Online Service Design — 3 lessons from my storytelling great-grandmother
I grew up in the countryside of a small Caribbean island, surrounded by a multi-lineage, multi- generational family structure — not much different than any traditional African village. It’s the kind of village that if you come upon someone you didn’t know, it was not uncommon to ask as many questions as needed to determine whether you were enough degrees separated as an inbreeding precaution, just in case a love interest emerged from this encounter. And here in that village the most cherished member was the great-grand matriarch of my family — my great grandmother, Nen!
In many Caribbean families oral storytelling is woven into the fabric of our lives. Like our African ancestors, oral storytelling preserves and reinforces historical, familial and cultural narratives. Sometimes the same story is repeated so many times that it becomes — in short — our truths, woven into the fabric of our lives. Ask any of my siblings, or cousins, we have the same stories — retold with many flavorings, from other family elders but for all intents and purposes, they preserve much the same core narratives. Back then, like many of my generation, and before social media and TV, it was much like going to the movies. We looked forward with great anticipation of “Storytelling by Nen”
But what does it matter for online service experience design?
- Have a Good Story
To first get the color of this article let me describe Nen. She was about 94, I believe, when I was about 8 years old; by this time she had lost her ability to walk. So on any given day, she sat in the doorway of my aunt’s home, against the backdrop of lush tropical forests, surrounded by footpaths criss-crossing our village branching out into remote hilly terrain.
From the doorway, where she sat was a perfect vantage point to survey the village happenings. She remembered every one of her progeny who skipped, walked or danced by that doorway from up close to a good distance away — a great feat for someone in their 90’s. Nen was also as sharp as a pin, as the saying went. She also had such a good memory, which was great for a story teller and most of all she was a great entertainer. To this day, I recall every Compère Lapin (tran: Brother Rabbit) story that she ever told; these are now stories I tell to my own kids. And aside from stories for the sake of stories Nen told stories of about her own childhood that had become legendary.
My favorite is the one about Nen’s mother who was determined “to catch a thief” and went about setting a trap to discover which of her kids (Nen’s siblings) had been stealing fried fish at night whilst everyone slept. I have heard this story from Nen as well as other family member always told with varying colors but always preserving the narrative details such as: which sibling, how he was caught, who caught him but not necessarily what was said and how? Today this story is one known by my own kids, about how Uncle Clement was caught stealing fish.
The stories Nen told offered entertainment value to her audience and though sometimes flavor changed the core narrative.
Everyone loves a good story — it is somehow ingrained in us as children; its a soothing voice to put us to bed. It is a shared human experience that we share as children, fighting sleep to the last word “happily ever after.” And so it stands to reason that like a Nen, all businesses must also have a good story — a vision with a narrative thread to a happy end that will garner you customers. What is the value proposition of your business that will bring customers? What is that business ideal that can come in many flavors of service offerings to keep the narrative of your business fresh? and timeless?
While the story analogy can be built upon in the context of business experience design, I only focus on a few points already highlighted as lessons. And so, once you have identified the story you wish to tell, how do you build demand? An example of this in practice is Amazon — first started as a book seller — then evolved to offer audio books as well as cloud storage. In some ways we can extrapolate and say that Amazon offered content in varying media as well evolved to offer content storage platforms, a more meta offering to the offerings; Amazon also is a platform for other vendors to sell their wares as well as apps to deliver content. And so the strategic acquisition of Audible was part of its branching story, another flavor that connect back to its core narrative.
2. Build Demand
(My story continues) — When Nen told a story it reminds me today of my seasonal anticipation for the premiere of Game of Thrones. And so at sunset, we, the extended family, (mothers, aunts, cousins etc.,) made our way to the yard facing the doorway where Nen sat. At dusk, her long white hair resembled a silver crown perched in a bun on top of her head. From there, she probably surveyed her descendants with pride as they squatted on mats, some with oil lanterns — dimmed in a great hush.
And she would start softly by saying:
TinTin!!! (translation — not known)
And we would respond in unison:
Bois Sec (Dried Wood)
And we repeated this interplay with Nen a few times, at increasingly louder volume, announcing to those family members at a distance that story time was about to begin. And so my story once again digresses and we get back to business.
In designing an online business, the same holds true. Nen, perhaps through some genetic understanding beyond us, understood that the young can so often ignore their old. Overtime, Nen, like all great grand mothers with African heritage, devised a way to add value to society by providing a service — in this case, Stories. And who has more stories than the well-lived elders of our community? Think of my Nen as the oral counterpart to famous writers, Shakespeare perhaps where instead her preferred medium was the oral word.
Often times many companies create a business website that they believe will bring customers, as if by magic. But this is more than often not the case. In good business experience design, consider reliable and tangible ways to get empirical data on whether or not people even want what you offer. Are you adding value? This can take the form of online polls and surveys to a target audience or even a sign up subscription email to your network, and beyond to see if people would sign up when your business launched? Some more socially savvy business owners launch their business with more social platforms like Pinterest and Instagram — first building hype and momentum to gauge audience interest in to vet their value proposition. However, it is critical to create realistic demand using key empirical data — much like the tangible numbers from Nen’s audience that suggested audience demand for a story.
Once you have garnered enough information from potential customer that you add value, you need to think of ways to keep the customers’s attention. In other words you need to build anticipation — hold your audience’ gaze.
3. Hold The Audience Gaze
Designing your business experience is like a dance with your customer. Very much like the storytelling dance that Nen performed a few times a week with us. She had a great ability to keep us at the edge of our seats till the very end. Her enticing call of TinTin created hush tones as it built into a crescendo awaiting:”Once upon a Time” or “As the Story has been told” or “Long long time ago.” And then, like Scheherazade she ended one story and began another but to hear the rest we had to tune in tomorrow. And that we did.
How do you replicate this real life example of holding the customers attention? Like TinTin — repeated many times over, you want the customer to have a “yes” response to your business offering in much the same manner that Nen build up the TinTin crescendo with guaranteed audience. There are many ways in which you can do the same.
Prior to launching your business, consider giving your customers previews of what they will get by signing up to your business. For example, in the case of a subscription boxes, you can reveal a bit of your desirable and aspirational products and or services your customers will receive — but only if they sign up. In yet another common example, you may offer a free high value trial versions of your service (commonly called a Freemium service), with full capabilities that entice users to use but knowing that expiration is pending unless fully subscribed. The latter seems to be a common tactic these days — Adobe has been doing this for years — offering artist full capability trial of their aspirational software. On the other hand Autodesk has done the same, particularly to a student audience, who they hope will embrace the full software use in their career.
Taken together these three lessons: have a good story, build demand and hold audience attention are fundamental to good business design practices. Without these at the core consider a re-visitation of what course correction can be done to get your business narrative back on track.
And in the spirit of ending, like my Nen and Scheherazade would: tune in next time for more design lessons.
Hope this was helpful to my peers! Keep your dream job alive!