Ask me about this couch and I'll share one of my favourite stories and the value of observing behaviour.
Tony Hillson
I double-majored in Commerce and Arts majoring in Psychology, Economics and Accounting at Auckland University, completing the first year of a Psychology Masters before being tempted by the opportunities of IT work helping companies learn how to benefit from emerging personal computers and information systems. From there I went on to learn Project Management. This culminated in running multi-million dollar ERP programmes for large corporate clients across Australasia.
I was fortunate enough to help Air New Zealand re-design its Loyalty and Reward system in 2003, fundamentally changing how points based loyalty systems worked to simply them for Customers. This whet my appetite for challenging complexity in business rules and processes and showed what was possible. 15 years later, no other airline has created such a compelling nor user-centered loyalty and rewards experience.
I began running User Centered Design projects in 2004, re-designing conversations for Air New Zealand's Contact Centre and going on to write a customer experience strategy in 2004 for Air New Zealand's Contact Centre. That led to a role leading a Cross Channel Innovation Project for ASB/CBA and began my career in Customer Experience Design.
Between 2006 - 2010 I contracted to many organisations as a Customer Experience Consultant, before beginning to find Service Design in 2010 and accepting a role with Telecom New Zealand, heading the re-design of their Retail (B2C) business and the supporting Business Model, as the business owner of a $100m+ CRM Programme.
In 2012, I established a Service Design Agency and helped IAG explore Design Thinking and re-imagine insurance. Since then I have formed teams, led projects, executed design, coached designers and championed the customer cause for around 50 organisations and almost every industry. I've learned so much about the challenges of integrating design into organisations from large corporates to startups, but we still have so much to learn as a discpline and design profession. I'm now recognised as 1 of 15 international CX Experts by the CXPA and help mentor other CX professionals to further help establish the discipline.
That's enough about me, I'd love to hear about the challenges and opportunities that face your organisation, your people and your customers.