Author Nicholas Ind tells Ankita Rai that co-creation means that customer experience becomes more widely shared
How do you manage the complexity of the co-creation process without falling into the various traps along the execution path?
Co-creation can be complex, whereas with a traditional research or innovation project you normally have to deal with a limited amount of consumer input — here, you have several hundred consumers involved on an ongoing basis. For example, for Brand Together, we ran a community of 236 people for 52 days and they generated more than 14,000 comments. All the statements had to be read, reviewed, clustered and analysed. Comments also had to be responded to as they emerged. This involved a group of us facilitating our responses as and when we were required to do so.
The upside here is that you can generate real depth. You also begin to see that the insight which emerges is not only due to the facilitation but because of the exchanges between individuals in a community.
As far as keeping people engaged is concerned, the common management assumption is that it is about monetary rewards. Yet, our experience confirms that the best participants (in other words, the most committed and creative) are motived primarily by the enjoyment of doing something worthwhile and socialising with others. They are willing to give their time and provide ideas because they find a deeper meaning in it. So, you have to offer the opportunity for people to do the things they find interesting.
Giving feedback is important. When participants get involved with brands and contribute ideas, they quickly become disillusioned if they don’t hear what has happened to them. Companies have to become more responsive, not only when the community is operational but even after it stops.
Isn’t the linear model more rational and controllable? How should one manage flow of information where the degree of trust is yet to be established?
The linear innovation model is neater and more controllable. The iterative co-creation model is more open and messier. Yet it has the benefit of continuous creativity. Innovations are built out of networks so you need to allow ideas to flow backwards and forward. It is rarely (maybe never) that innovations emerge fully formed, instead, they are a result of some big ideas and then lots of small ideas and refinements. The co-creation model enables that better and it also allows consumers to be involved throughout the process, so that an idea which seemed relevant at conception remains so when it comes to be launched.
The other part of the question about trust is fundamental. You cannot have creativity without trust. Whether co-creation involves a physical event or an online community you have to get people to trust each other and the company and encourage dialogue and sharing. Building trust should always be the first thing that you do — you need to make sure you allow the time to do it — because without it you can’t really do co-creation.
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Does navigating co-creation become difficult in a culture where the customer experience is ‘owned’ by more than one stake holder group? For example, the marketing department generally believes that it owns all the customer co-creation initiatives.
It’s true that customer experience can be owned by more than one part of the organisation. Sometimes, it is the insight group, sometimes, it is marketing and sometimes, a mixture. However, co-creation is an involving process. If you do a two-day co-creation event with 80 people, which might involve 60 consumers and 20 managers, there are always people from different disciplines involved. You get researchers, marketers, strategists, operations and customer care people working together. It’s an excellent way of overcoming siloisation because people have to confront the problems that internal barriers cause and learn to work together. It’s also the case that with an online community, such is the interest inside the organisation, that different disciplines get involved. When I was researching the book, managers often argued that one of the benefits of co-creation is that it is a spur to innovation because people inside the organisation enjoy the process of direct interaction with customers.
In general, marketing departments should recognise that there is an opportunity here. Co-creation means that customer experience becomes more widely shared and can help fuel relevant products and services.