experience and the event? How do we reconnect to this moment and pull people back in to increase longevity of the relationship? Most businesses focus on one part of this, the middle. What's happening here? The interaction, the delivery. But the magic happens when you stack this up and create true experience. So here's the question. Are you just delivering your products and services? Are you designing and created experiences that last and last and that people have conversations about afterward? Because in a time when AI can replicate so much, much experience is absolutely your unfair advantage. So if you want retention, if you want referrals, if you want brand loyalty and affinity, design the moments. Consider the moments. Invite people in. Create space for magic and connection. That is how you stop being looked at as a vendor, as someone who delivers things, and you start becoming memorable.
