Experiences Don't Matter

Services matter, and so do better business models, and other random thoughts of the day about Jobs-to-be-Done

I’ll be rambling today. Sorry.

“Online shopping should be fast, smooth, and easy, yet according to a recent survey, 78% of shoppers encounter difficulties that lead to increased frustration and decreased sales. More than 2 out of 3 (70%) online shoppers say it typically takes multiple tries to find what they want. The result is that 75% would give up and turn to an alternative site when it takes too long to find their desired product”

This is the opening paragraph to a paper by Wakefield Research called Product Over Price: The Critical Role Personalization Plays in Converting Online Searches into Sales (July 2022). It goes on to say the 53% of shoppers prioritize finding the right product over finding the lowest price. As many as 68% say that they will make an unplanned purchase if the right product is recommended!

This is where my review the research will end. They’ve pointed out the obvious in the first paragraph:

1. People who are researching and shopping are not looking for experiences unless they are buying an experience (like a Disney vacation).

2. People expect services (like a purchase pathway) to be fast and accurate. They should be able to quickly figure out that a product will help them get a job done that they are struggling with, and they should have confidence in the decision they make.

3. When a service fails to accommodate these desires, it creates a bad experience. In fact, experience is a friction-oriented word. Friction creates memories. Friction is almost never good in the consumption chain of a product. Disney’s product is an experience, which is supported by a complex array of services and these are probably even more amazing to think about than a particular ride.

4. Recommending the right product means know what the right product needs to be!

If the services surrounding your product fail, either the experience the consumer purchased will have a negative memory, or the product you are offering will not be purchased (or re-purchased). People who continue to conflate experiences with services are not doing you any favors. It’s word salad and people will use their own definition of experience and apply it in the wrong way.

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I have yet to find two people that agree on how to help companies plan for better consumer engagement. It’s frustrating, and I probably frustrate them because they feel no one else gets it! 🤣 Who am I to dictate how this has to work?

However, I have a fairly consistent view of how I break these things down into consumer jobs (#JTBD). The problem some see with my approach is that I don’t like to conflate multiple jobs together into high-level journeys which have just enough fidelity to stick some emotion into the buckets. But I digress.

Below is a Universal model I put together for fun related to a telco consumer purchase journey since I recently spent some time in that industry. It breaks one of my cardinal rules, which is to never conflate two (or more) jobs into a single model. In this case the selection and disposal journeys are conflated with the purchase journey. All consumption jobs, not a functional job. But oh well, there were far bigger challenges in that industry (and still are) than helping consumers buy a smartphone and 5G plan faster and more accurately.

https://jobs-to-be-done.notion.site/Make-a-telco-related-purchase-5c5a0c0c1e8b4ad1a67898fb4b508f4a

This is a lazy person’s job map visualization.

I share this to continue to help you see how I construct models (at least today). Also, there are some notations in there about how conflated models require you to gain some context at each step. For example, you might need to know which channel they last used for research vs. purchase. That would be kind of important to know and you only need to ask it once if you design your job maps and related surveys properly.

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The research I noted above doesn’t really get to the heart of the problem, which is that people will pay more for a better product. It focuses on services that support the product. From a functional perspective, smartphones and 5G plans are a means to an end. We’re actually trying to do many things that require ubiquitous connectivity beyond basic communication between one or more remote parties. The question is whether 5G technology gets the job done best. And in fairness, is it the simplest and most cost-effective way to go? When your product is essentially a utility, you need to thing about these things. Otherwise, it’s time to find new business models that leverage capabilities within your grasp.

In order to address these things, you need to do more than study the purchase journey. It will never point you in the direction of the business model changes that need to occur for continued growth. In fact, these new models may seem more expensive for consumers. But, if the price for performance is better and can operate in more contexts (the right product) and you can articulate that to your desired audience and you can articulate it quickly and accurately, not only will you help them in their decision journeys, but you’ll also have a distinctly improved competitive advantage. That’s what Steve Jobs did with the iPod and ultimately the iPhone. Who saw that coming?

There are ways to see that, and I was working in that direction just a year ago (I’m not sharing that). But, when salespeople are running amuck, ‘they gonna sell what they know.’ And since they are people persons, they want to see smiles, and how do you get smiles? EXPERIENCES! LOL

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A note about Digital and its relationship to consumption jobs today. People that grew up in retail think retail. To them, digital is a credit card machine in a store. Not only do they not understand digital channels, but they also don’t want to understand them. These channels eliminate the salesperson from the equation, which is “big scary” to them. While the world is getting eaten by software, consumers are experiencing digital consumption pathways with other categories and brands all day every day, it’s faster and typically more accurate to take a digital pathway than having to participate in a physical pathway; or a combination of the two.

If you are offering decision support on a digital platform, you need to close the loop on the digital platform. Every consumer task needs to be supported clearly, quickly, accurately, and completely - ideally on a single platform (or channel). Consumers can select channels they prefer without our help. Your job is to support it, not define it for them.

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I’m thinking about making posts that have more than one topic in them going forward. More like a daily or weekly blog instead of article-like topics. I’ve got a lot of topics, but I just don’t have the time to finish them off as articles. Random thoughts are easier and can cover more ground. I need to figure out how best to do it, but it will likely leverage my Notion.so site heavily. There’s a link below. I would watch it for things I might share from my Notion database going forward :)

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My Notion Site