I've been studying methods for training employees, and it's occurred to me that there are a striking number of parallels between the way in which a new employee settles into his role in the workplace and the way in which a new customer settles into a long-term relationship with a vendor. I'm not sure I've got it quite worked out, so this is very early thinking on this topic and likely needs further refinement:
The Phases of Learning
The material I've been reading has focused on a model that defines four phases of learning. It's widely used, and there isn't a reliable indication of the original source, but the various sources I've seen generally align to suggest that a person who is learning goes through four phases:
- Unconscious incompetence - The trainee doesn't know what he needs to learn in order to be successful, and experiences a great deal of confusion and frustration.
- Conscious incompetence - The trainee has a sense of what he needs to learn to do, but has not yet learned it and cannot do it, and begins to learn parts of the task.
- Conscious competence - The trainee has learned all the things he needs to know and applies them, but a great deal of conscious and meticulous effort.
- Unconscious competence - The trainee knows all the things he needs to know and applies the effortlessly - the task has become "second nature" to him and training can be considered complete.
In terns of training employees, a trainer can be more effective at training by having an awareness of the trainee's mental state and adapting his approach to accommodate it: for example, a trainee in the "unconscious incompetence" phase experiences a great deal of confusion and frustration and needs intensive support, both functionally (telling them what they need to know) and attitudinally (helping them cope with their frustration). A trainer is less effective at training if he withholds the kinds of support that are needed at a particular phase, or provides the wrong kind of support at any given time.
It seems to me that the same process is followed by a customer when entering into a relationship with a supplier. In a very literal sense, they are learning how to interact with the supplier to get what they want, as well as learning how to interact with the product or services provided in order to get the benefit/value they wished to obtain from it.
Unconscious Incompetence
The unconscious incompetence phase is characterized by a customer who doesn't know what he needs to learn in order to be successful. It's likely true that this phase may have two steps - the first of which is a period in which the customer does not have a sense of what it means to be successful at all and may not consider success to be worth the effort, and a second in which he has the notion of success and a desire to be successful, but does not know quite how to go about it.
The first step is shortcut in a training situation because it is assumed that the trainee understands the value he will obtain from the training. Especially in employment situations, the fear and uncertainty is overshadowed because he is under duress: most employers have an extended "probationary period" that constitutes an implicit threat of termination to the employee, and that threat is highly effective in motivating them to overcome their uncertainty and frustration.
When it comes to customers, suppliers generally cannot leverage the ability to threaten them - though some have leveraged the notion of an implicit third-party threat to scare the customer into engaging with them: promotional messaging communicates the harm a person will suffer, or at least the benefits that they will not receive, if they fail to engage with the vendor. Consider marketing messages sent by firms to sell insurance, home security systems, preventative healthcare, and the like.
The second step in this phase is an orientation period: the customer is presumed to be interested in engaging, but is not sure what engagement entails: what will he be required to do? By giving him the sense of what is to come, a supplier can provide a clear path to success and make the task seem surmountable. The supplier must provide a great deal of functional support (informing the customer of what needs to be done) as well as emotional support (assuring them they are capable of doing it, and encouraging them to start the process).
Conscious Incompetence
In this phase, the customer has a clear understanding of the big picture and each step in the procedure, but still has uncertainty about how to perform each step. It seems to me to be very similar in nature to the previous step, just at a more granular level.
That is to say that the customer may perceive the benefits he can obtain by purchasing a product and have an interest in obtaining those benefits. He is likewise aware of a specific task he must perform in order to get through the process, but does not know how to get through it. He may not know how to complete a given step at all (place an order) or he may have a sense of what the step entails but get hung up on a granular detail (specify the color he wants).
An engaged customer might be inclined to ask questions that will help a vendor guide him through a specific task. How do I place an order? At what point in the process do I give you my credit card number? How do I tell you what size I need? Serving the engaged customer is relatively easy: the seller simply waits for a question to be asked, and then answer it.
However, a customer might not be fully engaged, and may still have difficulty verbalizing the concerns he has. This seems less likely at this point, as the customer is engaged in a process he understands and needs to know how to do something that is relatively simple, but it can't be taken for granted. For example, the metrics on a Web site might indicate that customers tend to exist an ordering flow when they encounter an obtuse question, rather than searching for information that will guide them to answer it.
My sense is that this is a difficult phase for the vendor. If the vendor is too passive and waits for the customer to ask a question before providing information, he takes the risk that the customer will bail out rather than soldier on. If the vendor is too aggressive and is constantly providing information that the customer does not need, the customer may feel hectored and lose interest in proceeding.
Conscious Competence
In this phase of learning, a trainee knows what he needs to do to succeed, but does so slowly and in a very meticulous manner. He feels that he is competent, but has a great deal of self-doubt and the slow pace at which he proceeds reflects a degree of uncertainty in his own capabilities.
This seems to me to be identical to the "engaged customer" in the previous step - a person who has a sense of what they are doing but pauses. It seems likely that this overlap is inevitable: even if a task is completely new to a person, there are likely parts he does not need any help with (he may never have filled out an order form for your product, but he doesn't need you to tell him how to enter the quantity) and even if a task is unfamiliar to a person, there will be parts in which his uncertainty gets the better of him, or for which his memory fails him, and he will need a reminder.
In any case, a customer who is in the conscious competence phase likely does not need much support from the vendor - and would be particularly resentful of a seller who constantly interposes himself to tell the customer how to do things that he already knows what to do. And as mentioned, passive support is likely the best approach: to wait for the customer to ask a question before providing information.
It may not be particularly difficult, but it is delicate, to passively observe a person perform a task in a slow and deliberate manner, seeming to be uncertain of himself, without inflicting unneeded and unwanted instruction.
Unconscious Competence
The final phase of learning occurs when the trainee has the knowledge and the confidence to proceed, and performs tasks as if they are second nature. Arguably, this isn't part of the learning process at all, but the state at which the learning process has been complete - the person is no longer "a trainee" but is "trained" and competent to proceed without the assistance or guidance of an instructor.
In terms of customer service, this would be analogous to the "regular customer" who knows what he wants and how to get about getting it, and seeks to do so with minimum of hassle and interruption. Generally speaking, the most appropriate way for a vendor to interact with a customer in the unconscious competence phases is "hands off." They know what they are doing, are intent on doing it, and any interference comes at the risk of offending or annoying them.
However, some firms see this phase as an opportunity to upsell and cross-sell: to suggest that the customer who is intent on making a purchase either select a different item or add other items to their order. This is a delicate proposition, to be approached with care and reluctance, because there is a high chance (100% in fact) that the intrusion is unnecessary, and a very low chance that the interaction will have a positive effect on the consumer's behavior.
It is also a reason that firms should be reluctant to make changes to their processes - or where change is necessary, to understand the impact it will have on a customer and revisit the level of support that is provided. In effect, changing the order form for a product is jarring to a customer because he is proceeding on his unconscious competence. When he encounters a change, he is jolted back from unconsciousness into consciousness; and when he doesn't immediately understand the change, he is likewise jolted from competence to incompetence.
It's a bit distressing how often companies will inflict an unannounced change upon customers under the assumption that they will know what to do instinctively, or will soldier through it in any case. The potential for damage, and the need to proceed with extreme caution, should be evident, as reflected by the number of customers who change providers because the firm they had done business with for years changed the way they do business.
It seems to me that the level of discomfort that arises when a once-familiar procedure suddenly changes is likely higher than that which arises when a person is doing something for the first time and expects there to be uncertainty. But likely, this is getting off track.
***
Again, these are early notes and considerations and there are likely some flaws or holes in them.
Chiefly, it occurs to me that the learning process is most applicable to complex products and relationships. If you're selling soda pop out of a vending machine, the learning process isn't as complex - but I'd suggest that it is still present in a highly abbreviated form.
In any case, it's likely well worth considering in the context of customer experience - to consider the processes by which a customer is engaged and their mental state during each phase of engagement as a means to discover opportunities for improvement.
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