Changing the business narrative: a guide to successful experience offerings

Abstract

PurposeIn this article, we aim to increase understanding of the unique nature of experiences in comparison to services and explain how narrative change can enable organizations to fully participate in the experience economy.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon relevant experience design and experience economy literatures the paper outlines key differences between experiences and services. The narrative change process is then employed to provide managers specific guidelines for strategically reframing their value production paradigm to become more experience-centric.Findingsrticulating key elements of an organization’s narrative such as characters and intended outcomes allows an organization to more intentionally change their narrative to align with the experience economy.Practical/implicationsThe essential outcome of an experience is that participants do something for themselves ? for example, learn a new skill. Participation is integral to every experience transaction.Originality/valueAlthough Pine, Gilmore, and others have detailed the differences between experiences and services, definitional disagreements and oversimplifications of these concepts still exist. This paper further differentiates these economic offerings. Additionally, this paper is the first to integrate the narrative change process into a discussion about experience strategy.