Why Delivering Services is Simply Not Enough

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How memorable is your service? In this Vlog, Grant considers ways to future proof your business.


During the agricultural revolution, as food production got more efficient, workers got laid off. They ended up going to the cities and getting involved in manufacturing, producing products.

The product economy became vibrant, but their manufacturing became more efficient and workers again were laid off. They started to be employed in delivering services.

We’re now coming to the same point in the service economy, where technology is rendering jobs redundant. For example, in supermarkets we’re seeing self service checkouts, so staff are no longer required. Tablets are meaning waiters and waitresses are less needed in restaurants. Chatbots are replacing staff in customer service and driverless vehicles will soon make many drivers redundant.

So where are we going next? Joseph Pine and James Gilmore gave us the answer in their book entitled the Experience Economy. They explained that we’re going from delivering services to staging experiences – and experiences are memorable.

Let me give you two contrasting examples. We’ve all used budget airlines and budget hotels and often we get very good service, but when have you ever left a budget hotel and thought, ‘I can’t wait to go back again!’

On the other hand, the Apple store is an experience. The equipment is all laid out to be enticing and invite you to experiment with it. The genius bar is something like a concierge service at a hotel. This, of course, is different from many other retailers and tech companies.

So if you’re looking to future proof your business and get some competitive advantage, you need to think about not just delivering services, but staging experiences for your customers.

There may be small changes to the spoken word in this transcript in order to facilitate the readability of the written English

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