Andrews Distributing is one of the biggest beer distribution companies in Texas. When an organization delivers countless cases of beer to every type of restaurant, bar, and nightclub imaginable, it starts to notice some things. Andrews started to notice that every client they work with presented a unique experience for its patrons, ranging anywhere from overall atmosphere to the way it presents its menu and cuisine.

If this experience could be presented for food, why not for beer? By focusing on craftsmanship, aesthetics, and rich historical details, Andrews adopted a philosophy of turning beer into a “destination product” - the central part of an experience, rather than merely an auxiliary item.
Andrews and RD2 worked together to create Destination Beer - a repository of information on every beer carried in the Andrews Distributing lineup.

Different beers contain information on history, food pairings, brewing processes, and recommends several similar beers to the user that they might have never heard of otherwise. The site as a whole helps educate retailers on the beers they serve, allowing them to place more emphasis on their beer selection and presentation in their establishments.

We were able to match the information architecture developed by Eric and myself with striking design and a custom-built Ruby on Rails back-end to make Destination Beer a destination in and of itself.

Destination Beer is known around the office as “the best research project ever.”

On Wednesday of this past week, I rode the Dart Rail for the first and the last time. Figuring I had an appointment that was only two stops away, and that I could be safely delivered from door to door via the Dart Rail, it made all the sense in the world. My appointment was at 10:00 am and there was a 9:51 train from nearly in front of RD2. I had a five dollar bill in hand and was ready to go…until I approached the machine where you are supposed to put the money in and get a token or a ticket or some special money that you are supposed to do something with on the train. The machine was not working. Not because it would only take single dollar bills either because someone else was trying to put his money to work (a single dollar bill). Just then the train pulled up, and I had my five dollar bill in hand, figuring that I could just make a transaction or maybe give my money to the guy with the funny hat or something. (more…)

As we rounded out 2006, we spent some time discussing how to transform our process. Per the recent post by Jeff, “Web Design by Caravaggio,” a small sample was illustrated. And, as we said, it’s working. It does take a little more finesse, but the output is very meaningful. In our research, I came across this article: Don’t make the Demo look Done. I really enjoyed reading Kathy Sierra’s post on this subject. Really interesting thoughts on not taking the “Grey Screen” approach…or making the demo look too done. Thanks for the post Kathy! You bring great thoughts as to how far this should be taken. While it’s still a few steps before design, we need to remember how important it is to figure out how to properly regulate information in to get better information out. More to come on how our Grey Screen approach is working out.

OK, I’ve threatened to do this for a long time (old blog entry about Customer Service Guy www.kurtfisher.com/5.html )- time to act.

I invite all to share their customer experiences - both Good and Bad! We will start a new category for this blog called ‘Customer Experience’ and I invite posts and comments related to your experiences. Let us know about companies that provide exceptional customer experiences and ones that miss the mark. It is not important to tell us the name of the company - what is important is to explain what was good or bad about the experience so we can all expand our consciousness about what affects customer experiences.

This awareness will make us better marketing mangers, strategists, designers and developers. Plus, it will be fun hearing the horror stories – some are pretty funny once you get over the urge to throw your computer out the window.

Remember – no company bashing, just sharing of constructive observations.

OK, here’s my latest: I ordered tickets online this morning for a play. I was offered a seating chart to select my seats – Area 1 or area 2. I asked for best available and during checkout was told I was in Section D. ???? What happened to Area 1 and 2? Why wasn’t Section D on the map? I went back to the seating chart to see if I could figure it out - I have no idea where my seats are but because I have been to this play before I will chance it – others might bail on checking out and pick up the phone instead – there go service costs; or worse, lost revenue.

But it is frustrating when labels are not consistent from page to page and step to step. Unfortunately this is a common theme in user experience.

Today’s world is fast paced, but all businesses need to slow down to understand their customer experience. Before implementing something, put on your customer shoes, glasses or metaphor of choice and go through your customer experience – Does it make sense? Does it work? Is it easy?

Example: I have a new cable company – they recently took over my previous company - so you would think they would be hyper sensitive to all the changes their customers are going thru. So today I received an email saying my monthly bill was ready to review.

The email prompted me to logon to my new account and to check my settings to be able to continue to receive my online bill. The way it was worded I thought I had to do this to continue online bill pay. They provided me a link.

First problem – the link went to the home page rather than a landing page for logging into my account, or a “Welcome to our new Express Pay service, please login to verify your settings.� So I had to read the home page to find something relevant – no “My Account� button, but the Online Bill Payment link was fairly prominent.

So now I’m at a page that describes all the options for online bill payment – Still no navigation to “Verify Your Settings�, or “My Account� and the navigation link to “Pay Your Bill Online� brings me to the same page. So I scan the page again and there is a banner add for Express Pay with “Enter Express Pay� incorporated into the ad – missed it first time I scanned the page for logon boxes, navigation, links and buttons.

Now I get to logon and verify my settings – but there is no section called “Settings� so I review my contact info and I guess everything is fine – so I leave – never had a chance to click a button to “Verify Your Settings�.

So the point here is – if you tell your customer they have to do something, make sure they really have to do it; make it easy and direct; and be consistent with the labels you use so it is easy to recognize where one is supposed to go and what one is supposed to do.

What’s your customer experience like?