Rather than take sides or make bold predictions, I’d like to mention what needs to happen for physical goods & services to remain healthy. Retailers must focus on customer experience.

Online has stepped its game up.  To make its customers comfortable, stores have made ordering as painless as possible: they offer free returns & shipping, customer feedback, fast checkouts, stored logins.  Above and beyond these expected features, companies set themselves apart through their dedication to personalized service.  People shopping at these sites feel like their patronage is taken seriously by actual humans and not by automated timedown scripts and stockroom robots — Gilt I’m looking at you!  Zappos has gotten attention for their buzzing company culture, which emerges in pleasant service calls as well as the fun copywriting on their website.

Personal touches are everywhere in the online retail sector.  Sound equipment retailer sweetwater.com assigned me a Professional Sales Engineer just to ensure my 20-dollar purchase of headphone pads went smoothly.  In another example, last week I complained to endless.com when a pair of shoes didn’t arrive when expected.

[excerpt from my email]
Why did you request a return to sender? Why Endless? Why Amazon? Why FedEx?  My feet were looking forward to being swathed in luxurous leather loafers today… I’m very sad & disappointed

[excerpt from their response]
We pride ourselves in convenience and efficiency at Endless.com, but I can see we didn’t meet that standard here. I hope you’ll give us another chance to make this right, and that we can prove the quality of our service with your next order.

To help make up for this, I’d like to give you a $30.00 promotional certificate for use toward your next endless.com order.

Notice the emotional tone of my complaint and their similarly worded email; their reaction was appropriate and was written in a heartfelt tone.  I appreciate that online retailers are trying to be more personable, and that they realize that these small interactions are important for the success of a company.  Corporations evaluate their success based on a figure called the net promoter score based on the answer to the question “would you recommend our service or product to a friend or colleague?”  By using a service tactic, they turned a potential negative NPS score to a positive one.

Brick and Mortar retailers must raise their bar to compete with the online world’s service orientation.  They must go back to their roots & make the customer experience the most significant aspect of a sale.  The salesperson serves the pivotal role.  Hospitality, knowledge and courtesy ensure the customer leaves satisfied and with a smile on their face.  When executed smoothly, these people leave a memorable good impression of the company and the clothing as a whole.

Retail stores are rising to the challenge. In my recent trips to the Gap & Banana Republic (both owned by Gap corp) downtown, I have been greeted at the dressing room by an attendant who asked my name, offered theirs and made suggestions on items in my selection.

Both times part of our conversation involved going online to shop a larger selection on their web catalog (for a missing style or fit), an interesting addition to the retail experience. The fact that I received a similar customer experience in both stores clued me to the fact that a service orientation is becoming a top-down mandate from the execs at the organization. They realize that positive and memorable attitudes of sales clerks are market differentiators.

Domain expertise is another important factor to the survival Brick and Mortar shops.  Product recommendations from an online sales team or from fellow consumers cannot match the wisdom or passion of an expert craftsmen.

I recently purchased a new pair of spectacles in a boutique optics store in San Francisco.  They provided me the expertise & honest attention that I needed to make a significant purchase.  Each time I’ve been there looking for frames, I was treated with respect and individualized attention. I was never rushed to make a purchase & were completely patient with me although I had been in there three times (last Thursday was my third and final visit, before I finally decided to buy a pair).  They explained subtle differences between frames, drawing from a wisdom only gained by years of experience to help me make a purchasing decision.  Call it flattery, but they showed me how the frames I chose complemented my facial shape and features.  I wouldn’t be able to get this in Walmart, Target or big chain optics.

Admittedly, I’m as big an online shopper as most.  In fact, sometimes I prefer shopping online. It’s pressure free and you can poll “peers” about the item.  But as long as I get a novel & refreshing customer service experience, I’ll continue to return to B&M stores to balance out my online shopping.

hilarity and absurdity ensue.

These are all great innovations. However, I am wary of a trend towards badges & other virtual assets to reward donors. For some donators, a badge prominently displayed on a social profile for all to acknowledge them as Mother Teresa reincarnated provides the requisite incentive that motivates giving to charity. (Fred Wilson sums up some of the reward systems that have benefited the Haitian crisis). I am equally skeptical towards people whose charity is motivated in this way, as I am towards designers who integrate these status symbols into their social systems. They are submitting to the deepest reaches of psychological egoism, tinting our actions with a self-serving spin, re-framing donation as an activity that demands acknowledgement and adoration by our peers and strangers. Social networking helps spread ideas, but when the main idea is that “I donated, I am awesome”, we are cheapening the act.

Is there a need for these symbols in the humanitarian space? Are organization failing to demonstrate that your money, charity, and actions are creating a better place, so they need to give you a virtual goodie to donate? Perhaps traditional donation methods that leverage the direness of the situation and empower the compassionate individual are failing and there is a need for these crappy incentives. I don’t think they are. Let us rely on the skills of the journalist, copywriter, photographer, and graphic designer to build bold and illustrative campaigns that draw attention to the situation on the ground & open the hearts of the reader.

I still believe in coming up with new ways, even social ways, to increase donations. But I think the pat-you-on-the-back badges is moving in the wrong direction. Here are some alternatives for low-cost incentives to motivate charitable action:
1) Phone call or letter written by someone you’ve helped
2) Unlocked premium content
3) Tax returns
4) Removing ads and banners

Services can also be re-designed to allow for donating in small amounts. (A creative re-use of Bank of America’s “Keep The Change” campaign is one example)

Although badges might be increasing donations, we are also increasing narcissism and the act of donating for self-interest. We should design for compassion, which unlike virtual assets, has lasting benefits for society.

If you have made resolutions to budget better, start accounting for one’s finances or even read bank statements regularly and failed, fear not. There’s an app for that. You need to try Mint.

• Mint has been hailed by UX pros.
• It was recently purchased by tax software-giant, Intuit.
• It’s a web application that  monitors and provides feedback about how you spend money.
• oh, and its 100% FREE

Have you tried it out yet?  Okay, leave this article, seriously. Go sign up and give it a whirl, then come back (or don’t) if you want to read the rest of what I have to say. More after the break.

Mint’s budgeting & accounting system is fun and easy to adopt.  It is unlike other accounting books, systems, and programs which are as enjoyable as monthly trips to the dentist.  Mint uses your bank statements to categorize and archive your activity automatically. Instead of laboriously managing statements and spreadsheets, you can spend time learning about your spending patterns through Mint’s system of interactive charts and pie graphs. MM…. pie graphs.

The makers of Mint realize that unless the system is simple or the program enjoyable, a person will not adopt it.  Habits dealing budgeting and finances are burdensome, even when there are financial incentives to get into those habits. For the first time ever, I want to be rigorous about my personal finances.  And not because I have excessive spending habits, but because it’s damned fun to do so.

Eating my burrito last night, I pondered about finances and the extent to which Mint was bettering them.  I saw a girl in line take out her wallet, and stare into its empty contents with a disgusted and slightly confused face.  I’ve been there before, you look into your wallet and it appears more empty than you believe it should be.  Looking at that girl’s expression, I realized that though Mint is a marvelous tool, the one thing it cannot do is track cash spending.  Once you pull money out of an ATM, it flies under the radar, leading to unconscious and irresponsible spending.

well, duh, Jon. How is an application going to track cash?

Hey, this is just an observation.  Perhaps Mint can do kick ass cash management, as well.  I believe the solution lies in the physical container: your wallet.  Cash can be accounted for the day we all have “smart wallets” in our pockets and purses.  These devices will come with a GPS tracker and a camera that reads bills.  Every time you open the wallet to pull out cash or credit, it records your GPS location and takes a photo of the cash in the wallet before money is taken out, and after. The uploaded data can tell you when and where your money was spent.  And, as an added bonus, the wallet can track down a thief if it gets stolen.

I guess its a problem if you’re dealing with cash transactions you WANT flying under the radar (hint: what businesses do transactions only in cash?). Too much Big Brother?