#EurekaMoment 04: What do you want your users to pay in?

January 7, 2017 Harold Tor-Daenens

#EurekaMoment 04: What do you want your users to pay in?

No, users do not want to pay for anything. They do not want to pay for content like film, music, series etc, they do not want to pay for an app, they do not want to pay for quality news, they also do not want to pay for access. That creates a problem for our traditional way of selling and buying.

Which is why information is now the currency. The likes of Facebook, Google, Amazon sell the information from usage and users as a replacement of that selling and buying model. Of course, we then get into a huge debate about privacy and safety of personal data – whether it was obtained with the explicit consent of the user after a very clear understanding of the terms, where these data is stored, to whom the data could be sold or used.

But there is another way the users can pay for your services or products online and it doesn’t cost money or privacy: it’s user participation, created by emotive user experiences. Often, we forget that when we go to a local shop, it is the chit chat, the familiar face, the interactions that make you value the experience.

Selling and buying whether with money or with data, online or offline, as a sterile emotionless experience that no user wants to go through.

Now how can you recreate that friendliness, that banter, that familiar voice and that smile for your user, so that the user will come back again to engage and to help spread news about you? That is the user paying you back.

The user can also pay you back by staying a little longer for the banter, that gives you the opportunity to find out more about how they actually use your products and services, so you can continuously improve what you do. Likewise, that is payment.

Good user experience and user journey is not an accessory to your communications, marketing or sales. It is a way users can pay you back in terms that go beyond money.

 

Eureka Moments are not so much moments of sudden realisation or enlightenment like Archimedes. They are moments while I am in my commute when I get to reflect on things that someone mentioned to me, things that I am confronted with, things that I or others have sought a solution for. They are more ‘oh I get it’ rather than ‘I have discovered it’. 

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