Adam Faulkner on superior CX through empathy

The CMO Show

“Effectively what it is,” begins Adam thoughtfully, “is understanding our users better. Actually talking to people.”

As bluegg’s Digital Design Director for more than five years, Adam Faulkner has developed a distinct approach to understanding Customer and User experience. Surprisingly, it involves a lot of time offline, IRL.

“It’s really easy to design something in digital space and not talk to anybody,” he says, before explaining the importance of reaching out to user demographics whose experiences might differ substantially from your own.

In one example, Adam worked with a hotel booking client whose userbase was women aged 25 and 34. He prioritised conducting interviews with users to understand their particular needs.

“What I considered important was completely different [to the typical user],” Adam says. “I was thinking about getting the local restaurant right, whereas for our users, safety and security were really important, you know?”

Despite its costly reputation, Adam is quick to point out that conducting in-person research doesn’t have to be enormously expensive.

“When you do interviews,” he says, “you only need five of any type of archetype or persona or demographic to get pattern recognition and from those patterns, very clear insights.”

Before beginning research it’s vital to understand who your users actually are, because they’re not always just your customers.

Working with a bank, Adam discovered more than 140 extra software tools in a single branch that its employees were using to overcome limitations in the bank’s ERP systems.

Join Mark Jones and his new co-host, Nicole Manktelow, as they discuss the nature of customer experience, why it’s vital to understand offline and how to turn every sad moment in the customer journey into a happy one, on this fascinating episode of The CMO Show.