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The term customer experi-ence (CE), as it applies to a rigid ap-proach to designing experiences for customers, really evolved, strangely, from online marketing. Website de-signers (and their successors, app developers) found it increasingly nec-essary to focus on user friendliness, which morphed into user experience. The necessity to ensure that site us-ers, online customers, social media subscribers, and so on, had a decent, comprehensible, successful experi-ence was somewhat novel to the techies that dominated the digital marketing world (after all, it was hard enough to get the thing to work reasonably well most of the time, let alone think about how the user felt after using it). But, as competition heated up and grownups (actually digital marketers) started infiltrating the techie world, it became apparent that if the user experience was mis-

erable, miserable users would go elsewhere, and there were countless other places these consumer could go. So digital marketers spent their ample time focusing on user experi-ence.

The rest is history. Within the blink of an eye these online cus-tomer experience experts applied their expertise to the overall world of customer experience. To them, and their intimidated bosses, the idea that customers in the real world had experiences, was novel - in fact, they believed they had made a new and important discovery. And, in a some-what distorted logic, they determined that this real-world customer experi-ence could only be examined through complex, extensive and wide ranging analysis of digital information cover-ing on and offline (but mostly on, for obvious reasons) behaviours of con-sumers.

Will Customer Experience Design Replace Marketing?

O ne has to feel sorry for "marketing". It (He? She?) is con-

stantly being threatened with replacement by new disci-

plines, new channels, and new management theories (two

years ago the question was: Is the CMO becoming obsolete; Just

yesterday I attended a webinar that asked the question: “Is Big

Data replacing Marketing?”). Ultimately "marketing" continues to

survive and thrive, and perhaps that's for a reason.

The quick answer to all of these ruminations is, “obviously

not!” However, the question "Will experience design replace mar-

keting?" begs a deeper look into the role of customer experience

design as a discipline and as a management approach.

Excerpted from the article by Protean Managing Partner Laurence Bernstein first published in Hotel-

executive.com (http://hotelexecutive.com)

Page 2

“Digital mar-

keting, like a

slow growing

virus inhabiting

the body mar-

keting, is

poised to take

over market-

ing. However,

it will not suc-

ceed be-

cause, at the

end of the

day, digital

marketing, like

promotion and

distribution, is a

function of

marketing, not

marketing it-

self.”

It was as if a biologist dis-covered the existence of a species called "elephant" by identifying cells in a microscope; and then deter-mined that the way to study elephant behaviour was to examine each cell...in a microscope! Some luddites might have suggested that finding out where the elephants were and watching them might give a more nuanced and insightful understanding of elephant behaviour. These post-millennial biologists might also have found out that contrary to their great eureka moment, elephants had been in existence forever and, more im-portantly, most people knew about them, and scientists had been learn-ing about them for hundreds of years (pretty much since mankind itself was invented).

It is exactly the same for customer experience. Presumably much to the surprise of any of these CE experts, customers have been ex-periencing stuff forever, and the study and examination of these ex-periences has been the foundation of business since the serpent gave Eve that "welcome to our property" apple in the Garden of Eden Resort (an ex-perience that did not work out well for Adam, the serpent or Eve).

The realisation is now com-ing to the fore that customer experi-ence is not a "big data" outcome. And, while statistical analysis of cus-tomer behaviour is useful, it is not the route to the real insights that lead to differentiated, relevant expe-riences. A tacit understanding of this was expressed in a presentation at a recent Sitecor Symposium titled: “Great Customer Experiences: Mov-ing beyond digital marketing to build the ultimate customer experience.” The tacit admission here seems to be that “ultimate” customer experienc-es, which are necessarily more en-gaging than "best” customer experi-ences, cannot be built by digital mar-keting. While this is no surprise, what is surprising, and not a little disturbing, is the idea that for many experts "customer experience" is, or

was until this moment in Las Vegas, a function of digital marketing.

If this is the case, that ex-cept for the rare instance of moving beyond, customer experience is a function of digital marketing, then there is indeed some possibility that it will replace Marketing as we know it today. Digital marketing, like a slow growing virus inhabiting the body marketing, is poised to take over marketing. However, while poised, digital marketing will not take over marketing because, in spite of what pundits may think and say, at the end of the day digital marketing, like promotion and distribution, is a function of marketing, not marketing itself.

But CE is not a function of digital marketing (in reality). There are many factors that transcend rec-orded (i.e. big data) and reported (i.e. customer survey based) descrip-tions of behavior (and even atti-tudes). Understanding how your ser-vice is experienced by customers is complex and requires "soft" insights into both the nature of what you do and the customers themselves.

It is fundamental to the end result of great customer experiences that we understand this simple prop-osition: we do not ‘deliver’ experienc-es; if we "deliver' anything it is sets of activities, sensations and associa-tions that result in experiences by the other person. And this experience, importantly, is both conscious and unconscious, and the combination of both is what determines the custom-er's response -- their judgement of what we are (brand), and their deter-mination of what to do about it (choice). Ultimately we want our cus-tomers to like us and determine we are the kind of people they want to do business with; and to choose to stay with us again, tell their friends about us, recommend us on TripAdvi-sor and so on.

But there is more to this than simply triggering a constant barrage of well received experiences. As behavioural economists point out,

Page 3

“Our task as

experience ar-

chitects is to

design experi-

ences that be-

come remem-

bered experi-

ences; our task

as great cus-

tomer experi-

ence archi-

tects is to de-

sign remem-

bered experi-

ences that re-

flect, encom-

pass and am-

plify the

brand”

of the 2,000 experiences we have each day, we remember very few. So our task as experience architects is to design experiences that become remembered experiences; our task as great customer experience archi-tects is to design remembered expe-riences that reflect, encompass and amplify the brand. It’s a lot to ask, and it is a task that requires, as we have said, deep insight into who these customers are and how they view the world. Not to mention who we are, what we do, and how we do it.

Which brings up the ques-tion: is customer experience a func-tion of marketing? Forgetting for a moment the myopic idea that cus-tomer service is a function of digital marketing (it is not and never has been), then does the responsibility for engineering these remembered experiences rest in the discipline of marketing, or somewhere else in the organization?

It has long been our belief that experience is the outcome of a well and consistently delivered brand; in fact, we have said that the way the brand is experienced -- cus-tomer experience, as it were -- is in-extricably imbedded in the brand. Further, we believe that the experi-ence defines the brand, and the brand defines the business. The ag-glomeration of the remembered ex-periences, as noted above, deter-mines the brand experience (the Fig-ure 2 clarifies, the brand is the busi-ness. So, in our view, experience, brand and the business itself are all one interwoven "thing".

Great brands -- which can be defined as brands that are con-sistently credited with great custom-er experiences -- can draw a straight line in their strategic development

from the mission to the customer ex-perience (see Figure 1)

Ultimately, customer experi-ence fits into the business strategy as a component of the virtuous circle (see Figure 2)

With this in mind, the ques-

tion ceases to be whether customer experience is a function of marketing (it's a function of wherever the brand is being championed), but rather whether the brand is a function of marketing, or, as the diagram illus-trates, does the brand transcend one department? In well managed con-sumer centric businesses the brand is universal -- every department, every person is challenged with the respon-sibility for delivering on the brand promise, internally and externally. But it is the marketing department that is responsible for the manage-ment of this, for ensuring that every activity in the organization is, for lack of a better word, "on brand," and en-suring the manifestation of the brand (the brand experience) is continuous-ly tweaked to meet changing custom-er needs.

So we can see that customer experience design is really not a dis-

Figure 2: Virtuous Brand-Business Circle

Figure 1: Drawing a straight line from mission to experience

Page 4

Protean Hospitality is a boutique brand strategy advisory firm focused on helping our hospitality cli-

ents drive growth. We combine our business/category expertise with tenacity, balancing rigor and

creativity, to uncover new opportunities for hotels, resorts and hospitality brands.

For further information on this and other Protean Hospitality studies contact:

Laurence Bernstein, Managing Partner,

416 967-3337 x 101; Bernstein@proteanstrategies.com

Www.proteanhospitality.com

“... is up to the

marketing de-

partment to

ensure that

every associ-

ate under-

stands the

brand, the

brand experi-

ence”

creet discipline: it is the result of everything that is produced by eve-rybody in the organization; and to that degree, everybody in the organi-zation is responsible for experience design. This is especially true in a co-creation service industry such as the hospitality business, where there is no product without immediate expe-rience. In the case of interactions with hotel associates (e.g. front desk associates), the co-creation involves responses, and responses to re-sponses -- a complicated dance that is directed by the associate and that must ensure, at the end, that the in-teraction is experienced in accord-ance with the brand. While every in-dividual in a co-creation situation is responsible for instantly designing and tweaking the customer experi-

ence, it is up to the marketing de-partment to ensure, together with the operations and, most important-ly, human resource groups, that eve-ry associate understands the brand, the experience and the fundamentals of how to ensure every interaction results in the desired experience for the customer.

Clearly in this scenario cus-tomer experience management can-not displace marketing. In fact, mar-keting becomes even more universal-ly important and needs to understand its larger role as champion of the ex-perience internally and externally; and this universal role of marketing needs to be embedded deep in the organization, championed by the C-Suite and embraced by everyone else.