So we talk about three ways to use this idea of easing uncertainty. Let me give you one last one. And that's making it reversible and so far all the things we've talked about are upfront before people get into something. Making it reversible is on the back end. To think about this it helps to hear a quick story of a dog named Zoe. So a number of years ago, I was walking around Philadelphia and I was about to go out to dinner and I walked by this animal shelter that have very cute dog in the window. I love dogs, I've always loved dogs. I had one growing up, but I wasn't sure I was ready for a dog. I wasn't sure I was home enough. I wasn't sure I would be a good home for dogs, but I would just hang out at animal shelters and check them out and pet them or give them a nice walk because I love dogs and I wanted one. But I just wasn't sure I was ready and so tonight was no different. I walked into this place called Street Tails Animal Rescue. There's this very cute puppy that was there. I played with her for a couple minutes. I was about to walk out the door when a volunteer interjected. She said, you look like you loved that dog. I said, yeah, I do, she's super cute and she seems like she'd be a lot of fun. And the volunteer said, well, why don't you adopt her? I said, I'm just not sure I'm ready. I'm not sure I'm going to be a good home. I'm not sure I'm around enough and she said, okay, we have a two-week trial period. Well, let me tell you, Zoe as she's now named has lived at our house for over eight years. She's a wonderful dog and I would never give her back but I wouldn't have gotten her in the first place if they didn't have that two-week trial period. Two-week trial period didn't make Zoe any easier to have, it didn't make her any cheaper. It didn't mean I didn't have to get a crate or the food or all those other things that a puppy needs. Figure out how to train her, make sure she went outside and all those other things but it made me feel like just in case it didn't work, if I wasn't a good home for her, I could bring her back which of course I never would. And so what Street Tails Animal Rescue did is they made it reversible. They made it easy for people to feel like just in case it didn't work, you could turn it around and lots of organizations do this. Think about returns for example. Retailers often say, we want to have restrictive return policies. Right, returns are obviously a big cost center for retailers. Every time we return something, they have to restock it, they have to resell it and if they can't resell it, they end up losing a bunch of money. And so many retailers think the solution is more restrictive turn policies to only 2 weeks, 30 days at the most and so on. But a restrictive return policy is actually a good idea. Some researchers looked at this, they did an experiment. They actually manipulated the return policies that consumers had for a particular retailer. Some consumers got a more restrictive return policy, other consumers got a more lenient return policy. They could take longer to return the item and there were fewer restrictions on those returns. Now you might imagine that the lenient return policy hurt the company. More people returning more things later on, inability to resell things and so it would hurt profits. But the researchers found the exact opposite. They found that lenient return policies actually increased profits by over 20%. Why, because people could feel like they could bring it back and because of that people ended up buying more and recommending more things at the end of the day. Zappos did the same thing. They didn't just do free shipping. They also did free returns. Now that encouraged people to buy more shoes and to try them on at home. Sure they sent some of them back but they kept more of them they would have in the first place if they didn't feel like they return them. Because that friction on the back end just like friction on the front end decreases action. And so whether it's free returns, money-back guarantees or even pay performance contracts, all these things make people feel like worst case if it doesn't work out, they can get their money or their time back. Lawyers might say, we only get paid if you win. Airline say, hey, worst case you change your mind in 24 hours, you can return the ticket. All these things reduce inertia because they make people feel like worst case, they can give it back. Wrapping up the section on uncertainty, you might wonder, well, does this only work when I'm selling something? Does it only work for products and services? But I want to encourage you to realize that it's broader than that. And to do that, I want to tell you the story about a guy who worked at a bank. His name was Jacek and he wanted to encourage his bank to adopt a customer experience initiative. Things were going okay at the bank, customers liked the bank just fine, but they weren't deeply embedded in the bank's culture. They didn't love that relationship. They didn't really love the bank. Sure, someone waved to them when they walked in and sure they got decent rates on whatever savings or mortgage they had with the organization. But all it was was a transaction. And so Jacek thought, look, can I deepen that relationship with the customer? Many brands have used something called Surprise and Delight where they greet customers by name, they celebrate their anniversaries. They really get to know their customers on a first name basis and connect with them on an emotional level. Jacek wanted to do the same thing at the bank. So he presented the initiative to his boss, his boss thought about it and said, no way, we're a bank. We're not a hotel. We're not selling something touchy-feely. We're a financial service institution, customers don't care whether we remember their names or have an emotional connection with them. They just want the lowest rate. He said no, so Jacek thought about it for a while. How could he change the boss' mind? So he made presentation after presentation. He sent email after email. He even brought in an outside consultant who suggested it was a great idea. Still the boss said no, the entire leadership team said no, banking is a buttoned-up industry that's not used to doing something like this. They weren't interested in rocking the boat. So Jacek was stuck. He tried everything he could thought of and it wasn't working. So he tried one more thing. With a team of other folks at the bank, he collected information about various aspects of the management team. Their birthdays, anniversaries, when they were going on trips, things that were going on with their families. Personal details that got people to know them on a more personal level and they started connecting with this members of the management team more deeply. On their birthdays, they sent them cards that said happy birthday. To celebrate someone's two-year anniversary working with the firm, they sent them a card that said congratulations, without your wonderful smiles, we as an organization would be a lot less happy. They deeply connected with those members of the management team. Someone was going on a hiking trip, they knitted a hat. Someone's child got in a car accident, they raise money on a Facebook page for surgery. They connected with those members of the management team on a deeper level. And then the next time Jacek presented the idea, he said something interesting. He said, hey, what do you think about customer experience because that's the same type of thing we've been doing with you guys, the management team for the past few months. And suddenly something interesting happened. Rather than Jacek having to convince them that would work, the management team convinced themselves because they had experienced for the last couple months how great it was to have people connect with you on an emotional level. They knew how much the customer was valued because they had been put in the shoes of that customer, right? Jacek changed his boss' mind not by pushing him or by giving him more information, but by easing uncertainty, by lowering that barrier and allowing the boss and the management team to see how successful that initiative would be. Now Jacek got promoted a number of times over and the customer experience initiative lives on, not because it was a better or worse idea than it was initially. It's still a great idea. But because he figured out a way to ease that uncertainty. In some uncertainty often stems action. Change whether it's about at home or at work, whether it's about something expensive or cheap often involves uncertainty. When people don't know whether something new will be better than what they're doing already, they tend to hit the pause button. They tend to stick with what they've done before. And so to ease uncertainty, we need to make it easier for people to experience the value themselves. We need to do something like harness freemium, think about a free version allows people to experience what we're offering and then migrate them up to a paid version. We need to lower the upfront cost, reducing the money, time, effort and energy required to experience whether something is good or not. We may even need to drive discovery, bringing trial to people who might not know that they're interested in what we have to offer. And last but not least we can make it reversible. By not just working on the front end but by working on the back end as well. Making people feel like they can reverse the decision or make them more likely to feel like they can move forward in the first place. By easing uncertainty, anyone can drive change.
