Swisscom, the biggest telecommunication company in Switzerland, has recently restructured its organization and aligned the product and service development teams to focus on customer experience. Due to this strategic shift, two new positions are open that have been posted on their job board last week.

The two positions are:

• Customer Experience Design Coach
• Service Experience Designer

You can find the job postings also on their career pages or download the PDFs from my blog. If you don’t speak German (the posts are in German) but you think you qualify for this position send me an e-mail and I can send you a short translation. 

Now if you are thinking that Swisscom is just a telecom company trying to act innovative, here are a few projects that Swisscom initiated:

• Consumer Ethnography: A dedicated team of ethnographers, psychologists and social scientists is working at Swisscom to collect "deep" consumer insights and understand the use of ICT. You can find more about their results in the video "Trends in Communication and Entertainment" and an an article titled "Understanding Convergence" that summarizes their research findings.
• Innovation Outposts: Swisscom is operating an outpost in the Silicon Valley already for many years. The job of the people in this outpost is to identify the latest trends and screen new technologies to bring them straight to Switzerland.
• Ogo Success: Swisscom understood the needs of "Generation Y" and successfully launched the Ogo in 2005, a mobile instant messaging device targeted towards teenagers (see here and here). How many people use it? Until last year Swisscom sold 50.000 Ogo, today the number is definitely higher. Walking around in the city after kids get out of school you will definitely see a few of them chatting on their Ogo on the streets here in Switzerland.

In my definition these projects put Swisscom on the same level with many of the leading companies that are known for their focus on user-centered and/or experience design (Nokia, Virgin, P&G).

Now you might be wondering why I blog this. Well, I would apply for these jobs myself but since I still have to finish my Ph.D. degree (which will take longer than these positions are open ) I think it’s fair to share the information and share my opinion about the company because the people I met from Swisscom convinced me that exciting things are happening there.

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Job-cutting, cost-cutting and other profit- enhancing measures are too often used as the silver bullet to increase shareholder value. If you have been working in a field, where you have been involved with customers (customer relationship management, customer experience, customer service), you have probably experienced situations where you had to find arguments, why you should invest in a certain program to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty when everything that counts is shareholder value.

Fortunately some research has been done on the impact of customer satisfaction on shareholder value and stock prices respectively which should help to strengthen your arguments next time.

The authors of the study “Customer Satisfaction and Stock Prices” have analyzed the top 20% companies of the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) and found that their performance greatly outperformed the stock market, generating a 40% return.

From Consumerist:

From 1996-2003, the portfolio outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average by 93%, the S&P 500 by 201%, and NASDAQ by 335%.

Past performance doesn’t indicate future results. ACSI only goes back to 1994. However, these startling findings help vindicate one of our central claims: investing in customer service and satisfaction is good for your bottom line.

You can download the full article or read more at Consumerist.

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This picture of a balsa wood mock-up reminded me about some of aspects that influence brand image. What you can see on the left is a picture from the Design Hall of the Canon Camera Museum where the company describes the design process for new cameras.

Now, most people don’t care about Canon’s camera design process, but some customers do - the passionate customers. These passionate customers are the ones that go around and tell everyone about the latest products they bought. They are the enthusiasts that are counting the days until a new product is released. They are the ones that want to know that Canon is using balsa wood mock-ups to ensure that their cameras have a good grip.

The information that Canon published about the Camera Design Process, is the information that passionate users "need" to feed their information lust. (see Trendwatching.com’s trendreport on "INFOLUST"). Feeding your customers’ infolust (maybe one can even design services that feed this infolust) is an essential building block to deliver extra value that customers get when they "engage" with your products and brand.

While clicking through the short articles and images that describe Canon’s design process I was wondering if the brand image that I have about Canon has changed as well. Although I am not a Canon customer, I think that my Canon brand image and the relationship with the company changes if I understand how a product has come to life. I wonder what impact the pictures of the balsa wood mock-ups have on me next time I am holding a Canon camera in my hands. I guess it will be positive, cause I can tell others how the camera came to life (balsa wood, clay and plastic mock-ups).

What does that mean for your business? I am convinced that most companies have a story to tell - the story of a product’s genesis. Instead of spending money to make your brand more "authentic", why don’t you launch a website that tells your customers how your product or service comes to life? What are the stages between the initial idea and the final product? Summarize them, make them available, invite your customers and give them a story they can tell. The Canon Camera Museum is a great case study for that.

As a Sidenote: If you are a product designer or plan to build a product prototype make sure to check out Canon’s Balsa Wood Mock-Up Modeling Tutorial.

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