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Customer Experience

Attracting, engaging, and delighting customers at every interaction leads to success. Understand, create, and manage customer experiences people have as they discover the experiences you offer.

IMPROVE YOUR CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE:
  • Deliver what they need, when they need it
  • Designing for an engaging end-to-end journey
  • Customer-focused design services
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Creating successful customer experiences requires a proven approach

Strategy & Innovation

CX Strategy PDF

Plan for what people want to experience when they encounter your brand, product or service, and how to turn them into loyal customers, users, members.

Research

Focus Group research PDF

Understand the drivers of customers' decisions, attitudes and perceptions. Use these insights to capture their interest and keep them engaged.

Customer research PDF

Know, with evidence, what your customers experience, expect, and think - then use those insights to drive great customer experiences.

Survey research PDF

Collect solid quantitative data about perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes that are guiding your customers' behaviours.

Customer Personas PDF

Keep customers top-of-mind for your design team with customer research and creation of effective customer personas.

Customer Journey Mapping PDF

Deeply understand every interaction that customers have with you through your channels and the end-to-end experience lifecycle.

Design

CX Concept Ideation PDF

Generate the best cx concept ideas and be confident about which customer experience concepts have the potential to succeed in the marketplace.

Co-Design PDF

Create exceptional experiences collaboratively by involving customers throughout the design process.

Testing

CX Concept Testing PDF

Quantifiably discover which new ideas are worth the investment through rigorous customer experience concept testing.

Clients we've helped with Intentional Experiences
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Have customer experience questions?

Check out our Q&As. If you don't find the answer you're looking for, send us a message at contact@akendi.com.

What makes customer experience strategy different from traditional business strategy?

Customer experience strategy starts with the human experience first, not business requirements or technology capabilities. Using Experience Thinking principles, we examine how people experience your brand, content, products, and services as connected elements. This approach creates strategies that resonate because they're built from your audience's perspective rather than internal assumptions.

Tip: Map your current strategy decisions against actual customer journey stages to identify gaps between what you think you're delivering and what people actually experience.

How do you determine if our organization needs experience strategy work?

Organizations benefit from experience strategy when customer feedback reveals disconnected touchpoints, when different departments create conflicting experiences, or when business metrics don't align with customer satisfaction scores. We look for signs that your customer experience isn't intentionally designed as a connected journey.

Tip: Conduct a simple audit by mapping your customer's end-to-end journey and identifying which department owns each touchpoint - gaps often reveal themselves quickly.

What's the relationship between brand experience and customer experience?

Brand experience is how people feel about your organization's character and values. Customer experience encompasses every interaction someone has with you from awareness through advocacy. In Experience Thinking, brand is one of four connected areas alongside content, product, and service experiences. Strong brand experience makes all other experiences more effective and trusted.

Tip: Define your intended brand personality traits first, then ensure every customer touchpoint reinforces those same characteristics consistently.

How do you identify the biggest opportunities in our customer experience?

We analyze your experience lifecycle from multiple perspectives: customer research, internal stakeholder insights, competitive analysis, and business impact assessment. The biggest opportunities typically occur at transition points where customers become users, or users become loyal clients. These moments determine whether people stay engaged with your organization long-term.

Tip: Focus on the moments that matter most - the critical interactions that determine whether someone continues their relationship with your organization or looks elsewhere.

What role does competitive analysis play in experience strategy?

Competitive analysis reveals experience gaps and opportunities in your market. We examine not just what competitors offer, but how they deliver experiences across the four Experience Thinking areas: brand, content, product, and service. This shows where you can differentiate through superior experience design rather than feature competition.

Tip: Study competitors' complete experience journeys, not just their products or services - often the real differentiation happens in unexpected moments.

How do you ensure experience strategy aligns with business objectives?

Experience strategy must serve both audience needs and business goals. We connect experience improvements to measurable business outcomes like retention, acquisition costs, lifetime value, and advocacy. The Experience Thinking framework ensures strategic decisions consider human impact alongside business impact, creating sustainable competitive advantage.

Tip: Establish clear metrics that connect experience improvements to business results before beginning strategy work - this ensures ongoing support and resources.

What's your approach to experience strategy for different customer segments?

Different segments may need different experience approaches while maintaining consistent brand character. We identify which experience elements should remain consistent across segments and which should adapt. The Experience Thinking framework helps ensure segment-specific experiences still feel connected to your overall brand promise.

Tip: Map your core brand traits and values that should remain consistent, then identify which experience elements can flex to serve different segment needs effectively.

What research methods do you use to understand customer experience?

We combine qualitative and quantitative methods including customer interviews, journey mapping, surveys, observation studies, and competitive analysis. Our approach examines experiences across all four Experience Thinking areas - brand, content, product, and service - to understand how people perceive and interact with your complete offering.

Tip: Use multiple research methods to validate findings - what people say, what they do, and what they feel may reveal different insights about their experience.

How do you capture the emotional aspects of customer experience?

Emotional experience is critical because feelings drive behavior and loyalty. We use techniques like emotion mapping, storytelling exercises, and moment-of-truth analysis. Following Experience Thinking principles, we examine emotional responses across your entire experience ecosystem, not just individual touchpoints.

Tip: Ask customers to describe their experience using metaphors or analogies - these often reveal emotional responses that direct questions might miss.

What's your approach to journey mapping research?

Our journey mapping captures the connected experience lifecycle, examining how people move from prospects to customers to users to advocates. We map touchpoints, emotions, pain points, and opportunities across the complete relationship. This creates a foundation for designing connected experiences rather than isolated improvements.

Tip: Include internal stakeholders in journey mapping sessions - they often reveal operational realities that impact customer experience but aren't visible to customers themselves.

How do you research customer needs versus wants in experience design?

Needs represent fundamental requirements for task completion, while wants reflect preferences and desires. We uncover both through behavioral observation, contextual inquiry, and deep interviewing. Experience Thinking helps us understand how meeting needs and wants across brand, content, product, and service creates lasting relationships.

Tip: Observe what people actually do in addition to what they say they want - behavior often reveals needs that aren't consciously articulated.

What's your approach to validating research findings with customers?

Validation ensures our insights accurately reflect customer reality. We use multiple validation methods including follow-up interviews, concept testing, and prototype feedback. The Experience Thinking framework helps us validate insights across all experience areas to ensure coherent, connected understanding.

Tip: Present research findings back to participants in their own language and context - this helps confirm understanding and often generates additional insights.

How do you handle conflicting feedback from different customer groups?

Conflicting feedback often reveals important segment differences or experience gaps. We analyze conflicts to understand underlying needs, contexts, and expectations. Using Experience Thinking principles, we look for solutions that address different needs while maintaining consistent brand character and connected experiences.

Tip: When feedback conflicts, dig deeper into the context and motivation behind each perspective - often seemingly contradictory needs can be addressed through thoughtful experience design.

What role does quantitative data play in experience research?

Quantitative data provides scale and validation for qualitative insights. We use surveys, analytics, and performance metrics to understand experience patterns across your customer base. This data helps prioritize improvements and measure the impact of experience changes over time.

Tip: Combine quantitative metrics with qualitative context - numbers show what's happening, but stories explain why it matters to your customers.

How does Experience Thinking influence your design approach?

Experience Thinking recognizes that brand, content, product, and service experiences are interconnected. We design holistically, ensuring each element supports and enhances the others. This creates coherent experiences that feel intentionally connected rather than accidentally assembled. Every design decision considers impact across the complete experience ecosystem.

Tip: Before making design changes to one area, consider how it will affect customer perception and interaction with all other experience elements.

What's your process for designing end-to-end customer experiences?

We start by understanding the complete experience lifecycle from first awareness through long-term advocacy. Using Experience Thinking principles, we map how brand, content, product, and service experiences connect throughout this journey. Design solutions address experience gaps while strengthening the overall connected flow between touchpoints.

Tip: Design for experience transitions between touchpoints, not just individual touchpoints themselves - smooth handoffs create seamless experiences.

How do you balance consistency with personalization in experience design?

Consistency in brand character and core experience principles creates trust and recognition. Personalization adapts specific content, product features, or service approaches to individual needs. We use the Experience Thinking framework to identify which elements should remain consistent and which can adapt while maintaining connected experience integrity.

Tip: Establish your non-negotiable brand and experience principles first, then identify opportunities for meaningful personalization within those boundaries.

What's your approach to designing experiences that build customer loyalty?

Loyalty emerges from consistently positive experiences that meet both functional and emotional needs. Experience Thinking recognizes that loyalty is built through connected experiences across brand, content, product, and service over time. We design for the complete experience lifecycle, not just the initial transaction or engagement.

Tip: Focus on designing experiences that make customers feel understood and valued, not just satisfied - emotional connection drives long-term loyalty more than functional adequacy.

How do you design experiences for different channels and touchpoints?

Each channel has unique capabilities and constraints, but the overall experience should feel connected. We ensure brand character, content approach, product interaction principles, and service standards translate appropriately across channels while maintaining experience coherence. Channel-specific optimization supports the overall experience strategy.

Tip: Design channel experiences that complement each other rather than competing - customers often use multiple channels for different parts of their journey.

What role does service design play in overall experience design?

Service design focuses on how your organization delivers value through processes, people, and systems. In Experience Thinking, service is one of four connected experience areas. Service design ensures your internal operations support the intended customer experience across all touchpoints and interactions.

Tip: Map your internal service processes against customer journey stages to identify where operational gaps might create experience breakdowns.

How do you design experiences that differentiate from competitors?

Differentiation comes from understanding what competitors don't deliver well and where you can create superior connected experiences. Using Experience Thinking, we identify opportunities across brand, content, product, and service areas. True differentiation often emerges from how these elements work together, not just individual features or services.

Tip: Look for differentiation opportunities in unexpected places - sometimes the most powerful differentiation comes from superior experiences in areas competitors consider basic or standard.

How do you help organizations implement experience improvements?

Implementation requires both strategic vision and practical execution. We provide roadmaps that sequence improvements across the Experience Thinking framework - brand, content, product, and service. This ensures changes reinforce each other rather than creating new disconnects. Implementation plans consider organizational capacity and change management needs.

Tip: Start with improvements that have high customer impact and reasonable implementation complexity to build momentum and demonstrate value early.

What's your approach to change management for experience initiatives?

Experience improvements often require organizational change across multiple departments. We help align teams around shared experience goals and provide frameworks for collaborative decision-making. Change management includes training, communication, and measurement systems that support sustained experience focus.

Tip: Involve employees in experience design processes - teams that help create solutions are more likely to support and sustain implementation efforts.

How do you prioritize which experience improvements to implement first?

Prioritization considers customer impact, business value, implementation complexity, and strategic alignment. Using Experience Thinking principles, we evaluate how improvements in one area will affect connected experiences. Priority is given to changes that strengthen multiple experience areas or remove significant barriers to positive experiences.

Tip: Balance quick wins with strategic improvements - quick wins build support while strategic changes create lasting competitive advantage.

What role does technology play in experience implementation?

Technology enables and supports experience delivery but shouldn't drive experience strategy. We ensure technology choices support the intended experience across brand, content, product, and service areas. Technology implementation focuses on creating seamless, connected experiences rather than impressive but isolated capabilities.

Tip: Choose technology based on how well it supports your intended customer experience, not just its features - the best technology is often invisible to customers.

How do you ensure experience improvements are sustainable over time?

Sustainability requires embedding experience thinking into organizational culture, processes, and decision-making frameworks. We help establish governance structures, measurement systems, and continuous improvement processes. The Experience Thinking framework becomes part of how your organization evaluates all customer-facing decisions.

Tip: Create simple decision-making criteria based on experience impact that teams can use for daily decisions - this helps maintain experience focus without constant oversight.

What's your approach to piloting experience improvements?

Pilots allow testing and refinement before full implementation. We design pilots that test complete experience connections, not just individual touchpoints. Using Experience Thinking principles, pilots examine how improvements in one area affect brand, content, product, and service perceptions across the customer journey.

Tip: Include measurement of both intended and unintended effects in pilot programs - experience changes often have ripple effects that reveal additional opportunities or challenges.

How do you handle resistance to experience-focused changes?

Resistance often comes from misunderstanding experience value or fear of increased complexity. We address resistance through education, demonstration of customer impact, and gradual implementation that shows results. Experience Thinking helps frame changes in terms of better serving customers rather than adding work burden.

Tip: Share customer stories and feedback that illustrate the human impact of experience improvements - personal stories often overcome abstract resistance better than business cases alone.

How do you measure the success of customer experience initiatives?

Measurement encompasses both customer perception metrics and business impact indicators. We track experience quality across the four Experience Thinking areas - brand, content, product, and service - while monitoring business outcomes like retention, advocacy, and lifetime value. Measurement systems reveal both progress and areas needing attention.

Tip: Establish baseline measurements before making changes so you can demonstrate clear improvement over time and adjust strategies based on what's actually working.

What metrics best indicate customer experience health?

Experience health is revealed through both direct feedback and behavioral indicators. We monitor satisfaction scores, effort ratings, emotional response measures, and advocacy levels alongside retention rates, purchase frequency, and support interaction patterns. The combination reveals comprehensive experience health across the complete customer lifecycle.

Tip: Track metrics that predict future behavior, not just current satisfaction - leading indicators help you address experience issues before they impact business results.

How do you measure experience improvements across different touchpoints?

Touchpoint measurement must consider both individual performance and contribution to the connected experience. Using Experience Thinking principles, we evaluate how improvements in brand, content, product, or service areas affect overall experience perception. This reveals which touchpoints create the most positive impact on complete customer relationships.

Tip: Measure touchpoint performance in context of the complete customer journey - a touchpoint might perform well individually but poorly in terms of journey flow and connection.

What's your approach to measuring emotional experience?

Emotional measurement captures feelings that drive behavior and loyalty. We use sentiment analysis, emotion mapping, and qualitative feedback analysis to understand emotional responses across experience interactions. Emotional measurement reveals the human impact of experience design decisions beyond functional satisfaction.

Tip: Use multiple methods to capture emotion - direct questions, behavioral observation, and language analysis often reveal different aspects of emotional experience.

How do you track experience improvements over time?

Longitudinal tracking reveals experience trends and impact of changes. We establish measurement rhythms that capture both short-term improvements and long-term relationship development. Tracking considers the complete Experience Thinking framework to understand how improvements in one area affect connected experiences over time.

Tip: Create measurement dashboards that show both current performance and trends over time - pattern recognition often reveals insights that snapshot measurements miss.

What role does customer feedback play in ongoing measurement?

Customer feedback provides qualitative context for quantitative metrics and reveals new opportunities or challenges. We establish systematic feedback collection across the experience lifecycle, not just at transaction points. This ongoing dialogue helps refine and improve experiences based on evolving customer needs and expectations.

Tip: Create multiple feedback opportunities that fit naturally into customer interactions rather than relying solely on post-transaction surveys - continuous feedback provides richer insights.

How do you measure the business impact of experience investments?

Business impact measurement connects experience improvements to financial and operational outcomes. We track metrics like customer acquisition cost, lifetime value, retention rates, and advocacy behavior. The Experience Thinking approach helps identify which experience areas drive the strongest business results for your specific organization and market.

Tip: Establish both leading and lagging indicators for business impact - leading indicators help you adjust quickly while lagging indicators show long-term success.

How do you facilitate collaboration between different departments on experience projects?

Experience projects naturally span organizational boundaries since customers don't experience departments separately. We use the Experience Thinking framework to show how brand, content, product, and service areas connect, helping teams understand their role in the complete experience. Collaboration focuses on shared customer outcomes rather than departmental objectives.

Tip: Start collaboration sessions by sharing customer journey maps that show how different departments contribute to the same customer experience moments.

What's your approach to building internal experience capabilities?

Building capabilities requires both knowledge transfer and practical application. We provide training on Experience Thinking principles, facilitate workshops that apply concepts to your specific challenges, and establish frameworks your teams can use independently. Capability building focuses on sustainable experience thinking rather than project-specific solutions.

Tip: Practice experience thinking on smaller, lower-risk projects first to build confidence and demonstrate value before applying to major initiatives.

How do you help teams align around customer experience goals?

Alignment requires shared understanding of customer needs and organizational experience objectives. We facilitate sessions that connect team goals to customer outcomes and use Experience Thinking to show how different roles contribute to connected experiences. Alignment tools help teams make consistent decisions that support experience coherence.

Tip: Create simple alignment tools like customer impact questions that teams can use when making daily decisions - this maintains experience focus without constant meetings.

What role does leadership play in experience project success?

Leadership sets experience priority, removes barriers to collaboration, and provides resources for implementation. Experience Thinking requires leadership support because improvements often span traditional departmental boundaries. Leaders model experience focus through decision-making that considers customer impact alongside business objectives.

Tip: Help leaders understand their role in experience delivery - customers often judge organizations based on leadership decisions that seem internal but affect external experience.

How do you manage conflicting priorities between teams on experience projects?

Conflicts often arise when teams optimize for different objectives without considering connected experience impact. We use customer journey mapping and Experience Thinking principles to show how departmental decisions affect overall experience. Resolution focuses on solutions that serve both customer needs and business requirements.

Tip: When priorities conflict, return to customer impact as the tiebreaker - ask which approach better serves the complete customer experience and long-term relationship.

What's your approach to training teams on experience thinking concepts?

Training combines conceptual understanding with practical application. We introduce Experience Thinking principles through your organization's specific examples and challenges. Training includes hands-on exercises that apply concepts to real projects, ensuring teams can use experience thinking in their daily work immediately.

Tip: Apply training concepts to current projects during sessions - this makes learning immediately relevant and provides practical frameworks teams can continue using.

How do you help organizations maintain experience focus after project completion?

Sustained focus requires embedding experience thinking into regular processes and decision-making. We help establish review processes, measurement systems, and governance structures that maintain experience priority. The Experience Thinking framework becomes part of how your organization evaluates all customer-facing initiatives and changes.

Tip: Create regular check-ins focused on experience impact, not just project progress - this keeps teams accountable for customer outcomes alongside business deliverables.

How do you structure customer experience consulting engagements?

Engagements are structured around your specific experience challenges and organizational readiness. We begin with experience assessment to understand current state, then develop strategy and implementation plans using Experience Thinking principles. Project phases align with your capacity for change while building momentum through connected improvements across brand, content, product, and service areas.

Tip: Be clear about your organization's change capacity and timeline constraints upfront - this helps structure projects that achieve meaningful progress within your realistic constraints.

What's the typical timeline for customer experience improvement projects?

Timelines vary based on project scope, organizational complexity, and desired outcome depth. Strategy development typically requires several months, while implementation can span multiple phases over longer periods. Experience Thinking projects often reveal connected opportunities that extend initial timelines but create more significant impact.

Tip: Plan for discovery phase insights to adjust project scope - experience projects often uncover additional opportunities or challenges that are worth addressing for greater impact.

How involved does our team need to be in customer experience projects?

Team involvement is essential for both project success and capability building. Your teams provide organizational context, customer knowledge, and implementation capacity. We structure involvement to balance learning opportunities with productivity, ensuring your team can sustain experience improvements after project completion.

Tip: Assign team members who will be responsible for ongoing experience management - their deep involvement during projects ensures better implementation and sustainability.

What deliverables should we expect from customer experience projects?

Deliverables include strategic frameworks, research insights, design recommendations, and implementation guidance tailored to your specific context. Using Experience Thinking principles, deliverables show how improvements connect across brand, content, product, and service areas. All outputs are designed for practical application by your team.

Tip: Request deliverables in formats your team can easily reference and share - practical tools get used while complex reports often get filed away unused.

How do you adapt your approach for different industry contexts?

Industry context affects customer expectations, regulatory requirements, and business models, but Experience Thinking principles apply universally. We adapt methods and recommendations to your specific industry while maintaining focus on connected experiences across brand, content, product, and service areas. Industry experience helps us anticipate sector-specific challenges and opportunities.

Tip: Share industry-specific constraints and opportunities early in projects - this helps focus recommendations on solutions that work within your specific operating environment.

What ongoing support do you provide after project completion?

Ongoing support includes implementation guidance, measurement support, and strategic consultation as your experience initiatives evolve. We provide tools and frameworks that enable independent application of Experience Thinking principles while remaining available for guidance on complex challenges or new opportunities.

Tip: Establish clear expectations for ongoing support during project planning - knowing what support is available helps teams feel confident about sustaining improvements independently.

How do you ensure experience improvements create lasting value?

Lasting value requires both immediate impact and sustainable practices. Using Experience Thinking, we ensure improvements strengthen connected experiences across brand, content, product, and service areas. Value sustainability comes from embedding experience thinking into organizational culture, processes, and measurement systems that maintain focus over time.

Tip: Focus on building internal experience thinking capabilities alongside immediate improvements - organizations that learn to think about experience holistically create ongoing value beyond specific project outcomes.

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