Even the best customer experience has never convinced me to like the taste of truffles.
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But I always wondered whether my taste perception would change, if I actually hunted them myself. Would the customer experience of finding the food, transform its taste. Or would I still continue my track record of baffling Italian cooks around the world.

Earlier this year, I had a unique experience. Following a chance encounter with immersive theatre superstar Felix Barrett, I was able to take a group of friends through a one-day, bespoke masterclass on the Punchdrunk immersive experience design methods.

Immersive experience design isn’t just about providing people ‘a good time’. In fact, in Norway, the ‘go-to-prison experience’ has been designed to help those that broke the law reintegrate into society.

Very early into researching transformative experience design, I realised that for real insights I’d have to go off the beaten track. So on a recent trip to London, I booked myself a Tarot experience on Airbnb.

In 2015, Japan introduced us to Henn Na. It was the first hotel in the world completely operated by computers and robots. In January 2019, a growing number of customer complaints led the company to fire 243 of their robotic workers and replace them by humans. While people were ready for a digital human experience, they weren’t ready to completely abandon humanity just yet.

I regularly meet people who want to use the Net Promoter Score as a target in their business. I invariable direct them to the wisdom of Charles Goodhart. In the 1970s, this British economist found that “any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes”.

This statement is pretty dry and hermetic. But it is something that every customer experience professional should be aware of. Because in regular-people-speak it translates as:
“when a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure”.
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The reason for this is simple. When presented with an outside target, humans will always seek the path of lowest effort to achieve it. Especially if the target is linked to some sort of reward or punishment.
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Every serious conversation about quantum physics has a tendency to melt your brain. It doesn’t make sense, and yet it is. So in a session with Jonathan Josephson of Quantum Interface he started looking at the influence of quantum field theory on user experience design, I knew I could be in for a rollercoaster ride (OK, I’m a nerd, sue me ).

Customer-centricity starts by listening to the customer. But a snazzy customer voice programme doesn’t guarantee that people actually pay attention.