Luna Customer Experience

Introducing Barbara Luna, from Luna Customer Experience, and what it means to put a customer’s needs and desires at the centre of a business strategy.

Once Barbara decided she would make a film to promote Luna Customer Experience Consulting, we started with a big meeting. A full morning set aside, lots of coffee, dietary requirements catered for.

We wired Barbara for sound, and talked for the whole morning about her business, her background, her hopes for the future. She’s a warm, likeable person, with deeply held beliefs and a CV that naturally leads her to this business. Once she starts talking about customer experience you quickly ‘get it’. Then you press her and ask ‘why’ and you start to understand the importance of her work – to Barbara, and to the business community in East Kent.

So film production started with a lot of audio. We used SpeedScriber to transcribe so we could edit in text, then set about puzzling together the story.

We are so excited to turn our lens in a new direction and look for the first time at independent businesses. There’s a simple answer to the question why are we doing this – there are thousands of fascinating stories to be told about people who buck the trend. People building their own careers, their own businesses. What is it about them, why are they so committed that they’re prepared to go through the blood, sweat and tears? We’re happy to be able to bring all our years of experience with charities, to help independent business owners. After all, for-profits and non-profits share the same desired outcome – money coming in! Sales, donations, supporters, customers. It can all be achieved with a compelling story and an engaging film.

To piece together Barbara’s film, we tried something new, the StoryBuilder software from Muse. It was brilliant for keeping the planning/storyboarding and writing process – which can be incredibly challenging, a mixture of intriguing, confusing, and apparently unsolvable – focussed and on brief.

The program helps you fit plot points into a proven story structure. We open with a hook. The first 25% of the film gives the context for the story, Barbara’s love affair with Kent and her deep admiration for the independent business community here. The section ends with the ‘ask’, or conflict. In this case, it’s Barbara’s fear that ‘East Kent independent business is under threat from commercial big brands.’ From our interview, we know that Barbara has an absolute foundational belief, a complete commitment that this must not happen. In short, she doesn’t want her new home to follow what (she sees) has happened in her old home, the USA. Her business exists to help independent businesses in East Kent to thrive. But why she wants to do that is, for the purposes of a story, more interesting.

The plot structure is tried and tested and it works. The ratios of time per section, the plot points (hook, ask, acceptance, hurdle, answer, jab) – feel like additional challenges, but the closer we can meet them the stronger the story feels.

Filming was scheduled to take place on just one day with Barbara: at home where she works, and around Faversham. She was pretty nervous about the filming – the worry so many people share about being in front of the camera. I reassured her as best I could, and gave tips about what to wear, and bring a little make-up bag, and ask Brad to check the monitor… but she still wasn’t that comfortable. But more about that later. On filming day the weather gods did not smile, so Brad ended up going back later to get some more shots. The dog walk really needed sun. Nobody (except Toby (dog)) wanted to go out in the rain.

Then we brought the footage back to edit. On any film we plan to spend most of our time on the planning stage. Brad says, “You have to know the film you’re making before you start shooting. You can’t make it in the edit.” Of course, some people will shoot everything, then try to find the best bits when they come to editing. But more than likely, what they end up with is a montage of moments, not a story. If you’ve planned well, you already know pretty much what the final film is going to look like, so the edit is efficient and (relatively) painless. As much as creative endeavours can ever be.

So at the end, we have a short and, we think, interesting film about Barbara and her business, Luna Customer Experience. She says:

“I am thrilled with the Luna Customer Experience film! It surpasses my expectations and I am looking forward to making it the centre piece of my website.

I must admit, I was quite nervous about filming day. I really do not like having a camera pointed at me, but Brad was great at keeping me relaxed and comfortable. In the end it was quite easy and even a bit fun, which I think is evident when watching the film.

The most impressive part of this project is how you’ve taken my tangled threads of thought and woven them into the exact story I hope to convey to potential clients. You made this seem effortless and I am so grateful. I, myself, don’t tell my story as well as you have.

Be assured I will be sharing this film far and wide, and I will tell everyone that StoryPartners is the best investment they can make with their marketing budget.
Thank you again for this brilliant film.”

We are StoryPartners, and our purpose is to inspire people by telling great stories in remarkable films.