Billy Seabrook on Remarkable Experiences

October 2, 2015 in events

Billy Seabrook at Citi spoke about customer experience and value exchange. He described a continuum of customer experience from ordinary and transactional interactions to remarkable and relational experiences. His presentation focused on the aspects of purpose, intelligence and trust:

• Patagonia. Purpose: Good business, Intelligence: Footprint Chronicles, Trust: Ironclad guarantee.
• Uber: Purpose: Reliable efficiency, Intelligence: Predicting demand, Trust: Rating systems
• Airbnb: Purpose: Neighborly love, Intelligence: Win-win search, Trust: $1000000 host guarantee.
• Citi: Purpose: Enabling progress, Intelligence: Financial graph, Trust; Secure identity.

How do you create great experiences? Billy quoted Ed Catmull from PIxar: “Getting the right people and the right chemistry is more important than getting the right idea.”

At City that translates into three Ps: People, Process and Places: People organized around Agile Pods: Designer, Producer, Strategist, Engineer, Writer, Architect working with a Team Lead. Process based on Design Thinking: Investigate, Ideate, Implement and Iterate around a central opportunity. Places organized around hubs in a Global Studio Network.

He also observed that over a dozen design firms have been acquired by larger organizations over the past three years as a shortcut to getting the right people with the right chemistry in the right place.