Jeneanne Rae - Designing a Better Customer Experience

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

"It is my prediction that in this new age, customer experience will decide the winners and losers in almost every industry imaginable." - Jeneanne Rae, Co-founder Peer Insight

Services now account for over 80% of our U.S. economy. It's a staggering statistic given that this country was economically built on the back of industrial manufacturing. So why is the body of knowledge on the subject of service innovation so relatively small?

On June 6th, Peer Insight's co-founder and president Jeneanne Rae and director of consulting services Katie Waterson, led a group of business leaders on an exploration of service innovation and the design of exemplar customer experiences.

Through a series of exploratory exercises, workshop participants, including representatives from CVS, Design Continuum, Equity National, and BankRI were given several 'secrets' to building a customer experience business model (think service innovation on steroids). From a fresh look at research fundamentals - the building blocks of effective innovation – to how to challenge assumptions and construct a brand vision, Jeneanne and Katie immersed us in the how of customer experience design.

Jeneanne Rae, for those not familiar, is the 'doyenne of service innovation.' (An eccentric title bestowed on her by friend and BusinessWeek editor Bruce Nussbaum, doyenne means wise woman of a body of knowledge.) An apt designation because Rae is one of a handful of people with extensive experience in both business and design.

Peer Insight–the company she co-founded–is a research and advisory firm focused on innovation and customer experience issues. The company also leads a consortium of over 40 major corporations. With more than 100 projects in their database, her firm is building an empirical database of what's working (and not) in service innovation.

Our thanks to Jeneanne Rae, Katie Waterson and our diverse group of workshop participants for a fantastic day of learning, sharing and challenging exercises.

Download extended analysis and wrap-up of this event