We are working on a few co-creation projects with clients. These are my favorite as they let us get in touch with customer or subject-matter enthusiasts. Getting customers involved in creating a product, service or experience leads to greater loyalty and advocacy. That should really be the headline. But most folks involved in co-creation know this already.
Here are the 4 Simple Co-creation Guidelines. I call them "simple" not because they are obvious. In fact, they are often overlooked. They are simple because anyone can do them.
1. Everyone gets feedback: Whenever you ask customers for input, whether it is simple customer feedback (like Bose) on product performance or something more involved (like Dell's Ideastorm), give immediate feedback to the user who submitted it. Clearly persoanlized messages are better than automated ones BUT even automated ones can be phrased in a way that feels more human while not trying to deceive the recipient that it is anything other than a machine response. Customers know you cannot respond to everyone personally. They (we) still ike to know that our input made it there. In the case of a Digg-style submission system which Dell uses as does NewPR, the feedback is from the crowd, itself.
It is ok to not follow the "crowds" input: Several times clients have been concerned that if we ask for customer input and we don't follow it, those customers will be angry. There are a lot of reasons not to follow the crowd's suggestion in Digg-style voting or the individual's suggestion. The suggestion may be impractical for some reason only a specific expert can relate. Or sometimes there is an x-factor that no one forsaw. If you take the time to respond to the suggestions and explain your decision, there is a good chance people will understand. Which brings us to the next point:
Just state the criteria for following customer ideas up front: What are you going to do with all that input? Will you make the product? When I first visited Ideastorm, I questioned their approach to acting on all those great ideas. A Dell person commented that they had every intention to act on it. (the Ideas in Action page has their responses to submitted ideas) Simply tell people what your intent is and carefully list the criteria for making decisions. This is related to fundamental approaches to openness and transparency. people just want to know what the rules are. when I participate din my first Have Money Will Vlog, I knew that my vlog ideas would be reviewed by a panel of of human 'filters.' Frankly, I didn't expect any of my ideas would get implemented but I am pretty sure they did (better feedback would have helped me to know).
Just be a human being: If you are asking people to tell you how to make the service at a restaurant better or how to make the next Dyson vacuum a little better, most customers understand that you cannot implement every idea they have. Nor can you adequately sate all the reasons why or why not based upon the previous rule. However, if you are humble and human in your tone and approach, many participating customers will understand. Most people have other experiences collaborating either at work or in the home. They understand intuitively or explicitly that the best collaborations involve mutual dialogue - listening and talking and then more listening - between human beings.
Crowdsourcing Guidelines
John Catone over at ReadWrite Web has a great post on crowdsourcing (crowdsourcing is not synonymous with co-creation. In fact, co-creation means involving customers/constituents while crowdsourcing surrenders a lot more to that crowd). He mentions this same point about not being bound in stone to follow the groups recommendations. His list of four guidelines for crowdsourcing are here:
- "Crowds should operate within constraints. To harness the collective intelligence of crowds, there need to be rules in place to maintain order.
- Not everything can be democratic. Sometimes a decision needs to be made, and having a core team (or single person) make the ultimate decision can provide the guidance necessary to get things done and prevent crazy ideas and groupthink from wreaking havoc on your product.
- Crowds must retain their individuality. Encourage your group to disagree, and try not to let any members of the group disproportionately influence the rest.
- Crowds are better at vetting content than creating it. It is important to note that in most of the above projects, the group merely votes on the final product; they do not actually create it (even at Cambrian House, where the group collaborates to create the product, individuals are still creating each piece on their own and the group votes on whose implementation of an idea is best). "
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