For a while, let us focus on the process that works behind organ donation in some parts of the world.
In general, failure to find suitable organ donors is a universal phenomenon and leads to an average of 18 deaths each day in the USA. In India, 90% people in the waiting list of organs die because they do not get one. In terms of willingness to donate among citizens, European countries show a stark contrast. One example is mentioned below –
Germany has an organ donation consent rate of 12% while Austria has a consent rate of 99.98%.
What is the reason for this striking difference? Choose your response below by clicking on “Process Excellence” or “Human Psychology”
What do you think is playing a bigger role here?
or
What is behind this is more influential than elements like mass campaigning, deliberate reasoning, or individual preferences. Fundamentally, it is the decision to use opt-in vs opt-out. In the US, Great Britain and Germany, the legal default is that nobody is a donor without registering to be one. While in France, Austria, and Hungary, everyone is a potential donor unless they opt out. People have a tendency of NOT changing the default while filling a form, though they do have an option to make a change. This is an example of a good process having favorable influence on human psychology.
It is evident that an opt-in or opt-out decision at the right time can have serious long standing repercussions. This is true for organizational processes as well. Although it is blatantly misused sometimes, this rule is quite powerful towards getting a desired response in many occasions. I am providing below a small list of processes that come to my mind when I think about effective use of opt-in or opt-out.
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On-line purchases.
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Buying an on-line service with auto-renewal.
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Filling an insurance policy form.
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Filling a form for flight ticket booking.
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On-line hotel booking.
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Employee on-boarding process.
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Buying a domain.
For the benefit of our community, I urge you to provide at least one opt-in or opt-out example that you have found to be effective. You may also like to provide our personal opinion around your example. To mention your own example and to initiate a discussion around it, please click here.
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- When Design for Six Sigma Fails - September 24, 2015
- The root cause is missing - July 15, 2014
- Process Excellence Vs. Human Psychology - June 11, 2014
This is an example of process excellence leveraging human psychology; they are not mutually exclusive. The opt out v opt in type of approach can backfire if there is insufficient consensus and acceptance of the approach. Mailing and marketing defaults on web forms may be banned in some scenarios, and where abused can create resentment and negative perception of the company – another part of understanding the psychology. Organ donation is an interesting, and very important one, where I think, and hope, the balance is switching to opt out in countries that don’t yet use this.
While installing many softwares, certain Toolbars are listed which have a check mark against them. Unless a user explicitly unchecks it, he’s left with an annoying toolbar installed on his browser.
Probably good for the toolbar company but not so good for the user experience.
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The default option to Opt in or Opt out makes a huge difference. This was used as good example for 5Y analysis.
The virtue of chartity is the reason why people donate. This virtue is directly dependent on free will. The op-in /opt-out format of assures individual donars of this fact. There are multiple reasons why people opt-in and then opt-out. One of the primary reasons is corrution by the overseers of the program.
The only way to maximize the end result of the donation, with zero percent wastage, is to make sure that the process from donor to receipent is efficient and effective..
In contrast to remarks by Andy Robson, i feel that it is a human psychology driven process excellence. No process can sustain in long term if mind is not ready to accept it fully. Thus first humans are to be made aware of the process and then process an be implemented (weather default process is Opt in Or Opt out) for large scale acceptance.
Example of Opt in : “Do you want to make ___________ as your default browser”
Example of Opt out : “Are you sure you want to exit”
It all boils down to Human Psychology. Once the perception is built based on your experience or what you have heard through word of mouth, you decide / make a choice on what you want.
Ex:
1) Subjects that you select in your College
2) Branded / Un-branded Clothes, shoes or any other accessories that you buy
3) Finalizing on a Departmental Store to buy your Monthly Groceries
The list goes on….
If you have built a perception, that you need to feel the product before buying, you will prepare yourself to any hurdles that might come in between (Take the pain of driving through traffic jams, Standing in long Queues in a billing Counter or wait in a Queue to get inside the shop Etc …). But at the same time if you make up your mind to accept the product as is shown through an Image, you will go for Online Shopping.
In the above example, what ever the process we may apply to improve Customer Experience in the Shopping Complex, the Process would fail if a person would decide not to go shopping.
Hence I can conclude that Human Psychology has an upper edge over Process Excellence.
Mobile phone SMS messaging for patients in low resource settings as a means of communication about hospital visit reminders, scheduling, services offered, etc. By default all persons who visit the hospital and are registered as patients are eligible to receive the messages unless they opt-out.
In one of the post discharge customer service survey in pan India chain of hospitals, I noticed the default choice was “very satisfied’. Since I was in the hospital for an extended period of time, I noticed that many customers just selected next, next, next to fill the survey.
The use of default selection in such cases may not be giving an accurate assessment of service quality.
I have seen similar approach in employee satisfaction survey and IT Support ticket survey for an major IT company.
In our company, the insurance renewal for the year was paid by the company in Group insurance policy where all the employees are covered upto 3 Lakhs. An employee can opt-in to pay an additional of Rs.1,910/- and get the policy top up to 5 Lakhs coverage. This amount would be deducted from their next month’s salary. In this case we can use the Opt-out method here.
Contd…
If anybody asks the HR, how much is each employee covered under Medical Insurance? He would have said 3Lakhs (As per Opt in Method), but now he can say that its 5Lakhs. This benefits the Company’s reputation ans also Employee satisfaction.
Similarly, if 80% of the employees’ go for the Opt-in method, the HR has to pass an entry to deduct the amount of Rs.1,910/-, for 80% of the employees, this is extra work. However, incase of an Opt-out method the HR just has to pass 20% entries to NOT deduct the amount, this saves their time and energy.
Value added services by Telecom service providers is another example. Customers are initially offered the service free for a certain period and then billed till they choose to opt out.
In India, when you visit any private hospital, first thing they will ask you is “Are you visiting for the first time?”. If the answer is Yes then yon will be asked to fill a membership form. Without becoming a member of the hospital you cannot consult a doctor. I think we should have opt-in or opt-out option given to the visitors. What is the need of forcing an individual to become a member? Just to increase their customer base or some thing else…
In my opinion, it should be completely optional and not a forced not to avoid option.