Coffee Ends. Types of endings in the coffee experience.

26 Jun

It can be incredibly insightful to examine everyday experiences through a different lens of ends. Take something as simple as grabbing a coffee with a friend. This seemingly mundane event offers a fascinating way to understand various types of "endings" we encounter in the consumer world. By analysing this common scenario, we can build a stronger vocabulary for discussing and identifying how experiences conclude.

Let's explore the different ways a single coffee experience can end.

Task/Event Completion

When your friend texts, "Hey, how about a coffee?", and you schedule it, the coffee date transforms into an event in your diary. The ending of this coffee then becomes a straightforward task / event completion. You set out to have coffee, and once you've had it, the task is complete.

Credit Out/Exhaustion

Imagine your coffee served in a six-ounce cup. Once you've taken the last sip, the cup is empty, and the coffee itself is exhausted of content. This type of ending highlights the depletion of a resource, much like a credit out scenario where you've used up what was available.

Cultural Ending

A coffee with a friend is often more than just a drink, it's a cultural experience imbued with meaning. While you might be served coffee during a job interview, you're unlikely to describe the meeting by saying, "We went for a coffee." That phrase is typically reserved for meaningful social interactions. Thus, the conclusion of a coffee with a friend can signify a cultural ending, where the social ritual or connection reaches its natural close.

Time Out Ending

Coffee also has an undefined time boundary. Someone might say, "Oh, I can't do dinner, but I could do coffee." Dinner might take a couple of hours, whereas coffee could be as quick as 20 minutes. This definition in duration means the ending of a coffee can be a time out ending, concluding simply because the allotted or available time has run out.

8 types of ending

These examples illustrate how even a simple coffee can encompass a variety of ending types. In total, there are broadly eight types of endings experienced within the consumer lifecycle. See more >here<.

Joe Macleod

Joe Macleod is founder of the worlds first customer ending business. A veteran of product development industry with decades of experience across service, digital and product sectors.

Head of Endineering at AndEnd. TEDx Speaker. Wired says “An energetic Englishman, Macleod advises companies on how to game out their endgames. Every product faces a cycle of endings. It's important to plan for each of them. Not all companies do." Fast Company says “Joe Macleod wants brands to focus on what happens to products at the end of their life cycle—not just for the environment but for the entire consumer experience.”

He is author of the Ends book, that iFixIt called “the best book about consumer e-waste”. And the new book –Endineering, that people are saying “defines and maps out a whole new sub-discipline of study”. The DoLectures consider the Endineering book one of the best business books of 2022.