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Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.

Henry Ford

A lot of people misunderstand how computers play chess. They believe that the computer has an algorithm that calculates all possible outcomes for each move it could make, but this simply isn't possible. What they actually do is something much closer to what a human chess player does: they calculate some possible combinations of moves to a certain depth (say the next 20 moves), but just as important they use heuristics to assess which of these outcomes is more promising. Heuristics are rules of thumb that might be things like "which position leaves me with an advantage in pieces" or "which gives me more control of the centre of the board."

When it comes to service design, many organisations make a similar mistake. They think they can rely solely on an algorithmic approach to the customer experience, but again it's simply too complex when we're dealing with real human beings and the messy context of their real human lives.

Just like a chess player (human or robotic), good customer experience rests on striking the right balance between algorithmic and heuristic thinking.

Thanks for reading,

Stephen

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