How different would meetings in your organisation be if a customer was present in each one? What proportion of your meetings would lead to a better result if there was?
And would that improvement be entirely due to what the customer said in that meeting? Or might it be because of what your people think she might say?
Clearly it is impractical, and even undesireable, to have an actual customer present in all your meetings. But being continually aware of the customer, and their perspective, is almost universally helpful in the long run.
Increasing virtual customer presence
And while a living breathing customer may not be viable, a virtual customer is always available. And very easy to include in online meetings.
The way it works is this:
- Include a virtual customer using the meeting invitation link. The technical options for doing this are listed below.
- ‘Welcome’ the virtual customer and explain their interest in the topic at the start of the meeting
- During the meeting, people may feel that the customer will have a view on what is being said. If so they message it in chat – either to the leader, or to everyone
- The leader can then invite that person to speak for/as the virtual customer on that point
- If the customer has not ‘spoken’ for 15 minutes, the leader can intervene. She could ask if the group thinks the customer would be happy or concerned at this point in the meeting. And the reason why.
- At the end of the meeting, invite one of the group to speak on behalf of the virtual customer in the review.
keeping mindful of customer perspectives
In a physical meeting, I have seen this technique used in Siemens to great effect. They simply created a chair in the meeting with the customer’s name on it. The meeting doesn’t have to focus on the customer. All that is required is that the group is mindful of these customer perspectives. A good group, one that is educated on the importance of the customer, will then adjust its thinking to suit.
broadening to other perspectives
Of course the thinking does not have to stop at the customer. Depending on the topic being addressed, you can include many other perspectives in this way:
- Ecology – perhaps by inviting a virtual Sir David Attenborough.
- Society – perhaps Mother Theresa could take that role.
- Systematic thinking – perhaps a virtual Peter Senge or Richard Feynman might be available.
- Values, suppliers, the next generation, future historians, future us, … whatever you need.
As a general rule, don’t add more than two to any meeting, and ring the changes. Try to find the most appropriate guests for the team and the topic. And personify them – either as a well know character (real or fictitious) or as a constructed persona. For example, one that you might use in a marketing exercise.In a physical meeting you create them a place and a name card. Or you might even consider a silhouette or a pictorial cutout.
Technical options
In an online meeting, including a virtual customer is even easier. There are a number of options open to you. It depends on the online services you have available, and how adventurous you want to be.
Four technical options for including a virtual customer
- First join the meeting as yourself. Then simply join the meeting a second time. Name this second ‘you’ either by the virtual customer role, or as the virtual character. Depending on your set-up you are likely to need to do this via a second browser. So if you normally use edge, use chrome, or vice versa. This is so you don’t confuse the cookies. If you have a second webcam connected, you can use this for your virtual persona, and point it at an appropriate picture. (Pixabay and Wikimedia are great sources of free images)
- If you have a second device available, you can use this to log in your virtual persona via the meeting link. Again, point the webcam at an appropriate image. Or alternatively, if you have access to a second email address, you can perhaps set up a free account for your conference software via that email. You can then include the image as the profile picture for that account. And, in later meetings, you have an easy option to reflect a different role and persona. Simply update the name and picture in the profile of that account.
virtual stakeholder – virtual webcam
- But you may not have access to a second device or webcam. In this case, you can use OBS to create a virtual webcam. OBS is free software available through the OBS Project. It enables you to create virtual webcam content from a window or area of your screen. You can then selected this virtual webcam as the video source for your virtual persona in 1 above. The approach is explained in more detail here: https://lukespear.co.uk/blog/share-desktop-as-webcam-in-obs-loopback/
- Provide all your meeting attendees with a set of colourful backdrop pngs. These can be labelled with the virtual personas you may want to have reflected. At each meeting, nominate one or two of your attendees to take responsibility for the virtual roles. Ask them to use the relevant png as their virtual background. They then play their normal part in the meeting, but keep the persona in mind also. At any point in the meeting, they can be asked for the persona’s perspective.
These personas will do much to keep your meetings mindful and reflective of these important perspectives. And they also have another great advantage. They make the content of your meetings more memorable.
Would you like to pursue the idea of personas and customer understanding beyond these strategies? If so, we would encourage you to contact Jonathan Bannister at MakeHappy.
Track your progress to ensure the efficacy of this strategy.