Mark Hurst about Vodafone’s attempt to make a simpler cell phone seen as “brilliant example of customer experience driving change in an organization”:
“Good Experience reader NH pointed me to a fascinating Wall Street Journal article about Vodafone’s attempt to make a simpler cell phone (link is free for a week or so): In Mobile Phones, Older Users Say More is Less.
Vodafone’s initiative began two years ago, after the company surveyed 5,000 Europeans about what they wanted from a cellphone. What it heard from consumers aged 35 to 55 shocked executives of the Newbury, England, company. Many in that age range didn’t know their cellphone numbers or how to use basic functions. One-third, for example, said they didn’t know how to tell when they had received a text message. Some thought the envelope icon that signals a message meant their phone bill had arrived…
Many 35- to 55-year-olds also didn’t like going into Vodafone retail stores because the young staff — average age 24 — talked in acronyms they couldn’t understand. These consumers said they weren’t interested in the cameras, Internet browsers and many of the other features that are becoming standard on the latest cellphones. “Our biggest customer segment turned round and said: ‘You haven’t been listening to us,’ ” says Guy Laurence, the company’s consumer-marketing director. “It was an industry for kids.”
This is a brilliant example of customer experience driving change in an organization. Whether you’re a designer of phones, a website manager, or the director of a non-profit unrelated to the Web, there are lessons here that you can learn and apply to your work.”
Internetverweis
Lessons in listening to customers
