Middle ground: How businesses should deal with our love of the middle

Do you tend to select wine from the middle of the list?  Order a meal that is neither too expensive nor cheap? Donate amounts that are somewhere between the highest and lowest? As consumers we most typically avoid extremes when selecting from a list of items, preferring instead to cluster around the middle.   Some recent research reported in Research Digest has added additional scientific weight to this behaviour, known as "Center Stage Effect".


In the most recent study, researchers Rodway, Schepman, and Lambert found a preference for the middle across both horizontal (moving left to right) and vertical (top to bottom) displays.  From this you can take two immediate actions for your website and/or printed collateral such as menus or product brochures.


1. Be smart about the sequence of items
Knowing that most people will select from the middle rather than first or last items, consider how you position items with the best margin.  Listing your highest margin wine as the cheapest will mean you are probably leaving money on the table because most customers will avoid the wine for fear of being thought a cheap skate.  Likewise, your most expensive wine should not necessarily be the one with greatest margin because volume will be low.  


Contrast a wine list on the left (image 1) that does not use price sequencing to influence purchase,  and image 2 on the right that does.  Image 2 takes better advantage of the Center Stage Effect.

2. Be smart about how you style the display of items 
You have a choice to work with or against the Center Stage Effect according to your business objectives. If it is to your advantage to encourage the customer to avoid extremes, style the middle of your list to capture visual attention. If however you want to counteract the Effect, you will need to visually style the list to drag attention away from the middle.


Image 3 provides additional visual cues to persuade the customer's choice for the middle option whereas image 4 pulls attention away from the center by styling the left-most laptop differently to the others.  

3. Visual emphasis given to middle option 

4. Item on left distinguished through styling 

With knowledge of the Center Stage Effect you can make deliberate choices about how you influence your customers, making it work in your favour.  With that, I'll exit stage left.


Interested in finding out more?  Email me at bri@peoplepatterns.com.au for an obligation free chat about your business.




Rodway, P., Schepman, A., and Lambert, J. (2012). Preferring the One in the Middle: Further Evidence for the Centre-stage Effect. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 26 (2), 215-222 DOI: 10.1002/acp.1812 cited in http://bps-research-digest.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/people-prefer-middle-option.html 

The Top 10 Slap Down: Why you need Behavioural Economics

Strap yourself in for my top ten reasons why you need to know about Behavioural Economics.  More slap down than count down, prepare to be insulted!

You need Behavioural Economics because...

1. You're arrogant
You think other people succeed because of the situation but you succeed because you're ace.  But when things go wrong, it's the situation for you but a deep personal flaw in others.  After all, you never cut people off in traffic, but get cut off all the time.   (a.k.a. Actor Observer bias)

2. You're lazy
When you don't know what to do, you do nothing.  Inertia is your friend and default is your home. The easiest position is to stay with what you know. That's why you haven't changed banks...car insurance...partners yet.  (a.k.a Status Quo)

3. You take short cuts
Who can be bothered with all that thinking? Do what you've done before or just make some assumptions.  If you remember seeing that brand advertised, then it must be reputable.  If one product is more expensive than another, it must be better.  You'll order wine from the middle of the price range because you don't want to look stingy.  (a.k.a. Heuristics or Rules of Thumb)


4. You delude yourself
You love your thinking so much that whenever you look for evidence to support your point of view you can find it easily. (a.k.a Confirmation bias)

But when someone else puts forward an idea, it always seems to have more down sides. (a.k.a. Not Invented Here Bias).

5. You're a sheep
When you don't know what to do you follow what other people are doing.  Ever lined up in a queue without knowing what it was for?  Gone to a restaurant because it always seemed busy? Bought ill-fitting fashion?  An SUV?  (a.k.a Herding)

6. You're scared
Losing is scarier than winning. Bird in the hand and all that.  Safer to do nothing (as per point 2) or demand over the top guarantees before you'll make a move.  Stayed in a job too long?  Held on to an investment even though it was tanking?  Gone to a petrol station out of your way because you want to  save $2 with your shopper docket? (a.k.a. Loss aversion)

7. You're superficial
You operate most of the time at a superficial, top of mind level.  Listing 3-5 reasons you like or dislike something is easy because but beyond that gets tricky. It causes you a bit of mental anguish because you start to second guess your 'gut' feeling.  (a.k.a. Availability bias)

And you want rewards NOW!  Just like Veronica Salt in Willy Wonka (I want it now Daddy!) you hate to wait because you are not very good at imagining what the future will be.  (a.k.a. Short term bias)

8. You're not in control of your own mind
You set the alarm and then hit snooze. You intend to go to the gym but stay glued to the couch watching the Big Bang Theory.  You know superannuation is important but somehow can't find 10 minutes to read the brochure.  You are constantly fighting with yourself as your mind processes intent and actual behaviour.  This inner turmoil exhausts you so you revert to short-cuts (see point 3) and status quo (see point 2). (a.k.a. System 1 and System 2 thinking)

9. You fall for obvious tricks
You buy the yogurt that is 97% fat free instead of the yogurt that has 3% fat.  You pay for broadband plans with data quantities you will never reach.  You buy the shirt because it is marked down to half price.  You know you know that you are being tricked by the way something is communicated, but you can't help falling for it.  (a.k.a. Framing)

So that is you.  But don't worry, it's you and me and everyone else because we are beautifully complex, emotional and cognitive beings and being irrational is what we do.  The important lesson for anyone in business is that you need strategies and systems geared around this irrationality so you can best meet the needs of your market.  It's pretty clear that many businesses have not yet come to terms with the opportunity Behavioural Economics presents, so it's your chance to shake off your status quo bias, squash your fear of losing and instead grab on to a field that can deliver significant competitive advantage.

Oh. I almost forgot.


10. You need completion
You see a gap and you need to fill it.  A list of 10 with only 9 items becomes annoyingly distressing.  Failing to finish means you miss out on the entirety of the experience, so you go through with it even if there is no point.  (a.k.a. Completion)

Happy irrationality.

PS If you like my blog, I'd love you to consider supporting my fundraising trek of the Larapinta trail. Every bit helps so to find out more, visithttps://www.gofundraise.com.au/page/BriforICV Thank you!

Converting browsers to buyers: Lessons from a food charity

What's the cost of your favourite meal?  $10? $25? That is the question posed by WeFeedBack as part of a clever online App that turns charitable intention into donating behaviour and which serves as a great case study for businesses wanting to turn browsers into buyers.

Meet the WeFeedBack Calculator App 

The WeFeedBack App is part of the World Food Programme's global effort to encourage donations to feed hungry and malnourished children, but instead of simply asking you to donate an amount you pluck out of thin air, they take you through a simple but evocative calculation.  Note the cost of your favourite food (say $10 for a focaccia) x the number of serves (eg 3 a week) = $30. The calculator then tells you how many children could be fed by a donation of the same value (in this example, 100).  Suddenly a donation of $30 seems embarrassingly affordable, easing my focaccia addled-conscience by offering great value for my contribution.

So let's look at the behavioural principles at play here.

• Framing - the App is contextualising one number ($30) with another larger number (100), serving to diminish the scale of the donated amount. In other words, $30 seems trivial because my brain has processed a bigger number as part of the same process.  (You see this all the time in retail where the Recommended Retail Price is left on the tag during a sale to influence your sense that the mark-down offers great value)
• Loss aversion - the App minimises any sense of loss I feel at donating money by amplifying the value generated. $30 to feed 100 kids? No downside there.  Further, it gets around the sense of sacrifice I might feel otherwise if it was asking me to forgo my focaccia. Instead, it is asking me to match the value of my favourite food, not stop buying it.
• IKEA effect - just like we value the bookcase we assembled more than one in which we played no role, we are more likely to donate through this calculator App than one in which we had no involvement in 'building' the donated value. The App involves us on a very personal basis by asking for our favourite food, not just presenting a table of commonly consumed foods.  

Lessons for business

Just as the World Food Programme is working to convert intention (give to charity) to behaviour (actually donating), businesses endeavour to convert browsers to buyers.  So what would a business version of this App look like, using similar behavioural principles?

Imagine you are a gym and trying to sell annual memberships. What if you asked people to calculate;

• The number of visits to the doctor or other health professional they had last year (say 7) by the average value of these visits (say $65).  Suddenly the calculator tells them they have spent $455 on "sickness".  Contrast this with what they would be spending on "wellness" aka gym membership a week (say $500 membership is less than $10 a week). You have framed the $10 in the context of $455 and started to build a convincing case.

How about car insurance?

• What about asking them to calculate the time spent every day in their car (say 30 minute commute x twice a day x 5 days + 3 hours on weekends = 8 hours a week).  Wow.  You spend the equivalent of 1 full work day in your car - surely it's worth insuring a day of your life?  

You get the idea. Draw a personally relevant example (my favourite food, my doctor's visits, my time in the car) and extrapolate its value to contextualise what you are asking them to spend. Get them to engage in the (must be simple) calculation to heighten their sense of ownership in the process, and make magnify their benefits to close the deal. Happy conversion.

How to introduce a charge for a free service

SmartCompany's exploration the other week week of News Limited's introduction of a paywall included my thoughts on how the newspaper giant could use behavioural economics to transition their service from free to paid.

To round out this discussion, I thought it was worth looking at what makes "free" so alluring in the first place, so that you can consider whether and how to give away products or services without charge.

So let's start by looking at chocolate.

The persuasive power of "free"

In an experiment outlined in Dan Ariely's Predictably Irrational, participants were given the choice of two chocolates: higher quality Lindt or Hersheys.

Through the course of various experiments, the price of each brand was manipulated to see how consumer rationality was affected. In other words, what was the point at which price changed our judgment of what we were willing to experience from our consumption of chocolate. When the Lindt was 15 cents and Hersheys one cent, 73% chose Lindt. Makes sense. We are willing to pay more when we receive a quality experience.

But then life got interesting. Prices were dropped by on cent. Lindt was therefore 14 cents and Hersheys, free. Suddenly Hersheys gobbled up 69% of the custom, reversing the earlier trend. Was it the one cent price drop? No. It was the impact of "free". The majority of participants were now willing to act in spite of the lower level of anticipated pleasure just because the chocolate was free.

It seems that "free" dramatically impacts our assessment of what we are willing to experience.

Ariely goes on to speculate that the reason we are so swayed by "free" is that there is no downside. In most transactions, we weigh up the pros and cons, rewards and risks, but when something is "free", there is only upside.

This is the behavioural principle of loss aversion, where we are wired to avoid loss more than seek gain. In the case of chocolates, participants were unwilling to trade Hersheys for Lindt even when they had only to pay one cent for the lower quality brand. The risk was still too great. Take away that risk by making Hersheys free, and the game changed.

Introducing a charge for a free service

That's fine for chocolate, but what does it have to do with a paywall where News Limited are trying to introduce a fee? After all, it's a bit like charging for Hersheys when we are used to pigging out for free.

It shows how difficult a task News Limited have ahead of them because "free" is one of the most persuasive of forces. So here are some thoughts on how to reverse engineer free in order to transition to a paid service:

1. Differentiate the product – if a brand wants to charge for something that they have previously given away for free, they need to change the product. For chocolate, it may mean changing the ingredients or packaging, or emphasising something new about the product that people didn't know (eg. now from sustainably managed cocoa suppliers). For News Limited, it means re-skinning the online experience, introducing new content and/or features, and new marquee journalists.

2. Reframe the pricing – News Limited customers will be paying between $2.95 and $7.95 instead of zero. These are small amounts relative to most things, but not relative to free, so News Limited needs to contextualise the price for its customers. For example, less than a gym membership, less than a zone two train ticket, less than what you spend on lunch per day to get 24/7 access to real-time Australian news.

3. Introduce decoys – Pricing decoys are a very effective behavioural technique because we assess prices relative to others. At the moment on News Limited's subscription page for The Australian they are offering a digital pass for $2.95/week, digital plus weekend papers for $4.50 or digital plus Monday-Saturday papers for $7.95. Here it would have been helpful for them to also offer a "decoy" seven day print subscription on the same sign up page. Why? It sets a value for the print subscription that makes the print and digital bundles look more attractive. (On The Australian's offers page which is buried a few clicks in they have moved in this direction but made the mistake of making print look the better deal at $2/week).

4. Get it over quickly – the behavioural principle of adaptation means we get over bad news more quickly if we are not reminded of it. News Limited will have to be careful how it treats its customers throughout the sign-up, sign-in and billing process, with the aim to have the pricing recede in the customer's consciousness. They are currently offering a digital pass three month trial. My suggestion would be that the pass defaults to payment as part of the terms and conditions rather than reminding people at the end of that period that they have to pay up.

5. Demarcate the process – anyone who has used iTunes may have noticed that the payment is confirmed a few days after your purchase. Apple are effectively disconnecting the process (purchasing music) from the pain (payment), which means we are less likely to remember that our downloads have cost us. News Limited should likewise consider how it finalises the payment process with the customer.

6. Guilt – don't underestimate how guilt can turn freeloaders into paying customers. Of course there will always be some people who take without giving, but most of us are susceptible to contra-free loading. This is our innate desire to work for reward rather than just get rewarded. Don't scoff. A recent move by the Indiana Museum of Art to move to free entry resulted in a 3% increase in paid memberships.

The key lesson to take away from this discussion of chocolates and paywalls is this; offering something for "free" changes the game. It comes with significant behavioural implications that can work well for your business to stimulate volume, but can also change how your product is perceived. While not impossible to reengineer a free service as paid, it is extremely tricky and therefore should be used with due consideration to your longer-term and competitive goals.

This article was originally published by Smartcompany, 

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/behavioural-economics/20111031-how-to-introduce-a-charge-for-a-free-service.html

Image from http://cdn.besttechie.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/paywall.jpeg

Time we reimagined time?

We have cars to expedite travel, microwaves to speed food preparation, computers to process information, the Internet to provide immediate answers, and smartphones to make answers portable and immediate. So where's the abundant leisure time promised by technology? 

Time and all that it represents is on my mind because last week I watched a "busy families" focus group through the two way mirror.  Given the segment, it was no surprise that claims of being 'time poor' came up as the short-hand label for the state in which they found themselves, so this got me thinking about why we become victims to time. It is as if time is controlling us and we are left powerless to change. And as a marketer, this is why promises of 'time saving', 'convenience', 'simplicity' and 'freedom' are so often trotted out to our stressed and harassed audience.  Buy this and you will be able to live the life you want!

   

So time seems to be one of the most important concepts of the modern age, at least in developed nations, and yet we often do not reconsider what time means. Till now.  Enter two product concepts that caught my eye because both are reimaginings of the very representation of time - the clock.

Progress
The first is the Progress Clock by Brett M Westervelt that uses the behavioural principle of loss aversion as a call to action. As Brett explains,

"Many clocks are circular, conveying the sense that time starts over, or completely digital, giving the current time but not much more. Time is in fact fleeting, and once this day (hour, minute) is gone, it's gone. The Progress Clock is an attempt to help the user not so much focus on the exact time, but on how much time is left; with the hope of inspiring people to take advantage of any given moment."

Progress Clock by Brett Westervelt

The clock is effectively asking, are you making the most of each moment every day?  Unlike an hourglass where time is eroded as sand buckles to the relentlessness of gravity, this clock forces you to consider what you will do with the time you have left in this unique and precious day.  Confronting, isn't it?

The Present
The other is a clock called "The Present" that takes 12 months to complete its cycle. Designed by creative firm m ss ng p eces to keep people in the present by focussing on seasons rather than moments, Fast Company suggests that "...our obsession with small increments of time often keeps us from focusing on the bigger picture. The clock takes a year to complete a single cycle...Different colors represent changes in seasons--the winter solstice (top) is marked by pure white, pure green represents the shift into spring, pure yellow marks sun, and red marks the autumn equinox."  In a sense, The Present deliberately disorients our convention of measuring time in seconds, minutes and hours and as a result racing to complete tasks that are able to measured in such small units, to instead concentrate on creating experiences of real and substantial value.

The Present by m ss ng p eces

 So we have two different reimaginings of the measurement of time, both with the aim of helping us make more of now. The Progress Clock confronts us with how much time is left on the clock at this moment, and The Present focuses us on now in the context of the cycle of life.

Behavioural principles
Both clocks are being used to explore the behavioural principles of;

• loss aversion, where we spend time doing the dishes and managing the routine because we are fearful of the chaos that may ensue if we trade the known for the unknown
• status quo bias, where our current state is what we are used to and hard to break away from
• framing, where convention is that time is displayed a certain, in-exhaustive way that perhaps frames our tendency to be wasteful. 

Will owning either of these clocks help busy families to make more of the present moment?  Probably not because both require contemplation and ultimately, reconsideration of the decisions that are creating the situation of time pressure.  And who has time for that?  But as marketers, can we use what these clocks are attempting to do to move beyond the usual rhetoric of 'time saving'? I hope so because it is important to our market.  Let me know your thoughts.

Gender differences in bottle shop behaviour

An article on the gender difference in booze buying behaviour grabbed my attention the other week. "Cheap Booze for him" headlined a story about some Roy Morgan research that identified that blokes were driven by bargains, whereas women sought helpful customer service ("Cheap Booze for him" by Inga Gilchrist, MXNews 4/7/11).  The article quoted bar duty manager David Dearlove as explaining that emotions were the difference, where "females want more from a situation, so they want to be waited on. Whereas guys just say 'Give me my beer' and they're done."  Very hunter-gatherer!

Devising your customer engagement plan
As this snippet of research indicates, businesses have a lot of decisions to make when structuring the optimal customer engagement plan (*refer caveat below).  In this case, "beer on sale" would likely stimulate male foot traffic and you would tend to up-weight staff at the registers.  A promotion on "wine matching" may instead stimulate more female custom, and you would need to ensure you had staff available in the aisles to direct purchase decisions.

At what point can you influence the purchase decision?
The interesting point here I think is that men in this scenario are making the decision before entering the store - indeed it is the reason they visit the store.   Women, on the other hand, visit the store in order to make a decision, and in fact be helped to make it.  This means the retailer has different opportunities to influence what the customer walks away with.

To make the most of male customers, the retailer should place high margin wine or champagne near the beer on special, suggesting the guy keep in sweet with his lady by coming home bearing gifts.  This is a technique used in grocery where nappies sell well with beer!  This opportunity for the retailer centers around the behavioural principles of sunk cost and mental accounting. The guy has already 'spent' the amount of money for the beer before he arrives in store (sunk cost), and that means that it should be easier to up-sell because any other purchase comes out of another mental bank account.

To make the most of female customers, the retailer can of course use direct customer service, but the other opportunity is to help the decision making by noting which wines are most popular, best value, match with particular foods and so on.  You have probably seen these techniques applied on point of sale, like "staff picks" or "popular seller", and these work because they use the behavioural economics principle of herding - we go where others go.  If you know other people like the wine, then there is less chance of making a poor choice.  Use of a rating system can also help to frame the decision, so a rating system for value or taste can help influence customer purchases.

Behavioural Economics can influence both genders
Whilst I do enjoy little snippets on gender differences, more important to your business is how you can influence the behaviour demonstrated by the sexes.  Male or female, your customer can be greatly influenced by strategies to get them in the door, and then again whilst in store so it may be worth you considering what Behavioural Economics can offer at each decision point.  Until next time, happy boozing.

(*Note, whilst the article on the research pointed to some gender differences which I have used in this post, there are doubtless many exceptions and qualifiers that you would need to consider before applying carte blanche to your business. Start with accessing the source research through Roy Morgan if you are interested.)

Image from http://www.bargaineering.com/images/in_posts/wine-shop-aisle.jpg

5 Tips for better customer service from Behavioural Economics

This weekend I visited a café famous for being one of the first to bring real coffee to Melbourne.  But in my estimation, that business is surviving on its heritage alone. Both the product and, more strikingly, the service left a lot to be desired.  A sneering barista who barely grunted to acknowledge our orders and practically threw change at my friend made us feel that we were not living up to his expectations.  Needless to say, I won’t be back.  This got me thinking about five principles of Behavioural Economics that can help businesses (well, at least, those who think customer retention is important), improve areas of poor customer service.

Framing

In Behavioural Economics framing refers to the language and context you use when interacting with a customer.  It has been shown that using language like “can’t”, “won’t” and “that’s our policy” inflames the customer experience.  Offering to “take you through the steps…” is much more constructive than “you can’t do that before you do this” because you have framed it in the affirmative. 

Drop in the Bucket Effect

In environments like call centres where the sheer volume of customer inquiries can be overwhelming, it can be difficult for your staff to feel they can make a difference – the drop in the bucket effect.  The knack is to think of the one rather than the many.  Metrics like “How many customers you helped” is better at motivating staff than measurements like call handling time because it takes performance back to the one-to-one relationship.  Likewise, celebrate the success stories where a staff member has helped a customer – noting it doesn’t have to always be ‘going above and beyond’, it should be the goal of every interaction. 

Procedural Fairness

We cope better with outcomes when we feel that we have been treated fairly through the process. To this end, inform your customers of the process that will be used to evaluate their request to help them understand what happens and why.  “I’ll have to speak with my manager” is not as effective as setting up the interaction by outlining the steps and escalation points. “Just before I ask you to go into detail about your concern, I would like to explain my role in this process.  I will…then…and finally…Do you have any questions before we start?”

Uniqueness

Just as we cope better when we know what the evaluation process will be, we also want to be treated as unique individuals. As Dan Ariely writes in Predictably Irrational, we have a “need for uniqueness”.  But whilst of course we are not unique in thinking we are unique (we all do), the lesson here is never to tell a customer they are one of many because that will diminish their sense of individuality. “My issue”… “My situation”. I once had a spat with my car manufacturer because they were interested in their policy whereas I was interested in the inconvenience the car break down meant to my life. 

Endowment effect

The endowment effect means we tend to overvalue what we own.  That’s why you think your car is worth more on trade-in than the dealer. In a customer service setting, this can help explain why customers can be all consumed by their issue, which to your organisation may seem trivial. Again in my car manufacturer’s case, they saw my car breakdown as an isolated issue to be resolved through their usual process. I saw it as a failed new car purchase that stranded me for a whole weekend.  To deal with this you need to see the issue from the customer’s perspective and work with them to understand what it would take to have the concern resolved.

Customer service undoubtedly one of the trickiest areas of business management.  The good news? Whilst the challenge of balancing your organisation’s policies, procedures and resourcing with the expectations of individual customers seems to be in constant flux, there actually consistent and predictable behavioural reasons why customers react in the way they do. An understanding of Behavioural Economics can mean more effective, efficient and satisfying customer service models, so why not get started?  Until next time, happy serving. 

This article also appeared in Smartcompany http://www.smartcompany.com.au/blogs/20110822-5-tips-for-better-customer-service.html

Image source: http://www.google.com.au/imgres?q=next+teller&hl=en&gbv=2&biw=1280&bih=603&tbm=isch&tbnid=gNH_K6WLyMUTtM:&imgrefurl=http://www.posdisplays.com.au/menu_card_holder.html&docid=0UdatlbuNpnqhM&w=325&h=63&ei=AxRSTp-BFObliALctYjjAw&zoom=1

Headcount freeze: How behavioural economics can help

Inevitably at some stage or another you won't have, or cannot have the level of team resourcing you believe you need. You catch your team muttering about "being two heads down" and morale's on the slide.  As many Australian businesses inch towards the end of financial year, deferring recruitment of staff to maximise financial results, what lessons can we draw from Behavioural Economics to improve matters?

Behavioural Principles to Apply

Social contract - it can be tempting to ask staff to work above and beyond for the good of the team, applying social norms to a work relationship. But you can't have it both ways - if you expect staff to go above and beyond, they'll expect you to protect them. Any cuts will breach the social exchange and further impact morale.

Completion - we innately seek to complete tasks. If you have to stop projects, reallocate priorities make sure you give your staff the opportunity to close-out the activity. Get them to do a final status report even if the project is pulled mid-stream because scrapping the project in front of their eyes is deeply disheartening.

Framing - due to the strong sense of "loss" of staff, you will need to reframe the team. Shake off the absence of these resources by changing the physical surrounds so that the empty desks are not a reminder. And do more team driven activities to make the sum of parts a greater whole.

Case studies

Have you ever noticed when someone leaves, parts of the job they used to do just fall away? Even when two people are doing the same job they will focus on different aspects.

In a headcount freeze scenario, you want to have the non-essential elements of the jobs people get busy doing, fall away. That means bringing to a conclusion some 'pet' projects that people invariably develop.

Now, it's easier said than done to stop a staff member working on something they enjoy, particularly when it will generate benefits for the business. You'll need to be aware of the Ikea effect (discussed by Dan Ariely in both Predictably Irrational and Upside of Irrationality), where we overvalue something because of the effort we have contributed. It means that the project that your staff member has worked so hard on will come with significant emotional attachment.

Use your knowledge of completion (our drive to see things through) to have the staff member provide a final status report even if the job is midstream so at least in their eyes, their work has been acknowledged and concluded.

This post is an extract from "22 Minutes to a Better Business, How behavioural economics can help you tackle everyday business issues", by Bri Williams.

Image from http://www.bizydeal.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/empty-desk_5.jpg