User Experience - Why Customers come back

The mark of a professional, I believe, in any field of expertise is the drive to improve their value, their worth as a whole to that field; The desire for self improvement. In some ways, it is what sets us as humans apart from the lower species. Over the course of the last few years, what has inevitably come to the fore for most designers and developers alike is the importance of customer experience, and in many cases, the emotional connection the customer forms with your product and or brand.

This connection is what fuels popular brands like Starbucks, Apple, JetBlue and others. They seem to have discovered this much earlier on than most companies and the benefits are tremendous.

As a designer and a developer, it is very easy in this field to lose sight of the most important part of the entire process. The Customer. Not the product, not the tools, but the customer. The customer's need, his connection with you and how much he feels you understand that are key in creating brand loyalty. Reviewing the recorded sessions from MIX07 that are on the web reveal a few sessions dedicated to rethinking the entire design experience, changing how we the producers of what customers use approach the process. My favorite of all those by far, and quite frankly, the best presentation I've seen in a while was the one given by Lewis Carbonne on "The Emotion of Customer Experience" available recorded. One of my favorite quotes from his presentation is this

Good, bad, or indifferent, every customer has an experience with your company and the products or services you provide. But few businesses really manage that customer experience... so they lose the chance to transform customers into lifetime customers.

I would classify that as well as several others as a must see for any designer, developer or producer as a way to provide context and direction for where and how they need to evolve in the current competitive market.