Customer & Product Experience: How disparate experiences can crush overall Brand perception

I’ve written a series of articles on Product Experiences, and how that is profoundly and genetically entwined with factors such as performance, accessibility, inclusion, to name but a few. However, one of the aspects I have mentioned in the past ever so slightly was Customer Experience, and how that also plays a key role in supporting the Client perception of the experience they’re receiving. This past week, I personally experienced a few events with software packages I’ve been using for quite some time, which has led me to reflect, just how profoundly important it is for a Customer Experience to be effective, not only to reinforce the Product effectiveness, but also how when one or even more dramatically both falter, how that can make clients reassess their choices and decisions. This article is in essence a reflection on the Holistic Product Experience and Customer Experience journeys, and how they can have profound impacts in client retention and ongoing fidelity.

Customer Experience. Wikipedia defines Customer Experience as “totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioral consumer responses during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase stages”. Succinctly, the Customer Experience accompanies the Users or potential Clients through their entire journey, from their research process, through their decision making process, learning about the solution, trying it, purchasing it, and also and just as importantly, the post purchase experience, including customer support, product updates & notifications. A lifecycle filled with experiences and different interactions between the User/Client and the Brand & Product themselves. This ecosystem, and even more importantly, how these components should operate effectively and compliment each other, reinforced itself for me during this past week, when I experienced two situations that I shall describe as succinctly as possible.

I’ve been using Adobe products for 20 years. I’ve witnessed their progressive refinement in terms of product experiences, and how their portfolio of products has morphed and refined itself throughout the years. I have also taught classes on how to use and create digital solutions in Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, Dreamweaver and the defunct Director. As a user of the Creative Cloud, which I literally use on a daily basis, I’ve built a long standing relationship with the product offering, though of course, every product solution is fallible and has its fair share of shortcomings and issues. This past week however, I experienced something that has now happened quite a few times. While working on a digital illustration, Photoshop and Illustrator suddenly and out of nowhere indicate “You’ve been Signed Out of Your Account”, and promptly quit, at times not even allowing me to save the file I’m currently working on. This, as I’ve mentioned, has now occurred quite a few times, and often enough with productivity crashing abruptly, since all the products close, and I literally have to sign in again to the Creative Cloud account, in order to get them to restart. In order to understand this issue more in depth, I’ve triaged the issue, making sure there’s nothing wrong with my billing statement, with my hardware and internet connection, going through all the factors I can think of which can prompt such drastic behavior. There is none, save for the fact, that this tends to coincide with timings when Adobe does collective updates to their tools. This time around however, I decided to seek help for the problems at hand. And this experience in itself was painful. Essentially because their Help experience is riddled with Dark UX patterns (I mentioned these in the past, but they include, Sneaking, Obstruction, Forced Action, Social Proof, Scarcity, Urgency and the one applicable to this case, Misdirection). Wanting some help on this topic sent me to their forum of sorts, or frequently asked questions, where of course I couldn’t find anything pertaining to my problem. Eventually after spending a good 5 minutes looking around, I finally was able to start a “dialogue” with a chatbot, who also couldn’t understand the issue I was presenting, and who after a series of questions which delivered no solution, redirected me to an actual HelpDesk assistant. This person took quite some time to engage with my questions, and after 10 minutes of waiting for the response to my last question, responded with a statement that my issue was more technical than account driven, and therefore I’d have to be redirected to a technical help desk. I was placed on hold once again, and no one addressed my questions on that chat service in the following 15 minutes, upon which I finally gave up.

We as users and clients, all have challenging situations we experience, and as typical Human beings, always want our problems solved promptly. What I’m documenting here, hopefully doesn’t only highlight my patience level, but also brings to the forefront one crucial issue about Product Experiences: Design Driven solutions need to consider what happens in a post Product usage experience. When crafting Product solutions, the teams involved in the Design Thinking process, have to contemplate the five states each and every product solution eventually touches upon, including Empty States, Loading States, Incomplete States, Error States, Success States, since they’re just part of the DNA of any product that is built. However and just as importantly, if situations that are unexpected occur, and something unexpected always occurs, it’s imperative that the following phase of the Product Experience doesn’t falter. Having chatbots, a Help forum are fantastic solutions, but users ultimately need to have an opportunity to either report an issue or be able to interact with someone who can provide some feedback in a timely manner. Sending users down labyrinthian post-product experiences, only exacerbates their frustration level, and particularly now, can lead to a disengagement with the Brand itself. On the opposite side of the spectrum, I can attest for instance to the agile and almost instant feedback stance that occurs with platforms and solutions such as Marvel, SquareSpace and Invision, all of whom provide the ability for users to report issues, and answer them in a timely manner. Even if the solution and the answer isn’t what one expects, it’s important for clients to feel heard, and ultimately accounted for. Long lasting Brand experiences, are based on factors such as Self Awareness, Principles, Deliberate Intent, Focus and Adaptation. Focusing on clients, their journeys, is now and more than ever fundamental. Here’s hoping Adobe improves their stance on these steps.

Who Are We Building This For. Customer Experiences also include the Product Experience itself. Some products have onboarding experiences for first time users, and when substantial updates are made to a digital Product, they typically also come in the shape of a mechanism which informs users of what to expect as a novelty. However, Product Experiences, particularly for users that are using products for some time, can become a challenge when introducing new paradigms, or when the solution itself needs to continue evolving and introduces innovative stances. This obviously is a challenge, but one where Usability Testing, and Research in general play fundamental roles in providing insight for some of the decisions that are taking place.

Two recent examples come to mind, which to this day, puzzle me in how they moved forward, and are now part of the vernacular for these Products. Firstly was Medium, which had a rebranding in 2020, which married itself with alterations in the interaction of the Product itself. As a user of the platform, I’m not aware of what has driven some of the decisions for the changes in some fundamental interactions (pertaining to navigation and accessing information for instance), but ultimately now I’m having to re-learn some of the aspects of the product, even if those interactions from screen to screen are inconsistent and non-sensical. Bears to keep in mind that when performing a Heuristic Analysis of a product, the aspects to consider include Relevancy, Clarity, Value, Friction and Distraction. This new product experience, lacks relevance and clarity, causes friction, induces additional clicks, not to mention ultimately producing frustration. Time will tell about client retention, including my own.

The second product experience that bears highlighting is the Mac OS Big Sur. Apple is of course a staple for impeccable hardware experiences, with their software being a mix bag in terms of quality. And this is particularly relevant in the case of Big Sur, and in particular in the system dialogue Windows. Every time one of those windows appears, be it on the Finder, or a part of another application, I invariably find myself having to expand those windows, in order to be able to read the labels associated with what is on the window. Every single time. The size of that window by default, crops most of the strings and labels which identify either the items on the computer, or as it would be more expected, of hard drives connected to the device. This bears to ask the question: who exactly is this being built for. We’re living times of tremendous challenge and difficulty, but now more than ever, it’s important we practice stances of inclusion, accessibility, contemplating users that go beyond particular demographics. Research has become more important than ever, since it essentially forces Product Design teams to come to terms with how different audiences experience what they’re setting in motion. In topic with what I wrote about Myopia in Design, it’s fundamental that Designers and their Peers, craft solutions that are inclusive and thorough, not solely solutions that are their interpretation of what a product should do and behave. It’s time for Product Solutions to have a reach, consistency, respect and credibility they should have. Only then, can our clients be partners, and not solely an engagement that is translated into a number.

I’ll conclude this article with a quote on the topic of respect, from Hussein Nishah:

“Treat people the way you want to be treated. Talk to people the way you want to be talked to. Respect is earned, not given.”