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We received a present from a client who bought it from Selfridges. The user-experience we had made us reflect that we usually only focus on UX in a technological sense. But do we pay enough attention to offline experiences? Let’s stop saying UX and let’s call it branding experience.
It’s 10.34 on a Friday morning. An email makes my mobile buzz while the door bell rings. The email, from a client, says: ‘Between 10.30 and 13.00 you should get a packet, will someone be in to get it?”. The man on the door has the packet.
We open the box and the distinctive Selfridges yellow starts showing from inside the box. We see a delicate wrapping paper with a sticker that reads ‘Fab!’. We set aside the wrapping paper and an envelope on appears, reading: ‘Open Me’.
It’s all very simple, but the whole experience is just beautiful making us feel unique. Even if all Selfridges customers had the same experience that day, it felt exclusive to us. User experience is part of the brand value, it might be more expensive to purchase the same Ralph Laurent shirt in Selfridges than in Primark (few seasons later), but the experience isn’t neither the same.
This value is what you need to find when you are a small business. What makes your clients happy to work with you? Is because you are super fast at responding? Because you help them to solve their problems in a peculiar way?
Maybe, as a small business or freelancer, you can’t spend a lot of money in a beautiful packaging and lovely papers. But can you print some cute Thank-you cards that you can send together with your invoices? Or even cheaper, a lovely personalised email?
So, next time you are thinking about user experience, you should think how can you make your client happy in your website but also keep it the experience consistent through the offline world too.
Have you received any satisfying user experience that you would like to share with us? Let us know in the comment box below.