Nick Finck

The Cross-Channel Experience
Apr 16th, 2011

Recently I was asked to speak at Microsoft’s MIX11 conference in Las Vegas.  I decided to give a presentation on the cross-channel experience, that is, the experience one has with a business across and between all touchpoints one can have with a business.

From my point of view, the cross-channel experience includes what we describe as holistic user experience design, customer experience design, and service design.  This topic is very near and dear to me as I have been doing a lot of research as part of the process of crafting a book on the topic going back to when I first talked about the holistic customer experience in 2009 at InfoCamp.

Nick Finck talking about The Holistic Customer Experience on stage at InfoCamp Seattle 2009. Photo by Bryce Johnson.

At the top of this post is the video with slides of my talk which was published less than 24 hours after my talk thanks to the fine people at MIX11.  It is the first time I have ever given this talk and I felt it went very well.  I hope you feel the same way after watching it.  At the bottom of this post is the abstract of that talk, it was shorted a bit from the original abstract I submitted, but the same basic points are there. 

I feel that the cross-channel experience is going to only increase in importance as we start to see more and more platforms an channels of communication emerge.  This means more touchpoints for the people interacting with business and more potential opportunities for cross-channel failure.  How do we proactively avoid potential failures cross-channel?  How do we ensure that people who interact with our businesses are going to have a good cross-channel experience?  Watch the video and find out.

No matter how many departments your organization has, to your customers, it’s all the same business. They expect a cohesive experience across all touch-points with your company, regardless of whether it’s related to advertising, customer service, social presence, or the actual product or service you provide. The satisfaction of your customers, and thereby the success of your organization, depends in no small part on your ability to create a cohesive and consistently high-quality cross-channel experience.

In this presentation, you will gain a better understanding of the different ways your customers might interact with your business. We will show how you can map out these touchpoints and help drive the creation of a cohesive experience across the various channels. We will show you how to navigate the political waters within your business to implement a true cross-channel design, which will build great experiences for your customers, regardless of how they are engaging with your business.