Content Marketing

Is everything a like, a click, a purchase, a transaction? What happened to relationships?

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Pharmacy I went to as a child.
I remember as a kid always going to this card and novelty store downtown in my hometown to buy Smurfs. I’d visit with the owner and she’d show me what’s new, how to identify a real Smurf versus a fake one (yes, it mattered!), and learn which were the collectibles. I also bought cards for my family there, and the owner would give me advice as to what to buy my mom for holidays.
My family would go to the corner drug store to pick up prescriptions. We’d have a conversation with the store owner or their family. We’d learn about the drugs we were buying, talk about a few different topics, joke around, learn about what’s new, and then move on with our day.
Why did we go to the mom and pop store? The corner drug store? And why do we still still go to those stores when cheaper alternatives exist? Well, we trusted the owner and often had a relationship with him. He or she would refer us to products that solved our problems and we felt like he or she cared. And there are probably more reasons (feel free to list more in the comments.)
Why do we go to certain larger stores today?
  • We order from Amazon because we know we’ll get our stuff (even if there is a delivery problem, they find a way to get your purchases to you)
  • At Best Buy we’ll get a good deal and can pick it up in person
  • We go to the Apple store because of the service, the products, and well, it’s a great looking store
I think sometimes we forget that we have logical reasons why we shop where we do. Sure, these stores offer solid benefits, but in a way, we have a relationship with these companies because our interactions have been pleasant and positive, and in the end they meet our needs. We purchase from them often and the experiences are great. We encounter helpful employees when we purchase products or have questions, and keep coming back for price, experience, location or other reasons.

However, before the Web, we conducted business through mostly conversations and relationships.

Relationships have always been the basis for business success. However, the Web and an obsessive focus on bottom-line results has made transactions seem more important to business than people – customers and employees. A sample list of transactions:
  • Making a purchase.
  • Clicking on an ad or a link.
  • Liking a post.
  • Submitting a form with information to become a lead.
  • Getting information.
These types of transactions are necessary for businesses to get information and understand if messaging is working, people want a product, or they are on the right track financially in the market. They provide great checkpoints towards success. However, I think at times we forget that transactions alone, these checkpoints, don’t make a business. Sure, business is based on exchanging money and it is necessary. But there is more to a transaction than a money exchange. There is more to a transaction than getting a lead or contact to call later. There is more to a transaction than using a product once. A transaction should be a milestone in a relationship that needs to be built so there isn’t a one-time only transaction. The goal should be for the relationship, and additional transactions, to continue.
Transactions are about activities. And you can measure activities to show that you are doing something, but an activity alone doesn’t always mean progress towards a goal or a relationship.
It makes one wonder if it is time to include new metrics or shift them to reflect how we build a relationship (e.g., repeat calls, purchases, customer initiated discussions).
 
People don’t give great product reviews and referrals because they had a single, great transaction. Great product reviews and referrals comes from a great experience and relationship with that company.
Brand helps establish relationships
What is a brand? Brands aren’t only the look and feel of a company. Great branding extends into the experience someone has with your company.
  • Purchasing
  • A phone call
  • Submitting a payment
  • Asking a question to sales or someone else in the company
  • Understanding how to use a product
Just about anything. These types of experiences build relationships and relationships aren’t always about a purchase. Let’s face it – when you make friends with someone, do you remember when you buy someone coffee or do you remember the conversations you had during the coffee meeting? Or do you remember that you bought the tickets for the sporting events or that your friend came to that event with you and you found an awesome Indian restaurant after the game?
It’s the experiences that are memorable; transactions aren’t. Brands are focused on the experiences, not necessarily the transaction itself.
What is a sign of a customer or prospect having a great relationship with a company?
The individual sees the company as a resource and industry leader who can provide guidance about trends and is an expert in the problem you are having and can help you solve your problem. If someone values your input and guidance, they trust you and you’re now a part of that person’s life. That means you have a relationship with that person.
Another sign of a great relationship – the repeat purchase.
Awareness doesn’t equate to trust
Seeing an ad doesn’t mean that someone will buy. Ads and offers build awareness of their business and encourage you to try their products and services. And getting you in the store simply won’t sell you on the store or a product. You can buy, but that’s a single transaction. The repeat purchase or use confirms a relationship.
A sign of trust and relationship: the second or repeat purchase
The first money exchange transaction is a test, it’s about building trust. Although a customer may see your solution as essential to overcoming their fear of failure and decide to use your product, a customer is still testing you. It’s only after a first time purchase that you could say that a customer truly converted. I have heard this for years.
The first purchase is an activity that indicates some trust, but it doesn’t mean that the customer truly trusts your company and has a relationship with it. True conversion happens when you see that company as a trusted resource to help you in your life through advice, providing solutions, and input.
I think companies need to stop focusing so much on clicks and click through rates and forcing bottom line sales results (and by forcing, I mean encouraging sales to push someone to buy rather than build a relationship with someone and see where it leads). We as a society tend to obsessively focus on these business tangibles – these bottom line results. Those are important, as are forecasted results to help us track revenue and spending. But what these numbers don’t reflect is customer satisfaction, and that’s a key metric if you want repeat business. Someone buying one time from you isn’t a conversion. It’s a transaction, an activity.
If you are working towards building a relationship what’s tricky is that you can’t predict where a relationship will go. You just can’t predict people. Ironically, you may be able to forecast a pipeline for sales, but that isn’t a guarantee of it happening, either.
It makes you wonder if, in a way in the end, the transaction is connected to the relationship. If you don’t try to build a relationship, you won’t get the sale. If you get the sale, you progressed the relationship.
 
Maybe the relationship and brand is more integrated into sales and revenues than we thought.
Is everything a like, a click, a purchase, a transaction? What happened to relationships?

Knowledge has a date stamp. How does evergreen content fit into recording history?

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When I was in elementary school, teachers would assign us reports on states, countries, historical events, cultures – things like that. We were kids so we couldn’t always find, nevermind understand, original sources for research like academic books, reports, or manuscripts. We’d reference encyclopedias. 
 
We learned that you always used the most current version of the encyclopedia for the best information. School libraries would remove older encyclopedia verisons because information could be out of date and just wrong. I remember how you could always buy one of these older versions at a thrift store, and it would be useful until you find out that some of your information is no longer relevant. Even a 5 year old set of encyclopedias could be very out of date. 
 
This taught me how knoweldge had a timestamp. There were new developments every day in science, politics, and let’s face it – history is created every day. The latest edition of a book ensured you got the most current information available. And older knowledge was accepted as that – a book, written at a different point in time, with a different perspective that could be considered.
 
Enter the web.
 
Today knowledge is available at your fingertips online. It’s fantastic! But at the same time, there is such a thing as dated knowledge. Date stamps matter. Even an essay written before a key historical event, like an election or battle, would need to be adjusted and re-written afterwards due to shifted opinions. Knowledge and percpetions of events and circumstances are always changing. We need a date stamp on content and data to confirm that it is current, almost like the expiration date on milk to prove that it is fresh. 
 
But what if the content doesn’t have a datestamp? That’s where things get dicey. I think most of us can safely assume that a corporate, personal or portfolio site is always current, or rather evergreen. But if a site has a design is dated or if the content seems old, we perceive it as dead and abandonned. We assume that a dictionary or reference material sites are always current, containing definitions from historical contexts. 
 
But I think we assume differently for blogs, news and articles, and that’s good. I don't think blogs, news and articles should be updated with new knowledge and if they are, then that should be noted. 
 
I mean, do you update yesterday's newspaper articles when events shift perspectives? Sure, you update an article with corrected facts and note that. But do you update old news? No. 
 
That dated content reflects thoughts and knoweldge at a specific point in time. It's now a record of history.
 
And this is what makes studying history so great today. We now have access to records of what happened in the past, from letters to books to journals to news and more. This helps us to better track where we come from and where we are going. Previously, historical records were maintained through those printed records that survived and were preserved in a library that few could access. Now, we have data on the Web that records people’s thoughts, feelings, events and more, all at our fingertips. And there are more diverse voices sharing their daily history and perceptions of events – not a single voice curated by a publishing house. It’s simply tremendous. 
 
We are now all writing history, in different areas. History and it’s perspectives are no longer left to the victors.
 
But this rasies a challenge. Which of these content creations should stay as historical record, which is an evergreen moment in time, which should be automatically updated and discard or reference the past materials, and which should simply fade away, be archived and a fleeting thought in time? Some knowledge is like the old encyclopedias – dated and needs to be retired. Some knoweldge shoud be maintainted, like reference materials. And like the paper letters and journals of the past, some of us should have the option to destroy our own published knoweldge if we don’t want it to be read in the future. It’s something we probably should debate and determine.
 
How does knoweldge change? In the past few months, we have seen discoveries like:
And I won't address the daily events that are shaping history. Knoweldge is always evolving and shifting – and that’s not bad.
 
So should we keep and maintain all content, knoweldge, and data? 
If people in the past destroyed letters and some of their artifacts, why can’t we? Do we need all of this data for the future? 
 
What I think we have forgotten is that knoweldge is living and changes. Knoweldge needs a timestamp. Some ideas need to be retired or kept intact for historic reasons.
 
So what to do? 
  • Corporate communications should always be current, or rather, evergreen. The positioning your company had previously matters to your company; no one else. It's great for an intranet.
  • Reference materials should be evergreen and include a nod to the past. It's great to know the historic context of a word in a dictionary. But we assume that the most recent version is displayed. Like a map. But we want to access the previous versions too. So I think here we need both.
  • News and articles captures thoughts and events at a moment in time, so they are a record of history, evergreen at the moment of publication. In a way, they are evergreen at day of publication with a timestamp. 
  • Social media captures personal and social history – conversations through phone calls and letters. Which raises the question if it is a personal choice to allow your evergreen history to live on or destroy it. But this is evergreen content as well on day one.
 

Evergreen designations should be based on the purpose of the content. Is it for reference? For communication? For historic purposes, a record? It's too easy with the Web to erase history, and not all content needs to be, or should be, current.

 
In some ways, there was charm in an older version of an encyclopedia. It presented perspectives in a moment of time. It had a date stamp. It was evergreen when it was published, telling us what was happening in that moment. It was telling history.
 
 
Knowledge has a date stamp. How does evergreen content fit into recording history?

“No one ever got fired for buying from IBM.” How emotions drive our purchase decisions.

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“No one ever got fired for buying from IBM.”

“No one ever got fired for buying from [insert large IT company name, consulting firm, accounting firm, etc. here]."

Sometimes these companies don’t have the best products or services, but they are known for being a safe choice. How are they safe? They are stable companies – around for years, constantly growing, not going out of business any time soon – with stable products – decent support options, adequate services, products will minimally do as expected. 

Other large companies have similar experiences and expectations. Apple is known for having innovative products that don’t require too much maintenance. Oracle is known for stable, enterprise products. And don’t forget Microsoft for every PC. Or Adobe for creative software.

If you are afraid of losing your job when you make a purchase decision for you company, you know that by choosing any of these vendors you are safe. The situation with them could never be that bad. It's not a waste of money. It won't have compatibility problems. They have the basics covered and you will be able to continue to feed your family. The decision won't get you a promotion, but you are afraid of keeping your job. That's not your goal here.

Those companies are emotionally – and rationally – safe.

When we choose to buy a product from one of these companies, we aren’t driven by facts and logic. We are driven by our emotions that are later justified by facts. 

Hear me out.

I was listening to a talk by Dr. Srini Pillay who has researched how people choose to make life changes. I strongly believe that any time someone buys a product, he is making a change and experiences similar mental shifts. I also believe that the same happens when a user decides to learn how to use a new product or functionality. It’s a choice for change – change how you work or complete a task. You can use the product, learn something new, or do things in the same way as you have been doing it forever.

According to Dr. Pillay, the only way you can make a change is claim in your mind that the change is essential for your life. This is why, frequently, when someone decides to buy something it happens quickly. Or if someone decides to use a new feature that happens quickly too. Change will happen if someone wants it. Otherwise, well…

If you don’t see the need for change, if a change cannot be justified, if there is something else more pressing to do, then you won’t buy. You won’t use a new feature. You won’t see the point to purchase. You'll make excuses to not purchase – like it costs too much, it's not the right time, it's not a problem I want to solve. 

But you aren't making excuses because you don't need the product. You may need the product, but you just don't see it as essential right now. Something else in your life is MORE essential to solve, maintain or fix. Maybe you need to pay for your children's health, or school, or rent, or car repair, or something else.

The question for sales, marketing, and product management and development becomes: How do you get someone to see the value as to why they need to make a specific decision to buy your product?

What do you need to understand about your customer and your team so prospects and customers purchase:

  • Understand the fear surrounding the problem
  • Understand how this fear prevents one from solving the problem
  • Have a desire to help someone overcome their fears
  • Have an audience who wants to overcome their fears and solve their problem

This ties to empathy but we’ll get there in a minute. 

 

Let’s start with understanding the fear which is the root of the problem.

According to Dr. Pillay, our decisions are often based on fear – ultimately, fear of failure. If we determine a product is essential to our well-being and success – we get it right away. If we don’t determine that it is essential, we may put off buying the solution entirely.

But how do different people manifest this fear of failure? Usually, there is a personal reason why someone doesn’t buy a product. It's a fear that is stronger than the fear of failure, or it is a fear of failing in another part of someone's life. It may not be the fear of him losing his job, it could be fear of him recommending a product that will cause him to lose status. Or personally, he could fear the loss of money depending on other life situations. 

(How do I know this? Partly from working in sales and talking to many sales people; partly from being on the customer side in enterprise sales and hearing the conversations there; partly from talking to customers and observing sales processes.)

We like to think that decisions are based on facts and logic. Often, facts and logic will validate our emotions for why we choose as we do. This is why you need to understand the fear people feel about purchasing your product. Then you can understand the facts that will help them feel that they need your product today.

What do you do to understand the fear? You need to research your customers' fears and find out what is holding them back from buying or using your product. Ask questions like:

  • Why do they not want it?
  • What is preventing them from moving forward in the process?
  • What is the factor that holds them back?
  • Why does this customer not want to use the product? What is it about the product?

The problem may also be that the product solves someone's problem, which could take away that person's job. Something to consider. 

 

Understand how the fear prevents one from solving a problem

Fear can cause people to procrastinate and freeze in their tracks, even if the long-term avoidance goes against someone’s personal benefit and best interest. 

To a product manager or marketer this is maddening and illogical. Why would people work against their best interest? People do this EVERY DAY! We are trained to do this – we are almost rewarded to stay safe and not take a risk. 

I mean, look at how most companies work. In many organizations, if you make a mistake, you are treated so poorly and sometimes, embarrassed. There are few organizations that embrace experiments and learning.

We are trained to save time. Learning something new takes time. Although your organization may want you to learn new things, the culture often doesn't support that. You'll be called out for not working fast enough so then you'd wonder – why learn something new?

There are more examples why we are trained to stay the course, not make a change, not the rock the boat, but I won't go into them here.

Sure, a product manager or marketer could create a program to have someone list the reasons to buy the item. Even if sales is involved, I'm not sure that would be completely effective because it's a little coerced. It may be better to do some anonymous research for how that fear prevents someone from solving the problem.

 

For these first two items, you may be wondering if the fear is unique for each person or there are a majority number of fears. What I have observed is that there are general categories of fears.

My favorite example: health insurance.

We had 6 different people come in to usability test a new way for people to select an insurance product. All 6 people exhibited fears about health insurance. They expressed them differently:

  • One referred to our company by the wrong name (sure you can confuse companies, but if you are seeing the logo everywhere in an office, something else is happening)
  • Another admitted that she probably wouldn't even use the selector tool to find a plan because she would be too scared to get on the site. And she was too intimidated by insurance to even call the broker.
  • Another claimed that they didn't understand the terminology but wouldn't look it up – even in a tool tip.

And the list continued.

The bottom line fears for the group that came in:

  • Afraid of making a bad decision
  • Afraid of financial products
  • Afraid that they won’t understand it anyway

 

Travel example:

For a travel product, we had a flight post-purchase product for hotels. Universally the fear expressed was that they may find a better price so they wanted more time to purchase. They wanted a link to come back to the widget and site after they did a little shopping.

The bottom line fears:

  • Afraid that they didn't get the best price
  • Afraid that a better hotel was out there
  • Afraid of missing out on all the options

 

Research presents trends that are happening with people. Sure, individuals have specific fears and concerns unique to their situations, but generally, there are trends for shared fears in groups and in ethnographic circles.

 

Have a desire to help someone to overcome their fears

If your product, marketing or sales team doesn’t want to find ways for prospects and customers to overcome their fears, then stop making products and find a new team. If people don’t care enough to understand the mindset of their customers they shouldn’t be working at your company.

I say this so strongly because in my experience, I have never found entire teams not interested in knowing what customers think. If anything, everyone is fighting to get customer attention to get those insights! This is why you need a research team to talk to them. Everyone wants to know who these people are, how they think, and what they do.

I think most employees know that they wouldn’t have a job if it weren’t for customers.

If your team understands how your customers think and what their fears are, the next step is to have them feel connected to your customers through minimally, empathy. They need to do more than understand the customer's problems; they need to feel the emotions that they do about them – the fears, the desires, the hopes, the joy. And this happens through a shared and relatable experience.  

If making a choice to buy and use a product is emotionally driven and based on overcoming fear, then you need to put yourself into their situation and understand that process throughout the customer lifecycle. You need empathy with your customers – but it’s empathy through experience.

 

The next time you choose to buy something – from a replacement or a new item – be conscious about what is driving your decision to buy, the timing, the monetary needs, etc. Ask yourself:

  • What's driving this decision? What am I afraid will happen if I buy it? What if I don't buy it?
  • If I don't buy it, what is the other priority I have for this money?
  • When do I want to buy this item? How does it fit into my financial planning?
  • How will I feel about myself when I buy this? How do I think others will see me?

This may also help you better understand what is happening in the mind of your customer – consciously or most likely, subconsciously. And it may help you understand why IBM got that expression – and so many sales – all along.

With IBM, you keep your job, your house, your family – there is really no personal risk to you. Would it make you a superstar and genius? No. But with them, you won't fail. And if you are afraid of failure, you just satisfied your fear.

 

“No one ever got fired for buying from IBM.” How emotions drive our purchase decisions.

SEO is not the only way to capture and build an audience.

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SEO is not the only way to capture and build an audience. 

SEO can attract visitors. SEO can help you get transactions and purchases. SEO can introduce your brand to people. But SEO alone won't build an audience for you. And it won't guarantee a repeat purchase (to me, that's a guarantee for a true conversion, but I digress). 

Neither will social media on its own, or a great content strategy without a great product, or an email marketing campaign.

What does build an audience? The experience you offer a prospect or customer from when he first interacts with your brand to purchase to post-purchase and support.

You need a combination of all of these vehicles to create an experience – as well as a great UX for a product, a product that truly solves a problem, a product that's attractive and possesses other "intuitive" qualities, and awesome support, service and logistics and processes.

You need to be sure you have all of the elements necessary to fit into the customer relationship lifecycle.

Customer lifecycle-600
 

 

We like to believe that SEO is the main way people find your business and site. It's definitely a key method – I won't argue that. People search on Google and Bing when they are looking for something specific. 

But it's not the only method for people to find you. People use SEO to search for something they have in mind. They have identified their problem and most likely, have an idea of the solution they need. But there are other methods for how people find you.

  • Social media. We underestimate social media. Social media is a place for people to mentally wander. They find out what people are doing, communicate with them, learn new concepts and ideas, find out what's happening in general. Social media is a way to explore what your friends explore and like. It's a way to share and learn.
  • Tradeshows and events. I know, we all thought this died. And it was dying. Tradeshows and events were becoming online events. But they have been revived. Why? Well first, I think we've had some great hardware innovations with the rise of IoT. So you have to see and touch things again – it's not just software that you can watch and interact with through a keyboard. I think next is that we are shifting from a transaction culture to a relationship culture. I wrote a blog that goes into this a bit, but there is so much to explore here. Have you noticed how popular Meetups are? Or in-person networking events? That's a sign that we want and crave more human connection, live and in real-time. 
  • Word of mouth. This method is ALWAYS underestimated. But do you know how much business happens this way? A LOT! (Side note – most of my consulting business comes from word of mouth) People will usually ask a friend for a trusted recommendation if they are in a pinch. People trust each other over a vendor to get information about what to do. Also, if someone is looking for advice, he or she will ask a friend who has been through a situation what makes most sense to do – and the friend will most likely provide solutions which includes products and vendors.
  • Review sites and forums. This is a subset of word of mouth, but it's through strangers, like Yelp. Such a powerful way to learn about a product or service! 
  • Support sites. Hear me out on this one. Sometimes, people learn about products through support forums. They are looking to solve a problem and may run into a ticket or issue along the way through SEO. It's a great way to get introduced to how products really work and function.

Remember, content requires SEO and social media and individuals sharing through word of mouth (or email with links) to be shared. So you can have a killer content strategy, but if you don't get the word out and share it, you have a situation similar to a tree falling in a woods with no one around it. No one will hear it or know it fell.

 

SEO doesn't guarantee a purchase or a connection. It guarantees views. It is up to you and the experience you have on your site to turn that visit into a lead, get an email address, or a purchase. Those are all great for your quarterly results, but someone giving you an email address doesn't mean you have a relationship with that person. It takes more than that. Look at your entire experience, the customer journeys, from start to finish. What are the interactions? How does your customer see themselves converting to buy from you? How do you know your customer loves you and respects you? 

One element alone will not make you successful. You need the whole picture working, reflecting the experience you want people to have – from the copy they read to the emails they receive to the email responses they get from questions. Your customer wants to experience all of you – that's where you start building a relationship.

 

SEO is not the only way to capture and build an audience.

What are the qualities of an “intuitive” UX? How shifts in software development has allowed this to emerge.

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Desktop apps for Macs and PCs generally have had the same UI for over 30 years. There was the top pulldown nav, a top “ribbon” bar with some handy doo-dad icons that you’ll probably need to access functionality quickly, sometimes a bottom nav. Oh yes, and lots of confirmation messages. (“Are you sure you want to close?” “Are you sure you want to save?” Apparently, the apps never thought you knew what you were doing. Honestly – that was sometimes the case.)
I believe the Web saved us from the nonsense we were experiencing with native Desktop apps.
  • Web apps leverage browser functionality with newer, more flexible coding languages to create new functionality and UI approaches. Think HTML, JavaScript, AJAX, and more. They are easy to learn, easy to use to create apps, fairly easy to maintain (ok, easier than Java, C, or other compiled languages).
  • Best practices and paradigms shifted to be simpler and more automated, based on user expectations. Rather than confirmation messages, we started seeing autosave used more. Rather than being able to access one version at a time and manually save versions, there was version control functionality built-into apps. Rather than long release cycles lasting months, Agile methodology sped it up to weekly or bi-weekly sprints and releases every month or two. Automation for testing and releases improved. Amazon now releases fully-tested, new features and functionality every 12 seconds.
  • Simpler screens with fewer options. Web apps were a way to start over creating apps and software, focusing on core functionality first rather than nice-to-have features that didn’t add bottom line customer value. Functionality was added as users needed rather than a product manager creating functionality that may – or may not – been used. And hiding functionality in 2-3 layers of pulldowns was no longer the norm. The goal was to create more direct interactions.
In many ways, without the Web, we wouldn’t have simplified software.
And the Web in its nature made software easier to create and distribute. Native desktop apps took a lot of time to develop, compile, and QA – and required a lot of effort for distribution. In the 80s and 90s, few would purchase software from a new, unknown software company, if that company could get its software onto store shelves. Even still, with the dawn of the Web and the rise of viruses and hackers, Web distribution and acceptance of new software companies was slow-ish. And online apps didn’t really appear until well into the 2000’s.
Then the industry giant, Apple, created the App Store for the iPhone.
Software and hardware innovations are linked. A leap-frog improvement in one is necessary for the other to gain improvements and vice versa. Mobility required us to simplify experiences. I mean how many options (buttons, text, or otherwise) can you really put in an interface smaller than an index card? Eyes can only read print so small and fingers can only press buttons 50 pixels square. Mobile interfaces meant simpler screen design, the rise of gestures and the emergence of voice technology.
And innovations in how we do business and live were occurring faster and faster because some of the operations and development side of software was simply easier.
  • There was an easier way to distribute and purchase apps and software. You didn’t need to go to a store anymore to get software. The device included a store in the operating system and companies could sell their apps to anyone. And it didn’t matter if you were small and unknown. Your app’s popularity, its rating and price-point mattered. This allowed companies that didn’t think like the giants to create new software experiences that matched new conventions.
  • The rise of services and APIs allowed complex functionality to be leveraged – not originally built over and over again by countless companies. You could now create code to access a service and be done. This sped up development time and lowered cost to get product out the door. And this lead to…
  • Software-as-a-service companies, through services and APIs, allowing companies to specialize in an area and connect to another app in a related area to create a better app. So you could almost create your own super-duper, bells-and-whistles app the way you wanted by connecting a string of apps together. You got the features you wanted – not buy more features than you need, like the old app model. This opened up the possibility for new companies that wanted to bite off a smaller chunk of functionality to develop and sell.
  • Move to leasing – rather than “owning” – software. In the old, giant days, people went to a store, bought a box that contained a book and CD or disks and “owned” that software. If there was an update, you had to go out and buy a new box with a new book and CD. In the current new model, you pay for access to tools each month and these tools are automatically updated on your computer or through a browser.
And these innovations in software operations and business continue happening, further speeding up innovations in app technology and usability. Apple pioneered being more open with distribution, but now larger players like IBM with Watson and Google and others are opening services for developers to leverage AI and other functionality that previously would have required years of development to create alone.
The move to voice commands over touch-interfaces is making interactions with devices even simpler, more available and easily accessible. The giants are providing infrastructure; the smaller players are providing innovation for process and experience (UX). With the speed of change, innovation, and need for better experiences, soon to use an app, you will only need to know how to have a conversation. No more touching, tapping, or gesturing.
With all of the shifts in best practices over the years, this raises the question: what exactly is a best practice for UX and UI? Best practice can lead one to think about familiar functionality, which often gets labelled as intuitive. So what does it mean to be intuitive?
I believe there are key elements that characterize a good UX/UI experience. And these elements have always existed – and always will – whether we are clicking, tapping, or using voice when interacting with a device.
  • The product and UI solves a problem. If a product doesn’t clearly solve someone’s problem, and the user doesn’t immediately understand how it does, then take it off the market. If a product solves many problems, simplify it. People won’t understand it if it is too complex with too many features and ways to work. People prefer simpler products.
  • The product has easily discoverable functionality. This is largely forgotten these days, especially with gesture-driven UX. And this has always been my personal challenge with gestures. How do people know gesture are available to leverage without a manual or demonstration? The sign of a great UX/UI is that you can use the product without a manual, without training. A great design challenge is to create a straightforward experience that invents new conventions to achieve new user goals. That’s a sign of a true UI artist.
  • It has a direct and clear interface and interaction. People are able to use the product to get the job done. The interface uses plain and clear language. You can be direct but branded.
  • It is interactive and conversational. Apps need to be more interactive – not less. And with the rise of voice technology, this conversational approach will only be in use more often. Rather than the user sorting out what he wants to find it on a menu, the menu is completely flat and activated with voice control.
Software and hardware is changing rapidly – and not simply through technical innovation but operational streamlining, automation, and collaboration. The giants are encouraging others to come to the table to innovate. And all of these players, in the end, still are creating experiences that demonstrate these 5 main qualities. We need to look at best practices as traits and requirements rather than features, functions and items to implement. We need timeless expectations to guide us – not specific implementation guidance.
What are the qualities of an “intuitive” UX? How shifts in software development has allowed this to emerge.

The giants don’t always win. Why relationships matter and transactions are a small part of the sales process.

GearmarkLeave a comment
I remember as a child walking to the corner drug store – literally. It was located on one of the corners in the downtown square where I grew up. It was the main drugstore of the town and everyone knew the pharmacist family who owned it. A pretty popular place!
 
Sure, they were successful because they owned the main drugstore in town, but they were more successful because everyone trusted them. The owner had a fantastic personality – such a fun guy! They provided sound medical advice when you couldn't reach your doctor. They would answer questions about your prescriptions. And at the time, there was no Internet available to research symptoms and remedies, so this was a godsend. They were like the stand-in doctor we all needed from time to time, available to help on weekends, off-hours, sometimes holidays if there was a real emergency.
 
And they carried medical devices (or could get them for you), trinkets and other novelties. It was quite a store!
 
When the big pharmacies came into town – think CVS and Walgreens – sure, the corner drugstore felt the sting of large, low-priced pharmacies with huge stock. And the drugstore felt the rise of the mail-order pharmacies. But this same corner drugstore is STILL in business. Actually, along the way they grew in storefront size and in what they carried.
 
Apparently, there is room for smaller, local pharmacies among the giants. But why?
 
Giant megastores killed a lot of businesses in industries like bookselling, apparel (think boutiques and shoe stores), sporting goods, food, liquor, office supplies, stationery, and more. They are able to buy in extreme bulk and pass that saving on to you. But at the same time, there are independent boutiques, booksellers, stationery stories, and more still in business today. Restaurants aren't all corporate and named Cheesecake Factory or Chili's. There are also some local, independent liquor stores and not just the supermarket-styled megastores that sells everything from Blue Nun to fine Georgian wine.
 
In fact, there has been a rise in local businesses. Local artisans who make beer, cheese, bread, pastries, and other fine goods are growing as a trend. As are smaller specialty grocers. As are software and app companies. As are innovators who are disrupting markets and established businesses like healthcare with home visits.
 
It makes you wonder if the death of some stores is really due to megastore pricing or if there is something else, something deeper, happening here.
 
We all want to buy more for less, but do we always buy based on lowest cost?  I don't think so. If that were true, then the smaller stores that provide something special would all be gone by now. And I think the special touch is about relationships and connecting with customers. 
 
 
People buy products generally because they are looking to solve a problem. Even if someone buys something for fun, he is buying an item for emotional benefit as well.
 
Why do people choose the products they do? There is a logical driver and an emotional driver, and sometimes the emotional driver is stronger than the logical driver. And a factor isn't only buying the product itself; you need to consider the vendor you are buying from.
 
If purchasing really were as simple as completing a transaction, purchase decisions would all be based on price and the megastores would have it. But they don't.
 
What are some of the reasons why we choose to buy or work with one vendor over another? 
  • Service and advice. We sometimes take this for granted by companies, but we really shouldn't. Not all companies will openly give objective advice. Many will give advice to keep you at their store and buy their products. But there is something to be said for a company that gives you advice that benefits you and meets your needs rather than their own bottom line and profit. That perspective builds trust – and ultimately, an emotional relationship. 
  • Shipping and time to receive product – this is key. Amazon is successful because they have fast delivery. From when you order to when you receive it is about 2-3 days. And it is free for Amazon Prime members. Now we have all grown to expect shipping to be free or low-cost as well as fast. Hearing a package taking a week to be delivered seems too long now. People want to go online and buy what they want when they want it and get it even faster. 
  • Having a storefront. There are some items that need to be purchased in person, especially high-cost items (and yes, high-cost is based on perspective). We want to see how that China pattern looks in the light and in person. Or the nuances of flatware. Or a car and how experience how it rides. Apple has a storefront so you can experience their computers. Believe it or not, this builds trust. If you, Mr. Company/Vendor, aren't afraid for a prospect to look at, touch, and experience your products that tells me that you trust me to touch and try (under supervision, of course) before I buy. In fact, you so strongly believe that this approach – me experiencing your products first-hand – will help sell them that you provide a place for this to happen.
  • Cost. When all else is equal, people will make their purchase decision based on cost. So what does "all else is equal" mean? Services, advice, trust, relationship. They all factor into the decision. Why would I choose a vendor over Amazon, who has a great return policy, lots of stock, and great delivery options? The other vendor offers the same delivery turnaround, it's something I won't be returning, and that other vendor gave me great advice a while back. In the end, I have a better relationship with that other vendor. Money isn't everything.

Some other examples:

Why do I choose something like Virgin America versus another airline that may cost less? It's not just the points. I trust the experience will be pleasant – or at least tolerable – for the flight. There will be no hidden fees. And food I can eat.

For a computer, people choose Macs and iPads because they don't want to fret with connections and want an operating system that is easy to use. They are more expensive, but there is another driver for their decision.

  • Quality of product for the price. Great quality product for the price builds trust in a brand. If you feel ripped off – well, you won't purchase again, now will you? If you purchase meat that spoils quicky, you won't go back to the store. If you purchase a phone that breaks frequently, you'll get a different phone.
  • Easy. We tend to forget this one. We all like to do business with a company that is easy to do business with. What does that mean? (I wrote a blog post defining this.) Well, companies that don't give you a hard time when you want to return something. Or a company is upfront and honest about what is included in the price of the product (batteries, support, etc.). Be easy to do business with – that's a huge turn-on for most customers.
  • How you feel when you interact with the store. We decide to go to some stores and not others based on how we feel when we are there. Do we feel helped? Important and valued? Like we are learning something new? Purchasing something precious?
The reason we visit some stores and not others is similar to why we are friends with some people and not others. It's how you feel when you are around them. Do you like how you feel? Do you agree with the values of the store? Do they align with their values?
 
 
As you can see, there is more to purchasing and interacting with a company than simply completing a transaction. There are a number of logistical factors that, when combined, can influence a emotional decision. Or one could say, depending on how a company exhibits and demonstrates those logistical factors impacts emotional decisions. What you do is a reflection of who you are. And it's all part of the experience. 
 
The giants definitely have their place, especially for low-cost transactions. However, cost is not the only factor to consider in a purchase. This makes it possible to fight a giant and gain marketshare. Remember: business is done between people. Business is about more than a transaction – it's about the relationship between the customer and the company. 
The giants don’t always win. Why relationships matter and transactions are a small part of the sales process.

Thoughts on how the USPS created their own experience downgrade. But there’s hope – they can be relevant again.

Gearmark1 Comment

My relationship with the US Postal Service starts during happier times…

I got a post office box in the Prudential Center in Boston when the Post Office re-opened a new facility there. I was excited. I worked in the Prudential Center complex and the post office box made it very convenient for me to pickup and drop-off my mail. 

Post office

I loved going to the Post Office – and not just to get my mail. When I needed stamps, I could go to a vending machine and get a book of stamps in two shakes. My complaint about the setup was that the machines gave dollar coins as change and didn't accept credit cards. Minor, but still. And I couldn't just get books of stamps; I could even buy individual stamps from these machines. This post office had a special counter to buy materials for packages and sometimes send a package. 

There were so many locations for the Boston Post Office. You could find one downtown, in Back Bay, the master one at South Station. And they were near important places – or a few blocks away. You never had to walk too far to find a post office.

The best part about the Boston Post Office was how you could send a bill payment or letter to a Boston company and it was delivered the next day. I tested the consistency of next day delivery frequently. There were many nights where I would dash to the South Station Post Office just before midnight to make a next day delivery for a bill payment. It was better than email or paying electronically! I was always suspicious of online payments. It was early – 1997, 1998 – and the security just wasn't there from my perspective. Further, when the banks did online payments many were using the mail too. There weren't many companies that had a direct payment. (I believe today the companies that don't accept a direct payment from a bank are the exception not the rule.)

Then I moved to San Francisco. I realized the wonder of the USPS was regional.

I had a post office box in this copy center in Cupertino. Or was it Milpitas? Anyway, I was in between places in San Jose. When I finally made it to San Francisco in my new apartment, I didn't yet send a change of address card to the US Postal Service because my mail was already being forwarded to Milpitas. I figured I'd let some mail trickle to San Jose for the time being and change my mailing address for all my bills directly to my new address in San Francisco. That way I would know if I changed everything I wanted. 

I thought that was a brilliant plan.

But it wasn't. According to the mail carrier for my block, because he didn't get a card, he didn't think anyone was living in my apartment and returned all mail addressed to me. Yes, you read that correctly. He continued delivering junk mail and mail addressed to people who no longer lived there (like a bunch of different random names) but decided that the mail sent to this new name, Mary Brodie, me, shouldn't go to that address. What I found bizarre about this nonsense was that if you notice that mail is coming addressed to this new name, like a lot of different pieces of mail, wouldn't you start to wonder if someone new lived there?

Anyway – the guy was disciplined and life moved on and I got my mail. Finally. Or so I thought.

Mail took over a week to get across the country from Boston or New York to San Francisco. In a time when mail was competing with the Internet, I didn't understand this at all. So I decided to pay all of my bills online so payment would make it in time. At that time, direct payments were more common. I started noticing that in addition to this week delivery timeline, it was difficult to get to any post office anyway. They were at inconvenient locations, not on main streets. Or in malls that weren't in the middle of action.

My relationship with the USPS was waning.

Packages were difficult to get. I had to go to a Post Office nowhere near my house. I believe there was one nearby, but to the US Postal Service, that wasn't in the area servicing me. I did get packages stolen because the carrier left a package at my doorstep when I wasn't home. Yeah. Nice. 

Then one day when I was at a Post Office picking up a package, I noticed that the post offices no longer had vending machines selling stamps in them. Sure, the vending machines may have been difficult to repair, but they were convenient. This new complicated device replaced them. It would "help" you figure out how much postage was required to send a larger letter, package or whatnot. It was for smaller items. The device asked a lot of questions. 

Usps-kiosk_medium

They went from simple vending machines to having this very complex self-help package weigh machine to put the right postage on boxes. It didn't make much sense to me. Then I noticed that to keep pace with FedEx and UPS, they started offering other services, but the services to send package were simply too complicated. 

It became complicated and overwhelming to go to the Post Office. It became so manual in a time of automated transactions.

The lines got longer. They stopped selling stamps separately. Everyone had to be in a single line to do anything – drop off a package, pick up a package, get stamps. They combined simple tasks with complicated transactions.

The USPS downgraded it's experience from automated and easy to manual and cumbersome. Sadly, it was its own doing.

The main competitor of the Post Office had been the Internet. The Boston area held back this competitor because it essentially offered the same services as the Internet, mainly next day delivery. They had convenient locations. Easy to access stamps. They made doing business with the Post Office easy and convenient. Not many other cities did.

By making everything difficult about the experience – the time to send a package or letter, the way to get stamps, the packing skills needed to ship anything – the USPS discouraged people from using their services. Other options like UPS and FedEx became easier to work with.

Location is still a factor. Location matters.

I remember when I moved to Dallas, there was a fantastic Post Office facility near my apartment. It was right off of one of the main highways. It had lots of parking, a huge lobby, lots of people working there. They had some vending machines and it was super easy to get stamps and the like. But then it closed down. 

On Monday, I waited in line for 30 minutes to send one envelope and two packages. I don't go to the post office because of the lines. Usually, I make purchases and send gifts online.  However, as I was waiting in line, I saw most people ahead of me buying stamps. There were no machines available for people to buy them. And there were only 3 poor souls attending the counter. When I went to send my package, the attendant asked if what I had was fragile or contained perfumes. I guess that indicated special pricing? They offered countless ways to ship. They told me that I should have wrapped the jewelry pins I sent in additional bubble wrap even though it was a bubble wrapped envelope. It was difficult. And it wasn't the attendant's fault. It was the Post Office. They have made the experience complicated.

Compare this with a trip to UPS. I can walk into UPS with a bag of stuff I want to ship. Recently, I shipped my belly dance teacher in San Francisco a bunch of old costumes I don't wear for her students to use. At UPS, the staff takes your stuff, weighs it, asks you when you want the recipient to get it and done. You get to go home. They don't ask you 400 questions. They don't offer you 400 shipping options. The site does, but the store makes it simple. That's what the US Post Service needs to do. Make shipping simple again.

The good news is that since the US Postal Service partnered with FedEx and ups, they are delivering packages faster. Items aren't getting lost. It's a better service.

Hey, USPS, the world has changed! Here are some ways to change with it and become relevant again.

Sadly, the US Postal Service hasn't realized that the world of shipping and communication changed. They didn't keep pace and in the process, made themselves an irrelevant entity. I think they could become more relevant than a partner for FedEx and UPS if they focused on what people need in this new world.

  • Support special occasion mail – holiday cards, wedding invitations, other special invitations. Although the art of letter writing has taken a nosedive, many still like to send cards and invitations and will use the mail for special occasions. Make stamps special to place on such envelopes. Make them easy to buy for different sized and weighted mail pieces. Maybe even sell them in grocery stores or Target. Or revive vending machines. 

This could revive the art of letter writing if stamps are easier to purchase. They could make mail stylish again. I know that many are starting to send mail for marketing purposes because it gets attention. No one gets mail in the mailbox anymore. Using the US Postal Service makes you stand out.

  • Packages. It's hard to compete with FedEx and UPS. UPS has the packing service figured out and well managed. I'd suggest maybe not replicating that. However, maybe the USPS could provide advice on the site for how to pack different shaped and styled items. Or better yet, offer different easy to pack methods. More bags. More fun shaped boxes. More spacer items. Get creative. Make it so people don't know how to be the perfect packer. Maybe all people would need to know how to pack is how to match shapes and colors with bags, foam and other gadgets. 
  • Track letters – and not make it more expensive than sending a letter using a stamp. This could be possible today, so why not just do it? It's a little bit of an added step, but to be able to track a letter from start to finish would be such a powerful service. It would compete with FedEx – and could be cheaper. With the improved package service, an improved standard delivery would be fantastic.
  • Automate where you can. Sure, automation causes people to lose their jobs, but making people wait in line for 30 minutes to buy a stamp is unacceptable. People don't like to wait in line anymore. Find a way to make the easy tasks easier. It seems the UP Postal Service went backwards with removing those devices.

If the US Postal Service did these things, they may make themselves relevant again. I know I would send more cards and letters if it were easy to do that. I'm sure others would too.

USPS needs a new focus: Make it easy to use mail again. It seems that they lost their way somewhere during the rise of the Internet.

 

 

Thoughts on how the USPS created their own experience downgrade. But there’s hope – they can be relevant again.

Why are we afraid of empathy?

GearmarkLeave a comment

 
 
I think we can all agree that business is driven by relationships between people. And we can agree that people are emotional beings.
 
This means that business and life has a lot more emotions to it than we like to believe. 
 
If we are honest with ourselves, we probably would say that many of us in Western culture tend to avoid emotions in general. Emotions are squishy and we tend to think that they guide us to make impulsive and misguided decisions – almost like the Mariah Carey song above. We are told time and time again that the brain and rational thinking keeps us on-track. So we believe that.
 
Sure, we use spreadsheets and presentations and diagrams to make analyses, but is that what really drives decisions?
 
The dirty secret about emotions is that what you are feeling at any time reflects how you perceive what’s happening in your life.
  • You are happy when you believe life is going your way.
  • You feel in love when you meet a romantic partner who sweeps you off your feet.
  • You are sad when you lose something of great importance to you.
  • You are angry because something didn’t go as you wanted or someone did something to cross you.
With that in mind, basing a decision on how you feel isn’t always a bad thing. Again, we are emotional beings so making a decision based on what feels good to you – makes you happy, gives you joy – should be a reasonable reaction. 
 
In the West we like to attribute emotions to women, but that’s not true in all cultures. Emotions are for everyone (ask Margaret Mead).
 
In my opinion, we in the West, particularly of US and certain European cultures, are afraid of those pesky emotions, so we avoid them and embrace rational thought.  But again, we are emotional beings and life isn’t entirely rational so this decision doesn’t always work. We fall into a tailspin when we can’t rationalize away why people make a certain decisions, especially if they are driven by emotional factors. Emotions become mysterious drivers of how we live.
 
If we are afraid of emotions then it logically follows that we are afraid of empathy too.
 
Fear emotions
 
Given that people are emotional one would think that understanding empathy would be a key requirement to understand other people. However, I have noticed that a number of researchers and writers aren’t comfortable with the word empathy to the point that they are critical of it. Sure, they support compassion because it is about solutions, but empathy is about those pesky emotions and feelings. The question I have: Is empathy all that "evil" to begin with?
 
So we’re all aligned, let’s define what empathy is:
Empathy: The ability to understand and share the feelings of another. 
Many researchers will define empathy as sharing feelings more than understanding feelings. At least, that is what Paul Bloom is proposing. I need to read more of his book, Against Empathy: the Case for Rational Compassion, to better understand his arguments, but after the first few pages I'm already challenged by his case. 
 
My challenge centers around how he defines empathy as the sharing of feelings more than the understanding of feelings. 
 
What are the challenges?
To start, you can't really share feelings and emotions. Those are unique experiences. You can never 100% know what someone else is thinking or feeling – it just isn't possible. Even an "empath" can only experience what they feel from someone else, and even then, it is a second hand experience with an understanding of those feelings based on that person's own past experiences. There is no way to get a unique understanding of what someone else is going through at any time.
 
You can imagine what someone is feeling or experiencing emotionally, but it's all hypothetical without a shared experience. When you imagine what someone else is thinking or feeling, you are basing it off of your personal experiences, which may or may not have any similiarities of what’s happening to the other person. You need a common ground to work from – a shared experience to discuss.
 
This is why we need to revisit the definition of empathy and focus on the part that is about understanding someone else’s emotions so you can relate to them.
 
If you have had an experience that shares some similarities to someone else’s, then there is a strong possibility that you could better understand what that person is experiencing. What are some examples?
  • We flinch when we see pain because we have all had a cut or other injury of varying degrees. We know what a cut feels like. Looking at the severity of a cut, we can magnify or downplay our own experience with it. 
  • We cry when we watch a movie where someone loses a child or spouse because we imagine what we would feel like if we lost someone very close to us. Most of us have in some way, which makes the emotional expression more powerful. However, if a child doesn't have a spouse he or she cannot relate and probably won't cry. 
  • Women don’t really have any idea how a man feels when someone whacks him in the testicles. There can be no frame of reference. It looks painful, but is it? This is why women don’t really flinch when they see that onscreen or in real life.
You need a frame of reference – a shared experience – to be able to communicate how you are feeling and thinking. 
 
In one of the empathy criticizer articles, Mr. Bloom shares an example of  a spouse trying to comfort the other after losing a job. He said that you don't want two very emotional people – just one and the other providing comfort, and the other didn't have to really "get" the experience to provide that comfort. That story didn't do it for me. I have been laid off and a close friend who had no experience with losing a job tried his best to comfort me and have compassion. Needless to say, he tried hard, but had no understanding of what I was feeling or experiencing. Further, he could barely imagine what it was like because he had no experiential frame of reference.
 
What's an experiential frame of reference? 

It's either experiencing the same event or having a parallel experience that has shared qualities. In the case of a layoff, this would be events where someone is exiled from a group for no apparent logical reason. That person did nothing wrong – and most likely, there is no known reason for the exile. So in this case, experiential frames of references could be:
  • Being asked to leave a group for some reason beyond your control but not hearing that reason
  • Family not talking to you because of something heard through the grapevine that isn't true and not sharing that information with you
  • Not being invited to a party that all of your friends were invited to – and you don't know why
When I got laid off, friends who had experienced a layoff were empathetic and helpful. The friends who never experienced a layoff were difficult. They tried their best and shared some nice sentiments, but their efforts simply didn't support me and made me more aware of the job loss. I had to part ways with some friends because there was no shared experience of no job lead in sight – they didn't understand my stress. They just didn't have a similar frame of reference to understand. To show empathy or compassion you need to have a connection with the other person. And the only way to truly understand emotions is to have a shared experience. 
 
I think what gets lost with empathy is people believing its all about having those pesky emotions and feelings. However, empathy really is more about understanding the emotion. And you can’t understand the experience someone is having if you haven’t had some level of the experience yourself. It's not really the emotion – it is the experience that is prompting the emotional response.
 
Maybe if we tweaked the definition of empathy to fit an understanding of the emotions experience and base this connection with someone else on having a shared experience it wold work better for those who value rational thinking. Then, maybe, we'd all be less critical of empathy and understand it's value.
 
For more information, take a look at Empathy Exercises or read about why people like Monopoly and other simulation games.
Why are we afraid of empathy?

Characteristic #5: The customer feels a sense of accomplishment for an activity. But what drives someone to accomplish anything?

GearmarkLeave a comment
 
 
What drives you to finish a crafting project? Fixing your car? Making a meal?
 
Why not kinda, sorta do something? Isn't that enough?
 
Usually we tend to finish what we put our minds to complete. But what drives you to finish a project to 100%? Sure, you get a sense of accomplishment, but isn't there more to accomplishment than simply finishing a task?
 
To better define what accomplishment means, let's consider the reverse:
  • Why do you NOT finish a craft project?
  • Or DON'T get your car fixed?
  • Or DON'T finish a writing project?
It's because you don't see a reason to do it. You no longer care. You lost interest. 
 
So why do we choose to accomplish some projects and tasks and not others? One could say it is due to our motivation to do it, which is based on our belief systems and emotional investments/commitments.
 
Sure, we do different tasks throughout a day because we feel we need to finish them. But what drives that perspective? If you are objective about your answer, you know you don't really need to do anything in a day. You don't need to make a bed. You don't need to go on social media. You don't need to work. You don't need to cook dinner. 
 
But you do it anyway – for other reasons, purposes, and motivations. And those reasons are tied to how you see yourself. You cook dinner to eat well, be a good wife, or a good husband or parent. You make a bed so maybe people don't perceive you to be a messy person. You go to work to get a paycheck and not be embarrassed with bill collector calls. And your motivation to do these tasks drives how you feel about yourself and defines you and your self-worth.
 
You choose which tasks you are going to do at any moment, essentially choosing what you want to accomplish in a day – or not. You may think that others are expecting you to complete a task for them, that they are dependent on you. And that may be true. But most likely you are doing a particular task or activity for your own benefit, for your own self-image, and to feel a certain way about yourself.
 
We all like to feel successful and we choose to do activities and tasks that make us feel that way. We define for ourselves what success "looks like" and make choices that validate that vision.
 
Accomplishment – or abandonment – is related to that vision.
 
Feeling a sense of accomplishment is highly subjective because a company will never fully know or understand a prospect or customers' motivation to solve a problem – even if in fact, that person wants to solve it at all. You'd have to know and understand that individual's belief systems and values, and it's just not possible.
 
However, not all is lost. One can make assumptions based on a well-researched persona - a generalization. It provides enough information to make assumptive leaps. But these generalizations, these personas, need to be based on real people. That's the only way to truly understand them.
 
 
Learn why someone does what they do
You need to connect to your customer and learn his true motivation for accomplishing a task and get answers to these questions:
  • Why does a prospect or customer need your product?
  • What problem is he trying to solve?
  • Why does the prospect or customer want to solve his or her problem?
  • What does a prospect or customer want to feel when he or she purchases your product?
  • What is happening in his or her life to make this problem a priority?
But the most important question of all: What is the person's benefit to solve that problem? Why are they trying to solve the problem in the first place?
 
Once you identify the motivator for purchase or use, you have greater insight into why accomplishing a certain task is important to this person.
 
Once you have that information, you can then help him better determine how to accomplish solving his problem.
 
 
You still need to define a baseline process to help a someone complete a task – or rather, create a Journey Map
As a company, you can define the journey for your customers and prospects, but always keep in mind that you can't make a customer follow that path. You can provide and request information to help them make a decision. You know the decisions that need to be made to make a sale, complete a transaction, or complete a task in the app from your company's side. The customer may have some additional decisions to make on their side, but your company can define a baseline set of tasks through the journey. 
 
A journey helps the process, but it isn't the only process.
 
 
Decisions are closely related to accomplishment and the feeling of finishing an activity.
Even if you are submitting information a la Turbo Tax, you need to decide that enough information has been provided to consider a task finished or that you have enough information to complete a task. 
Usually this information flow is defined by business requirements. However, that's not always the case. Sometimes, a step in a process could be divided into sub-steps based on how users perceive it. 
 
This leads to how prospects, customers or users define accomplishment.
  • Are you accomplished for today? For now?
  • How much do you break down a task and decisions to consider it complete?
That's where you need user input to define great stopping points to gather additional data or simply take a breather from a long process.
 
  
The further you break down steps, the more someone will feel accomplished towards his goal 
Why do we have shopping carts for ecommerce? We broke down the shopping process and turned it into tasks. 
  • Someone browses and determines what he would like to buy
  • He may create a wishlist (decision point)
  • Then he decides to buy – puts it into the cart
  • Debates the cart and promos and the like (decision point)
  • Then he completes info to purchase (decision point)
  • Select the button to spend the money (decision point)
  • Confirmation (done)
Now, for a small purchase, completing this process is simple and fast.
 
However, for a larger purchase, this can be stressful and have many pauses along the way. Sometimes, the site will only include the steps up to the shopping cart – especially for larger purchases where a sales person is needed to complete the transaction. 
 
But for less expensive purchases, the flow as it exists allows someone to complete the process and feel that he accomplished something in his shopping project. He has a wish list. He narrowed it down and is ready to purchase. He purchased.
 
The same can be applied to completing an insurance application. Someone may start the process, have some questions to be answered through other sources and come back later to complete it. That person will want to feel that some of the application is complete and he did, in fact, accomplish something. 
 

This is also true for functionality. Look at Turbo Tax. Turbo Tax is successful because it breaks down figuring out your taxes into simple steps. You can leave at any time and come back. You can skip around and finish sections that you have the information to complete and leave other sections blank until later. There are percent complete indicators for each section so you always know how much you really have left to do. And it tracks how much of a refund you will get – so you know that progress as well and where you could find additional deductions.

 
(Back to the Emotional Investment/Commitment section…Why is Turbo Tax so popular? People are committed to submit their taxes to be a good citizen. Why do people take time to complete an insurance application? They want to reduce their risk.) 
 
 
Similar to experiencing progress: timing of steps towards accomplishing a goal is related to relative value (money or time) and priority for solving the problem
The time spent inbetween decisions and steps of a process is directly proportional to the value of what's being asked of the customer and the severity of the situation at hand. What does this mean? Let's start with value.
 
If an item is perceived to "not cost very much" it is an easy, simple purchase. "Not cost very much" is relative to the income one makes in a year. So a widget for $3 doesn't cost very much for someone making $100K/year compared to a $20K car. Then again, a $20K car doesn't cost very much for someone who makes $200+K/year. It's all relative and about perspective. 
 
Then there is the severity of the situation of the customer/user. If it is an urgent problem that needs repair, then most likely the purchase cycle will be fast and the customer will want to fix it right away. Even if the cost is high, if the priority of the problem to the person making the decision is very high, the decision turnaround may be fast. For example, a leaky roof will get fixed very quickly if the leak is severe – even if it costs $10K. Someone will buy a new car if he needs one to get to work – even if he needs to get a loan for $20K to do it. 
  
This is also true for tasks in an app, except rather than costs relating to money, it's about time investment costs. A user will take the time to learn how to use a product if he needs the result it offers. Users don't have much time to learn how to use software or how to use a feature – that's why they should be familiar to use. A user needs to invest as little time as possible to learn anything new. He doesn't need training and can get started right away.
 
However, if the problem doesn't have much of a priority to be fixed, he may – or may not – take the time to learn the complex features. This is the space where unused software lives.
  
 

How this maps to the Customer Relationship Lifecycle

Pre-purchase
  • Find out why someone wants your product – learn more about them, their motivations, and their problems. Conduct surveys, start a social listening program, interview customers – find ways to gather their input and voices. Learn not just the logistics for why they are purchasing. Learn about the emotional benefits they want to get from solving their problems.
  • Invest in proper personas. I can't stress this enough. Get that baseline ready to create your journey. 
  • Create a journey map for the various pre-purchase processes and indicate all of the customer decisions required. This would be the minimum decisions for a process. Get customer input for additional decisions needed.
  • Provide quizzes, checklists and other materials to help someone determine what their problems, challenges, and potential solutions really are. Just because a prospect is researching your product doesn't mean that the prospect really should buy your product.
 
Purchase decision
  • Learn the personal benefit for the customer to solve their problem as well as the personal benefit for everyone who would use the product.
  • Provide checklists and related materials to help the prospect decide if your solution is right for him
  • Provide materials that outline your capabilities and solution versus your customer
  • Provide cost calculators to help determine monetary value
  • Provide calculators to determine the time and cost it will take to use the product
  • Ensure that you are meeting the emotional needs of the customer once he purchases the product – it was worth his investment and commitment to your company and product. This is more involved and requires customer research. But if this is done properly, it is worth it from the perspective of happy customers, repeat customers and referrals.
 
Product Experience
  • Make sure that the features related to the user's motivation to fix the problem are easiest to complete
  • Understand what it driving the need to solve a problem and offer the right assistance when it makes sense. This includes help, supporting content, reference materials, videos, and related items.
  • If possible, keep functionality simple, clear and quick. It shouldn't take long to complete a task (meaning it should be familiar to use)
  • Reduce the amount of training needed to start using and understanding a product
  • Include status bars and indicators for percentage complete or what it takes to reach a goal provide input/insight into what’s happening. The user needs to know what is being asked of him and what to expect
  • Product pricing – make sure it is in line with the severity and priority of the problem. A complex problem will take a while to buy – and solve – even if the price is low. Or at least, it should. Simpler problems can be solved more easily and directly. But there should be a relationship between the price, time to purchase, and the product cost
 
Post-Purchase
  • Make sure, based on user motivation for why they want to use the product, that support is easily available. And it is available in formats that they prefer to use.
  • Similar to product, keep steps simple and clear or include a status bar for solving problems or resolving logistical/operations issues
  • Include checklists to help fix problems
  • Communicate in the best way digitally – video, audio, or text. Communicate to the user the way he wants to receive communication
  • To determine eligibility for special offers, make it clear what will earn you the rebate or other offer
  • Understand the emotional motivation for someone to buy and use your product – and respond to your customers with empathy if they are failing to use it in some way
Characteristic #5: The customer feels a sense of accomplishment for an activity. But what drives someone to accomplish anything?