{"id":616,"date":"2020-12-10T14:50:21","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T12:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/?p=616"},"modified":"2020-12-10T14:50:21","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T12:50:21","slug":"on-conceptualizing-alignment-with-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.hanken.fi\/cers\/2020\/12\/10\/on-conceptualizing-alignment-with-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"On conceptualizing \u2018alignment with customers\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I share\nwith you, the reader, a part of my journey as I am working on one conceptual\npaper for my PhD related to customers and ecosystems. This article is also on the\nmeaning of words, especially high-mileage words that we frequently take for\ngranted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Being\nimmersed in the practice of service design, and now in literature anchoring\ncustomers as starting points for business, I frequently encounter the commercial\nimperative of \u2018aligning with customers\u2019<\/strong>, or the quasi-theoretic\npropulsion to understand and align with the<\/strong> customer\u2019s logic<\/strong> – the\nlogic implicating “the interconnectedness of customer activities,\ncustomer reasoning and the idiosyncratic patterns of customer behaviour”;\n“the basis of value-in-use, offerings and, in essence, business\nsuccess”<\/em>  <\/em>(Heinonen &\nStrandvik, 2015).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my imagination,\n\u2018aligning with the customer\u2019 sounded quite complex, perhaps as intricate as our\nhuman experience can be, and so the concept had to be multi-dimensional and operating\nat multiple levels. My reasoning was that as individuals, we have our ever-shifting,\n\u2018inner\u2019 mental-emotional and embodied worlds, as well as our \u2018outward\u2019\nbehavioural worlds. We also find ourselves embedded in a dynamic world of people,\nnature, and things. And so to align with an individual potentially implicates the\nwhole lot, particularly that which is relevant to the individual in a given\ncontext.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Complex\ncustomer ecosystems<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking the\nexample of a healthcare service, the customer context may involve a wide array\nof actors consequential to the health service: professional caregivers, other coordinating\nactors and the systems supporting the service journey; the patient\u2019s close ones,\na rehabilitation facility, a nutritionist, in addition to various collectives that\nthe patient participates in and which may significantly interact with the health\nservice process. We can call this configuration the patient or \u2018customer\necosystem\u2019<\/strong>, a term spearheaded by our colleagues at Hanken\n(Customer-Dominant Logic, Heinonen et al., 2010), and which is very helpful for\nunderstanding how a customer actually derives value out of an offering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But aligning\nwith the customer is not only about taking stock of the actors influencing the\ncustomer\u2019s world (i.e. the customer ecosystem), it also means aligning with the\nall-encompassing \u2018customer logic\u2019 which unfolds within that ecosystem of actors.\nThis includes aligning with the institutional backdrop underlying the customer\nexperience (e.g. culture, norms, values, and roles), the customer\u2019s resources and\ncapabilities, her expectations and desires, activities, practices, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I\nenvisioned the customer logic to be embedded in the customer ecosystem, my\nfirst challenge was to find a way to research and organize the various\ndimensions of this logic, while situating it in the appropriate locus, and from\nthe customer\u2019s point of view. The second challenge was to tie the customer logic\ninto the focal service system; in other words, to connect \u2018aligning with the\ncustomer\u2019 from the micro (customer) level to the service provider and wider\nlevels (meso and macro). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope to\nfurther develop my alignment framework and share it soon enough! It should represent\nthe multi-dimensionality of alignment with customers and capture some\nfacilitators of alignment, helping to expand one\u2019s thinking about the complex inter-dependence\nof actors and services. For now, I continue this article with a fundamental question\nI have yet to fully resolve. The question pertains to the alignment \u2018mechanism\u2019\nitself \u2013 i.e. what does \u2018alignment\u2019 actually mean?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does\nalignment mean?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a\nstarting point, here are some definitions and synonyms for alignment: to bring into cooperation or agreement\nwith (politics); arrangement in a straight line or the proper positioning or\nstate of adjustment of parts in relation to each other; congruence,\ncoextension, adjustment, alliance.<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alignment\nhas been used in diverse literature. One example is organizational strategic alignment\nwhich looks at the fit between external market conditions, and an\norganization\u2019s internal resources and functional units (Goepp & Avila, 2015). Another example is Carl Rogers\u2019s self-congruency\ntheory in psychology which describes the alignment between a person\u2019s ideal\nself and their actual experience. The latter is also adapted to marketing as\nself-congruity theory (Sirgy, 2018) describing the comparison between a consumer\u2019s\nbrand perceptions with their social ideals and self-concept; this has been\nfound to be a useful predictor of consumer attitudes and purchase intention\n(e.g. Aaker, 1999). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it\nappears, even though the concept is quite general, alignment has been useful in\ndescribing a wide range of strategic, perceptive, and cognitive \u2018matching or\nfitting\u2019. This may exist between a customer and a brand, between a company and\nits market, between a company\u2019s internal or external parts (e.g. inter-functional\nunits; networks), or even alignment within one\u2019s own experience (ideal vs.\nactual self). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Attunement,\na complementary concept<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To add further\nnuance, the phenomologist\u2019s concept of \u2018attunement\u2019 was suggested to me during\na presentation of my topic, and indeed I have found it quite insightful. German\nphilosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) referred to phenomenological attunement\n(Befindlichkeit) as a fundamental way of\nbeing-in-the-world that filters any experience by \u2018moods\u2019 – all <\/strong>human experience, thinking included, is\nattuned by moods (from DeLancey\u2019s (2014) analysis).<\/strong> In other words,\n\u201ccertain moods or emotions shape what matters to a human being, and as a result\nshape the very way that the world is revealed.\u201d (DeLancey, 2014). Counter to a\nhomo-rationalis view, this suggests that human experience is always affective,\nnever simply representational \u2013 what is experienced somehow always matters to\nus, thanks to moods. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Phenomenological\nattunement was applied by Ashworth et al. (1992) to the context of healthcare\nparticipation. They expanded on dynamics for the attunement of health professionals\nand patients to one other, favourable for patient participation. Specifically,\nthey argue for: both parties sharing in a mutual stock of knowledge \u2013 a sort of\ninformation symmetry and sense-making mechanism; both attuning emotionally\nand motivationally to the other\u2019s concern which \u201centails awareness of, and\nempathy for, the other\u2019s personal investments\u201d <\/em>in the situation (p. 1434); attaining\na state where each party takes for granted that one\u2019s contribution will be received\nas worthy of consideration by the other, regardless of agreement or\ndisagreement; and that one does not feel that their identity is under threat,\nbecause of fitting poorly into some role expectations. Talk about an ideal\nstate for inter-relating!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fisk et al. (2019) nicely capture the essence of this with their call\nfor \u2018transformational collaboration\u2019 which \u201coccurs when all participants are\nable to make contributions at their full human potential… <\/em>It is<\/em> the highest form of co-creation<\/em>\u201d (p. 198). Under such an inclusive or holistic imperative, aligning with\ncustomers, or humans really, carries forth an inspirational overtone echoing a\ncall for higher awareness to transform our services for more inclusion, well-being\nand societal welfare (Fisk et al., 2018). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I learned from this is that aspiring\ntheoretically and planning strategically to engage a stakeholder and garner participation\nis not enough. It is vital to be open to considering their psychological processes\nwhich, often times, are rooted in their socio-economic and educational background.\nProper attunement instils feelings of safety and trust which may produce \u201ctaken\nfor granted\u201d feelings that one is a worthy human being. From a phenomenological\nsense, alignment may thus contribute to an evolving collective paradigm of\nconnectedness and mutualism (Fisk et al., 2019).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, there are other dimensions for\nalignment such as alignment of values and morals, alignment with respect to worldviews\nand desired outcomes, alignment of processes, personal preferences and idiosyncrasies,\netc.  But to wrap up here, hesitantly, I now\nhave my customer, going about her daily life, forming some value out of a\nservice, through an array of mental-emotional and socially-situated embodied experiences.\nAnd to be aligned with my customer, the panopticon of my service has to open up\nto truly consider her multi-dimensionality; to have it integrated throughout my\nbusiness so that my mental models, my business logic, my processes and\nresources are attuned accordingly to what can be described as the customer\nlogic. This attunement should, in theory, and in practice, be conducive to a satisfactory\nwin-together state of affairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for accompanying me thus far and\nallowing me to share on this journey!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fares Khalil<\/a>
Doctoral student<\/p>\n\n\n\n

References<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n