Teaching customers a lesson

Seth Godin talks about companies that try to teach their customers a lesson:

“Either you’re going to make someone happy or you’re not…

Here’s the short version: If you try to teach a customer a lesson, you’ve just done two things:
a. failed at teaching a lesson
and
b. lost a customer”

How does this relate to the “stick” approach to changing users’ behaviour?

How does it relate to DRM, often presented as “keeping honest customers honest”?

If you’re designing (planning) a user’s experience (retail, product design, software, services), do you look on the user as the enemy, or the focus of your efforts?

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