When the Customer Experience Is…Less than Great
Oftentimes, when it comes to designing a customer experience, we ask ourselves, “How might we understand why people do X” so that we can create an that encourage someone to do something, such as sign up for a gym membership and be a loyal customer.
Personally, I’ve never been one for the #gymlife. One major aspect of going to the school gym was not lack of motivation, but lack of satisfaction when I went. I could never find the machines I wanted to use, and the ones I could find were always being used. I never felt comfortable because there were so many people who clearly knew exactly what they were doing, and I was just starting. Why did it take me so long to get started? I had a free gym to use at school and every reason to show up, but I wonder, why didn’t I ever go?
Simply put, the gym felt “necessary” but never exciting, and the inability to feel stable in a gym kept me from even showing up.
So, what do we do when customers are coming in with a negative point of view or when they have to do a necessary task? Think about moments such as buying paper towels, going to the doctor, or signing up for a gym. For most people, these are never enjoyable prospects. Sometimes, the best way to get started is to simply not dissatisfy the customer.
Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
To put this in perspective, let’s look at management theory. There is an interesting theory on motivation by psychologist Frederick Herzberg called Motivation-Hygiene Theory (or the Two-Factor Theory). The basic premise is that in any workplace, people’s attitudes about a task are affected by two things: their motivation and the “hygiene” of the workplace.
When I say hygiene, I am referring to the extrinsic factors that keep someone from feeling comfortable at their job. These can be company policies that are too restrictive, too low of a salary, a lack of job security, or poor supervision. Motivational factors, by comparison, are the parts of the job that get someone excited to show up to work: being recognized for good work, having a challenge, feeling like they are growing and learning in the workplace. Here’s the thing: hygiene factors only impact that person’s dissatisfaction with their job. If you fulfill all the hygiene factors, all you can do is make sure that person is “not dissatisfied.”
An easier way of looking at this might be workplace fulfillment: having good pay, good policies, and clean working conditions are necessary to keep people around. But without the excitement of a job well done, or the sense of growth and upward mobility, people are going to stop people from taking those extra steps to do good work.
Customer experiences can work in a similar way. Let’s look back at paying for a gym membership. If you are signing up for a new gym, the hygiene factors will be things like ease of navigation, whether the basic amenities are effective, etc. If these are unmet, then the person will be dissatisfied with their experience, but the best you can do is get them to a “base level.” What keeps people coming back is if they actually see results (hitting on the components of growth and achievement).
No one is motivated or excited to buy a plunger or go to the hospital, but these are necessary experiences for people. That’s when the question at hand shifts from
“How might we get someone to do X?”
to
“How might we keep someone from having a worse experience than they are already having?”
At this point, the main focus has to be minimizing dissatisfiers in any way possible. It could mean increasing signage so people don’t experience the additional stress of being lost in a confusing place like a hospital. It could be increasing the lighting in a warehouse so necessities like plungers do not appear dingy (think about how you feel walking into a Target as opposed to a Wal-Mart). It could mean having snacks in the waiting room so customers are not both bored and hungry.
Working in healthcare, we are continually solving for this problem — looking at how we can improve the experience for those who are sick, ailing, frustrated, and in pain. For example, when someone requires a trip to the emergency department, our job changes from that of increasing leads and sales to that of caregivers. We must hang our hats on the importance of empathy and tools such as mapping points of stress. In our next post, we’ll share with you how we took this approach with one of our clients, HonorHealth.
There are situations that people will almost never be motivated to engage in. For me, it was going to a gym that had no open machines and no sense of care. But, if nothing else, we can work hard to make sure that our customers are not dissatisfied with their experience. And yes,I did finally find a gym that hits those hygiene factors. I can walk in the door and be greeted by enthusiastic trainers, then feel like I can actually reach my goals because I have the room to move and don’t feel intimidated by the people who may be too into their #gainz.
TL;DR: There are some experiences that are never pleasant (i.e. going to the emergency room), but that does not mean that we should let those experiences become more stressful than they already are . The consideration becomes “How might we keep someone from having a worse experience than they already have?”
About the Writer:
Riggs Brown is a Content Intern for Cast & Hue and its sister companies. Recently graduated from Arizona State with degrees in Marketing and Management, Riggs has experience in writing and content strategy. New to Design Thinking, Riggs’ entries reflect learning about the exciting field by working with Cast & Hue.
