In marketing circles, friction has become synonymous with “pain point.” Eradicating it, conventional wisdom goes, is crucial to building a customer-centric strategy that yields competitive advantage. Taking a cue from policy applications of behavioral economics, marketers seek to “nudge” people along the customer journey and remove friction in the battle against “sludge.” At many firms, “artificial intelligence” has become the go-to tool for creating frictionless experiences and removing impediments that slow down efficient customer journeys. While this was true before the pandemic, Covid-19 has only hastened this digital transformation trend by creating demand for more contactless customer experiences that reduce points of potential friction, like in-person human interactions.
Why AI Customer Journeys Need More Friction
Introduced at the right points, “good friction” can create a more transparent, ethical experience.
June 09, 2022
Summary.
Friction isn’t always a bad thing, especially when companies are looking for responsible ways to use AI. The trick is learning to differentiate good friction from bad, and to understand when and where adding good friction to your customer journey can give customers the agency and autonomy to improve choice, rather than automating the humans out of decision-making. Companies should do three things: 1) when it comes to AI deployment, practice acts of inconvenience; 2) experiment (and fail) a lot to prevent auto-pilot applications of machine learning; and 3) be on the lookout for “dark patterns.”