Have you ever used a product for over a period time and suddenly, one day you realized there were functions that you didn’t know that existed? It happens to me all the time. I still remember myself complaining about the new UBC SSC interface, how it was so confusing since all the tabs were relocated and the layout was completely different. I was basically being forced to meticulously navigate through the page to figure out where everything was. It was until then, I learned the various functionality of the page. The key takeaway ? People are so used to the current offerings and consumption patterns it takes effort to adapt to new innovations.
You often hear people in the sales industry complaining about how idiotic the consumers are, how they don’t appreciate the benefits of the products etc. Why? Because Firms often over-weight the benefits and consumers often under weight due to skepticism and the preference of status quo. What do the consumers value? Why would they switch to a different product when they are satisfied with the current one? Its due to resource slack where people tend to discount the effort or the benefit in the future and emphasizes the current gain and status quo. Thus the trade off occurs, switching cost! So how could you increase the incentive to adapt? Check out this ad campaign by Volkswagen.
If you observe carefully, you’ll find the first lady hesitated before her usual course of action- taking the escalator. She observed other people taking the musical stairs and was intrigued by the sound. Then she abandoned the thought of taking escalator and went for the stairs instead. Around 66% of people preferred stairs than escalators after the installation of the piano stairs. Volkswagen called this the fun theory, indeed the subtle hint of fun acted as a catalyst , but theoretically it was more of the immediate gain that has fueled the urge to switch. So if you are worried about the adaptation of your newly innovated product/service, perhaps you could also fuel the incentive by creating a perception of an immediate gain 🙂
Leave a Reply