In the course of our consulting work, we've helped hundreds of companies.  With each new client, we often start by asking one simple question: "What do you want your customers to feel and experience when they are interacting with you?"  Seems easy enough to answer, right?  Perhaps - but here's the catch: We ask people to limit their answer to three words.

- Roy Barnes and Bob Kelleher, Customer Experience for Dummies

If you are reading this blog (thank you), most likely you have already spent a good bit of time thinking about the experiences of your customers.  So this activity should be easier for you to complete than for others.  But even if you can easily give a strong answer, the activity still has a lot of power.  Once you've done it yourself, ask several other people in your organization to answer the question, both within your department and in other areas.  Then consider:

• In what ways are their answers similar?
• How are their answers different from yours?  
• Why are they different (and sometimes very, very different)?
• Do the differences give you any good ideas?  For example, is one department/group's focus something that might lead you all in a new direction?
• Do the differences point to any problems?  Is one department/group focusing on something it shouldn't?
• Can you use what you all consider to be the "best" three word descriptions to help motivate or guide you personally and as a group?