Today’s interview is with Richie Manu, who is Programme Director (Culture & Enterprise) at University of the Arts London, a multi-award-winning lecturer, a designer, creative consultant and author. Richie joins me today to talk about how the student and educator experience has changed over the last few months, what customer experience means to him and design-led, creative businesses and art entrepreneurs and what the future of experience looks like from his perspective.

This interview follows on from my recent interview – Proactive support is the holy grail of customer support – Interview with Paul Adams of Intercom – and is number 363 in the series of interviews with authors and business leaders that are doing great things, providing valuable insights, helping businesses innovate and delivering great service and experience to both their customers and their employees.

Here’s the highlights of my chat with Richie:

• The last few months have forced us to take nothing for granted.
• One of the first things we recognised is that you can’t replicate the physical space online. And, that’s one of the biggest assumptions and probably one of the biggest mistakes any of us could make.
• Customer experience doesn’t have a full stop.
• Customer service is a continued dialogue and partnership with clients.
• Artists who find themselves in a saturated space are using things like video to help provide customers an insight into the creative process and that has helped them differentiate themselves whilst also keeping them tethered to their craft and their creativity.
• This has helped them increase engagement but also develop better relationships between themselves and their customers.
• Natalie Nahai is demonstrating a lot of that as he’s studying art in Barcelona as well as doing her day job!
• Bread Ahead, founded by Matthew Jones, is another example of a creative business that has embraced these new approaches, have adapted with the times and have added courses and elearning into what they do.
• If you put a full stop behind learning, it becomes a very, very different thing.
• It’s really important that learning isn’t seen as a kind of a solitary pursuit and that it’s seen as much more of a collective thing.
• It’s really important to be proactive but it’s also just as important to be reactive and respond to needs.
• Right now we are seeing individuals respond to social injustice, climate change and gender equality and that is brilliant. Many artists are being called upon to respond to these issues but many are choosing their time to respond as many say they are not ready yet. But, when they do their response will be valuable.
• Any organisation or individual needs to decide where they sit on the reactive-proactive spectrum and communicate their vision to a client or customer.
• I used to be decisive but now I am not so sure 😉
• Future equals digital.
• The future is going to be less about social media and more about connective media where brands are much more connected to their customers, particularly how they can gain trust and maintain trust.
• Richie’s Punk CX word(s): Creatively disruptive.
• Richie’s Punk CX brand: Roger Wade of BoxPark

About Richie

Richie is the Programme Director (Culture & Enterprise) at University of the Arts London as well as a multi-award-winning lecturer, designer, creative consultant and author.

He teaches the MA Applied Imagination course at Central St. Martins and also lectures at The London College of Fashion teaching MA Fashion Entrepreneurship.

In his professional practice, he works with many individuals and organisations to achieve targets and results for growth and advancement as well as acting as an advisor to start-ups and entrepreneurs devising strategies on standing out in competitive fields.

Richie also holds a Masters Degree in MA Design Studies and also a Post Graduate Certificate for Teaching in Higher Education and is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Authority. Richie has received numerous awards including the UAL Teaching Award which recognises teaching excellence and professionalism.

Finally, he is also the author of the best-selling book: You: Rebranded: be seen, be heard, get noticed.

Check out his personal website here, say Hi to him on Twitter @richiemanu and do connect with him on LinkedIn here.

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay