Doing Experience Strategy Certification
A friendly invite to sign up
Hello friends. Thanks for making my The Experience Strategist Substack so successful! I’m grateful for reads. And I would love your ideas and comments. I’m working on Chapter 2. So I thought I would take today’s post to describe our Experience Strategy Certification program.
Over the last 20 years, I’ve helped thousands of people become more strategic thinkers about experiences. One of keyways that I teach is through our Collaborative programs. And anyone whose been a part of our Collaboratives knows how special the meetings and research are that we do yearly.
In 2021 we started offering a certification program that was separate from the Collaboratives and focused on the broad insights we’d gathered from two decades of research on consumers and experiences. That, in turn, has led to the book I am writing on experience strategy.
Here’s how the certification program goes.
Starting August 22 and going through November 7th, we (myself and Stone Mantel team members) will lead 1 hour session modules. We will walk you through the research, insights, and frameworks, and then provide activities for you to do on your own. We encourage you to focus on a particular industry or category so that you can apply the insights more readily. Each session happens at 12:00 Eastern Time (US). If you can’t make it, we record the session so that you can catch up.
One thing to note: this certification is about experience strategy (obviously); however, many CX people have taken certification from other outlets on CX and may think that we will be covering similar ground. Others may be versed in Design Thinking. While there is some overlap between these categories, it’s not as much as you might think.
I would represent it this way.
People ask us if we cover the following things. We do but not in the way that traditional CX thinkers do.
Persona development. Module 2 is all about a better way to think about your customers. Personas were very helpful 20 years ago, but they don’t help your business prepare for the future of business model design.
Journey mapping. Modules 4 and 8 cover aspects of journey mapping, but again, this certification is not CX certification. This is about strategy and the future of journey mapping. It’s meant to push you to think about how you will need describe experiences to your company in the future.
Generative AI. Of course. AI is a significant part of the future of experience strategy and it’s something we’ve been studying for 10 years. We know more about what consumers will want from AI than any other organization.
Personalization. Yes. Absolutely. Even hyperpersonalization, which is not what you think it is.
Metrics and Net Promoter Score. Yes. We have whole modules on metrics. But we will again push you to think beyond NPS and focus on the time value of experiences, which can be measured a lot of ways.
And here are the modules:
MODULE 1
What Is Intelligent Value Creation
In this session we will provide an overview of Experience Strategy by discussing the answers to four questions:
How will the company grow? Through ‘situational markets’
What makes the business model compelling? A ‘point of view’
What describes the customer’s need? Getting ‘the whole job done’
How is value maintained? Value is in ‘time spent’
MODULE 2
Growth Comes Through Situational Markets
The endless opportunities derived from customer situations.
Business growth is limited because of old ideas about markets
Why focus on the customer’s situation
What markets should look like today
Developing a strategy for customer situations
Identifying situational growth markets
MODULE 3
To Be Compelling Requires a Strategic Point of View
What’s more important than branding? Having a point of view.
Differentiation is not enough today
What is a strategic point of view
How a point of view shapes a business model
Finding insights about near-future needs
Articulating the point of view for internal audiences
Aligning business silos with a point of view
MODULE 4
Customers Need the Whole Job to Get Done
Look at everything the customer does.
The innovator focuses on the job to be done. The experience strategist focuses on the whole job to get done
Why jobs to be done is still the best way to study customer needs
Some industries (like healthcare) don’t allow one company to do the whole job
People’s expectations drive what ‘the whole job’ means
Customer journey should be about the whole job
Channel strategy should be about the whole job
Context is about the whole job
Developing whole job partnerships
MODULE 5
Experience Strategy Mentoring Session (Application)
This session is designed to help you advance your abilities to apply concepts learned in the first three sessions to your business activities.
MODULE 6
Value Is in Time Spent (Session during Collaborative Summit)
There is no enduring value creation without time well saved, spent, or invested.
Value is not in frictionless experiences, loyalty or even customer centricity
Value is in the time that people are willing to spend with the company
To maintain growth is to understand what kinds of experiences create the most time value for customers
The Time Spent framework
Meaningful experiences and time well spent
Stop measuring NPS; measure time value
MODULE 7
From Moments to Modes
Experience strategists focus on moments, but people get into modes
POV: As technology progresses, people get into more modes
There is more time value in modes
Stories and examples of modes
Modes explain situations and provide context
How people experience modes
How companies can support modes
MODULE 8
From Journeys to Life Systems
Meaningful experiences come from the systems people create for their lives
POV: People today create systems for their lives. Companies who understand those systems can get the whole job done, understand situations, and be meaningful.
What journey maps don’t do
Stories and examples of people’s life systems
Insights by industry
Life systems and modes work hand in hand
Implications for business models
MODULE 9
Experience Strategy Mentoring Session (Application)
This session is designed to help you advance your abilities to apply concepts learned in the second three sessions to your business activities.
MODULE 10
From Smart to Genius
Even smart solutions can degenerate into stupid experiences
The impact of intelligence on solutioning
The evolution of the automobile
What is smart
What is genius
What is dumb
What is stupid
How to talk to customers about AI
Genius platforms create superpowers
How to do data experience design
How to do situational analytics
MODULE 11
From Channels to Context
Customers don’t ask for seamless channels, they want you to understand context
POV: As more channels become smart, they create a ‘personal data ecosphere’ for the customer. Companies need to understand digital context to support customers.
The Netflix Problem: Greater personalization does not lead to better recommendations.
The contextual consumer. Why people share data with companies
The personal data ecosphere
New business models: B2I2C and C2I2B
The four principles of experience strategy create trust
Context roadmapping and modeling
MODULE 12
Intelligent Transformations
What do you get when you merge behavior change models with genius technology
Thinking about the future of personal experiences
Identifying value from transformational solutions
Please join us. You can sign up here.