American Express
Igniting organizational empathy for the small business customer
The challenge
The pandemic changed small business owners’ lives—and the very nature of their businesses.
As the champion of small businesses, American Express needed to rally its B2B organization around its largest customer base, and understand the nuances of their “new normal,” to better anticipate and serve SBO’s needs.
Decode
Through deep ethnography, including ‘work-alongs’ pairing Amex executives with small business owners, we uncovered the leading pain point for SBOs across regions and industries: invisibility. As they keep up with an always-now environment, their identity, mindset, and support needs are going unrecognized. Our empathy-building strategy needed to be grounded in passion for the hidden work that goes into building a success business.
Recode
We created Reveal the Invisible Hustle: a multi-channel report and internal change campaign to directly translate our findings into empathic action. TRIPTK launched the platform to 700+ American Express B2B team members in a town-hall forum, an HQ take-over and a series of facilitated ethnography activitivation exercises.
To extend impact, we developed an immersive microsite and video series revealing the hidden, inside worlds of SBOs.
Transform
Our program guided American Express SBO strategy across the B2B organization, and immediately brought Amex employees closer to SBOs and their needs.
JBG Smith
Engineering the future of live, work and play
