Over the past year or so I’ve been weening myself off of bags from retailers, partially for eco reasons - partially because I was sick of them piling up under my sink. I’ve gotten pretty used to just letting the cashier know I was fine carrying my stuff by hand whenever they started to make the reach, and that being that. A couple days ago I was in LA and ended up at Buffalo Exchange. I shuffled around the shop for a few, grabbed a couple small things for the missus and myself, and made my way to check-out where everything fit the status quo until the traditional “wave off”.
“Do you know about our token program?” I was asked. Thinking it was some flavor of loyalty program where I trade personal privacy for a few percent off my purchase and yet another card to fill my wallet, I said “no” and prepared to decline signing up for something. Before my cynicism could fully kick in, the girl behind the counter handed me a little paper disc and said that since I turned down a bag, I got a token to drop into one of the boxes for a pretty wide set of charities at the far end of the counter - each token dropped was worth a nickel donation to that charity. To the store I’m sure it was a wash, but to me it was an awesome gesture and a great way to secure my future business.
We all routinely pass right by collection jars of all kinds of loose change in our pockets without giving it second thought. This store broke that cycle by giving me something that had absolutely zero value to me but held immediate value to someone else, and by giving it away I got a little something back myself by choosing whom would reap the benefit. Hell, even the store wins by getting to write off the donations and not have to worry about reordering bags as often. Literally every single person affected by the transaction came out ahead.
This was the best of example I’ve seen in quite a while of “Does it help your users feel like they are kicking ass?” (my favorite litmus test for ideas, from Kathy Sierra) in a long, long time. I can only see this type of system becoming more and more effective as consumers as a whole get greener and more socially conscience. I ended up dumping all the change I had on me into those boxes, had the brand glued in my head for hours after leaving and began to fixate on how else simple tweaks to common exchanges can have big effects on consumers.
There have to be other fairly easy ways for corporations to tap into this vein… Donate a well pump/purifier to a village in need with every purchase of a jetski so everyone can enjoy the joys of clean water. Work with employees to match each customer purchase at stores with one second/minute of community service. Plant a guerrilla garden in every city where customers exceed a threshold monthly (if you ask for my zip code, try doing something other than planning your marketing buys around it).
People aren’t going to stop purchasing goods and services, so finding a way to directly tie the act of a purchase they are already considering to some tangible gain elsewhere seems like an almost assured victory.
2 Comments
james, I completely agree with you — this IS an awesome demonstration of ‘helping customers feel like they kick ass’ — I’ve been working on the book, and I may put this in as an example, so thanks! Also, I’ve been thinking of returning to blogging, so posts like this help encourage me to do that. Thanks again for writing about this. Nailed it ; )
It really seems like having a couple of few small methods in place that would normally go almost entirely unnoticed have a markedly larger effect on people than a single, grand expression. Creating an ambient slightly positive experience rather than trying to make a single big bang that will hit big or completely miss the mark.