All projects: Gel, Jobs, Gootodo, Games, Uncle Mark, Goovite, Blog, Bit Literacy
Good experiences that make me feel uneasy
(This is a post by guest blogger Paul Adams, who I introduced here. -mh)
In commoditised markets, businesses need to compete on an experiential and emotional level. Hence, creating better customer experiences will nearly always provide business growth. To create these better customer experiences, a business can use a process of innovation, or a process of distortion.
I define innovation as creating something new which adds value both to the customer, and to the business.
I define distortion as creating something new which adds value to the business, but does not add actual value to the customer. Rather, it creates a perception of increased value to the customer.
Here are 4 examples of distortion:
1. Some washing machines add a greying dye to the water during washing cycles, making the water appear ‘dirtier’ than it actually is. This could lead to a better customer experience: “Wow, look at all the dirt coming out of my clothes!”
2. Most vacuum cleaners only remove the top 50% of the dirt in your carpet. However, they turn over the carpet fibres, making the carpet look cleaner than it is; which in turn leads to a good customer experience.
3. With goods ‘on sale’, many retailers display tags on the discounted items showing the RRP (recommended retail price) and the ‘sale price’. There is a big difference between the figures, and the customer experience is a good one: “I’m getting a great deal!” However, the deal is distorted, as these items are often for sale at other retail outlets for much lower prices than the RRP displayed on the ‘sale’ tags.
4. Many washing powders contain fluorescent brightening agents to make the washed clothes appear brighter than they actually are. Whether they are actually brighter or not is inconsequential to the customer experience. What matters is whether the customer has a good experience by perceiving to have clean, bright clothes.
Adding real value can be difficult, so creating a perception of added value can often be easier. Hence, distortion is often easier than innovation. And distortion can create good customer experiences. However, I am uneasy creating and designing distorted customer experiences.
There is an argument to say that growing your business through distortion is not a bad thing. The customer has a good experience, and the business is profitable. This may be true, but I think it a risky strategy. One of the most important elements of long-lasting brand-customer relationships is trust. And if the customer starts to see and understand the distortion, the brand relationship could be irreparably damaged.
Is that true?! Wow.
Manipulation cas so easily backfire.
We've all met website owners who say "I'll put lots of big promos there on the homepage - after all, customers want to see what's new." And they really do believe that if they try hard enough, they can manipulate customers into doing what they want.
I had a conversation the other day about what good interaction design really seeks to do. Does it seek to get users to do what the business wanted? Or is it about understanding what customers really want to do, and then working out how to make a profit from that?
The latter, I think.
Nice post. Innovation vs distortion - I find that a really compelling take on things.
Looking ahead (and around) and thinking about where next after commoditisation, it seems like an increasing transparency that reveals distortions and innovations will play out and put trust, or trustful behavior, high up the corporate agenda - as you say in your post. But in a world where distortion can be hugely innovative (advertising!) and innovation can be massively distorting (i.e. in its effects), I wonder whether we'll ever fully get to the bottom of which is which. (Some might say that we will always be a ready market for distortions as long as we hold ‘distorted’ views of ourselves – i.e. that something will make us happy, fulfilled, etc)
If the forces at play do incentivise business to operate with the kind of integrity that promotes trust, I wonder whether this will combine somehow with a ‘fatigue’ for certain kinds of experience, and an increased marketplace for others. Might we start to separate the (experiential) wheat from the chaff with regards what actually makes the brand experience compelling? Perhaps whiter whites and the more temporary & narcissistic fixes that brands create so well will no longer cut the 'experiential mustard'.
Why wouldn’t they? Not because what they are doing is discovered as fake or misrepresentive; rather they would be increasingly experienced as devoid of real meaning, even self-serving, perhaps without our best interests really at heart. Why we would start to see that more clearly than we do now? Or care any more than we do now? Shared issues like climate change in our increasingly networked age will no doubt focus attention and help put things in perspective (and my guess based on reading things like Bruce Sterling's Shaping Things is that the environmental/social impact of consumer decisions is going to be made increasingly immediate and compelling for us all) but crucially those brands/products that do provide meaning, purpose and vision as part of their offering will raise our expectations along with the competitive bar.
Meaning is emotional, purpose is compelling, vision is inspiring. Products and services that are a demonstrable part of something bigger than just themselves and their profit margins ahd stand for something we also aspire to, are worthy of admiration, even love - and nothing creates loyalty like those feelings. So soon brands may have to stand for something real in the shared world, else stand down.
The experience economy is in transcendence but will it be shaped by a meaning economy? A meaningful experience economy?!
The autumn ‘trend briefing’ from the Future Laboratory charts emerging phenomenons across the globe, like the 'new austerity'. Their research shows how customers are increasingly expecting that their brands have a moral compass and stand for the same values that do. It does seem that in the future brands that aren’t able to step up to the challenge of this ‘meaningful materialism’ will be in for a bumpy ride.