So, what is Experience?

Wikipedia's definition of Experience: Experience as a general concept comprises knowledge of or skill in or observation of some thing or some event gained through involvement in or exposure to that thing or event.

Webster's Dictionary meaning of Experience: An act of knowledge, one or more, by which single facts or general truths are ascertained; experimental or inductive knowledge; hence, implying skill, facility, or practical wisdom gained by personal knowledge, feeling or action; as, a king without experience of war.

I define Experience as:

Experience provides a means to acquire or enhance one's sensory knowledge through Observation, Action and Reflection. Experience has been long associated and bears a close conceptual alignment with Trial, as a test of Experiment.

Experience is very intimate to oneself. We can share our experiences with others, but cannot necessarily make them live that experience. Let this not be mistaken as being less influential though. Many of our experience expectations are set by the experience tales that others have shared with us. After all, each of us do not need to meet with a road accident to experience fatality or serious injury - we can opt to realize it by observing such incidents on TV and reflecting on the irreversible damage those create.

In most cases, the Experiential cycle starts off much earlier to the actual incident. Think of an adventure ride, a Roller coaster ride. Much before we go to an amusement park, we have an expectation of the thrills that a Roller coaster ride would bring upon us. When we actually go thru the ups and downs of the ride, those expectations are either met, exceeded or unmet. When we get off the ride, we are left with some residual thoughts of the ride and later on, when we reflect on the overall experience, a more coherent and comprehensive experience imprint is formed in our brain.

Lets dwell a little deeper on this. If we met a friend enroute to the amusement park, we would convey the postive expectations of the roller-coaster ride to that person. If that friend was to accompany you to the ride and be seated next to you on the ride, the experience that you would jointly have will be completely different. And if you met that friend post the ride on your way back from the amusement park, the relay of your experience could be quite different from what you would have relayed to the same person enroute to the amusement park. Think about it - it is one experience, but depending on when you had to narrate about it to somebody else, the contents and the emotions associated with it could vary. This is what makes comprehension of Experience not just a science but a mixture of art, human behaviour and science...

Experience has both an absolute dimension and a relative dimension. Let me explain these with examples. Absolute experience is savouring a chocolate for its taste, texture and ingredients. Relative experience is savouring the chocolate, and then stacking this experience with a previous similar experience.

We go thru both these experiences at different points in time. When we go thru a first-of-its-kind-experience, we make the initial impression of that experience and an Experience Imprint is created in our brain. Later on, as we go thru similar experiences, that imprint gets strengthened, diluted, retained or replaced.

Every change to the Experience Imprint leads to a change in perception of the source of that experience as well.

1. In the Chocolate savouring example, if savouring the second chocolate strengthened the Experience imprint of the first savouring, then the second chocolate will probably replace the first chocolate as a favourite.


2. If the second experience diluted the Experience imprint of the first experience, you will knock it off your consideration list.


3. If the second experience was so different that it gave a new meaning to chocolate savouring, then the original Experience imprint will be replaced with a new one.


4. If the second experience was similar to the first one, there would be no change to the Experience imprint and therefore you would be indifferent in choosing one amongst the two chocolates as well.

Corporates and business houses must ensure that their Customers go thru a positive and progressive experience in their business interactions - this is both a hygience and motivation factor for the survival and growth of the business!

Experience is very personal

Experience is yet unfathomable. With so many decades of research, we have scantily understood the capacity and capability of the human brain. Emotions are even more complex to understand. Experience comprehension requires a great understanding of both intellect and emotions.

If two people encounter the same situation, their experience would, in all probability, be quite different. The variable in such a case would be oneself - all those tangible and intangible attributes that each of us are characterized by. Infact, if we encounter the same situation twice at different times, our experience is quite likely to be different.

To attempt a comprehension of Experience, intimate knowledge of the person is vital. Knowledge about the person's upbringing, behaviour, skills, talents, experience, observations, exposure, philosophical leanings etc. to name a few provide facets of a person thru which we can make an attempt to draw a person's Experience map.

Let us talk about some real-life examples. Take any service - for example, a Retail Bank. Are you aware of any Bank that states that they will not let you wait for a Call Center Executive for more than 30 seconds? Are you aware of any Bank that lets you personalize your Internet Banking site? After all 80% of the times, we log on to a Bank site to do repetitive transactions only and each of us are most productive when the layout of the site matches our intuition...

Let us go into something more simple - a Restaurant. You go to a reputed restaurant for dinner with your friends. Your experience with the restaurant's menu spread, service, its ambience and quality of food can easily be shattered by an unclean washroom. So much so that you may swear never to go back to that restaurant again. The restaurant's core value proposition of great food will not be able to change this decision.

Prospective Vehicle owners' choose not to buy a great automobile based on trusted information about the service quality being poor or the dealers' not being very sincere and empathetic to the buyer's needs.

Each of us hold and expect some Experience values - Sincerity, Straightforwardness, Empathy etc. These values have an overbearing effect on the benefits of the product or service that we are contemplating to buy.

A good experience may not necessarily lead to a very loyal customer for a business. But, a bad experience will definitely help you lose the customer for good. While it is important to focus on all aspects of the product or service in question, a business has to equally focus on the customer's experience through different touchpoints, and ensure that the latter augment's the product's or service's value proposition, not bring it down!

Experience was not as high a challenge earlier, when most interactions were between people to people. With the advent and advancement of technology, a lot of our interactions (like this one) has become impersonal. We interact more with our computers than with people. How many times have you not felt that sending-an-email is better than picking-the-phone? Given these changes, understanding of people has become that much more important to help them live a positive experience.

I would like this blog to be a platform for exchanging views on Customer Experience - I firmly believe Customer Experience will become the key differentiator for businesses in the days to come...