Every company knows that there is a serious skills shortage in the marketplace, across most sectors and job types. Upskilling staff has been a high priority for both companies and government for more than two decades.
Every company knows that there is a serious skills shortage in the marketplace, across most sectors and job types. Upskilling staff has been a high priority for both companies and government for more than two decades.
Let’s face it: it’s no longer just a good idea or a nice gesture to listen to your consumers: If you don’t, someone else will. You have to really listen and empathise with a person to design something that makes a difference.
As a business, we can bemoan negative criticism of the way we do things, or we can choose a winning perspective and find huge value in it: this is an opportunity to up our game.
Artificial intelligence is gradually outdoing us in many of the roles that take up our working days and put food on our tables. Computers work unceasingly; they think at mindblowing speeds; they make decisions with unnerving success. But they do not feel.
We need more better listeners. It’s a skill we can and must cultivate if we are going to keep customers coming back, differentiate ourselves in our market and be better at tackling challenges. Today, if you’re not listening to your audience, you’re falling out of touch and into danger.
Your customers are the people who know your products and services from regular, on-the-ground experience with them; they are the people who are going to tell you what it’s like to interact with your brand every day. Giving them a chance to have their opinion heard, considered and implemented will improve your relationship with them.
The success of a product or service is rooted in user experience. This simple yet powerful premise has gained traction for human-centred design in all major business sectors around the world, says Stuart McDougall, MD at Tenaka, a human-centred design agency helping clients to exceed customer expectations.
What the customer needs should not be assumed. There is so much we can learn by engaging with customers that exceeds everything assumed. Human-centred design encourages research based on the human experiences that consumers deal with every day and implements those insights directly into the design of any product.
