When innovating, leave no customer behind
Adopting online payment solutions and embracing these new ways of transacting requires that businesses invest in customer education and ensure that they don’t leave any customer behind in the move to providing “efficient” solutions.
ASTORY is told (though I cannot vouch for its authenticity) of a village somewhere in rural Zimbabwe where a well-meaning NGO distributed mosquito nets to the community because they lived in a highly malarious zone.
It is said that upon receiving these mosquito nets, the villagers washed them out as thoroughly as they could and then proceeded to use those nets for fishing instead because they had no need for mosquito nets as they had their own mechanisms (such as burning cow dung) to deal with the pesky insect with which they shared their habitat.
It was said had the NGO asked the community what it needed, they would have known that the community members would much rather have fishing nets than mosquito nets but the NGO had assumed that they already knew what the needs of the community were and how to go about meeting those needs - without consulting the intended recipients of their charitable intervention.
Another story is told (whose veracity I never managed to establish) of a well-meaning NGO that went to a community where polygamy was prevalent to distribute condoms with the goal of pre-emptively curbing the spread of HIV.
It is said upon receiving the condoms the more innovative women in that community proceeded to melt them and included them in their ingredients for home-made floor polish (what is generically referred to as “Cobra”).
In both instances, the communities subverted the intended use of the donation to align it with what they considered to be more immediate and practical needs informed by their lived experiences - which lived experiences the donating NGOs had not taken time to reflect upon because they paternalistically assumed they knew the problem and had a handy solution to address it.
Similarly, introducing new innovations within businesses can be a paternalistic exercise if it is done without the involvement of the clients who are ostensibly the intended beneficiaries.
When innovating, businesses must make sure that they do not leave their customers behind otherwise their new technologies will simply be ignored as customers stick to old ways of doing things or circumvent the intended purpose of a technology-driven solution.
In the words of Steve Jobs: “You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards to the technology.”
Using technology to address customers’ pain points
Technology is just a tool, and its adoption and usage is often without any pre-determined outcome because sometimes people won’t bother to use it for its original intended purpose.
In introducing new operational aspects - even if they are well-intentioned and will benefit the customer - a business has to be guided by the pain points of their customers and be able to fully educate their clients on the value they will derive from adopting the new tool or system.
A recent conversation on Twitter caught my eye in which a client was complaining bitterly after their service provider had opted to refer them to an online payment solution the company had come up with so as not have to manually process transactions or inconvenience customers who would have to wait to be attended to.
The client took exception to being re-directed to an online platform to make their payment arguing that it was unacceptable to outsource such a service to a third party and that the service provider should be fully capacitated to facilitate payments directly.
I was taken aback because I always assume that given a choice between paying for something remotely and seeking human intervention to facilitate it, one would always prefer to pay online or via a mobile app or ZIPIT or internet banking. I assumed wrong.
And evidently so had this service provider that was now on the receiving end of their customer’s wrath.
Adopting online payment solutions and embracing these new ways of transacting requires that businesses invest in customer education and ensure that they don’t leave any customer behind in the move to providing “efficient” solutions.
The fact is technological adoption happens at varying speeds, whilst some clients will be innovators and early adopters - others are in the early majority of adopters as well as the late adopters.
As such customer education should be an ongoing exercise to cater for those who struggle to adopt new and unfamiliar ways of interacting with a new aspect of the business.
One has to start with customer experience and work backwards to the technology that can effectively address the client’s pain points and doing so requires a full appreciation of the user experience so that the business can clearly articulate the value of the new technology they are introducing.
When clients understand the value of a technology and how it will address their pain points they will have no problems adopting it but businesses cannot simply introduce a technology (even if it provides an effective solution) without engaging and educating their customers first.
The success of any technology-driven solution rests with the end user and if they reject it (for whatever reason) then the business will have achieved nothing - the same way those two anecdotal NGOs ultimately failed at the objectives they had set out to achieve. No innovation succeeds without being embraced by the end user.
Disruption isn’t always disruptive
One of the problems with the term “innovative disruption” is that it always leads one to imagine that technology-driven change will always occur with some big bang, some pomp and fanfare accompanied with a dramatic actionmovie type of soundtrack.
Sometimes disruption happens innocuously and all we see later are the cumulative effects.
The gradual adoption of Facebook Live by high-profile figures - particularly popularised by Olinda Chapel-Chideme’s marital self-disclosures, legitimated by Ruvheneko Parirenyatwa’s use of the platform as a surrogate Internet TV channel and adopted by Fadzayi Mahere as a vehicle to drive current affairs and political discourse through live streaming interviews with political stakeholders - seems to be occurring with hardly an eyelid batting among stakeholders within the broadcasting sector.
On the surface, it appears that these developments don’t cause any ripple whatsoever on the broadcasting status quo and that there is no cause for concern or indeed for sectorial interest to be roused. Facebook Live as a medium is obviously limited in reach within Zimbabwe by access barriers such as the cost of data, the geographical digital divide amongst other factors.
So perhaps in terms of audiences, locally, the State broadcaster has little to fear - for now.
However, as online video content alternatives emerge including the rise of comedic skits, vlogging and video live streaming riding on Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo as well as other platforms - it is clear that the future of broadcasting is digital and Internet TV is the future.
This is why I was surprised to learn of a certain executive who was excited that their entity had been granted a number of traditional broadcasting licences - this cannot be a thing to excite someone in the age of disruptive technology.
Rather be delighted to get a licence for Internet TV and even then, such delight must be tempered by the knowledge that there are other video content creators on the rise who are already carving out their niche, staking a claim and growing their audiences and influence - without causing any apparent ripple of disruption. ◆ Delta is a digital expert and an advocate for technology-driven solutions. Follow her on Twitter: @deltandou