A colleague of mine had a recent example of what I term “overzealous CRM”. He was surfing a website and had logged in to his account with a view to purchasing some technical equipment when a phone call interrupted his purchase. Finishing the call, he was distracted onto other things until a second call interrupted him. It was a salesperson from the website company asking whether he was having problems with their checkout process as they had noticed he had logged on to his account and had stopped half-way though a purchase.
Presumably the marketing department at this website thought this phone call was, in terms of Kano analysis, a “delighter”. Rather than be delighted with this “customer service”, my colleague found it off-putting, to say the least. Outside the CRM area, an interesting recent analogy is that Google Streetview. Many applauded the neat software but others had privacy concerns.
So; if one person’s delighter can be another person’s annoyance – how do you play it? I think the way is to recognise that boundaries exist – the boundary where a potentially-useful feature encroaches into other areas, for example, into one’s personal physical space, using the example of Google Streetview. I think of the boundary as a sort of reverse HCI where the “stakeholders” have not been consulted. An interaction in this area needs extra awareness; just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Occasionally it can work spectacularly well but, as we have seen, it often can backfire.
Presumably the marketing department at this website thought this phone call was, in terms of Kano analysis, a “delighter”. Rather than be delighted with this “customer service”, my colleague found it off-putting, to say the least. Outside the CRM area, an interesting recent analogy is that Google Streetview. Many applauded the neat software but others had privacy concerns.
So; if one person’s delighter can be another person’s annoyance – how do you play it? I think the way is to recognise that boundaries exist – the boundary where a potentially-useful feature encroaches into other areas, for example, into one’s personal physical space, using the example of Google Streetview. I think of the boundary as a sort of reverse HCI where the “stakeholders” have not been consulted. An interaction in this area needs extra awareness; just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should. Occasionally it can work spectacularly well but, as we have seen, it often can backfire.