Customer Innovation Centres (CICs) are rapidly becoming one of the most powerful tools organisations use to strengthen relationships, accelerate collaboration, and showcase what’s possible when technology and imagination meet. A great customer experience centre isn’t just an impressive meeting room — it’s a strategy. It acts as a space where customers, partners, and internal teams come together to explore ideas, solve problems, and shape the future of their industries.
At their core, CICs are built around one principle: innovation happens faster when people can see, touch, and experiment with solutions in a real-world context. Whether it’s a fully immersive VR training environment, a path-to-purchase story, or a hands-on demonstration of emerging technologies, these spaces let customers experience transformation rather than just hear about it.
What makes CICs so effective is their ability to blend strategy, storytelling, and technology into a single, cohesive journey. Visitors aren’t just shown products; they’re guided through curated experiences that connect business challenges to tangible outcomes. This creates a powerful moment—one that sparks new thinking and builds trust in a way traditional presentations with static PowerPoint slides rarely achieve.
Over the past 20 years, JB Communications has designed and built more customer innovation centres than any other agency, ranging from 50 sqm to over 2500 sqm, across the UK, Europe, Scandinavia, and North America. JB is widely regarded as a thought leader in centre design. Working with a diverse range of clients, we found that although no two centres are identical, they share similar objectives. Therefore, we established the Centre Managers Forum. The aim was to give representatives from all centres an opportunity to connect with like-minded individuals and share best practices for centre management. These forums have now been running for several years, and we recently held the 18th event at the impressive Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) centre in London.
As with earlier events, the most recent gathering sparked lively discussions, and newcomers starting their CIC journey were eager to engage with those who have managed centres for many years. As well as giving the delegates a tour of the centre, the HPE team outlined how the facility enables hands-on exploration and prompts dynamic discussions with customers. They described how the space enabled them to create immersive, fully customised experiences for collaborating with customers, and the centre generates an impressive ROI.
In a world where differentiation is increasingly difficult, Customer Innovation Centres offer something uniquely valuable: a space where imagination becomes action. They inspire, educate, and empower customers to envision what’s next—and then work collaboratively to make it real.
If you’re looking to create deeper engagement, accelerate innovation, and build lasting partnerships, a well-designed CIC might just be your most powerful asset.