Three milestones to better experiences.
There is no more business as usual. The world’s biggest taxi company owns exactly zero taxis. The largest hotelier owns zero rooms in zero hotels. The hottest name in designer fashion sells no clothing.
Some of today’s fastest growing companies are taking on mature markets by simply changing the way people shop. Uber, Airbnb, Rent the Runway, Birchbox, and the Dollar Shave Club all have one thing in common.
They don’t sell products—they sell experiences.
Experience is fuelling a new age. The strategy of depending solely on your products to gain a competitive advantage is rapidly becoming obsolete. Copycat manufacturing is now so
fast and cheap that innovators capture less than 3 percent of the economic surplus they create.
Price and selection are not guaranteed advantages in light of “everything stores” like Amazon and Alibaba. Consumers today face a new and daunting prospect: infinite choice. When
everything is available all the time, at any price, experience is the remaining true differentiator.
Infinity is a lot to wrap your brain around, but experience is different. It’s the sum total of a customer’s interactions with a brand, at every touchpoint, from awareness to interest,
research, purchase, and consumption. But it’s also more than that. Experience is how these interactions make the customer feel.
