Inside Your Customer’s Imagination

This is a fantastic book on partnering with customers to create something neither of you could have created on your own. Companies who find themselves being commoditized, and want to develop a profoundly new and different type of partnership with their customers will find it particularly valuable. The insights, frameworks, tools and exercises in the book will help you develop new ways of serving and pleasing customers.

For example, I loved Bells exercise in which you list “stupid things we think they do” and “stupid things they think we do”. This is brilliant. Another exercise I found helpful is creating the lists of adjectives, characters, odd views, famous people etc.to spur creative thoughts when you are ideating with your customer.

The sections on “partnering with the whole truth,” “innovation work agreements”, and tips for how to deal with the inevitable ‘partnership glitches” are very helpful. For example, Bell explains ways to share information with your customer, such as revealing “ways I typically hinder [or help] a partnership” and “my concerns about being part of this one”. I have not seen this in other books, and I believe it would be powerful. The concept that productivity in a partnership is born of discipline is key to Bells approach.

I loved his examples about getting kids involved in the customer ideation this is a great idea that I havent seen companies using.

Bell also talks about driving fear out of the workplace. This is a crucial concept, that I explore in my own way in my book Fearless Growth (for more on this, check out HBS professor Amy Edmondsons work on psychological safety).

The authors use of metaphors (e.g. “grandmother-style service”) is helpful in illustrating his points.

This is practical, inspiring book about partnering with customers to pursue innovation together.

As a facilitator of myriad customer experience conversations, journeys, and maps, I have always been interested in this idea of “co-creation” to develop new products and services in a collaborative way. Rather than assuming we know what the customer wants or needs, hosting focus groups, or creating customer advisory boards, what about asking a specific client to partner in the “co-creation” of a new product or service offering?

Chip Bell, in his latest book, Inside Your Customer’s Imagination: 5 Secrets for Creating Breakthrough Products, Services, and Solutions a playbook for identifying and collaborating with your customers.

This book is a treasure trove of ideas and real-world examples to tap into your customer’s brilliance. Not all of them will resonate with you – but it’s a great springboard for thinking about YOU can create partnerships with your customers!

And how do you do that?

It starts with inviting and attracting their creative contributions by “communicating to your marketplace that you are a resource for experimentation and thus open to collective discovery.” You then begin to build the relationship by clarifying the collective focus and agreeing on the guardrails – even before you start whiteboarding a plan and crafting the ideas!

The main thesis of the book is that “a co-creation partnership takes 1) curiosity that uncovers insight, 2) grounding the promotes clear focus, 3) discover that fosters risk-taking and experimentation, 4) trust that safeguards partnership purity and wholeness, and 5) passion that inspires energized generosity. And the payoff? The journey leads to ingenious outcomes and a customer who emerges as an advocate.

Five elements seem like a lot, but Bell has broken each element down into bite-sized chunks with lots of actionable ideas and examples. It certainly got my wheels turning! It will become my new reference book for customer co-creation!

Back in the day, Tom Peters famously said, “if you give excellent customer service, you can have ALL the business.” Chip Bell has taken that mantra one giant step further — he has shown us how to do it!

First, he broadly defines the customer as anyone “who is the target of your offering.” This means that your customer includes anyone from the person who buys a cup of coffee from you to your employees, suppliers, vendors, advisors . . . the list goes on. The goal it to create co-equal partnerships that are authentic, genuine, curious and open because it is this mindset that leads to great insight and discovery. And this is the necessary environment for breakthroughs in new product and service offerings that your customers will love.

Once you accept this premise, Bell shares his Five Secrets for developing and maintaining Co-Creation Partnerships:
1. Curiosity — with curiosity comes insight, the necessary first step
2. Grounding — enables the satisfaction of the customer’s needs in the context of the organization’s (broadly
defined) mission.
3. Discovery — where the search for innovation welcomes the customer’s dreams.
4. Trust — a fundamental requirement of an open relationship that honors the customer’s ideas as the process
moves toward execution.
5. Passion — For the process to endure there must be admiration and recognition that will keep the
relationship a true co-equal partnership.

Partnerships, like any appliance, require periodic check-ups. And Bell includes A Partnership Checkup which includes such questions as:
— How often do you go beyond what your customers expect in a relationship?
— How often do you take a loss to help out a customer or colleague?
I can see using this list of questions to facilitate a very lively and useful discussion in your organization.

You will also find another application exercise — a case study of a junior high school student’s lemonade stand where you (and your group) are challenged to apply the 5 Secrets to this scenario with the goal of co-creating a lemonade stand with your customers. A serious fun activity.

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