Consistency, Value, and Brand

Brand is about consistency.   The value of a brand, from the very beginning, was that it indicated to customers what they could expect of a specific product from a specific vendor.   Later, when brand began to accrue nonfunctional qualities, customers were attracted to the brand because they expected those qualities to be delivered.

So the value of an established brand is that it delivers the same quality, experience after experience, year after year, decade after decade.   Brands that advertise they have been in business for a hundred years communicate a long history of consistent quality.  Consistency with expectations is critical.

This is because human beliefs about anything are based on repetition and consistency.   When two things occur at the same time, we believe it to be coincidence and attach no special value to the correlation.  But when two things occur at the same time, over and over, we create an association and expect the two to be correlated.  

This is as true of brands as everyday experiences: a brand must be consistent to be meaningful.  There cannot be the sense that what the customer gets the next time will be different from what they got the last time.   Any change causes the customer to question the correlation, and to doubt that the brand has the qualities they expect – and for that doubt to become more generalized.  If it packaging is different, there must be other things that are different about the product it contains.

Whenever a brand changes, it takes some time to adjust: customers are displeased when anything is different, and need to be reassured that the qualities they value about the brand have remained the same.   Or when an unpopular brand changes, they must then convince customers who were disappointed in the past that things are now different and they should give the brand a second chance.

Firms tend to assume they know why customers buy their brand and are indifferent to any other aspect.   But the concept of a brand, or any object, is the sensory stimulation.   The customer cares not only about the taste of a food product, but it’s scent and visual appearance as well – change any one thing, even an inessential quality, and customers cannot refrain from reconstructing their conception of the brand.

So in that sense, consistency itself is a value: knowing what to expect of a brand means that the customer doesn’t have to reevaluate it each time they purchase.   This reduces the effort (cost) of buying, and ensures that the benefit-to-cost ratio remains favorable to the brand.

To leverage this, consistency is critical.

The Value of a Leading Question

I read an interesting factoid from a “study” that was unfortunately not cited – so I can’t get further detail or verify that it is anything other than folklore – but it seems plausible.   Allegedly, researchers conducting a face-to-face study found that less than 30% of the people they confronted were willing to take the time to participate – but when the surveyor asked prospects, “Do you consider yourself to be a helpful person?” the participation rate jumped to over 70%.

Both of those numbers seem a bit high to me, but the premise is sound: it is based on the mechanisms of consistency and commitment.   Once a person states that they are “a helpful person” they feel compelled to back that statement by acting in a way that is helpful – in this case, to “help” the surveyor by taking the time to respond to the survey.   Psychologically, it feels important to maintain personal integrity by acting in a way that is consistent with one’s words (even though being a helpful person isn’t an obligation to help everyone at all times).

A more reliable and documented resource (Cialdini) reports similar results in a volunteer program: asking people if they would be willing to volunteer, then asking for a specific commitment to participate in a volunteer effort, resulted in a 700% increase in participation.  He also speaks of commitment as being a “sunk cost” that makes people continue to do something, even if it is not in their interest, to justify past events – to have answered a leading question creates a sense of investment on the part of the prospect.

Given the psychological underpinnings of this practice, I am cautious of its manipulative nature – to “hook” someone into doing something that is not in their interest is definitely unethical, but to commit someone to completing an action that is in their interest may be within the bounds – though I am cautious of whether this is merely justifying the behavior for the sake of achieving a one-sided outcome.

Semantic and Episodic Memory

I stumbled across a reference to Tulving's distinction between semantic and episodic memory that I sense may have some relevancy to the resolution of the demand for consistency versus the demand for relevance in customer experience, which I mentioned in a previous post.     I should probably give warning that this meditation is going to veer into the quagmire of cognitive theory for a time before making its way back to the topic of customer experience practices - and that said, here goes ...

Tulving's Distinction

Endel Tulving made a fundamental distinction in the way that memories are encoded: he classifies a memory as semantic if it is a piece of knowledge without a context (a blue shirt) and episodic if the knowledge is tied to a very specific context of a particular incident (the blue shirt a subject was wearing on the day his first child was born).

Semantic memory is highly relevant on the conceptual and functional levels: to know what a blue shirt is does not require ever having worn one, and to distinguish a blue shirt from a white one does not require the subject to recall an occasion on which each color of shirt was worn.  The knowledge exists in the nature of an atom, not tied to a molecule, which can be picked out of the memory storage to be used, alone or in conjunction with other atoms, quite readily.

Episodic memory does not have such relevance.   Subjects who recall events from their past quite often recall a plethora of details that have no significant relevance - the color of shirt he was wearing on the occasion of the birth of his child is an extraneous detail that has nothing to do with the event in a functional sense.   He might also recall what he ate for breakfast that morning, the color of the nurse's scrubs, a song that was playing on radio when he got the news, the color of the carpet in the waiting room, and a myriad of other details that are related only by proximity to the event.

However, that's not to say that episodic memory is frivolous, as it is the basis for most procedures: when we seek to perform a task that we have performed in the past, we draw upon an aggregated memory of past experiences to guide us in our present behavior - such that among the inconsequential details are other bits of data that are quite important (such as remembering that, when jump-starting a car, the red cable attaches to the positive terminal and the black to the negative, and never vice-versa).   That is to say that without episodic memory, a person would not benefit from learning, but would have to think his way through every problem as if it were the first time he had ever encountered it.

Of particular importance is the fact that episodic memory is much stronger and easier to recall than semantic memory.   Asked to recall what color of shirt he was wearing on the fifth of March, 1972, it is likely even a person of exceptional intelligence would be completely unable to answer, even if he concentrated on the matter for some time.   But if he is mindful (or reminded) of some significant event that occurred on that date, he is far more likely to remember the detail in the context of that event, even decades later.

The event itself doesn't necessarily have to be highly significant, though my examples might suggest so.   If you ask a colleague what they had for lunch a week ago, they would be unlikely to be able to answer, but seed their memory with an episode, such as a discussion you had on that day, and they can recall the detail in the context of the day's events:  "We met to discuss that at eleven o'clock, then I went back to my desk to check my email, then I went to the cafeteria and had a bowl of tomato soup and a chicken salad sandwich."   This will come out along with many other completely irrelevant details about the events of the day - but it will far more likely be uncovered by an episodic rather than a semantic cogitation.

Memory and Experience Design

The relevance of Tulving's distinction to user experience, particularly to consistency and relevancy, is that consistency touches upon (weaker) semantic memory rather than (stronger) episodic memory.  That is to say the ability to recognize a warning message requires the user to have learned the appearance of such a message as a semantic unit, rather than their ability to call to mind a previous episode in which such a message was encountered.

This is particularly important to experience design in that our first impulse is to reduce friction by crafting the elements of experience to be familiar to the user, similar in a semantic sense to the elements that they recall:  a warning message is different to an error message, and different to an informational message, not merely because the color of the text is different (semantic) but because the user sees that specific treatment each time an event of a given kind occurs.

Consider also that the experience we are providing to the user in the present will also serve as a memory that will provide this familiarity in future interactions.   Given that the user will discern from the present context of what is before him that the text is meant as a warning to be heeded, its various qualities will first be experienced in the context of a task (episodic) and, with repetition, will be atomized for semantic consideration.

And of particular importance is the experience of the present, as separated from past and future, because the ability to discern from context without relying upon memory of either kind facilitates the cognitive task by not requiring the user to access memory of either kind.

Memory as Facility

Ultimately, memory is a facility that can be leveraged when necessary to complete a task, but unless the task is a mnemonic test, memory itself it is not the purpose of a task.   In terms of customer experience, the minimization of effort, physical or mental, is a method of facilitation - and to rely upon memory is to increase the difficulty of the task, a practice that should be approached with discretion and, where possible, avoided.

Relevance Trumps Consistency

There have been more than a few instances in which I’ve seen some very bizarre things in the context of a user experience that were defended according to the principle of consistency, and while I can acknowledge that consistency has its merits, they pale in comparison to the principle of relevance.   I don’t see this as being a situation in which the two must be negotiated to a delicate balance – but instead I firmly maintain that relevance trumps consistency, every time.

It is said, and rightly so, that the value of consistency to user experience is that it alleviates uncertainty by enabling the user to perform the same task in the same way each time.  As much as humans delight in novelty, they take comfort in familiarity.  Having to learn a new way of doing a task adds to the "cost" of obtaining the benefit and the risk of not being able to succeed at all - and when the margin of value-for-effort is slim, proposing a change has the potential to unbalance the equation.

This is true of the functional aspects of simple tasks (when you withdraw cash from an ATM, anywhere on the planet, you go through the same steps every time and do not need to learn a different procedure) and to the sensual aspects of emotional experiences (when you return to a restaurant, you expect to be able to order the same entree you had before and get the same sensual experience of its presentation and flavor).   Customers can be quite peevish when suppliers make changes to the core values of a product or its associated service experience when they liked what they got the last time.

There is a certain level of dismissiveness to the value of this familiarity, when a provider changes something and declares that their “new way” is something that customers will prefer to the "old way" (in the sense that "old" is always bad and  "new" is always good).  And very often, such claims are either disingenuous or narcissistic, failing entirely to consider whether the novelty that they assume to be an improvement may be seen as an unwanted change by their customers … until then customers leave.

But at the same time, the defense of consistency for the sake of avoiding friction is also a factor in companies who more gradually lose their customers for their failure to remain relevant to changing customer needs.   Particularly in terms of non-functional benefits, such as fashion, tastes change and the firm that refuses to change with them is left behind.

But relevancy is more than mere taste: it is often a reflection of changing needs, whether the change of needs is permanent or temporary.   The temporary aspect is more likely due to implementation of user experience design in the context of a specific task-flow design, as the change over time is more of a strategic adaptation of the firm, but in either situation a problem arises when consistency is valued over relevance, and the result is a design choice that is inappropriate.

General Motors attempted to accommodate this evolution of customer needs, albeit badly, by developing a transition plan to move customers through a family of brands as they progressed through life (Chevrolet in their youth, Buick or Cadillac later in life depending on their financial success).   Porsche seems to be doing this now by offering sedans and SUVs for customers (under the same brand) who transition into family life and find a two-seated roadster to be impractical.  Both firms seem to recognize that consistency is only valuable if the customers' needs remain consistent as well - and that customers' needs do not remain consistent means consistency becomes counterproductive,  Or more to the point, a rigid devotion to consistency is a deliberated ignorance that consistency is less valuable than relevance.

In terms of design, consistency is a quality that can be appropriately used or inappropriately misused – and the distinction between the two is relevance to the experience of the user.   If the user is ignored, which is often a precondition of a very bad decision, consistency among elements of an experience can seem to be a good idea, and one which certainly makes things more convenient to the processes of the service provider.   But when relevance is considered, which is generally a precondition of a very good decision, the distinction between functional and dysfunctional consistency should become apparent.

And perhaps that is the best mediator of the argument, and the best defense of relevance in the face of an argument in favor of consistency.

Consistency versus Quality?

I read through a discussion thread where participants were debating the trade-off of consistency and quality in customer service. Ultimately, I decided not to participate, as it seemed the two sides were well-entrenched and not really listening to one another - but it is an interesting dilemma:

Primarily, my sense is that the very topic is misconceived: consistency and quality are not opposites. Consistency and customization are opposites, and the question is which one of them better accomplishes the goal of providing quality service.

There's also the problem of staying on that goal. The advocates of consistency seemed to be distracted by a conflicting agenda: operational efficiency. I don't think there's much ground for argument as to whether operational efficiency is best served by consistency or inconsistency - the former is the hands-down winner. You use exactly the same materials and perform exactly the same actions to produce exact replicas of the same products, and the only variable you cannot control or foresee is volume of demand.

However, operational efficiency is not the same as customer service - and it's a separate argument as to whether customer service should be compromised to provide greater operational efficiency. And in that sense, service becomes the hands-down winner: there is little point in being highly efficient at providing a product that is undesirable or an experience customers find unpleasant.

That's not to say things are necessarily so: the best possible situation for a firm is being highly efficient at providing a product that is desirable and an experience that is pleasant. There's no reason that could not be possible, though it tends not to be so.

The problem is that customers are people, each of whom is to some degree an individual with idiosyncratic needs and desires. And as such, there are not many situations where the exact same product or customer experience is preferable to all. Even when you sort them into groups by vague and high-level criteria (market segmentation by any other name) the idiosyncrasies persist.

The degree to which customers will be willing to compromise their needs to accept a consistent (but not quite comfortable) fit with a product is also decreasing. Cam Marston's research into generational tastes and preferences suggests that this waxes and wanes: the older demographic groups are often willing to compromise, being from an era where there weren't a lot of choices and conformity was a social value, the younger are more demanding and come from an era where their individual rights and needs are respected. I don't see that changing.

However, it's not a matter of evolution or the choice of one extreme to the exclusion of the other. Even the younger demographics who expect service providers to serve their individual needs expect some consistency: while they demand that a product or service to be tailored to their specific needs (customized) they also expect it to be the same (for them) every time (consistency).

Ultimately, I don't see a clear winner in the debate, or that such an argument can be won on theoretical grounds. The competition is in the arena of the market, the weapon is research, the judges are the customers, the reward is profit, and the stake is sustainability.