Customer Crossroads: Catching up: immersive experiences, bathroom blogfest and simplicity

I've been away from my office for a week, but it feels like a month, things are so backed up.

This morning, trainer TK (aka the princess of pain) wanted to know why I didn't get any hotel workouts in... at the time, just getting enough sleep felt like a victory. Some experiences are very immersive, and don't leave much room for anything else. A good vacation is like that, but so are some conferences, and some of my work projects are like that.

Immersive experiences and simplicity

Here's the thing - many of your target customers are in some kind of immersive experience. Their day to day life is often pretty immersive if they have children and work.

They simply don't have any mind-share to spare for you or your needs. Maybe it's some procedure that seems simple enough to you (a mail-in rebate form, for example), but that bit of effort has to displace some other important thing.

My take: no matter how simple you think your form, your procedure or your communication is, you need to make it simpler. If we have to set it aside for later, later might never come.

Bathroom Blogfest

The Bathroom Blogfest pretty much plunged on without me this year, and there was even a sponsor!! [Although I did get to dabble in logo design again, see left. It was more fun than the reports I needed to write].

I rather liked CB Whittemore's post about simplicity, here. Her recap of the week is here.

Simplicity of operation seems to have gone too far in public johns, IMHO. We all stand waving our hands under automatic sinks that don't come on, trying to get soap from automatic dispensers that won't dispense, and waving frantically at automatic towel dispensers that aren't whirring.

Mostly the automatic dryers seem to work, but you have to hang on to small children lest they get blown over by the high speed fans.

Inside the stall, it's much worse. If the automatic flush doesn't happen, you may look in vain (as I did a few days ago) for a manual button. Why these little buttons are so well hidden is a mystery. As often as not, these units flush twice, which is hardly a water saving.

Encountering these mysteries in several airports, I empathized with the newcomers who must be mystified by these devices. If we can't figure it out, what hope does a foreigner have? It's not like there are signs that explain what to do.

My take: We have a lot of weird obsessions about bathroom fixtures that could keep a team of anthropologists busy for years. I strongly suspect that the automatic switches have more to do with not touching the untouchable than with any real efficiency.

Good bathrooms are good for business

McDonald's is one of the few places you can count on a good bathroom, and that's motivated me to stop there on many occasions. And in the spirit of reciprocity, of course I buy something too.

Linda Wright has actually written a book about this topic,

Skip to the Loo: Bypass Big-Ticket Advertising and Build Business with Better Bathrooms.

My take: I haven't read the book, but I totally endorse the concept. When you are talking bathrooms, you are talking about a need felt by 100 per cent of the population.