How have you innovated in the past three years? Be honest. What have you purposefully changed about what you do, who your company is, what you sell, or how you reach and support your customers?
Don’t fret over your answer. The need to reinvent depends on many factors. You may not need to change at all – though that is a rare situation to be in. For the sake of discussion, let’s say that you are considering making changes. If that’s the case, let’s look at three things relative to innovation and reinvention that will help your approach and process …
How open you are to change?
When asked, most people will immediately claim that they have no problem dealing with change. But when pressed, the truth comes out. A drastic example was a company leader who was overheard saying, “Do we really need to keep adding content to our website? Our customers know what they need to know about us.” Seriously?
What we see often is companies don’t innovate intentionally. They change because technology or the market requires them to. Even when they do, they only change so much. It becomes careful and conditional change designed to mitigate risk and optimize or reclaim the comfort of the past. Though they may profess to want to change and be open to change, deep inside they really do not.
Which areas are natural opportunities for innovation?
What are the first places you might look to redefine your category? The easiest and most tangible is with your customer experience.
The classic case is when Southwest airlines decided to change the way safety information was delivered on their flights. Singing, telling jokes, or simply being creative got attention and separated that customer experience from all other carriers at the time. Every other carrier got on the microphone and recited the instructions we have all heard thousands of times. Southwest got everyone’s attention – and that separated them from competition. The other carriers had customers that did not hear a word of what was said.
Innovations in customer experience have immediate impact and often are very cost effective.
How do you know you are on the right road?
Sometimes the impact of change is obvious immediately because it makes an impact on the bottom line quickly. Other times the process is more of an evolution.
Once you take steps to change, ask yourself these simple questions:
- Is what I have done different enough from my competition that customers will notice?
- Does the step align with my brand position or company story?
- Can I easily explain why it helps the customer experience?
- Can I see where this step will lead to other ways to innovate?
If you can easily answer these questions, you are moving in the right direction. You are thinking about innovating from the position of the customer, and not just you or your bottom line. You are doing things that are different from what the competition is doing at the moment. You are generating ideas for future innovations. Well done.
You see, the big innovations create dramatic change in how the world looks at your industry. Be open to the ideas and consider how the voice of the customer will be enhanced by your changes.
Change is both a mindset and an action. Be a change agent and stay ahead.
- Mike
