Yesterday I watched a fascinating report about a redesign of subway stairs into musical stairs. Innovative designers and Volkswagen teamed up to turn a flight of stairs at the subway in Stockholm into a keyboard. They placed electronics on the stairs which made each stair when stepped on play a distinct musical note. Then they covered the electronics with floor coverings that turned each stair into a key, either black or white, on the keyboard. This resulted in the entire flight of stairs appearing to be a gigantic keyboard. Volkswagen did not disclose why this was done. However, since the stairs were next to an escalator, many speculate that the motive was to encourage people to take the stairs instead of the escalator.
Whatever their reason, their idea was a big hit.
The number of people taking the stairs as compared to those taking the escalator has done a 180. Now everyone wants to take the stairs, even those who have difficulty doing so. Some people go up and down several times on their ascent or descent just to step on more stairs and make more music. No one takes the escalator anymore.
Why was this so successful?
People love to have fun, and taking these stairs is fun. Rather than telling people that for their health they ought to take the stairs, Volkswagen made taking the stairs a blast. In fact, Volkswagen made people want to take the stairs and touch extra steps in the process, giving them additional exercise. Rather than leaving signs instructing people to take the stairs, they created a desire within the customer to take the stairs. Rather than preaching to the customer, they involved the customer.
They showed the customer “What’s in it for me.”
“What’s in it for me” was making noise, stepping on something cool, and having fun.
We can all take a lesson from this innovation. We can learn to involve our customers. We can learn to lighten up on how we present change. We can learn to bring fun into our interaction with our customers.
Today we have ample opportunities to do this. With boundless technical innovations, we can offer our customers involvement and fun very easily and at a small cost. Volkswagen proved that.
How can you make your customer’s interaction with your business fun?
To watch a video of these stairs, go here.
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