Success is what customers want! They want to perform well, achieve excellence, and realize the value they expect from the goods and services they purchase. To ensure customers performance, companies must design experiences with that goal in mind. The principles of vision, access, incentive, and expertise form the foundation for what we call coproduction experiences.

Through coproduction experiences, managers can ensure the conditions for customer performance are favorable. Here's an example. When Southwest Airlines implemented its e-commerce strategy – southwest.com – in the 1990’s, customers were set up for success. With regards to vision, various promotional channels communicated to customers an attractive, novel goal – book your own tickets. For access, the web site itself provided the tool and a simple interface for completing transactions. The incentive to perform was the double Rapid Reward credit, which enabled customers to earn free flights twice as fast. Finally, expertise was provided by step-by-step booking instructions available on the site. In 2005, Southwest Airlines reported that over 65% of its revenue was generated by southwest.com. The customer conditioning was so successful that Southwest was able to eliminate the Rapid Rewards incentive without negatively impacting the site’s revenue percentage.

Expertise reflects the knowledge and skills customers must possess to do the work the coproduction experience requires.

Companies can choose from a variety of customer education solutions to build the expertise of customers. Typically, customers start their journey toward expertise with basic tools, such as an instruction manual. This familiarizes the customers with the product and points them in the direction of initial success. Embedded tools in the product, such as user assistance or voice-driven prompts, provide just-in-time knowledge for the task. If the customer runs into problems during execution of the task, problem tools, such as a telephone customer service representative, help the customer navigate troublespots. When put together, these three tools focus primarily on the helping the customer develop the minimum expertise necessary to achieve initial success with goods and services.

For longer-term development and expertise enhancement, two other tools come into play. Premium tools, which typically involve formal training, are included in the system if tasks associated with the product are very complex or require physical skill. Support tools, such as web-based information and tutorials, focus on aiding the customer in the ongoing development of expertise.