Inside Your Customer's Imagination: 5 Secrets for Creating Breakthrough Products, Services, and Solutions

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Organizations need to offer customers breakthrough products, services, and solutions to effectively compete in today’s innovation-hungry economy. The challenge is customers often don’t know precisely what they want. As Henry Ford is reputed to have said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

To surprise and awe your customers, Chip Bell advises developing co-creation partnerships with them. Co-creation partnerships are about fulfilling customers’ hopes and aspirations, not just their needs and expectations. Co-creation partnerships require (1) curiosity that uncovers insight, (2) grounding that promotes clear focus, (3) discovery that fosters risk-taking, (4) trust that safeguards partnership purity, and (5) passion that inspires energized generosity.

Using examples from organizations like McDonald’s, DHL, Marriott, Lockheed Martin, Discover Financial, Ultimate Software, and many more, Bell shows how co-creation partnerships enable you to tap into the treasure trove of ideas, ingenuity, and genius-in-the-raw within every customer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chip R. Bell is senior partner of the Chip Bell Group. For the sixth year in a row, Global Gurus in 2020 ranked him one of the top three keynote speakers in the world on customer service. Bell has appeared on CNBC, CNN, Fox Business, Bloomberg TV, ABC, CBS, and NPR, and his work has been featured in Fortune, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, USA Today, Success, Businessweek, Entrepreneur, Money, and Fast Company. He is a regular columnist for Forbes.com, MoneyInc.com, CEOWORLD Magazine, Real Leaders, and TheCEOMagazine.com.