When Even Cash Is Inconvenient
Do you remember a time when to buy something you went down to the shops, withdrew money from the ATM, carried cash in your pocket, and then used it for every purchase? You counted out the cash to the person at the till. They pushed a few buttons, then you waited for the coins to be counted back to you.
With the advent of credit cards, internet banking, and more recently mobile payments, this behaviour is quickly fading away.
And for many people under 20 the use of cash is now the exception, not the norm.
When we do use cash, many of us find it a timestaking process that somehow today feels….quite frankly…a little outdated.
So many interactions that we once had time for have been sped up, just like has happened with cash.
We’re less prepared to wait for a bus and would rather consult an app to know exactly when our bus will arrive. We’re far more open to getting our online orders delivered the same day, and for some services like the Iconic, we’re delighted by 3 hour delivery. When we see a queue (lets face it, any kind of queue – whether at the supermarket, the bank, the fast food chain), we sigh and do mental gymnastics to work out exactly how long we’ll have to wait.
The dial of what we’re prepared to wait for has been turned anti-clockwise. We’re less prepared for those seconds to tick, tick, tick.
Digital Is Driving Time
So what’s brought all this about? One of the big factors is that Digital is a driving force behind this shift in mindset. Since the first iPhone launched in 2007, apps have exploded. At the start, “there’s an app for that” was a bold prediction. Today this statement is true. There is pretty much an app for everything.
Trip Advisor makes booking holidays and accommodation a dream. Uber lets us pinpoint the locations of our drivers to minutes. Eyenamia (a revolutionary tool conceived by two medical students) lets people assess the haemoglobin levels with a smartphone photo, without the need for drawing a drop of blood.
What all of these developments have in common is the ability to save Time.
We’re seeing entire processes being compressed by Digital, which is putting Time into a vice and squeezing it…giving minutes, hours and days back to customers.
No wonder the App landscape is one of the fastest growing areas of industry in the world.
Use Time As A Lens To Measure Your Products
So how do we take advantage of this trend, instead of being held ransom to it.
Give this a go. If you’re developing new products or services, use Time as a question to focus your strategy.
Ask ‘how does this new service or product save our customers time?’
While time isn’t the only ingredient of a good strategy, in this growing age of impatience, it’s an important one.
Consider these examples how different companies use Digital to save time:
[table type=”standard_minimal”] [trow] [thcol]Direction[/thcol] [thcol]Example[/thcol] [/trow] [trow] [tcol]Creating new services to replace inefficient ones[/tcol] [tcol]eTrade (previously people would have to call a broker)[/tcol] [/trow] [trow] [tcol]Bringing services together into a single service[/tcol] [tcol]Instacart, Amazon[/tcol] [/trow] [trow] [tcol]Avoid idle/waiting time[/tcol] [tcol]Tram Tracker, Dominos Pizza Tracker[/tcol] [/trow] [trow] [tcol]Giving clarity of time[/tcol] [tcol]Parcel tracking online, GPS[/tcol] [/trow] [trow] [tcol] Making idle time interesting, fun[/tcol] [tcol]Netflix, Flipboard, Angry Birds[/tcol] [/trow] [trow] [tcol]Save people’s time by accessing knowledge of others[/tcol] [tcol]Reviews on AirBNB, eBay reviews from other buyers[/tcol] [/trow] [trow] [tcol]Save time by having systems calculate/do/think things that would otherwise be manual[/tcol] [tcol]Mint.com Automated Spending Categorisation[/tcol] [/trow] [/table]
– End
Image 1: www.flickr.com/photos/eflon/5079163335/, Alex
Image 2: www.flickr.com/photos/_theo_/4715554196, mobile mobile, James Theophane
Image 3: www.flickr.com/photos/leoleephotography65/15351868711/, Leo Lee.
