How bad am I? Anonymity at the end.
The beginning is layered in complex, data driven, celebratory reinforcement, that embeds individual consumer privilege – “Thank you for purchasing, [insertNAME] are a valued customer!”.
At the end consequences are relinquished from the consumer and left for a faceless, faraway victim to endure. This has left consumers experiencing indifference about their personal role in the worlds biggest pollution problems.
Measurement at the end.
If we can’t measure, we can’t improve.
How will consumers improve their impact without knowing how well they are doing? Measuring impact will become one of the biggest consumer experience issues of the next decade.
Numi. Take-back at end of product life
Numi occupies a key part of the consumer lifecycle that is missing in many businesses circular strategies - how you get products back at the end. I sat down with Andrea Schneller in August and discussed the story of the Numi business.
Action, action, deadend.
Casually, while brushing your teeth in the bathroom, look at the information on the products around you and what it says for different stages of the consumer journey.
On-boarding and usage stages are usually clear, inspiring and actionable for the consumer.
Off-boarding can be a baffling mess of information about material identity, corporate allegiances, indecipherable symbols and un-actionable statements.
After death deletion.
One of the very early starting points of my journey on the endings road was hearing a story from a friend about the impossibility of leaving a service when a person dies.
LOST OPPORTUNITY at the end.
Advertising adds the emotional encouragement that makes us want to purchase at the beginning of the consumer lifecycle. And consequentially impact the environment. Can we use this same argument to measure the lack of emotional engagement at the end of the consumer lifecycle to show the missed opportunity?
A massive example of a lingering ending - ewaste in your home.
Engagement with consumers at the end helps in off-boarding old products people are hoarding, or don’t know how to dispose of. One of the largest growth sectors in US real estate is off-site storage. E-waste – old phones, TVs, computers, etc - is becoming a significant part of this pile of old products. These linger around in our homes, filling up cupboards without the benefit of instructions or destination for disposal. In the US only 17.4 per cent of 2019’s e-waste was collected and recycled. These were recoverable materials, valued conservatively at US $57 billion.
What is an account, when it isn't? Apple’s Account Deletion Requirements
The first rule of deletion, is don’t talk about deletion. Or provide a route to do it. Especially in a convenient and transparent way. This tech culture anomaly might be ending with Apple’s new guidelines. Well they were new in January, but had to be put back to June because lots of people were surprised that they had to create an ending to their product. Doh!
Returns are good at the end.
Returns are good. They prove that the consumer system can return directly to sender and not become societies problem.
Hinge, "Designed to be Deleted"
In contrast the lack of a clear deletion route of some apps, Hinge is excited the consumer might delete its app. What a great way to celebrate purposeful, task orientation of an app by measuring it’s success by the end of the product relationship. This approach now runs throughout the communication output of the company.
When should cookie consent end?
When should cookie consent end?
After every visit? After a day? A week? A year? A lifetime? A 100 years? A 1000 years? Longer? Surely not! I was really surprised…
Promise Forever Ends.
One of the funniest and disturbingly delusional denials of an ending is the lifetime promise - a guarantee for life or a promise that something will always be free. Businesses seem worryingly comfortable making this enormous commitment. Using it flippantly despite all manner of evidence against remotely achieving it.