It seems like wherever you turn these days, new and shiny technologies are available to us – game changing solutions that can speed delivery and provide new capabilities. But when it comes to what consumers care about, it’s really the little things that add up to their decisions on who they interact with and buy from.

Consumers care about curb appeal
Let’s think about it from the perspective of buying a car. When you were looking for a new daily driver, did you decide which one to buy based on whether the car had a four-cylinder or V6 engine? Did you even pop the hood? Chances are, you assumed it would work as promised and instead focused on factors most important to you, such as cost, how the vehicle made you feel, what the interior looked like, the color, how many seats it had and ultimately how it fit in with your life.

The same can be said about the cloud and other technologies. Even with things like generative AI, the average person can’t explain how it works. But they know what it does and how they can use it to make their life better and automate tasks like putting together an itinerary for their upcoming vacation or creating to-do lists to manage their workload.

It isn’t the infrastructure or components of the product that most consumers care about – it’s the experience and outcome. That’s why we need to stop leading with the ‘how’ or ‘what’ of what we are selling and instead build and create with the ‘why’ in mind to ensure that you are engineering relevant and enduring consumer experiences.

Leave the work to the experts
While in the past many people knew how to change their oil, replace a spark plug or install a new fuel pump, that’s not as much the case today, as vehicles and their technology have advanced and gotten more complicated. Like modern experiences, when it comes to maintaining your vehicle today you don’t need to be thinking about the “what” or the “how” things get fixed, you can leave your car at the shop and entrust those tasks to an expert.

Again, the premise is the same as you work to bring new ideas to life. Like a mechanic or roadside assistance, working with a technology partner that has expertise in and can manage the technological foundation of product creation and iteration, gives you more time to focus on why you are building something, what needs you are fulfilling and what responses you are trying to elicit.

Our experience with experiences
Avanade is the metaphorical automaker, car dealer and mechanic, focused on driving genuine human impact through the power of Microsoft. Our experiences business group, Avanade X, works with companies to assess what they need, gain a better understanding of their consumers and determine what experiences they want to create. Once there is a clear north star, we set out to make it a reality by leveraging the right Microsoft technologies to bring those big, lifechanging ideas to life.

As the leading digital creative consultancy that specializes in Microsoft, we have experience helping our clients dream bigger, think bigger and experience more thanks to our deep knowledge and understanding of the Microsoft ecosystem. And that experience is growing as we expand our reach beyond North America as we add 2,500 Microsoft-dedicated digital professionals across Australia and Europe to support and build scalable customer and workplace experiences.

Make what matters
Just as consumers no longer feel the need to check under the hood and instead are most concerned about how their vehicle fits their needs and enhances their lifestyle, the future of how they interact with products and services is on the same path. People trust the platform, assume it works and instead focus on design, simplicity and how it works for them.

Trust your experiences with Avanade X like you trust your car with the dealership. Tell us your “why” of what want to achieve, and we’ll focus on the technological “how” and “what” to meet your goal.

Want to learn more about how we can help you make what matters and create relevant and enduring experiences to accelerate growth? Learn about our work across customer experience, workplace experience, and digital products and services.