Creating Human Value in Buildings

It seems in our collective haste to streamline and automate our lives we have overlooked our basic emotional needs which have not changed in millennia. 

Humans have evolved through many economic stages as societies develop from trading in basic commodities to placing value on services and knowledge.  Increasingly, these services use automation and technology to attract customers.  Many digital businesses, like Google and Amazon, have developed a whole proposition through delivering existing content, like books, faster and cheaper than traditional businesses. Yet conventional bookshops are still thriving.  Similarly, at an airport, business-class check-in is still predominantly a people-centric process, when it could have been easily automated along with economy. Why is this?  Whilst automation reduces cost and can make the experience easy, people still place enormous value on human interaction.  Many organisations lament that when reaching the end of their transformation programme, realise that ‘actually, it’s all about the people’.  It seems in our collective haste to streamline and automate our lives we have overlooked our basic emotional needs which have not changed in millennia.  With this in mind, the fourth revolution may be a reversion to the economy of the human experience. 

For any given experience typically half the value is on ‘what you do’ and the other half on ‘how you do it’ - how you make the customers feel.  We have seen this across different sectors but particularly so in organisations that society values.  Often emotional engagement turns out to be the main driver of sustained brand loyalty.  Frequently, this comes down to people.  If organisations are seen to be unfair to people this can have a significant adverse affect on how they are perceived.  For example, we see organisations suffer reputational damage from poorly handling a customer with a disability or inclusion needs which can spread quickly on social media.  This is why complaints are so damaging for an organisation; overall brand trust diminishes as customers think this could happen to them next.

The challenge is to know where people add value to any customer interaction and when to automate. 

Customers want automation and simplicity but they also need people to make them feel welcome and help them engage. The role of building design teams is to understand how to make these human interactions flourish.  For example, the most important part of any experience is the beginning and the end.  In terms of design, this means that the first 10 metres upon entering a building is where the initial expectation is set.  Get this right and chances are the rest will be perceived well; just like any other human interaction.  Orientation points also need to be identified so information and guidance can be provided when customers needs it.  Similarly, ticket desks or barriers need to be designed to minimise queues, thereby saving time, operational cost and space. Creating an intuitive and easy flow through a building allows the customer head-space to take in retail and branding that would otherwise be invisible amid the anxiety of getting to where they want to go. For design, this means promoting travel in straight lines and understanding the need to set expectations on the various steps on their journey. To see it as one experience.

The design of the building is dependent on understanding processes and automation but also how to enable human interactions that customers will value and remember.  Get that right and the business benefits will look after themselves .