Passport to Anxiety Island

Lack of information breeds anxiety. 

An uncertain customer is far less likely to buy (and far more likely to change brands).

I want you to close the Uncertainty Gap, which is the chasm between what you know about your business, and what your customers know.

2 ways to do it: 

1. Fill the gap with information

2. Build Use Clues

To fill the Uncertainty Gap with information, you have to communicate MORE, and more often.

Jon Scheyer, the basketball coach at Duke University, uses this tactic to get buy-in from many new, massively talented players each year:

"It's hard for your message to be delivered if you're not communicating enough. If we're going to have a shared vision and a single vision, we better be communicating about what that is frequently"

BINGO! 

My rule for filling the gap with information is this:

If it feels like you are over-communicating, you're communicating just the right amount

As Wade Lombard, owner of Square Cow Moovers, said when I interviewed him for a book, "Jay, customers NEVER complain about being too well-informed."

The second way to take remove customer worries is to build Use Clues.

Use Clues are just what they say they are - tiny updates about what's happening, why, and when.

Uber and Lyft have mastered Use Clues. When you request a vehicle, the apps tells you:

• How long you'll wait (Clue #1)
• An animated icon of the car's location (Clue #2)
• The type of car they driver has (Clue #3)
• The rating of the driver (Clue #4)
• And the price (Clue #5) 

Each of these removes uncertainty, doubt, and worry.

Contrast with calling a taxi for a pickup:

• Taxi will arrive at some vague time in the future
• Unknown where taxi is now
• All taxis look the same; which is yours?
• No idea if this taxi driver is good or sketchy AF
• Price is somewhere between 1 and 1 zillion dollars; TBD

You can do this. And you MUST do this.  

Whatever your business, there are scenarios where your customer is waiting. And wondering. And kinda panicking.

Remove their doubts with your own Use Clues. These proactive status updates are a huge CX optimization opportunity.

In fact, depending upon the existence and age of your children, as well as your traditions, you just may experience a classic Use Clue this holiday season....

Santa Tracker!

THE BOOKS REPORT

I love stories and the craft of telling them. Whether it's a good joke, a harrowing tale, or a rollicking yarn, I'm IN on stories.  

You might be too, and competency at creating and unfurling stories is a useful business and life skill to boot.

The folks behind The Moth podcast and storytelling event series have a book out that helps you deliver better toasts, eulogies, job interviews, knock-knock jokes and more. 

Grab How to Tell a Story and give it a read over the holidays. It's excellent!

Jay's Faves

Yeah, the US Mens National Team didn't win the World Cup. But, they did better than usual!  

But for me, the real winner of the World Cup stateside was the streaming show Ted Lasso (which is about an American football coach who finds himself leading a top-flight English soccer team).

Their smart marketing team wrote and erected giant, custom billboards containing motivational notes from "Coach Ted Lasso" - one note for each mens national team player. And get this....each players' billboard was put up in their hometowns.

Brilliant marketing, as Ted Lasso season 3 arrives next year.

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Thanks! I'll be back in your inbox in three weeks. Skipping Christmas week, so The Baer Facts will return first week of January. 

Happy Holidays!