If I was to express what it is that I’m passionate about in this industry, my answer would be creating great experiences and leaving lasting impressions says Elliott Moores, head of global strategy at Visavvi, part of Saville Group.
I once read that the greatest currency you have in the life is the impact you have on others. This is now the mantra I have every day.
As a deep thinker, I am naturally wired to look at things differently and challenge the traditional thought processes that clients have when creating experiences within the workplace.
An experience is defined as “an event or occurrence which leaves an impression on someone”
If this is the case, then our role is not to install displays, conferencing peripherals and switchers into corporate meeting facilities or design LED Wall’s for the atrium of an education campus.
Our role is to develop methods of using technology to engage at an emotional level, leaving a lasting impression through a positive experience for people– everything else is irrelevant.
In my time in the industry I’ve seen evidence of businesses that focus on being the largest or making the most money and losing visibility of the core reason for their existence; to deliver exceptional experiences for their clients. This in the long term reduces their loyalty to and from clients. Whilst I am not naïve enough to think that remaining profitable is not important (it is!) it should be as a result of working towards a more “Just cause” and not the company’s sole purpose.
The challenge for any business is maintaining that naked and honest belief whilst trying to remain competitive in a market that has a finite mindset.
You may be wondering where I am going with this, but my point is that delivering great technical experiences for clients comes from delivering great experiences within our own business. If System Integrators are bought into the right belief system that what your doing is about more than any one finite target, they will be motivated to deliver a positive emotional impact to someone at the other end of the process through the services they provide.
One example is a recently install of a large boardroom solution for a client in the U.S and with the first meeting in this space scheduled for the following week, it fell to the executive assistant to prepare the room on the day.
Through getting to know her during our time completing the installation I knew that she had recently just started the job after being unemployed for some time due to a personal injury, - I knew that she was anxious about being unqualified or inexperienced and was worried that she was going to mess it up.
So, as you can imagine, the prospect of all the company’s senior staff congregating in a new space that she is responsible for preparing, was daunting for her.
The solution we installed had been subject to a thorough testing process prior to getting to site and we had taken all the steps to ensure the project and system completed on time without any issues.
On the day of sign off, we trained her on the systems features and controls and walked her through how it works and which pre-sets to use depending on where people were sat etc, and after a few questions, we left leaving her with contact details should she need us on the day.
We didn’t hear anything, so the day after the meeting we contacted her, and she expressed her gratitude to us as the meeting had been a huge success and ran without any issues. Several senior staff congratulated her on the space, its delivery and performance and -you could plainly hear in her voice it had left her confident and empowered.
We often look at experience as something that is only achieved by the person using the technology but, as I said, I believe that our job is to leave a positive lasting impression on anyone who come into contact with us or our work - technology deployment is just the means of delivering that impression and creating that experience.
In order to stick to support this belief system you must have a culture of your own that promotes working towards a cause that is elevated above all other finite financial metrics.
To conclude, the key to delivering great experiences for your clients is embedding a “Just Cause” culture amongst your staff.