Researcher Katri Saarikivi at Tubecon
industry day in Helsinki discussed elements of creating great online
experience. She emphasized importance of empathy and interaction. A “human
centered design” was featured as a key element in planning online experiences.
How do we do that? Demonstrating emphathy
and interaction towards our customers? Saarikivi stated that (customer´s) problem
solving is a combination of 3 factors: technology, cognition and sociability.
In addition to technical knowledge, competitive advantage is built on better
human understanding and better human contact. The key drivers to this, in
supporting employees, are according to Saarikivi ability to provide psychological
safety and trust, clarity of structures, meaningfulness and impact. In
Saarikivi presentation the core is everybody´s voice to be heard. Thus,
understanding, experience and actions together, generated by a well functioning
team, drive good customer service. More on Saarikivi viewpoints in recent
interview by Kauppalehti
Optio.
The New York Time Magazine wrote about a
quest to find the perfect team. The challenge was to find out how to turn
employees into faster, better and more productive versions of themselves, also
referred to as “personal productivity”. Some studies show findings that out of
our daily work, more and more time is spent on collaborative work. This should
enable better innovation and problem solving. Thus, focusing on team effort and
its impact is a big deal.
Successful outcome does not mean gathering
the best people to do the work, but rather forming a team that has best
ingredients contributing to success. New York Time Magazine case on Google
proved that mix of personality types or skills or backgrounds did not make the
difference. The “who” part didn’t matter. The norms and collective IQ that is
distinctive, than that of any single member, makes the difference. The right
norms could raise the group´s collective intelligence, good performance leading
to another. Some norms were identified; group members talked the same amount of
time ie everybody is listened to. Second, group members have social
sensitivity, demonstrating interpersonal trust and mutual respect.
Behind great customer experience is
therefore a great team that feels their work is meaningful, supported by open
dialogue and sharing, and understanding their mission. Team members, in ideal
situation, have various behavioural patterns. Those complement each other and
each others´ experience, driving common, shared norms and raising the
collective performance.
Aiming to develop our own competences and performance,
and living in a world that is never ready, our marketing team established an
own quest. Mission is to learn from digital marketing and online customer
behavior. One of the learning experiences was to choose a platform where to
benchmark our own work. As a result, we are now shortlisted at European
Communications Awards as Team of the year. Final results will be announced
after a pitch end of September. Feeling extremely proud of the team, I think we
have some great ingredients. Work and development continues.
