When you think of your interactions with brands, you likely find yourself experiencing some kind of friction. In physics, friction is anything that slows down progress, like a block trying to move across carpet. In customer experience, friction is any unnecessary effort to complete a task, and it can hurt the experience and how a customer views the brand.

Roger Dooley is the author of Friction: The Untapped Force That Can Be Your Most Powerful Advantage and my podcast guest this week. He says that although friction is a relatively simple concept, it’s obvious that not everyone is aware of it because of how much friction we face every day. Friction is anything that slows customers down. Reducing friction often doesn’t involve huge changes. In many cases, it’s the small changes that remove friction and create a compelling customer experience. Roger shares the example of Amazon’s one-click ordering. The simple button simplifies the check-out process and removes friction without completely uprooting the shopping process.

In the podcast, Roger shares more examples of companies that have removed friction and how every brand can find ways to create a friction-less experience. Every aspect of friction lessens the customer experience. Reducing friction through small actions creates a seamless customer experience and offers a powerful advantage over the competition.

This podcast is sponsored by Fujitsu Computer Products of America, leader of the document scanning industry and a subsidiary of the world's third largest IT products provider.