Trends in DIY

Recent research from WSL Strategic Retail in New York suggests the DIY customer trend continues to build steam (Brandweek, 5/23/2005, Vol. 46 Issue 21, p26, 1p).

• 83% of homeowners do their own repairs or improvements
• 76% of homeowners do their own home decor projects
• 80% of computer owners do their own upgrades or installations
• 62% of computer owners burn their own music CDs
• 40% of people who use beauty/healthcare products use do-it-yourself kits/products.

Do-It-Yourself Hotel

Here's an interview with Hilton Hotel's president Matt Heart (Business Travel News (6/20/05). Hilton has been a leader in adopting self-check-in systems for hotels (yeah!). It is no surprise that they really looked at customer tasks and discovered other things DIY customers migh need -- like the ability to print out their airline boarding pass.

When DIY customers become conditioned to the DIY life, it annoys them when they lose access to it. For the past couple of years I have wanted a way to print my boarding pass at the hotel without paying an arm and a leg in the "business services center". Seems like Hilton has figured out an easy way for me to do this. I guess I can stop trying to get through airport security by showing the .pdf of my boarding pass on my computer's screen.

Digitial Photo Coproduction

When I was in high school, I was a photography nut. I had a camera, darkroom, and could do everything myself -- from loading film cartridges to printing photographs. Most other people I know where quite happy to bring their film to Fotomat for processing.

The digital photo age has certainly changed things. Fotomat appears to have evaporated and customers are now avid do-it-yourselfers in a variety of different ways. As discussed in this New York Times article, digital photographers have three choices these days for printing their photos -- Kiosk, Internet, or DIY with their own computer/printer (New York Times, 6/17/05).

Each of these involves the customer as coproducter. I like the Internet solution the best -- I've used Wal-Mart's service, but there are others. I can upload the photos I want printed, crop them if necessary, then have them mailed to me or held for pickup.

Self-Service Drugs

Pharmacies are in the process of testing kiosks to distribute drugs to patients (WSJ 6/21/05, D1, D6). These systems aren't all inclusive. The customer must still call in their refill, but when the customer picks up the prescription, they use the self-service kiosk. By entering a user name and password, the customer can access the prescription, and then pay for it by swiping their credit or debit card. Benefits of the system include reduced waiting times for customers. Challenges to the system focus on the absence of face-to-face consultations between the pharmacist and customer. I see this challenge as odd, since if the primary segment this system is serving is refills, why would a customer want to waste time hearing the patient education spiel he heard when he first received the prescription?
(Copyright 2005, Honebein Associates, Inc.)

Five Types of DIY Customers

In the world of codesign, cocreation, and coproduction, customers can play many different roles. When I use do-it-yourself to explain these concepts, people tend to equate that with one or two types of customers (the first two in my list below). However, I see that there are five general types of do-it-yourself customers.

• Transactionals are those who like to perform everyday transactions themselves. They use self checkout at the grocery store, eat at the buffet, and book travel online.
• Traditionals are what we typically think of as do-it yourselfers in terms of home improvement, gardening, financial management, auto repair, and so on. These are the people who frequent Home Depot, Smith&Hawken, Charles Schwab, and Kragen Auto Parts.
• Conventionals acquire tangible self-contained products that are enablers for doing things themselves. For example, a Viking stove facilitates the do-it-yourself task of gourmet cooking. A snowblower enables one to clear the snow from the driveway.
• Intentionals engage in do-it-yourself experiences to customize goods and services to their specification. Think Build-A-Bear® Workshops and Nike iD.com online design center.
• Radicals take do-it-yourself to new extremes. Like the gentleman who re-wrote the operating system for his Lego® Mindstorms robot.

(Copyright 2005, Honebein Associates, Inc.)

Do-It-Yourself Curmudgeons

As I troll around the DIY space, I sometimes come across articles that speak negatively about the DIY economy and culture. For example, Ed Quillen, a Denver Post columnist, railed against DIY in his 12/21/05 article "More Assembly Required". Similarly, Cathy Weaver from the Greensboro News & Record aired her complaints in the 4/25/05 "Do It Yourself? Don't, and Do Yourself A Favor".

Their arguments are typical. First, the expertise gap: trying to fix something at home to save money, then botch the job due to lack of expertise (requiring a call to a professional to fix it right). Second, the inconvenience gap: being dressed up for a night on the town, but then suffering the indignity of having to fill the car with fuel and end up smelling like gas. Third, the luddite gap: buying a computer accessory that has the user manual on CD-ROM, then trying to print and assemble a paper user manual yourself. Let's look at these one at a time.

The Expertise Gap
If customers don't have expertise, they can't perform. It's that simple. If economically viable, companies will provide customer education so customers can build expertise. However, customers should be self-aware of what they can and can't do. And if they have never done something before, they should get someone who has to help them. Watching DIY shows on TV and reading DIY develops one's knowledge, but it doesn't develop skill. Only hands-on practice with appropriate feedback can develop skill.

The Inconvenience Gap
What can I say -- PLAN AHEAD. Why do people place blame elsewhere when the cause of their inconvenience is their own lack of action? You never want to do things yourself when it is not convenient to do so. Quillen knows he is going out. He probably knows his car is low on fuel. He knows all the gas stations in Colorado are self service. Why didn't Quillen think to fill his car with gas the day or morning BEFORE his big night on the town? He blames the self-service industry for his own lack of forethought. Yet, if the punishment of having a gas smell on his clothes doesn't change how he thinks about his performance, I don't know what will.

The Luddite Gap
I'm a bit more forgiving in this area. People are hesitant or slow to change their ways. I know I can be. However, also consider that new ways of doing things are typically done for a reason. It should be obvious that replacing a printed user manual with a CD-ROM-based manual has many significant economic and societal benefits. Less paper, less chemicals, less shipping costs, better product price, increased producer margins, and so on. I admit that for those of us conditioned to read things on paper, it is difficult to read things electronically. A generation from now, it won't be a problem. Quillen has the choice to change his ways, or spend an hour printing and binding his own user manual. He chose wrong, and I think society and the environment suffers from his choice.

I think what these stories show correlates well with research. If customers perform well, they praise themselves. If they don't, they blame the company or industry. Coproduction experiences must provide customers what they need to perform. However, customers must recognize when they don't have the expertise, when they need to plan ahead, and when they need to change.
(Copyright 2005, Honebein Associates, Inc.)

More Travel DIY On The Way

WSJ (6/14/05, D3) reports that more and more hotels are moving to install kiosk-based check-in systems. Embassy Suites and Doubletree properties will have kiosks in all locations by next year. Fairmont Hotels kiosks will allow guests to pick their own room.

Additionally, for customers who don't want to go online or don't have a printer, Continental Airlines has started offering faxed boarding passes.
(Copyright 2005, Honebein Associates, Inc.)

Business Drivers for Creating Do-It-Yourself Customers

In Baseline last April 2005, Gary Kelly (CEO of Southwest Airlines) and Robert Nardelli (CEO of Home Depot) discussed business drivers for do-it-yourself customers.

Some key DIY information for Southwest Airlines:

• 65% of customers book their own tickets at southwest.com
• Ticketing cost through an agent averaged $10; now it averages $0.75
• Functionality is being added to self-service check-in kiosks to handle more transactions
• People per aircraft (a key business metric) has dropped from 95 in 2002 to 74 today

Some key DIY information for Home Depot:

• Self checkout systems enable Home Depot to re-assign employees to revenue-producing roles
• If each of those re-deployed employees sells one home installation, it equates to $1 billion in revenue
• 1,029 stores currently have self checkout systems
• Four self checkout systems take the space of three regular checkout systems
• Kiosks that handle special orders are being tested
• The average customer transaction has increased 7.3%, to $54.89

(Copyright 2005, Honebein Associates, Inc.)

Gardening Advice

As you become more familiar with what I call Coproduction Experience Design, you'll come to recognize that the critical element of a well-designed coproduction experience are vision, access, incentive, and expertise. In this post, I'll share an case I found that elaborates the concept of expertise.

When companies build the expertise of customers, one of the expected outcomes is that customers will be more likely to spend money on add-ons, enhancements, and consumables. After all, once a customer has invested time to learn a new hobby, he or she wants to continue leveraging that expertise.

Many companies are training their employees to build the expertise of customers. In an article called Digging for Gardening Advice (WSJ, 6/7/05, D5), Ron Lieber discusses his search do-it-yourself gardening advice. He cites that Home Depot has certified over 7,000 "nursery consultants" to help shift customers from novice gardeners to expert green thumbs.

In reading this article, I had some thoughts about how gardening retailers could better share their advice -- and be more prepared. Mr. Lieber did several interesting things before consulting several gardening retailers. He took pictures of the area he wanted to plant, and he wanted a plan (map) of how best to fill the space with flowers. How did he know to do this? Were the "nursery consultants" prepared for such a customer? Perhaps these are experiential elements that gardening retailers could incorporate into their service scripts.

The take away from this is that if a customer like Mr. Lieber is successful setting up his do-it-yourself terrace garden, he'll become a regular income stream as he maintains and improves his garden.
(Copyright 2005, Honebein Associates, Inc.)

Fidelity Open Bond Market

When companies create or enhance coproduction experiences, look for the link to competitive strategy. One of those links is differentiation. In the June 7, 2005 Wall Street Journal, A5, Fidelity Investments ran a full-page ad announcing its new Open Bond Market service. To me, this reflects the ideals of a coproduction experience. Just look at the headline of the ad:



The competitive differentiation? Buying bonds yourself is a pain in the ass, but we've created a coproduction experience that provides you the tools, knowledge, and simplicity to do it yourself, better than any of our competitors.

This service seems enticing. I've looked into buying bonds through other brokers, but the process seemed risky and overwhelming. Perhaps Fidelity is onto something.
(Copyright 2005, Honebein Associates, Inc.)

What are Coproduction Experiences?

There is a paradigm shift in today’s economy. In the past, customers expected companies to do a lot of the work for them. Now, companies are expecting customers to do more of the work themselves. And when the company designs the brand experience effectively, customers respond enthusiastically!

Self check-in at the airport, self checkout at the grocery store, do-it-yourself DNA testing kits, even the self-installation of your digital cable services are all examples of coproduction experiences. The common thread is clear -- customers doing some or all of the work, rather than employees. Customers often find that doing things themselves is faster and more efficient. It provides a greater sense of control, and, in some cases, greater customization of the results. In other words, customers are able unlock more value from the goods and services they buy when they can successfully do things themselves.

So, the next time you are designing your personalized Nike shoes online, installing new software, creating a blog, or visiting the ATM, remember that you are part of a coproduction experience. Sometimes it is nothing more than you getting what you want faster. But ideally it is where you become the cocreator and codesigner of solutions that add value to your life.
(Copyright 2005, Honebein Associates, Inc.)