Bridging the gap between brand strategy and customer experience in services: the target experience tool

This paper describes work in progress for the development of a structured process that helps cross functional development teams to bridge the gap between a company’s brand strategy and experiences for customers. The process is aimed to assist and structure the very early stages of the service development process, the fuzzy front end. Further, it describes a tool that has been developed that can be used to assist this transformation, by scoping the ‘target experience’ for a proposed service. The tool uses role-playing, using professional actors to improvise upon key experience words such that behaviours and customer experiences are explored. The paper describes the theoretical basis for this work, the process and the tool itself, together with early reflections upon its use.