People don't actually want more connection.
- lucy7295
- 4 days ago
- 6 min read
Updated: 2 hours ago
It’s 2:13pm on a Thursday. I’m working in a coffee shop because I wanted to get a change of scenery and be around people. Or at least that’s what I usually tell myself to justify spending £13.18 on lunch so that I can sit in said cafe.
I’ve bought a Poppi drink. Largely because I saw a lot of people talking about it online and I wanted to know what it tasted like so I could relate to their future posts about it. Plus my trusty Pret tuna flatbread and popcorn rather than crisps, to mix it up.
Despite me convincing myself I’m working from a cafe to be around people, I have been hunched over my laptop for the last two hours. The guy at the table next to me has at some point left, but I couldn’t tell you when, as I was too engrossed in my work.
This is what finally made me stop and remind myself I was supposed to be working at a cafe for the surroundings. For the people. To be involved in life rather than always sitting at the same desk. So, I treated myself to spending the next 5 minutes people watching whilst finally eating my popcorn.
There are eleven tables taken, nine of which are with solo people. Seven of them are on laptops, like me, working away without looking up. One is looking out into the distance (I feel you). One is actually eating their food. And the last is on their mobile phone. I wonder if they also all got out of the house with the goal of feeling more connected to life? And if this is the new way, solo-preneurs and work-from-homers can kid themselves that we are connected?
Of the two pairs, one is two men. I am assuming, in some form of business meeting, occasionally talking, but mostly looking down at their mobiles. And the last table consists of a man and a woman (I am assuming also colleagues. They are smartly dressed, and it is a Wednesday afternoon). These are actually talking and connecting.
Very broadly assuming everyone there is working or sitting in a cafe to have some form of connection, get them away from their desks and into life, one out of eleven tables have succeeded.
But can we call it a failure if no one has even tried?
The gap between what you say you want and what you do.
I see so many freelancers or people who work from home, myself included, complaining about being lonely or missing that office atmosphere. But do we ever really do anything about it?
We go to cafes or co-working spots and don’t talk to anyone.
We follow people on social media and silently support with a view or a like, but very very rarely a conversation in the comments.
We ask for community, and very few do the first steps required to be involved in one.
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My general rule for life is that there’s a low barrier for entry, and I still don’t step over it to begin; I don’t really want that thing. We often try to complicate things to justify not starting, when in fact, the first step can be easy.
If I want to read more, I first have to buy a book and then find just 5 minutes before bed a few nights a week.
If I want to learn to sew, I can start with a needle and thread and watch a free YouTube tutorial.
If I want to work with someone, I have to put a proposal together and reach out to them.
If I want more connections, I have to actually speak and engage with people whom I could connect with
If it’s something you really want to do, you’ll find time for it.
If it’s something that’s expensive, there’s normally a cheaper way to start.
But it can be a bit of a harsh truth that, if you’re still not starting or doing the thing, the problem must be the goal.
And if the goal is wrong, you’ve probably identified the wrong problem.
I can’t actually want connections if I don’t do the simple act of talking to people when I’m out, or start up any real-life conversations with other business owners.
This applies to customers too.
In one of my first corporate retail jobs, I worked closely with the UX research team.
At the time, we were seeing about 45% of people clicking ‘read more’ on the product description for clothing items. People who clicked on this and read the description spent longer on the product page and had a much higher conversion rate. When we asked why they clicked read more, customers told us they wanted more information first so they could be more confident about their purchase.
We concluded that more information/ time spent on the page = more confidence = more likely to buy.
So we moved the product description higher up the page and set a minimum recommended length for the copy team so they could give the customer everything they needed to spend more time on the product page and feel more confident about their purchase.
Obviously, we didn’t see the results we’d hoped for.
So in the next round of research, we started asking people WHAT product information they were clicking to read more about.
And we realised we had the wrong problem.
People didn’t just want more information to make them feel more confident. They were looking at the product descriptions for very specific purposes:
On women’s shorts, everyone wanted to know if they included pockets.
For school clothes, parents needed to understand whether the washing & care instructions were easy to follow.
For bags, many wanted to know dimensions, especially if they would fit in a laptop or an A4-sized folder.
Rather than a confidence problem, as they may have initially said, customers simply needed product-specific information to confirm that this product meets their needs.
It was an indirect correlation between time spent and conversion, because we were making customers spend longer searching for the information they needed. Not a direct correlation we needed to amplify.
So instead of needing to scroll through a long, wordy description, we designed a new space right below the product price and title that highlighted the most important things for that specific product.
This actually decreased clicks on ‘read more’ (people no longer needed to search for a description to find the info they wanted!).
It decreased time spent on the page because we gave the necessary information up front (previously, something we were trying to increase!).
And it subsequently increased the conversion rate across all products (a success for the customer and us!).
Customers didn’t actually want what they said they wanted. We had to dive deeper to understand the why behind their actions.
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So what do we want if it’s not actually connection?
Returning to my coffee table at the back of Pret, how do I apply my own findings from 10 years ago to my current situation?
It can’t just be the connection that I want, as I am pretty bad at reaching out and starting conversations in my social media DMs with strangers. And as we’ve already established, I’m useless at actually talking to anyone in a coffee shop.
Everyone’s answer to that will be different. But my advice will always be to go deeper than what you initially believe your problem is.
Go beyond the fact that you want more information on a product, and think about what specific information you actually need.
If we could all go that step further with both our own needs and our customers, I am sure there would be a lot fewer complaints and a lot more happy people.
And maybe even a reduction in the number of solo workers in Pret.
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