This is the question me and my CX team here at Tietoevry ponder every day as we work at the frontline of designing human experiences, for all sectors of society. For me, future business is about having the courage to act like human beings towards each other.
This means that value creation in the digital era requires a fresh playbook. The new chapters of it are empathy and building human-sized cultures, where value matters more than systems. Because value is created by teams of people from potentially very different backgrounds, value creation can actually fuel the understanding of others.
Customers, vendors, colleagues, and end-users are all human beings and pieces of the same puzzle. Therefore, I sometimes prefer the term human experience over customer experience.
Instead of only optimizing systems, future business is about nurturing living organisms – specifically, people working together towards their shared goals. In this scenario, human insight is key to the necessary change. Psychological safety releases the superpowers of questioning, rethinking, and genuine co-operation. Therefore, making people feel comfortable, confident and accepted as they are always precedes jumping into the business case itself in our Customer Experience projects.
As I see it, carrying the torch of humanity both in customer cases and in building our company culture is the task of Tietoevry’s CX professionals. This makes me feel both humble and proud – being “people first” means that we make meaningful products and services.
The last three years here have given me the opportunity to take a more holistic view and have a greater impact on the customer experience than ever before. I have learned a lot from my skilled and visionary customers and colleagues as discussions shake apart the silos separating businesses and fields of science. Instead of making loose arguments, one needs to understand the whole picture.
In my career, the best outcomes have always resulted from long-term customer relationships. Businesses do not change by magic, but on a project-by-project basis through the lessons shared and results gained. Therefore, CX professionals need to be determined, co-operative, and patient. In short, they need to keep the faith that shared stories and the shared strategy of providing human value will ultimately make the difference.
One key strength of our CX team is our courage to positively challenge current practices. CX professionals face conflicts between what is easy to do and what is valuable for customers and end-users. You may be asked to fix a superficial problem like the appearance of a user interface, even though you see the real problem lies deeper within the processes.
These are what we call the wicked problems of design. Of course, we need to face reality and meet budgets, but we cannot forget the human aspect. Keeping the human in mind prevents us from solving problems that never even existed or that were not part of the business case in the first place!
I have enjoyed my work here as an ambassador and mentor focused on humanity. Our self-directed culture has given me the opportunity to decide quite independently how to use my competencies. I am excited to continue my journey – maybe you would also like to join us?