The ROI of Endineering. Part 2. Where is the investment growth from consumer experience coming from?

Businesses are growing their investment in consumer experience as a vehicle for increasing engagement with products, pushing profits, innovation and efficiencies. According to Forbes,

• Companies with a customer experience mindset drive revenue 4-8% higher than the rest of their industries.

• Two-thirds of companies compete on customer experience, up from just 36% in 2010.

• Companies that lead in customer experience outperform laggards by nearly 80%.

• 84% of companies that work to improve their customer experience report an increase in their revenue.

• 73% of companies with above-average customer experience perform better financially than their competitors.

As a longtime advocate of the customer experience, it’s great for me to see interest in it increasing, despite most attention going towards the on-boarding and usage phases. This interest will widen the remit of the discipline, no doubt expanding it to other areas beyond core functionality. Endings will start to be considered as an important part of the process of dealing with consumers. This is a growing field. There is significant appetite for taking on-board new areas of the consumer experience discipline.

Alongside this increase in direct investment in consumer experience, there is an adjacent area of concern about considerate consumerism. Nielsen, the data analytics firm, found that
“A new era of sustainability is rising. Consumers in markets big and small are increasingly motivated to be more environmentally conscious and are exercising their power and voice through the products they buy.”
They found “...a whopping 81% of global respondents feel strongly that companies should help improve the environment.” Engagement in this area is often interpreted simply as consumers purchasing products that are better for the environment. But significant improvements can come from the way people dispose of their products as well. Endings form a bridge between consumption and actionable improvements in consumerism.

The ROI of Endineering. Part 1. The cost of building an endings aware business.

A common question that I get asked is ‘What would the return on investment (ROI) be of ends?’ Investing in better consumer off-boarding cannot be considered in isolation. It needs to be located in the wider context of changing consumer awareness, emerging legislation, marketing trends and other investments. To answer it, I want to break down the question into separate, more specific issues.

• What is the potential cost of creating consumer off-boarding experiences?

• Where is the investment growth from consumer experience coming from?

• How can we put a value on consumer experience at the end of the consumer lifecycle?

In this article I want to answer the first of those issues.
(If you would like to dig in to this further, I go in to detail in the Endineering book)

What is the potential cost of creating consumer off-boarding experiences?

There is a cost to engaging more actively in consumer off-boarding. It will have financial and time consequences for businesses. Teams will need to be trained. Changes to approach, communication, logistics and even culture will need to happen. For some sectors, especially physical product producers, costs may be higher as they implement far-reaching changes to customer engagement alongside sustainability, databases and logistics. For others it will mean simple changes, some empathy, training and extending the company focus.

The five areas of investment and adaption if a business is to purse Endineering and provide better endings in the consumer lifecycle are

1. Business Culture Change
2. Skills.
3. Research and measurement
4. Aligning with legislation
5. Logistics, assets, and communication touch points

The following diagrams provide an overview of these activities for a business building an Endineering capability.

In the diagram below we can see how these roles might change their domain against the customer lifecycle.

Visibility Levels of the Lingering Type of Ending.

Lingering is one of the 8 types of Ending experienced by the consumer.

It is the service, digital or product relationship that has effectively ended due to lack of use yet may still be unknowingly available to the consumer or continuing activity out of sight and mind.

Some services become so background to our lives that we forget we are even involved with them. These lingering services may still be capturing data from us while we go about our lives, unaware of their presence. Maybe they still draw a small amount from our bank accounts. Product relationships that were once exciting and used constantly, can change as our needs change. This is evident in clothes that people forget are there at the back of a cupboard. In social media people quickly forget about last month’s pictures from a party or a flippant comment they sent in anger. Yet these linger, saved forever, unless actively deleted.

When the consumer stops using a physical product, they must tolerate its existence until they remove it. It is physically visible in their environment. For example, upgrading a mattress requires removing the old one, otherwise it will clutter up the house or bedroom. Many companies use this issue to improve the sale of a new product. Mattress companies have been removing old mattresses for a while. Ikea have started doing removal as part of their delivery. 

Service clutter is less physical. It often only surfaces periodically in bank statements for example. But at least it is there once a month. 

Some digital experiences are visible only through functions in settings. The consumer has to dig into the functionality to see what is happening, where their data goes, what is being processed.

Other lingering assets are entirely invisible to the consumer. For example, carbon impact, un-recyclable plastics, or the processing of unclosed account data could be lingering far beyond user perception or access. 

We can look at all of these as layers of visibility to the consumer.

The Ends Canvas

The Ends Canvas

The Ends Canvas is for businesses to use as part of the product development process. It will help focus attention on the characteristics of a good consumer off-boarding experience.

This is the second version of the Ends Canvas.

DOWNLOAD HERE.

I am also available to work on this with your business or train your team on how to use it.

Translations

The Portuguese translation of The Ends Canvas done by Dani Likmanas at Upstream. THANKS DANI

Consumer Ending Types.

8 types of endings experienced by consumers.

Ends happen. They will happen to your product, service or digital product. Knowing the characteristics of these endings is helpful for understanding your business, your consumers, their needs and delivering a better quality product.

Building and designing for this will help soften the blow of a hard ending. It will improve communication, create a more collaborative off-boarding experience and be conducted under far greater control.

Broadly, there are 7 types of endings that consumers experience. Each of these have distinct characteristics. Sometimes a consumer could experience two or even three different endings at the same time, but usually, a dominant one will define the situation.

1. Time Out

A product that is delivered over a fixed period of time - 3 year education course, 2 week holiday, 12 month magazine subscription. Once that period has expired so has the service.

For physical products this could be a sell-by-date, or a warranty period. And for digital products a 1 year subscription to a computer application, or a 24 hour rented film.

2. Credit Out / Exhaustion

Services that draw on a numeric value over time until that value is exhausted. This is usually communicated in a local currency - Dollars, Pounds, Euros, for example, but can also be valued in a sudo currency like points or credits, that have been created by the provider - points on your driving license (UK), 3 strikes law in the (US), Air Miles, etc.

For products, we can see examples in things like batteries being discharged, food being consumed, and tyres being run bald. 

In digital we can see examples of storage being filled up, or in games  where a currency has been consumed - gems in Clash of Clans for example.

3. Task Event Completion

A previously defined event, offered by the provider (flight to Paris), or a task agreed between the consumer and the provider (fix my tap). Once this event has taken place to the satisfaction of both parties the service is over.

Applying this to products - a disposable coffee cup has a single purpose, once completed the task has been achieved. Despite the obvious environmental problems with that, the consumer experiences the end.

In digital, games provide an example, as the end of normal usage where a task (complete this game) is fulfilled.

4. Broken / Withdrawal

An unplanned, and often uncomfortable separation between the provider and the consumer. A previous agreement has broken down. This can quickly become a legal matter. Both provider and consumer resorting to detailed expectations of the relationship that potentially were not clear at the beginning of the relationship.

In recent years the T&Cs of digital services have exampled an unwieldily explosion in this type of ending. Where consumers have signed up un-knowingly for situations beyond what they understood at the time. Recent changes in European law with GDPR have put new expectations on providers around this.

In a product sense we experience items becoming broken unexpectedly through poor manufacture or through exceeding the expectations of normal usage. Common examples could be burning through a pan in the kitchen, or finding a newly purchased item is broken.

5. Lingering

Some services become so background in our lives that we forget we are even involved with them. These lingering services can still be capturing data from us while we go about our lives unaware of their presence. Maybe they still draw a small amount from our bank accounts after we have forgotten the relationship existed. Pensions have a long winded relationship that is forgotten for many years, laying dormant.

Product relationships that were once exciting and used constantly, can change as our needs change. Gradually over time items might end up being forgotten as they lack relevance in our lives.

We can see this in cloths that we forgot we had at the back of the cupboard. It can be triggered through demographic changes - where something was relevant to us while we were in a different situation. For example a toy that was loved left at the back of the cupboard while a child grows up and pursues older interests.

In digital we see this example through social media when we quickly forget about last months pictures from a party or a flippant comment we sent in anger. Yet these linger, saved forever unless actively deleted and dealt with.

6. Proximity

When the experience has ended due to the location being hidden or removed. A good example is when a person has moved away outside of the distribution of a service coverage. A common experience for people moving from one country to another and being unable to take their bank account and other services. 

In a product sense consumers might see this with physical items. Experiencing particular foods in one country, which are unavailable in another. 

In digital consumers experience a proximity type ending when they move from one digital platform to another platform. Apple to Android for example, Apps and data that was once available and have now been moved out of reach.

7. Cultural

Consumers experience cultural endings of their products, services, or digital products when they perceived it as out of fashion, inappropriate, or culturally not aligned with their world view. This could be a service that previously considered acceptable but now feels wrong due to social perceptions or a particular look or feel.

It could be a product that has a physical style or colour palette which has become less attractive. 

In a digital sense this can be closely aligned with the perception of technical features, where a once trending feature, now seems superficial or embarrassing. 

8. Competition

The consumer ends one relationship to start a new one elsewhere. They might do this because they see weakness in their current relationship and benefits in another.

The most talked-about aspect of consumer endings is the fear that a customer will go elsewhere. Gargantuan effort goes into discussions about this particular type of ending, generating training and education, articles and books, conferences, boardroom debates. Of all the types of ending that consumers experience, the only one that business cares about is the loss of loyalty to another business. This reveals a deep paranoia of businesses. Some will act appallingly at the off-boarding period in the consumer lifecycle. Behaviour that wouldn’t be tolerated in other parts of their business is acceptable. But to avoid a competitive ending, anything goes.

Doubts to endings with GDPR

View fullsize

Consumers now experience many data and service engagements. Previously providers would aim for trust. But now, with the consumer experiencing multiple engagements and the perceived threat of GDPR, industry will now have to encourgage consumers actively overlook offers from competitors.

As we have seen in the Role Exit process, an event can trigger doubt and move the consumer quickly to investigating alternatives. They will then be seeking Data Portability from their providers.

Ends principles for GDPR

While studying GDPR and how it is empowering consumers endings with data, I have been able to capture some principles which I think help compose a healthy off-boarding experience for the consumer and ease the burden on business.

Standard ends principles apply to GDPR as well of course.
Consciously connected to the rest of the experience through emotional triggers that are actionable by the user in a timely manner.

Principles that extend across the consumer lifecycle for GDPR.
Educate the consumer about data at every point.
Encourage the consumer to actively control their data.
A common narrative voice should be used throughout the consumer lifecycle.

Around Data Portability
A crack of doubt will start the process of leaving.
Doubt can be redirected with honesty and open discussion. 
Be a considerate and confident sharer. 

Around Consent, and removal of consent
Avoid creating bias endings, that place the consumer as a failure, or criminal. 
Too many surprises at off boarding will erode good work done earlier. 
Consumers are now experiencing a world of multiple engagements.
Endings can be a place to up-sell your brand, but not always your business.
The end provides equal opportunity to show good customer service.

Around Right to be Forgotten.
Define what is meant by delete. Does it mean purged?
Humans need to forget. Our memory evolved this way.
Burden of proof. How do you prove an invisible ending?
Consider stages of deletion in Right to be Forgotten.

Acknowledged
Actioned
Observed
Agreed

Off-boarding stages with Right to be Forgotten

Once the relationship has deteriorated to a point where the consumer is actioning their Right to be Forgotten, it is important to define stages that the consumer will witness. A process that helps them feel comfortable, informed and in control. In view of this I propose these stages to help frame the situation, set expectations, agreements, and consumer responsibility.

Acknowledged
How does the business acknowledge the request and what it means. Reminding the consumer of earlier statements made, functionality lost, could help in that acknowledgement.  

Actioned
How can the user have a role in the process. Part of taking personal responsibility requires interface elements to be actionable by the user. 

At on-boarding the use of radio buttons in T&Cs to acknowledge agreement is common. Although legally accepted as a user interface it fails as consumers often overlook the text and just click the button. 

Observed
How should the consumer observe deletion? What is the time frame? What type of process? What trusted party endorses the process? There are going to be various issues and approaches. From immediate ones that could use an animation, to scheduled events requiring a different type of feedback. Ultimately the consumer needs to observe a satisfying and conclusive end to their consumer data. 

Agreed
How can parties agree it has happened? What processes have been completed? What evidence can be provided and who is the authority that will authorise it?

The consumer needs to feel confident that a process has been completed. They should be able to show something that proves deletion has taken place. It is not an easy task, as outlined in earlier passages with the burden of proof issue.

Flow through end states in GDPR.

European consumers will flex their rights by moving their data relationships between different end states.

The consumer is loyal in their relationship with a provider. This is partly to do with difficulty to move a service to another provider.

Right to Data Portability and Open Banking aim to free that burden by encouraging the consumer to share their data with other providers and enquire about alternative offers. In turn this produces doubt in the relationship between the consumer and their current provider.

The relationship can be further undermined by the consumer removing their consent for their data to be used via Right to Withdraw Consent. In effect the relationship is paused and ended. In this state the provider still has the data so the relationship is not forgotten. Potentially being ignited again if the user consented to it. 

If the data is purged through a Right to be Forgotten request, the relationship is dead, ended and forgotten. At some point providers will need to deliver an off-boarding experience. 

Designing Ends for Apple

Few consumer experience award tables are complete without an Apple product in the line-up. The company is universally celebrated as leader in consumer experience. But, as outlined below, recent problems relating to the off-boarding of these products highlight Apple’s failure to give consideration to the whole of the consumer lifecycle. In this article I should like to look at Apple’s opportunities for improving consumer off-boarding in its products and services.

Off-boarding bias

The consumer lifecycle can be broken into three sections:on-boarding, usage, and off-boarding. As providers and consumers we have a sophisticated, emotional response to on-boarding through marketing, advertising and packaging. After this we should enjoy the design and manufacture of these products, while using them to improve our daily lives. But the end of the consumer experience of the product’s lifecycle is left lingering in limbo by a biased consumer model, that fails to deal with consumption ills, missing an opportunity to reclaim materials, delete data or say a proper goodbye, amongst other things.

Good consumer endings (off-boarding) can encourage reflection, inspiring consumers to consider the benefits that they have experienced. And in turn such consumer endings can take responsibility for the aftermath of the possession of the product. They also help companies to design a complete consumer lifecycle that can mitigate consumptions ills. Not to mention vastly improve the opportunity for resale.

 

Apple

Let’s consider Apple’s opportunities to deliver consumer endings through the lens of a few recent events - 32bit apps, a new patent submission for detecting broken screens, battery lives and a recent experience I had when I returned a 10 year old Macbook. Although seemingly unconnected, these events could provide Apple with a wonderful palette of tools to off-board their consumers in a more meaningful, emotional and beneficial way.  I’d like to start by assessing these events, and shall then consider how they can be assembled to improve the consumer off-boarding experience.

What a surprise! 32bit apps will die

With the release of iOS 11 in September of 2017, 32bit apps stopped being supported. Of course, a natural evolution of technology sees old formats die off. Apple revealed its intention to do this to its App developer community as long ago as October 2014, so it should have come as no surprise to many active App developers.

However, the press and many users were surprised such a thing might happen. As consumers, maybe we have ambitious expectations of our software lifespans? This could be down to the lack of acknowledgement producers give to endings. They pass on very little information to the users of their software.This probably fuels a mindset, unconsciously, in all of us that consumer endings never happen. But the termination of support served as a crude wake up call for those in denial when once-loved apps failed post iOS update.

Beyond the technical advice available from Apple for closing an app, there was virtually no communication from Apple to consumers that an App is in terminal decline. Maybe if there had been, consumers would not be surprised when the end came to a favourite piece of software.

Cracked screen detection

With higher expectations of a phone’s physicality - they are now thinner and lighter with a wider screen - durability risk increases. Broken screens, a rarity in the period of Nokia, are now a common sighting.

A recent discovery by Appleinsider.com, revealed a patent submission from Apple about  software that detects a broken phone screen. The filing, called “Coverglass Fracture Detection”, proposes that a combination of software and hardware can detect a crack, even a hairline crack in the phone’ screen. Such a feature can be part of an information pattern that indicates a products demise. We will come back to this later.

Apples recent patent for cracked screens. (Courtesy of Appleinsider.com)

Battery lives

Lately Apple has been fumbling with the issue of older batteries by fiddling with device behaviour. It chose to slow down older devices secretly through a software update, seemingly with the intention of pushing those who couldn't tolerate a slower phone to go out and purchase the next device - an example of classic technical obsolescence.

After some consumers became increasingly suspicious of their devices’ behaviour, and others started lawsuits, Apple succumbed and admitted it had been juggling the metaphorical battery books.

Responding to these accusations Apple claimed that they had customers’ best interests at heart, and they were trying to protect the devices from overloading circuitry. Either way, it has not been good for Apple's brand perception. But what we do know is that they are somewhat aware of how capacity loss is happening in batteries as they age, and they are tracking this. Another piece of feedback that could be useful to consumers were it placed in a more informative and helpful setting.

Product death and hand back

In addition to these examples, I should also like to include a personal experience. I returned a 10 year old MacBook that my youngest child was using, because it had started to swell and cracked the trackpad. We had updated the hard drive a couple of years ago - well he did (https://youtu.be/uDXQIQPMMVc), but the device needed more investment for repair beyond what it was worth. So we decided to get rid of it.

We followed the instruction on the Apple website - deleted the files, erased the hard drive and took it back to an Apple store. They were happy to receive it, and gave us a paper form to fill in (hooray, I love filling in paper forms).   

It came as little surprise how emotionless and barren this was as an experience. The decade- long relationship between my family and Apple was not acknowledged or celebrated. There was no opportunity or space to reflect on the enormous pleasure that this device had provided me or my family. And there was no reward for our decade of loyalty. This was a lost opportunity to enhance a wider relationship with the Apple brand. The dull paper form summed up the entire experience -, legal, emotionless, stunningly dry.

Opportunities for Apple

Off-boarding for consumers should be better. And I think Apple has lots of opportunities to improve. Over the following paragraphs I should like to suggest improvements based on the guidance I provide in the Ends book and the characteristics I believe an appropriate closure experience should have...

'Consciously Connected to the rest of the experience through Emotional Triggers that are Actionable by the user in a Timely manner.'

 

Merging the elements into meaning.

Despite those examples of poor off-boarding from Apple, Apple seem to have a rich source of knowledge and components which could provide a good off-boarding experience. They just fail to assemble these into anything meaningful.

Apple knows the consumer pretty well. Through the device, iTunes and the App store, they know heaps about behaviour, age and the state of the device and future stability of apps. These elements are currently left as what you could describe as experience islands. They are scattered, and can only be interpreted by the consumer as disorganised indifference from the provider. This leaves the consumer feeling helpless, grappling with the assumption they need to buy a new phone/computer/charger to solve the problem and be considered an efficient consumer again.

Bringing the bits together

Manufacturers  provide a clear path for on-boarding at the beginning of the consumer lifecycle. They pull together complicated information about function, payment, data and identity etc, into one coherent and meaningful experience. In software this often takes the form of a Set-Up assistant. Apple has a well-respected version of this for the iPhone which emotionally frames the situation and smoothly on-boards the consumer to the Apple experience.

The diagram below shows this as a starting experience, with the user’s engagement climbing as they progress through the Set-Up assistant. Each screen represents a step achieved in assembling parts of the iPhone consumer experience.

Once committed, the consumer builds on this process by adding new services and functionality like Apps from 3rd parties, thus diversifying the product’s benefits and value. The consumer can now enjoy full usage of the device’s potential.

The current off-boarding of Apple’s products, as I have demonstrated earlier in this article, is far from complete. Components like battery life, software stability, screen state or even handing back old devices are experiences without a narrative. Off-boarding is untethered from the rest of the Apple experience, with messages that leave the consumer confused and forced to make assumptions about what to do.

Assistance with off-boarding

At the end of the consumer lifecycle we should aim to pull these random threads of experience together again. Problems like the alerts to bad cables, poor battery, and app failure, are currently barren and without a positive action for the consumer to take.

What would be better would be for them to be assembled into an opportunity for reflection. Apple has numerous sources of information and knowledge about a product’s health and  consumer behaviour and these should provide ample opportunity to make predictions about off-boarding.

Consciously Connected

An off-boarding experience should feel similar to on-boarding in tone and style, consciously connecting it in the user’s mind to the rest of the Apple experience. It should pull together things like battery failure, age of device, broken screen and software limitations in a single narrative voice.

This narrative voice could then provide a destination and common language to trust as the device declines over time. The consumer should then feel that they have support in this transition.

Timely

Were it to exist, this theoretical off-boarding assistant would be active over a long time period. It could capture a timely, steady, series of issues as they come up sporadically over months, even years.

In regard to the family laptop we returned, which of course had not been turned on for weeks, this event could have been understood and pre-empted (age of device+state of battery+usage patterns = off-board now) by Apple. This could then have been communicated to me and my family (the consumers), via other devices linked via iTunes, with a message that indicated issues, risks and positive actions to take.

A process like this would put Apple on the front foot of reclaiming old devices,actively nurturing consumers to off-board old machines in the right way.

Actionable

Many of the messages that the consumer currently receives about declining quality are informative, but un-actionable, so providing a generally negative experience for a consumer who desires empowerment. An improvement would see consumers instructed to do something about it. This could maybe be advice about maintenance or the average lifespan of products, or even a diagram of information showing the expected lifespan of the product.

This suggestion might be considered rather extreme, and many readers might object to the idea. But I ask them to look at Kia cars. In essence, the Kia car manufacturers agreed a funeral day with their customers for their cars 7 years in the future. Imagine how useful that is for sales, knowing when your customer might be ready for another product and being included in that decision. Kia cars, by the way, have doubled their market share since introducing the 7 year warranty.

Rebirthing the old

When the consumer purchases a new device, she or he is often replacing an old device. Acknowledging this as part of the on-boarding experience could be useful in raising awareness of recycling opportunities, or ways to sell or pass on an old device. This could also be linked directly to Apple’s social responsibility programs, either in the packaging as the consumer unwraps their new purchases, or in areas of the phone interface at Set-Up. These could really fertile areas to gain a response from the consumer.

All things come to and end. Why don't we design these experiences? Off-boarding should balance the On-Boarding.

Although Apple leads the way in consumer experiences, they are still locked into a consumer model from the previous century’s consumer boom. That model celebrates a biassed consumer lifecycle of on-boarding and usage and denies a reflective, emotional and responsible off-boarding experience for the consumer.

Apple has the assets, the platform, the funding and the need to rethink their bias approach, I only hope they take the initiative.

Desirable ‘Aftermath Targets’ in consumer experiences

We rarely design endings that are anything more than convenient for the service provider. These usually end up being a quick goodbye, and then a bombardment of emails resplendent with fake sympathy. The aftermath for the consumer - their emotions and occasionally their anger - is considered their own problem. This is actually far from that; companies should start considering endings as part of their responsibility.

The negative emotions and feelings of the user may linger after a consumer engagement and can tarnish the brand of the provider. Avoiding this with purposeful, and considered closure experiences when the consumer off-boards your product or service can alleviate that problem.

Someone recently asked me what is the best account deletion flow for an app. Which is great to hear, as many people don’t even get as far as caring. As a way of answering this question I thought I would write up some aspects which I think need to be considered when off-boarding a consumer.

Firstly, many basic UX issues still apply at off-boarding - clarity of progress, setting expectations, notifications. Secondly, some wider techniques I have outlined in earlier posts can really help - consideration of Transaction Models, understanding of what type of Closure Experience you are aiming for and I certainly suggest using Post Service Personas as a method of empathy for designing Closure Experiences.

Lastly, I want to highlight a new addition to this tool set - Aftermath Targets: where is the consumer going to end up emotionally after leaving your service? 

Broadly, we retain comfortable or uncomfortable memories of a service or product. If that memory relates to a service or product of your design, you are probably hoping that it will be a positive one. Considering what type of Aftermath Target you want them to feel after leaving, and designing towards that will maximise your chances of being fondly remembered.

There are many Aftermath Targets that might be felt by the consumer after Off-Boarding, you might have specific ones in mind but, for the purpose of explaining the model I will use 3 of the most common ones: reflection, rebirth, and rest.

Reflection - Look back at a wonderful experience
Rebirth - Released to take part in another experience
Rest - Provides an opportunity to rest, a moment of silence

Some endings can be dominated by just one Aftermath Target, but most are a mix. For example, the end of a holiday will give you a sense of Rebirth, and occasionally you will think about the holiday after it has ended - Reflection. You should not require Rest after a holiday, unless the holiday was awful beyond belief.

After a particularly difficult and contested relationship with a service provider we may feel a strong opportunity for Rebirth, and a sense of Rest, but few would want to Reflect on what was a bad experience. 

When we buy a new computer to replace an ageing one, we rarely want to Reflect on it or Rest, but the desire to Rebirth in to a new relationship with new features, faster processor and increased storage will energise our new experience.

After using a car for many years and getting it scrapped we might feel many memories and subsequently end up with many Aftermath Targets.

Approaching the issue with these targets in mind we can observe certain needs that we can design for. For example, designing for Rest would not require follow-up emails, or targeted adverts to the user. A service that ends with the user requiring Reflection might be easier to view or share. And a user who is leaving a bank service we can assume will need to Rebirth in to another service, so information that will help that rebirth happen would be useful for the departing user and give good brand value to your service, increasing the likelihood of them considering your brand again.

Using Aftermath Targets can’t guarantee your departed user likes your service or product forever, but they can drastically reduce the possibility of you losing control and overlooking their emotions when off-boarding.

Example: Music Magpie. This product is dead. It deserves an emotional send off.

The ‘beep’, of acknowledgement from the Music Magpie App, indicates the 10 year depreciation of an £8 CD, that is now worth 64 pence. Such is the life of eroding media like CD’s. I hardly have any places now I can play a CD at home. The stereo from the kitchen is now a networked speaker, and hardly any computers in the house even have a CD slot. The only place equipped for playing a CD is the 10 year old Toyota Corolla, which I am sure will outlive many other media formats. 

That said, I am massively appreciative of the task that Music Magpie fulfils. Originally taking only CD’s and DVD, they now take all sorts of digital products, from phones too game consoles. 

Their App makes the task of ending your product relationship simple and convenient. A quick scan of the Bar Code of the product and their database informs you of the products monetary value. After log-in, you print out the sheet with your ID number on, pack the items in to a box, and leave it for the courier to pick up. 

Your boxed items will then go to the Music Magpie depot and be checked, after which they will pay you for the agreed amount. According to the reviews on the App Store, this is the most frustrating bit, and can take up to 4 weeks. Considering how simple the App, and early service experience is, its sad to think that the later service stages are letting the rest of it down. 

However, today my interest lies in improving the Music Magpie Closure Experience. On the whole it is a great service simplifying the end of numerous products. The only criticism I would make is the lack of emotion it has. When we purchase items we assume they are going to achieve something for us - a piece of music that makes us feel a certain way, some clothes we thought would make us look good. These are powerful emotional triggers. But the Music Magpie App skips over the opportunity to reflect on this emotional value. Choosing instead to revert to the simple, cold monetary value of the item. This cheapens the experience of product ownership.

There is a great opportunity here to improve the Closure Experience of these products and bring some user self-reflection about the product to the foreground. This self-reflection is something we miss at the end of many product experiences. Designing the Closure Experience more purposely can help with bringing self-reflection to the foreground. And with it an appreciation of what the product does to the person (ex:I really enjoyed that), and potentially what it means in a wider context like ,energy consumption, product miles or climate change.

I have a couple of proposals that could help here. Firstly inserting a pop-up in the user flow, just after the product is photographed and valued, that eludes to the end of the product experience (below). In the Marie Kondo process (see previous article) this would happen while the person is handling the item at which point they thank the item for ‘A job well done.’ Or in the case of music ‘thanks for bringing me such happiness…insert artist’. This punctuates the end of the product life-cycle. 

The second proposal would be pushing some of the nostalgia triggers from the user. A collation of album covers, or automated mix of the music could help here. This could be a link from the message confirming payment to the user. Again the aim would be to induce subtle thoughts of self-reflection at the end of the product experience. 

This might seem a bit ‘hippy’ for a hard-nosed start-up like Music Magpie, but it will will really add to the Closure Experience of the product for many people, induce emotions that led to them purchasing the product in the first place and hopefully a moment of self-reflection about wider issues of consumption.

We all too often move through our product experiences too quickly. Forgetting to assess what we have consumed. This undermines the material cost of consumption, and fuels the mindless purchasing culture we have developed. Considering the Closure Experience more in the customer life cycle can help increase emotional value in product experiences. And consequently valuing what went into making those products.

Technique: Marie Kondo Tidying Technique

The Marie Kondo technique has been developed by the self-proclaimed declutter over years of obsessing with tidiness and consulting with clients. At the heart of the technique is the emotional engagement with items a person has hoarded over years. 

When tidying, she insists on getting all items of the same category together - all clothes, all books, etc. She then asks her clients to pick up each item and question themselves “Does this bring me joy?”. If it doesn’t then it is thanked and disposed of.

Personally, I love the thanking part of this technique. We all too often treat items with little respect. This in turn cheapens the effort of creating an product. Think of the amount of elements that go into an average TV. Its a mind-boggling effort of resources and logistics. Something like that should be treated with respect.

Marie Kondo tidying technique

TECHNIQUE: Transaction models

Closure Experiences are often locked to the moment of transaction in some way. A power relationship is established at the moment of transaction. This can be a balanced, fair distribution of power between supplier and consumer. Or can be a tyrannical power relationship, where the consumer is a weakened party by paying before delivery of a service. Or can provide the consumer with influence and authority, when the consumer pays after delivery. 

Payment after delivery
This holds the possibility of empowering the customer, as potentially they can negotiate the price on the quality of the service delivered. These transactions often have higher customer contact, potentially a single individual being the executor of the service, such as a waiter. The payment may act almost like a reward, attended by the possibility of a gratuity.

Incidentally, people in these types of jobs have highest job satisfaction, according to a City and Guilds survey hairdressers and plumbers come up tops. This suggests a strong link between job satisfaction and having the transaction at the end of the service delivery. The interpretation of quality or satisfaction with the work becomes a discussion to be resolved with the customer. From this conversation service providers have to accept criticism and ultimately correct anything that goes wrong. The result is pride and belief in their work through constant feedback and improvement.

http://www.cityandguilds.com/About-Us/Broadsheet-News/November-2012/Careers-Happiness-Index-2012

Payment before delivery
Limits the ability of the customer to negotiate if a service has been poor and therefore leaves little opportunity for the service provider to get feedback and improve. Often seen in entertainment services, travel services and education. The customer is paying for access to the service. The opportunity to have an frank discussion with the service provider is rare in these transactions. The customers would usually have to make effort to have their complaints heard, possibly through some formal systematic way that further distances the service from the customer.

The band Radiohead disrupted the model of payment with their album Rainbows by asking customers to pay what they thought was appropriate. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Rainbows It would have been interesting to extend this to their tour tickets and have the entertainment industry’s transaction model challenged with a more open alternative.

Scheduled Payment
The customer considers the service a basic / hygiene level need and wants to give minimum attention to the transaction. Often used by utility companies and banks, who encourage their customers to pay via direct debit. Due to the low customer engagement with this type of service, providers often become complacent with the customer relationship. This is evident in the press coverage these companies get for their customer service,some of which suggest a shocking level of customer contempt in the industry. This shouldn’t be surprising, given the distance from the customer. The style of transaction is essentially automated and leaves little opportunity to review quality with the customer.

Synchronous
Digitising services has increased the use of synchronous transaction. For example, ‘pay-as-you-go’ services are digitised and use of them are increasing in many sectors. RFID cards are facilitating more synchronous transactions. Its a very transparent form of transaction and one that respects both provider and customer equally; creating a healthy end to the service.

Continuous observation
Is a new version of transaction model. Used by many of the free digital services we use, like Facebook, Google and others. Through agreeing to their T&Cs we agree to share our data, behaviour, location for example with them. Although we see many perceived benefits as consumers, there is a great deal we give up in terms of privacy.

The transaction model is a very powerful tool. Often under-considered in terms of how to engage with customers. Many service providers use a model because historically that is what was used. They fail to question if it is the right thing for the future.

Service providers should look to changing their transaction models to improve their Closure Experiences and, in turn, their relationship with their customers.

Workshop: Transaction models swap shop

Duration: 30 mins    People: Small groups 2-4

Method: Pick an established service provider or industry. Consider the current transaction model they use.  Ex:  Restaurant = payment after delivery Coach travel = Payment before delivery. Changing the transaction model will affect the character of the service.

With your group pick a different transaction model and apply it to your chosen service.  Discuss the changes this would make. 

For example... How would the relationship change between provider and user? Who is in authority? How would the service respond to disruptions? How would this impact the ending of the service?

Capture your thoughts with post-it notes.

Share your findings with the workshop attendees. 

TECHNIQUE: Long term service scenarios

LIFE MEANS LIFE

Too many of our life services don’t deliver over the long term. Life is a dynamic and changing experience, yet we seem to mis-sell products and experiences far too often in the service industries. As service providers we need to become better at thinking about the long term customer engagement and embrace the changes that life throws at our customers.

A good example of this has been the changes in the pension industry. 80 years ago employee would expect to work for one employer for life and in return receive a pension. Recent data from the Department from work and Pensions estimates we will work for 11 employers in our life time - 11 different Pension Pots. Findings by Age Concern, have suggested that as many as 1 in 4 pension pots goes missing. This is pretty shocking statistic and shows the difficulties in long term service delivery.

The Long term service scenario exercise helps designers, clients and product owners think about the long term delivery of services. It highlights the changing nature of a users life and the variety of disruptions that needs to be considered.

Workshop: Long term service scenarios

Duration: 30 mins People: Pairs

Method: Get the attendees in to pairs. Distribute pens, paper, post it notes

Attendee 1. Plays the customer. Map out your perfect life from 20 - death with 3 different services (ex: mortgage, pension, phone carrier)

Attendee 2. Plays the reality. Map out all of life challenges and success. Physical Health, metal health, divorce, death of loved ones, interest rates up. Employment rates down. Recessions and depressions. Fires and subsidence, loyalty wins, tax breaks. Life is full of challenges In your pairs, you have 5 minuets to..

Attendee 1. describe your first 10 years. 

Attendee 2. Describe 1 life challenge to over come.

Consider the service deliveries and changes Use post it notes to capture the issues and resolutions

Repeat to 80 or death

Share the scenario with the other workshop attendees

Example: Liverpool Care Pathway.

The Liverpool Care Pathway is a process of removing drugs and procedures at the end of a patients life. Endorsed for use in hospices and more recently hospitals, it aims to make a dying persons remaining few days a more comfortable and dignified experience. 

Initially welcomed by Doctors and nurses, but also family members who wanted to see a loved one without tubes or high on drugs in their final hours. 

It has recently been shadowed in controversy as families have complained that they were not consulted, and that in some case it brought on death.

The Liverpool Care Pathway was a courageous initiative to create a more dignified Closure experience for the patient and family members. Although its failure is disappointing, the larger regret would be to not tackle this difficult issue and make the last moments of life more meaningful and dignified for the patient and relatives. 

Further reading
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23283820
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_Care_Pathway_for_the_Dying_Patient
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-23315865

TECHNIQUE: Post Service Personas

CURRENT PERSONAS

The data that we use as evidence to create personas comes from market research - which often focuses on feedback from current satisfied customers and surveys from potential customers - and so we miss the insights from recently departed customers. In short, personas are always looking forward from the current to the future and by their nature they are overly positive and fanciful.

POST SERVICE PERSONA

Post Service Personas consider the emotions of a user after they leave a service or product relationship. It aims to highlight the reasons for that departure and helps designers to consider and reflect on the closure experience of a service and the subsequent fall out.

Example: Kia. 7 year warranty

With the introduction of the Cee’d car in 2007, Kia introduced the 7 year warranty. This was an industry leading initiative that shattered the previous norm of 3 years from competitors. Not only is the 7 year Kia warranty a confident endorsement of the companies belief in the quality of its manufacturing, testing and design, it also pushes the discussion about end of life of the product and therefore closure experinces.

Manufactures, not only of cars, have traditionally pushed a warranty as an endorsement of quality of building materials and manufacture. Announcing to a consumer that they believe this product will last for an expressed period of time before the product or a component part breaks. The warranty helps in this case as an on-boarding tool. It reassures the consumer that the purchase was a good decision.

What the Kia warranty uniquely achieves is an endorsement for the perceived lifetime of the product. In effect, they are making a statement about the closure experience of the product not just the on-boarding to the product. This provides a healthy platform for discussion when the customer wants to by a new car and the old ones needs recovering, recycling, or re-selling. 

Many manufactures don’t have an open communication channel beyond the 3 years - the length of the warranty. This limits their capability at recovering a product and dismantling it for recycling.