Everyone’s heard the term “disruptor.” You think of companies like Google and Amazon. Companies that came onto the scene and completely upended how we do things.
With Google’s case, that was searching for and accessing information — a big upgrade from physically going to a library and taking a book off a shelf. In Amazon’s case, they made it possible to buy and book — and then anything — from your own home. Regardless of what was actually available nearby.
We’ve lived with these changes for so long that it all seems second nature. But that technological transition allowed these companies enormous success.
Experience Disruption
A big disruptor inherently disrupts experience. But you don’t need to have cutting-edge technology to disrupt experience. There’s a ton of room out there for companies in very traditional industries to break out of their pigeonholes and offer something that demands attention.
Think of the taxi industry. For decades, customers have been used to trying to flag down a taxi from the curb, or making a phonecall to get one sent out on the taxi company’s schedule.
The system worked, but you had no control over who happens to be driving down the street at the moment, and all-too-often you’d be told it’d be a 20 minute wait only to have to call back after an hour to find out where it is.
Then Uber showed up. They took existing technology like location tracking on phones, online booking systems, and online navigation, and combined it with the fact that there are a ton of vehicles that ordinarily go unused for the majority of the day, and they mixed it all together.
At the end of the day, the service Uber provides is the same as a traditional taxi company: they get you from one place to another. But the competitive edge they developed for themselves was all in the customer experience.
- Booking a ride takes a couple of taps
- You don’t have to manually say where you are
- You don’t have to get lucky on the street
- You don’t have to say a word
- The app figures out how to find a driver — meaning shorter wait times
- The app handles the payment for you
Uber looked at what it took to get from one place to another — and they removed the friction points.
How You Can Become an Experience Disruptor
So how do you do it? Will it work in the B2B world?
Of course it will.
As you sell your products and deliver your service, think about all the friction points your own process has. This could be everything from a sales process that has haphazard contract negotiations, to too many layers of management involved with the service delivery, to a cumbersome invoicing process.
Often, these friction points are not unique to you, but rampant throughout your industry. Because that’s just how business has been done in the past.
The simplest way of shaking things up as an experience disruptor is approach your business with a hospitality mindset. What things can you change in the process that, ultimately, make people more comfortable?
Because at the end of the day, every B2B company is staffed by people who will prefer doing business with companies that make it easier for them. So make it easy.
Getting Help with Experience Disruption
At Flawless Inbound, our specialty is B2B — and we’ve built in experience disruption as a key technique we use to make a difference for our clients.
And? We’ve adopted it ourselves, of course. We lead by example, and we show you exactly how you can apply the same mindset to win more customers simply by making it easy to do business. Work with us to find out how awesome you can make it to work with you.
