The Problem of Channels That Don’t Get The Whole Job Done
Chapter Four: Principle 3—Customers need the Whole Job to Get Done
Dear Friends,
Today I want to address one of the big challenges that many companies face: too many channels that don’t get the job done for the customer. It’s a huge burden on the business model and a complexity for the customer. The problem is real.
Tell me your thoughts!
The Problem of Channels That Don’t Get The Whole Job Done
The fourth way to think about the whole job to get done focuses on channel strategy and design. Since the advent of ecommerce, the default position of most executives within corporate America has been to keep adding channels. Today, many companies are burdened by complexity. Channels today include retail, call center, partner, affiliate, influencer, online, digital, social, app, APIs, chatbots, delivery, D2C, subscription, live-streaming, SaaS, click-and-collect, aggregators, platforms, voice AI, on-demand, peer-to-peer, independent broker, gig and sharing, pop-ups, virtual, VR, AR, advertising, streaming, event, experiential, resale, b2b, b2b2c, ERP, marketplaces, and now generative AI.
If it’s a headache for companies, imagine how your customers feel.
I’m serious. Business strategists think that they have to keep adding channels because customers demand them. But it is actually complicating their lives too. And has been for some time. Companies need new criteria for determining what channels they support.
In the 2010s experience strategists led initiatives to develop omnichannel strategies. The goal of omnichannel programs was to connect the disparate channels that customers had to interact with. The insight that drove companies to invest in omnichannel work was that customers don’t like ‘friction.’ They abandon purchases because of friction. They become disloyal because of friction. Friction is anything that impedes them from accomplishing their goals easily. What keeps customers is making channels work ‘seamlessly’ together. Or so the argument goes.
While making things simple and connected is important, the thinking around omnichannel continues to miss the more important point. People hire companies to help them get jobs done, not because they like frictionless channels. In fact, they don’t need more channels.
The Difference Between a Channel and a Tool
What people do want is tools. A channel is a way of distributing information or product and receiving payment. Tools help people get jobs done. Why did people move from cable TV to streaming services? Because cable is a channel and Netflix is a tool. They can search. They choose. They can get recommendations. (And to avoid commercials.) Why do people buy online? Certainly not because they fit a demographic that likes buying online. They like the features that come with online purchasing. They are able to get the job done better, faster.
When a customer engages with a channel, the company controls pretty much everything. Think about the call center experience: phone trees, call agents, protocols. None of them are designed to give the customer control. And the type of data that channels produce for companies shows how one sided the interactions are. The best the company can hope for is to get a satisfaction question answered post experience. With a tool, the customer has his or her own set of controls. Preferences, search, inboxes, browser, connectors, dashboards – you name it, people have controls.
Over time all channels become tools. And all environments become enhanced by tools. Even channels designed to provide human help, like retail and call centers, will become tools. Want to get people to come talk to your employees, empower the employee and customer with tools. Let them work together on a challenge rather than the tired and worn process of having the customer ask questions, then wait for the employee to look up an answer and share it.
I’m not trying to suggest that people want endless tools. Their goal is to get the job done, not to have a list of tools. But they do want tools that are appropriate to the situation. If a person is traveling in a car and needs to grab a meal, the tool needs to be appropriate to the situation. If someone is creating a shopping list on a Saturday morning, the tool should fit the situation.
To date, most people have adopted new tools and channels that do the same job because those tools and channels are more effective for the situation at hand. (Yes, some companies are still creating new channels.) Think about the surge in adoption of Zoom and Microsoft Teams because pretty much everyone’s situation changed in 2020. Or the more slower adoption rate of digital payment tools, which have now reached 78 percent adoption rate. (Payment tools are tools. The customer has controls. Point of sale machines are channels. The company has all of the controls.)
But unbeknownst to most companies, most consumers today want contextual tools. They want to engage with companies through smart tools that are aware of their situation—or as much as possible—and can adjust to the situation. When smart tools and smart environments become contextually aware, people are much more likely to incorporate them into their life systems.
Contextual tools—like some smart home tools (MyQ), personalized health apps (Apple Health), productivity tools (Office 365, Grammerly)—can sense changes to the user’s situation and adjust the experience to fit the situation. Therefore, people are more likely to incorporate these tools into their own personal data ecosystem.
One Super Adaptive Tool
This chapter has covered a lot of ground. I discussed different types of jobs to be done. We’ve focused on the systems that people create to keep their lives in balance. I’ve discussed the role of intelligent solutions in changing people’s expectations. And now, I’ve introduced the principle that over time all channels become tools.
All of changes that have occurred in business models, consumer expectations, and technologies reinforce one simple truth: the customer hires the company to get jobs done for them. And, related, that people are not hiring the story, the channel, or even the business model.
They value new, intelligent tools. They want those tools to fit into their lives. They want integration of intelligent solutions. And they want the whole job done.
The way that they get all of the above is by creating their own personal data ecosystems. They have their apps sorted. They are using cloud-based tools. They share data between tools like Strava, Apple Health, and Oura Rings. As long as the data is kept safe, they want to create for themselves a few super adaptive tools that will help them interact with companies when they find themselves in their situations.
Will that super adaptive tool become human-like? Certainly, the technology is getting closer to presenting to us as humanoids. But remember, they hire companies and tools to get jobs done for them, not because they want a genius tool.
To be continued. . .