When I was studying as an undergraduate, sociology and psychology fascinated me. Even though they were somewhat peripheral to my main area of study, the way that people behave (individually and in groups) has always interested me.
I remember coming across a term social loafing which describes the tendency for individuals to put in less effort (on average) if they are part of a group, compared with if they undertook the same task individually. I was reminded recently that there’s a tangential and conceptual similarity between this and the bystander effect, where individuals are less likely to intervene in a situation if other people are present. For example, if someone collapses and only one person is present, that person will almost certainly call the emergency services. If there are ten people around, each person might assume “somebody else” has made the call.
I was thinking about these concepts recently having very briefly logged into Facebook (a social media network that, in my view, is about 15 years past its usefulness). I made the mistake of looking into a local neighbourhood group. I can almost hear the collective sigh of people reading this—if you’ve ever been part of a neighbourhood FB group you’ll know what’s coming…
While social media has the potential to bring people together and share information (and it does fulfil that, at least to an extent), the group I happened to briefly scroll through seemed to be largely filled with people “shaming” people who park in a particular way, and complaining about things like the refuse collectors missing their individual bin during the weekly collection.
What always fascinates me is how many people jump on to those threads, talking about the time their bin wasn’t collected once seventeen years ago, turning them into a metaphorical ‘pity party’, relentlessly reciting everything that’s wrong with the city. Yet nobody actually reports it. Nobody makes the actual intervention that would solve the immediate problem.
The irony being that the city I live in actually has a reasonably easy to use mechanism for reporting things like missed bin collections. Which leads to the question, why aren’t people using it?
Social Media Loafing
In my view, we seem to live in a world where sharing a meme, hitting share, or writing “hopes and prayers” on a social media update is a substitute for actual action. Perhaps people think that by contributing to a thread on a neighbourhood forum they are raising awareness of the issue… and they may be right. Certainly local elected members (councillors) are active on social media. However, personally, I’d rather they were focusing on the strategic policy-making issues at hand, rather than acting as a ‘forwarding mailbox’ for enquiries about refuse collection. In fairness, I fully understand why they do what they do… after all, visibility and popularity win at the ballot box. Long-term policy-making is less visible… but I digress.
The point here is that people may legitimately think they’ve taken action by posting something on social media and might, reasonably or unreasonably, expect that issue to be resolved. They might (rightly or wrongly) feel they’ve done what they need to do by posting on a Facebook group.
Unless we conclude that they are there just to have a whine (or, as we’d say in Pompey ‘to have a good squinny’), then surely they are aiming to make a change? Surely they are trying to get their issue resolved? If so, what does this mean for those of us that design services and processes?
Build Services and Processes that Listen
Whether we’re involved in designing an end-to-end service, or a process that contributes to a service, it’s worth considering how that service or process (and the people who orchestrate it) listens to its environment. This involves listening to what people are saying about the service, or absence thereof, on all sorts of channels.
For example, one might argue that if people are complaining on Facebook about a missed bin collection, there are several possible hypotheses to consider:
- They might not know a ‘report it’ option is available. So is there a communication gap?
- Or, perhaps they’ve used it and it’s too difficult. Is there a usability or inclusion issue?
- Maybe there are some people who are ‘social media natives’ and want a way to message on social media, rather than log in to a portal. Is that something that’s technically and socially feasible? Perhaps it should be researched and considered.
- If there’s a pattern of missed (individual bin) collections, then perhaps that’s something that needs investigating and addressing.
- Etc…
And yes, yes, there is also a possibility they’re just having a squinny. But we can’t assume everyone is a complete dinny squin-bag, can we? And even if they are just having a moan, if the underlying complaint is valid, then it’s an opportunity to look at how the service could be improved.
Feedback is Everywhere
We often think of feedback as being something formal that’s submitted via an official channel. Yet the reality is, if you look for it, feedback is everywhere. People using (or not using) a service is feedback. People getting to the last page of a digital journey and abandoning is feedback. And yes, people complaining on social media rather than contacting your organisation is feedback. The key is to build processes that listen to it and can adapt accordingly.
So the question is: Does your organisation genuinely monitor for, and hear, feedback? And if not, whose voices and perspectives are being missed?
What are your views? Please add a comment below, and let’s keep the conversation flowing!
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About the author:
Adrian Reed is Principal Consultant at Blackmetric Business Solutions, an organisation that offers Business Analysis consulting and training solutions. Adrian is a keen advocate of the analysis profession, and is constantly looking for ways of promoting the value that good analysis can bring.
To find out more about the training and consulting services offered at Blackmetric, please visit www.blackmetric.com
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