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 customer 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.