Customers are fickle. Or at least they appear to be. What once may have exceeded your customer’s expectations one day becomes ordinary the next. That’s because People become less sensitive to change as things improve. It’s called  Diminishing Sensitivity, and it’s the reason that sometimes you have to work harder to “Wow!” your customers.  

 

If you gave $100 to a poor person and a millionaire, it would have completely different effects on their daily lives. While the millionaire would be polite and appreciative of the extra cash, the poor person would feel the difference made by the money far more. 

 

In some ways, your customers are the millionaire in this scenario. Your excellent Customer Experience has made them less sensitive to your improvements. However, if your experience is next to terrible, improvements feel a lot more like $100 to a poor person. 

 

Diminishing sensitivity can be seen across many different industries. For example, the difference in graphics between the video game Football for the Atari 2600 and Madden’s NFL 10 was astounding. However,  when you compare Madden 10 to Madden 12 and 14, the difference is noticeable, but not astounding. It ceases to be something that amazes and becomes something to be expected.

 

In this episode, we explore the concept of diminishing sensitivity and how it  can affect your customer experience and your customers’ perception of it. We also talk about what you can do to continue to improve. 

 

How Can I Combat Diminishing Sensitivity?

 

While it would be easy to say you should constantly push the boundaries of your product or service, this is not necessarily realistic. As we have seen with the iPhone, constant improvement eventually bores consumers. Therefore, it’s essential to occasionally disrupt the market with more significant improvements to keep your customers hooked.

 

 

Here are some other key moments:

• 03:33   Ryan introduces the concept of diminishing sensitivity and the minds behind the concept.
• 09:07   Colin and Ryan discuss how the iPhone is an example of diminishing sensitivity.
• 15:09    Colin admits that he likes to find companies that need his help that haven’t gone as far into their experience journey because you can enjoy significant impact quickly. 
• 19:14    Ryan and Colin explain how other large organizations have navigated the tricky bit of continuous improvement after enjoying those initial gains.
• 25:50    Ryan and Colin go over the “curse of improvement” and what you can do to avoid it.

 

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Customer Experience Information & Resources

 

LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 290,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy as one of the best management consultancies for the last four years in a row. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter.

 

Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. 

 

Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 35,000 subscribers. 

 

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