Understanding what customers want
Delivering a great customer experience
Traditionally, buildings are designed within the parameters of cost, time and quality. However, an increasingly important factor is the part the building plays in delivering a great customer experience; and the commercial benefits that can accrue from this. Significant cost savings can be achieved if the desired customer experience is understood clearly at the start and integrated into the brief. Many find this correlation surprising. Most assume achieving a great customer experience only adds cost. However, frequently, the opposite is true.
Sometimes this happens because there isn’t the time, or there is a lack of the necessary skills or experience to know that this step is needed. All too often problems arise further down the design process because this step has been missed.
Savings can be realised in a number of ways.
Customers are savvy and have great ideas. They want things to be done as easily and simply as possible. They are great at identifying things that don’t matter, and listening to them can reduce design costs significantly. This could manifest as a smaller project footprint, a faster design process (saving consultant fees) or a less complicated design (making savings in areas like M&E). Alternatively, a more efficient and flexible building or one that delivers more revenue to the client can also achieve this.
For example, these factors were realised during the design of Terminal 2 at Heathrow. Agreeing how the building was going to work was instrumental to saving cost and creating a great customer experience.
So, what stops this happening routinely?
We find that many projects get bogged down towards the end of the design phase. At this point stakeholders find it difficult to sign-off the building design because they aren’t able to visualise how their operation will work in reality. The architects and designers get frustrated because they are not given the guidelines by the client to lead design. This results in endless iterations of the design without any clear set of guidelines upon which to assess each version. This pushes up consultancy fees enormously and leads to decisions being made too late. Sound familiar?
Another complication is that operators tend to be unfamiliar with the design process. Whilst they are able to come up with some great ideas and insight, they often lack the ability to ‘vision’ 3-5 years ahead. This leads them to make decisions based on what is right for them, not for the benefit of the customer. A practical way around this to understand what the customer really wants from the building.
Many organisations think they understand what customers want - but in reality this rarely proves to be the case. We have seen that organisations lack the skills or incentives to really understand how to listen to customers. However, there is a large advantage in using this objective insight to drive the debate and reduce the amount of subjective views.
Foster collaboration
Once the needs of the customer are really understood it can have a huge impact on design. Done properly, this skill can sit alongside the other skills needed during the design process. It always acts to foster collaboration between different teams (from engineering to finance, architecture and marketing) around a common business goal.