Today’s buzzword for customer experience enterprises is authenticity and all brands, big and small, seek it. But what is it, and when does authenticity achieve its true power?
As a researcher and consultant for some of the best-known brands in the world, we’ve learned a few things about this.
Authenticity occurs in three flavors. First is Objective Authenticity. This is the simplest, most basic and objective element. Is that handbag truly a Louis Vuitton? This is factual – yes or no.
Second is Constructive Authenticity. This means being true to your brand at each touchpoint, including both product and experience. In other words, do you deliver what you preach? Is the customer experience at the Louis Vuitton boutique equal to the aesthetic of the handbag?
Take Starbucks, for example. Their company website includes this statement: “We’re not just passionate purveyors of coffee, but everything else that goes with a full and rewarding coffeehouse experience… It’s not unusual to see people coming to Starbucks to chat, meet up or even work. We’re a neighborhood gathering place…”
Their neighborhood shops often reflect these characteristics. But how about their airport kiosks? How about the kiosks they have inside grocery stores? How about their packaged good products? It’s hard to align these “experiences” with the corporate message.
The third element is the most difficult – but also the most rewarding. It is Existential Authenticity. This is all about the customer and how they feel. It means allowing the customer to remain within their true self; allowing the customer to fulfill their vision of self-identity.
(By David Richey, Richey International, San Francisco)
Isn’t this the real goal of that hackneyed word – personalization? But here’s the thing: Achieving this state of authenticity does not involve the company standards or company processes or even the company’s employees. This state of authenticity explicitly cannot be achieved through institutional actions or concepts. In fact, it is not something that can be “delivered” at all by an organization. Instead, it is a way of thinking that allows the customer to be themselves.
Like many things in the hotel world, this can be traced back to Cesar Ritz. His mantra was “le client n’a jamais tort” (the customer is never wrong). In Germany they say “der Kunde ist König” (the customer is king). In Japan it is “okyakusama wa kamisama desu,” meaning “customer is god.”
There is a lot of talk these days about “designing the customer experience.” Mostly, this is good stuff. But what if we did a little “un-designing” and a little more improvising?
No, not kidding. There are analogies for this in real life. For example, if you’re a parent, you don’t measure your success by how many parenting standards and processes you implemented. Instead, it’s all about how self-actualized your kid becomes as an adult. This is defined as “the achievement of one’s full potential through creativity, independence, spontaneity…”
What if an organization’s standard was “We will allow our guests to creatively achieve their full potential?” What would that look like?
Imagine a guest going to breakfast at their hotel and there weren’t any pre-established standards or rules. In fact, no menu. It would be like the guest was a visitor in your home where you simply allow them to choose from a variety of places to sit, to read, to watch, and to eat.
In other words, it’s not about how authentic your organization is. It’s about how authentic you allow your guests to be.
It gives me no pleasure to say this, because for twenty years I was in the business of “creating experiences,” then inspecting performance, and rewarding or punishing managers for failure to comply. But is the customer really “god” if they are obliged to simply follow behind a brand’s elaborately constructed “experience” like a cork bobbing in the wake of a boat?
In its time, this was the right thing to do. But this is a different time.
These days, I spend my time listening to the desires of guests – through their own words and actions.
All good organizations excel at Objective Authenticity. Many organizations succeed at Constructive Authenticity. But very few will even contemplate, let alone attempt Existential Authenticity.