A couple of weeks ago I was standing in line at Popolo Gelateria on King Street.
As is often the case, there was a line out the door.
The tall man three ahead of me was making his way through his ordering process (each of us chooses gelato differently…), and was sampling a number of the flavours…
Each time, the attendant would get a fresh plastic spoon, and give them a taste of another flavour… Vanilla, Tiramisu, Macadamia…
Eventually, he made the order – two scoops in a cone, dark chocolate and espresso (a side note, these were two flavours that he didn’t even sample).
What we are really talking about here is the idea of friction.
Friction is the stickiness. The part that’s uncomfortable, the uncertainty… Friction is emotional labour, and friction exists in every system.
The first step is to realise that because it’s always there, someone is going to have to deal with it. Now, as the business owner or creator, it turns out that it’s our job to absorb and even seek out this friction, so that we can reduce it for the customer or consumer.
User experience is everthing. Through deploying time, patience and a number of spoons, the attendant provided certainty for the chocolate/espresso fan.
As a business owner, how do we discover all of this friction we need to seek out? Whether it’s public speaking, writing, or extending more empathy to our clients, the starting point is looking for the areas that we naturally want to avoid.
Convenience, certainty, and experience is everything. There’s always going to be friction in the system, it’s our job to seek it out, so that they don’t have to.
