Lewis Carbone starts his best-selling book, Clued In, with the statement “customers cannot not have an experience. The question is, how managed or haphazard is the experience?” While he coined the phrase two decades ago, this could not be more relevant in the current business climate today. Customers always have an experience because experiences are formed by all the sensory clues that surround an encounter with a business, brand, product or service. And, the majority of clues and impressions are unconscious and emotional. Carbone states, the results of a total experience – rational AND emotional– are far more important than the functional attributes of a product or service.
Clued In covers a robust theory and “how to” application of experience management principles through the concept of experience clues (environmental, functional, and human). Through an elegant, simple framework, the book provides a system for clue awareness and management that continues to be evergreen for organizations today. In our current world of data and metrics, organizations risk becoming myopic on one-dimensional, company-focused measures that don’t align with our customers’ needs. Clue management is an actionable framework to address and elevate experience in order to increase the company’s emotional value.
Most importantly, the book addresses the need for a systematic approach within organizations that is integrated and holistic in nature. In the current world of complex data, multi-channel experiences, process improvement, innovation and industry disruptions, it has never been more critical for organizations to establish a “systems thinking” approach driven by the customer perspective. Carbone’s ClueScan® methodology represents an actionable and sustainable opportunity for organizations that will yield customer and employee engagement and significant business results.
Since the original publishing of the book, Carbone and Experience Engineering have leveraged ClueScan® methodology with Fortune 500 clients such as Lego, John Deere, Boston Children’s Hospital, La Quinta Inns and Suites, Lowe’s, AT&T, Pizza Hut UK, and a myriad of other prominent brands.
