A Simple Guide to Generating Ideas

Coming up with ideas to improve the Customer Experience is not as difficult as you might think. In fact, I recently saw a Customer Experience team generate over 100 ideas in less than an hour!

We used a workshop approach. They had just completed the first wave of their CX program and were faced with the task of ensuring the voice of the customer is embedded in decisions, actions, and processes. After reviewing the main highlights from the customer feedback, the team agreed on a manageable set of areas where they wanted the customer experience to be better. That’s when the real work started – we needed ideas on what to do…

• “Ideation” or the process of idea generation is often used to come up with ideas for possible actions to address customer issues. (A number of techniques may be used – just do a quick internet search and you’ll find a number of approaches to generate ideas).

• Our team used a brainstorming approach. The team split into small breakout groups – each given the task to generate ideas for each of the four areas. All of the ideas were documented, regardless of whether or not they were “good” ideas.

• Each idea was reviewed and evaluated based on the ease of implementation and the potential impact to the organization.

That helped narrow the list of over 100 ideas to a more manageable number. (That’s when the “bad” ideas got tossed aside). Another round of prioritization helped target the list further to a short list of action items. My net takeaway – the challenge isn’t in coming up with the ideas, it’s in the implementation….

Kitty Radcliff
Vice President, Consulting Services