The Experience Economy

"Experiences are a fourth economic offering, as distinct from services as services are from goods, but one that has until now gone largely unrecognized."

"A self-fulfilling commoditization occurs whenever an organization fails to fully recognize the distinctions between higher-value offerings and pure commodities."

"All prior economic offerings remain at armslength, outside the buyer, while experiences are inherently personal."

"Manufacturers must focus on the experience customers have while _using_ their goods."

"As the Experience Economy gears up, people will look in new and different directions for more unusual experiences."

"Eventually, experience orchestration will become as much a part of doing business as product and process design are today."

"Your experience will never be worth an admission fee until you explore how to stop giving it away for free."

"Businesses that wish to forestall commoditization by entering the Experience Economy should first get their act together by customizing their goods and services."

"Variety is not the same as customization."

"Most customers are unable to articulate the gaps between what they settle for and what it is, exactly, that they want."

"The more the customer teaches the company, the better it can provide exactly what he wants."

"Mass Customization bids return to an axiom frequently ignored in the homogenized world of Mass Production: Each customer is unique."

"In the emerging Experience Economy, any work observed directly by a customer must be recognized as an act of theatre."

"An actor must behave in a manner consistent with that character or run the risk that the audience will disbelieve his act and lose interest in the offering."

"Merely completing an activity is not enough: some underlying motivation must invigorate the performance so that it ultimately affects the buyer of the final offering."

"Each of these four forms of theatre thus represents a different way of performing work, a different approach to plotting a sequence of events to generate economic output."

"The success of any business obviously relies on picking the right people to play various parts."

"Too many companies seem to passively observe their futures, failing to understand that it is their behavior that may be the strongest influence on developments in their industries."

"Any enterprise looking to stage experiences must discontinue its reliance on interviews as the dominant method of evaluation and must begin conducting auditions instead."

"Welcome to the commoditization of experiences, best exemplified by the increasingly voiced phrase, 'Been there, done that.'"

"Transformation elicitors must determine exactly the right set of life-transforming experiences required to guide aspirants in achieving their goals."

"When the offering becomes more intangible the value becomes more tangible."

"Extracting commodities out of the ground may be the most physically demanding practice, but eliciting transformations out of customers is the most intellectually demanding."

"Who or what does your business glorify?"