Over on the Small Business Branding blog, Drew McLellan writes about the incentives banks use(d) to get us to move accounts.
He rightly points out that the incentive has to be bigger than the pain of moving to make it worthwhile. A free toaster isn’t much of an incentive if you have to fill in forms, change your utility bill payments, setup online banking all over again …
In terms of sticking with the status quo, the inertia is pretty powerful.
There are a few questions that spring to mind here:
- Why are customers so hesitant to take action or make a change? Is it that we simply can’t be bothered
- How can we use incentives or special offers to directly target these “pain of action” points?
- How can we craft our marketing messages better to do the job without incentives?
- Can we pre-empt these ‘pains’ more effectively?
- How do some businesses create artificial barriers to lock-in their positions? Is that an ethical strategy for your business?
Worth a few more posts for discussion …
