The EPIC solutions framework creates a progression to a clear and compelling brand promise to transform what your people say (promise) and what they do (performance) and have positive consistency: 

consistent familiarity, which leads to trust. 
future projects defined using customer-based principles, 
operations that keep customers at the heart,
services that are customer-centred,
new approaches that lead to achieving agreements with customers and stakeholders, and
engaging and communicating consistently and effectively.

Empathy 

WHAT OUR CUSTOMERS NEED AND WANT
Customer empathy mapping helps individuals within a group step out of their own perspectives and desires, and into what the customer wants, needs and values. Building a customer empathy map helps focus on the right things. Vita Brevis facilitates empathy mapping,  working with your team to identify what customers see and hears, what they think and how they feel about your organisation and its products and services , what pains them, and what gains they could have, if things were different.

DO WE NEED TO DO FIELD WORK?
How good a feel do you have you’re your customers? 
Your answer to this question has a bearing on the work needed prior to empathy mapping. 

Empathy Champions on boardSome organisations have staff who confidently know the customer. They’re out there day after day, talking to people. They have a great sense of what people are thinking and they have their ears to the ground and hear what people are saying. They already know what customers want and need. 
They just need senior leaders to listen to them. Organisations with staff like this are truly blessed – you can’t achieve in a few weeks of field research what these empathy champions have spent a career listening and learning.

We have some holes in our knowledge to fillMost organisations can hand on heart say they know some of their customers’ needs, but probably have a few blind spots. Some field work can help fill in the gaps in knowledge. Vita Brevis can work with you in the field, talking to customer groups to build your empathy knowledge base. 

Positioning 

HOW WE ARE UNIQUELY CREATED TO DELIVER FOR CUSTOMERS

Positioning assists in establishing  a unifying customer strategy for product and service development and customer service principles.
 
Positioning is an articulation of how your brand fulfils its purpose in a way that is unique, relevant to important audiences, and defensible through rational evidence. 

Positioning considers not just what the customer needs, wants and values, but also the expectations of wider governance and funding bodies. It is an expression of what your organisation is uniquely designed to deliver to meet customers’ needs. 
Creating a positioning statement is accomplished through a facilitated workshop, which also serves to galvanise team members and fosters agreement to core purpose. 

Here are some examples of positioning statements:NZDF Limited Service Volunteer ProgrammeTo young people who want to get a job that they enjoy, Limited Service Volunteer is the motivational programme that teaches routine, self-discipline and confidence through a structured, positive environment.
NZTA CyclingTo make cycling safer for all network users, NZ Transport Agency Cycling is an investment, infrastructure and user behavior programme that provides leadership in balancing the needs of cyclists with other transport infrastructure users through partnership; guidance; and end-to-end focus from strategy and vision through to best practice delivery; streamlining innovation and optimising benefits across networks.

INSIGHT 

HOW WE IDENTIFY WITH OUR UNIQUE DIFFERENCE FOR CUSTOMERS

Positioning is a dispassionate statement and often a bit soulless, but it’s clear and useful as an internal focusing tool. Vita Brevis looks for the key insight that emerges from empathy, positioning and character conversations. It’s this insight that captures the emotional heart and soul that will unify the group. 

Capturing insight is a bit like catching a butterfly: it’s fragile and illusive and easily missed. Our CE is highly skilled and naturally gifted at catching insights. Her Meyers-Briggs profile is E-N-F-P: Extrovert – iNtuitive – Feeling – Perceiving. It’s her super-power and it can’t be workshopped, rather, it is a coming together moment of all the conversations and sense-making achieved with customers and in the EPIC workshops. 

Here’s an example:NZ Army key Insight Honour-Able

Honour: 	
Trustworthy; selfless; respectful; reliable; culturally empathetic; service before selfAble:	
Professional; brave; expert; capable; smart; tough; efficient; agile; looks after mates*

CHARACTER

HOW WE DEMONSTRATE OUR DIFFERENCE AND BUILD RELATIONSHIPS OF TRUST EVERY DAY
Customers relate to organisations similarly to how they relate to people – through personal experiences that foster ongoing relationships built on trust. 

The more consistent and positive the experiences customers have, the stronger the bond is forged. Improving the consistency of positive experience doesn’t happen by chance. For many organisations it is a deliberately planned part of the customer strategy.

The final piece of the EPIC Solutions framework is Character. Character provides everyone with a virtual role model for how engage as one, reflecting the promise of the positioning in ways that they can model every day in their interactions. These common ways that customers interact with your people become predictable and familiar – and familiarity is the basis for building trust. 

Character is what drives the tone and manner of communications and marketing materials. In a facilitated workshop, participants agree on Behaviours that characterise your organisation and brand, Traits that influence behaviour, and Values that underpin character. 

This work is not about throwing the good away and starting over. If you have a strong and well-defined values set, this work would support that values set’s capacity for furthering customer relationships. The result is a description of your brand in human terms that exemplifies the relationship your people are expected to have with other organisations, stakeholders and the community. 

Here's an example of why Character is important:NZ Army CharacterHonour-AbleThe Character promise is that the people of New Zealand can go about their lives without care for their and the nation’s security in full and complete trust that the NZ Army is capable and competent to have their back at all times, in all situations.*

Character is a short-hand for behaviour decisions. For the NZ Army, when a soldier is in doubt about what to do, she can ask herself, ‘is this decision honour-able?’ This memory device helps to make decisions more consistently in line with the desired Character.

When behaviours are consistent in all interactions, relationships of trust are built. Here’s an example:
NZ Army Relationship with its CustomerYou take me for granted, and I’m proud you can.You live free to speak, to work, to innovate and grow and be; I train. I prepare. I plan. I achieve. I drive my mind and my bodyTo think smarter. Be tougher. To pursue professional excellence. To be the last line of defence against unknown adversaries.This is why you can take me for granted.Because I stand ready to be sent into the fray even when you cannot see the onslaught.I am your brother. Your watchkeeper. Your protector. And you are my country.*

strategy takes guts

Strategy is as much about choosing what not to focus on as it is about inspiring people to believe in the direction you’ve adopted. Strategy means leaving something out - often many things. And that means that some people’s pet ideas won’t make the cut; but you'll likely still want those people onboard to assist in achieving the strategy. 
This is why we believe starting with the customer and the positioning is so important: it helps everyone accept and agree to ‘why this and not that’. 

A Vita Brevis strategy statement describes the logic of the chosen direction. Here is an example: 
NZ Army: 	“World Class Warriors With Mana”New Zealand is too small to have the biggest and best army on Earth. However, every individual soldier can perform at a world class level and provide world class leadership in our uniquely New Zealand way. *

*Reprinted with permission

strategy

the epic solutions framework

building brand equity through consistent promise and performance

the epic progression

Empathy

Positioning

INSIGHT

CHARACTER

strategy takes guts

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