I recently completed my first half-marathon. I am not a regular runner but decided to participate in “Rock ‘n’ Roll” marathon in San Jose. It sounded like a fun thing to do. I did prepare for about five months and was quite ready for the challenge. What I didn’t expect was that running this race would be so much fun.

Now the monkey is off my back, I’m thinking to myself, what a great experience I had. This organization really knows how to create this amazing vibrant atmosphere with 9000+ runners, thousands of volunteers, spectators, dozens of bands along the race course. But the actual experience started long before the race day.

From the time I registered, I started getting support in the form of email newsletters that educated me and kept me motivated. The emails had content that was relevant to me as a novice runner. There was information ranging from training programs to shoe types. Articles on nutrition, injury prevention, after training recovery and training aids. It was like getting on an apprenticeship program where you learn and do at the same time. I felt that the information was for designed just for me and this race is right for me. It never occurred to me that on the race day there would be half a dozen Olympians running the same race.

Since this was my first half-marathon I didn’t know what to expect and I had nothing to compare it against. But I must say, I was really, really impressed with the details that they went into to create a perfect experience for the runners. From salt packets at the start-line to ice-packs at the finish-line, it seems they had gone into minutia in order to design the right experience for their runners. Not to mention a glass of beer at the end of the race. That was a nice touch!

The organisers had the right mix of technology, personalization and crowd-sourcing to make this event a success. In addition to race timing chips that are common these days for measuring the lap times, they had collaborated with another company for a mobile app that your loved ones can use and monitor your progress during the race.

As the race went through the neighborhoods, the residents were outside on their lawn chairs cheering the crowds and many offering the runners doughnuts and muffins through the run. Of course, the organizers didn’t ask them to do this; it was the feeling of community and belongingness among the runners, and the neighborhood that took pride in ‘hosting’ the race.

There are dozens of other experiences that I’d like to write about, but may be you need to join me next time around to see for yourself. One thing is for sure, they knew their runners very well. They knew the runners’ needs before, during and after the race. They know the segmentation – novice, advanced, professional or local and out of station. And for each segment of runners how to create an experience that suite their particular need. A job well done indeed!

I believe businesses can learn a lot from this event. All customers are not same, once you have a right segmentation, you understand them better. Know the customers’ needs and aspirations, and provide differentiated experience to them. Customer experience is not a single interaction with the company but a journey. The whole experience matters – pre-sales, sales process and post-sales support. The experience you create has many actors and all are not your employees. They include your partners, your suppliers and others customers of yours. Leverage the whole community to create the desired experience.

Best thing I remember about the race is that throughout the race (which could have been an arduous drudgery) I had a smile on my face and I finished in a time better than I expected: 2 hours 10 minutes.

(Ajay Khanna is Senior Director, Product Marketing, KANA)

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