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Regardless of what you do in life you will have heard the infamous sentence \u201cwe care about our customers\u201d.\u00a0 And if you attend startup competitions or are in the Angel\/VC field, you most likely hear from each presenting company how much they care about their users. Then 3 slides later in their presentation they tell you all about how they are going to gamify their site and use different tech tricks (A\/B is the current buzz word, soon followed by the pseudo drip marketing emails) to monetize the users.<\/p>\n
Gamifying a user? Monetizing a user?\u00a0 That\u2019s caring for the user?\u00a0 <\/strong><\/p>\n Let\u2019s step away from tech for a moment; how do we feel about these messages:<\/p>\n \u201cYour call is important to us and will be billed 10 cents a minute, you are a valued customer, please hold on and the next representative will be with you in 9829103 minutes\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThank for your email, we value your feedback and will respond to you soon. This email is not monitored\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Of course, you may think that these only happen at big companies and that, in the tech field and especially in the startup world, companies are embracing their inner Google of doing no evil.\u00a0 \u00a0You may even believe that you are immune to any tech-Jedi-mind trick and will never be (ab)used as a user.\u00a0 Allow me be the bearer of bad news.\u00a0 Manipulation has worked for centuries and if you\u2019ve ever been the victim of a manipulator you know how painful the aftermath can be. Yet, while in the midst of being manipulated, you thought that all was good and fine.\u00a0 I often bring up \u201cthinking fast and slow\u201d as a must-read to see how simple it is to disrupt people\u2019s beliefs. The problem is that if you build in tricks to hook users, you are no better than the drug dealer down the street who thinks it\u2019s ok to sell crack to underage kids. Drug dealers make a lot of money so there is an incentive to lure. But is making our users addict the same as making them engaged? I sure hope not. https:\/\/twitter.com\/seriouspony\/statuses\/380200265753698304<\/p>\n It\u2019s mesmerizing how companies focus tons of money on SEO, landing page optimization, AB testing\u2026and yet a few months later wonder why their churn rate is so high. Incubators + VC play a big role in this scam because the main question startups hear is not how much revenue is coming in but rather what the users\u2019 growth rate is.\u00a0 This puts pressure on companies to hook the user in using all means possible to fuel Growth Hacking.\u00a0 Here<\/a> is a great article on the perverse side of Growth Hacking from Des Traynor.<\/p>\n What if the only relevant metric was the number of customers you gained from referrals from current customers\u2026without any compensation offered?\u00a0 Would that change how you \u201ccater to\u201d and \u201cengage\u201d your users? Of course it would!<\/p>\n Take a second, which products would you recommend right now and put our credibility on the line for?\u00a0 Just looking at the software I am using on a daily basis, besides SmartNotify, the ones I would recommend in a heartbeat are Balsamiq and Stripe.\u00a0 And to make it clear, I do not make a dime from recommending them! \u00a0From a pure website standpoint (not software product) it\u2019d be tested.com and again, it\u2019s not like the Mythbusters team send me freebies for saying this in a blog.<\/p>\n I recommend these products because they are really good, help my business, and do not try to waste my time with \u201cbranding\u201d experience.<\/p>\n https:\/\/twitter.com\/seriouspony\/statuses\/380199781588418560<\/p>\n This could not be truer and once again points to the peril of false metrics used to assess success (or potential for success).<\/p>\n Looking at our software, I have no desire for our current customers to \u201cengage with our site\u201d, I\u2019d rather they spend their time with the software because the more they use it, the more they are willing to pay for it and the more likely they are to recommend us to their friends.\u00a0 Revenue trumps site\u2019s visits or Klout score!<\/p>\n So to Kathy\u2019s point, if people use your software all the time, and talk about it to others, it does not matter how much they engage with the site.\u00a0 Of course the danger is to once again fall back on tricks to get them to use the software (remember, gamification can be used for good or evil!) Technology should be about solving a problem not creating addictions. Right now, most software and sites are creating addictions and the rise of gamification may not alleviate the problem (though it could help solve it).\u00a0 So here is a challenge:\u00a0 Will a few leaders dare standup and truly help customers?
\nIn the online world, it\u2019s even simpler to manipulate people\u2019s behaviors to fuel certain outcomes. Who is doing it?\u00a0 Almost everyone.\u00a0 Some are doing it willingly such as airlines or any other sites doing \u201cyield management\u201d for example.
\nSome slightly unwillingly because they\u2019ve read that AB testing or engagement email marketing were the right ways to \u201cengage and retain\u201d customers.<\/p>\n
\nLet me quote 2 tweets from Kathy Sierra, someone who likes to build badass users, and has seen the negative consequences of \u201cgamifying\u201d the users the wrong way.<\/p>\n
\nThink of it this way:\u00a0 If you have to ask a 3 year old (or dolphin, or horse \u2013yep done that too!) to do something you have 3 options:\u00a0 you can bribe, you can threaten, or you can help them find their path.
\nAll 3 will work in the moment. The first 2 will fail long-term even though they can be rationalized in the moment, the 3rd<\/sup> one is the long-term path but is by far the hardest one and the results are not automatic.<\/p>\n
\nWhat if we had a site with a \u201cgood behavior\u201d chart to adhere to? I\u2019d love to sign up our software, I am sure others would as well, so why don\u2019t we get started and be part of the solution rather than the problem.<\/p>\n