Even though I don’t play PS games and never did, I am definitely my partner’s provider when it comes to PS3 videogames.

The game shop close to my house is well known and I am slowly becoming an expert on plots and structure of PS3 games.

I chased “Heavy rain” for more than 3 weeks: the reviews of the game were excellent and experts were forecasting a new era in the world of videogames.

Last Saturday I finally found it and when I got home I suggested my partner to immediately give a look at the new game. We opened the box and, together with the disc and the game booklet, we found a squared piece of paper supposedly dirty with blood…we looked at each other puzzled…

When the installation of the game begins a request appears on the screen: get the squared piece of paper and click here. And step by step you are taught how to create an origami…that exactly resembles the origami that is found on the dead bodies of the victims in the game. By the time the origami is ready, the boring installation is over and you can start playing.

As I already mentioned, I am not a videogame fan, but I consider myself a marketer and I was enchanted by this simple however involving customer experience.

“Heavy rain” creators have focused on their customers and tried to be marketing oriented, this led them to:

• find a way to entertain their clients during a very boring, sometimes long but still necessary phase;
• create a bond between the players and the game already before the game started;
• set the atmosphere, connecting the player to the origami creator in the game.

Since we enthusiastically enjoy such experiences as customers, as marketers we should also ask ourselves – and our clients – if we are able to create similar enchanting experiences for our own clients.

To be able to invent great customer experiences, first of all we need to make sure we ask some key questions:

• what is the customer experience with my product/service based on?
• what can I improve to make the experience more valuable?
• what should I do or add to make the experience simply delightful?
• how can I create some kind of connection between the client and my company (product, service) so that he/she will never forget about the experience?

Did you and your company ask yourselves the above mentioned questions? And how did you find answer to them?

photo: freefoto.com