Why your customers need you to reduce friction

I recently heard a word at a conference that has become a new favorite: FRICTIONLESS.

There are few marketers that could not benefit from in some way reducing the friction in their customers' experience. I highly recommend mapping out your customers' experience of your category, products and brand. Then figure out how to make it easier...how to make it FRICTIONLESS.

Duh, right? Yet how often do you as a consumer run into digital or physical brand experiences that are so much more painful and inconvenient than they need to be? Sadly, with all the talk about customer experience, relatively few brands seem to fully grasp - and act on - how little tolerance customers have for inefficient, time-wasting experiences these days.

Why is this so important? One, because customers don't have to tolerate poor experiences as much. So many industries have digital disruptors who DO get our need for speed, and make it easy to do things. Thanks to Amazon, Netflix and others, the bar has officially been raised for the rest of us. Two, because we just don't have the time, and aren't willing to cut out what little leisure we have left. Here in the U.S., we work more hours per day than any other population in the world. We're taking fewer vacation hours than at any other time in the past 40 years. Believe it or not - this one amazes me - more consumers budget TIME than money! Consumers are compressing their task time into short bursts in between stretches of leisure time. So whatever needs to get done, needs to get done quickly in between binge watching Netflix, knitting, bicycling and other time-intensive hobbies that are having a resurgence because we are desperate for some semblance of leisure.

How do you do it? It sounds hard, this whole "reduce friction" thing. It certainly takes knowledge of your customers, discipline, focus and the guts to fight for it. But I promise, it is more achievable than you probably think. Find someone with expertise in customer experience mapping and in formulating strategies and developing programs and tools to reduce friction in the experience. The mapping process is very detailed. What is your customer thinking, doing, and feeling at every key touchpoint? Where are the points where they get stuck or drop out, and why?

It is an extremely eye-opening process that reveals all kinds of new opportunities to delight your customers by saving them time and making their lives a bit easier.

Photo credit: Doug88888 on Flickr, under Creative Commons license.