Experiences VS Chores

Dog Walking, a Cup of Coffee and Your Business

A few days ago I was walking my two dogs in a park. It’s a big park with huge trees, lots of grass and an area for dogs to swim. My dogs obviously love this park. It’s generally pleasant there but sometimes I have other things to do and walking dogs starts to feel like a chore.

For me, as soon as something feels like a chore, I’m out. I mentally check out of the process and it takes everything in me to complete the task at hand. I hate, HATE, sweeping the floor. Even more than sweeping, I hate doing the dishes. These are chores and I do not like chores.

While walking my dogs that day in the park, something happened that hadn’t happened there before. Someone took the initiative on a cold morning and set up a coffee and muffin stand. So, at 9am on a Saturday morning while feeling stubborn and irritated by the idea of walking my dogs, I ordered a coffee and a muffin and took a seat on a bench in the park. My dogs continue to run around like they had rabies and I had strangely sat back and embraced where I was and what I was doing.

What’s the point?

Simply put - my chore became an experience and therefore, something I wanted to do.

By spending a small amount of money, all of sudden the situation had completely shifted from something I was loathe to do, to something that I was thoroughly enjoying.

I realised, walking around the park with my warm cup of sanity in my hands that this is such a simple concept to apply to just about any process or business.

Creating An Experience

Now, I’m not suggesting that every process should be accompanied by a cup of coffee or every sale should be delivered with a muffin (although, how cool would that be?).

What I am suggesting is that simple things in your business can be turned into the metaphorical cup of coffee that turns a chore into an experience for your customers.

Imagine if sending a complaint about a faulty product was turned into an activity and not a chore. Or if the act of complaining actually ended up placing the customer in a better mood than when they started the process of complaining?

That’s a cup of coffee right there.

The chore will then become an experience that your customers will talk about to their friends.

Slack did this in a very smart way with their product quirks. While waiting for a screen to load you’re presented with quirky quote to entertain you. Waiting is usually a chore and I spend a fair portion of my day staring at animated gif icons of something spinning around something. Not with Slack.

There are tiny opportunies to create experiences throughout your business. You need to look out for them and then commit to making the chore go away.

The more your product or service feels like a chore, the more you’ll discover people react the way I do to chores.