While COVID-19 media reports have rightly focussed on public health and how to manage the spread of the virus, we’re also seeing clear impacts on consumer behaviour. There have been drastic changes in consumer behaviour with changed grocery buying, increased online shopping, and lock-down policies, meaning all forms of physical and social engagement must move online. This means that brands need to quickly adapt.
The logistics of switching business models to reflect this new environment is immense. However, there’s also no guarantees that consumers will change their behaviour. Instead, there’s always a chance they’ll simply stop doing or buying certain things.
Understanding how to manage behaviour change in a rapidly changing environment is therefore essential for brands wanting to retain much needed business. However, changing consumer behaviour is a difficult task and brands that don’t manage change effectively will inevitably struggle. To help brands mange this, our MAPPS behaviour change framework (Motivation, Ability, Processing, Physical, Social) sets out guidance for commercial organisations on the likely dimensions underpinning behaviour. These five dimensions inform how behavioural science can be used to help facilitate the critical challenge of changing behaviour.
Motivation to change behaviour
Being motivated to do something is key to human behaviour. We’ve identified a number of keyways to encourage this:
1. Drive internalisation:
Sustained behaviours will only be maintained if people want to do them rather than being required to do them. With consumer behaviour now anchored to their home, brands providing digital services can, for example, help build engagement through their design e.g. using feedback mechanisms to give people a sense of progression in new tasks. By using behavioural science to inform design in ways such as this, brands can help to change behaviour from something being an external requirement to something that people want to do.
2. Encourage a sense of self-efficacy:
Behaviour change often fails because people simply feel they can’t do what’s asked of them – e.g. switching customers to online channels has long been a challenge for retail banks. There’re several ways brands can build up a sense of self-efficacy, for example, offering trials so people can learn from experience or by modelling success through showing examples of others completing the task.
3. Use powerful identities:
Many people won’t do things if they don’t see themselves as ‘that kind of a person’. Home food delivery, for example, may be in that category for some people. In these circumstances it’s necessary to reframe the identity that’s used as less ‘something an indulgent person would do’ and more ‘something that a socially responsible person would do’. COVID-19 means many people will be considering new behaviours, so fitting them into positive identities will help to build motivation.
4. Mitigate negative emotions:
Emotions can act as an important trigger or barrier to behaviour change. Viral infections can be associated with many negative emotions such as fear, so it’s important to mitigate this where possible by demonstrating how steps can be taken to help people cope with this emotion. But more positive emotions (hope and happiness) are also critical in uncertain times and encouraging these emotions will help motivate behaviour change.
Ability to change behaviour
Another key aspect of behaviour change is ability – how well can you do the task. Key strategies can include:
5. Build a sense of capability:
COVID-19’s spread has brought a range of new uncertainties for consumers. However, brands can build capability by providing guidance on how their products can be used to mitigate concerns and build understanding. As far as possible, guidance given needs to be:
a) relevant to individuals (vs. generic)
b) delivered when it’s needed (vs. a long time before)
c) experiential so people are learning by doing as much as possible
Brands that help to build consumer capability not only affirm this to the consumer by enabling them to enact behaviours, but this also plays a role in developing deeper consumer relationships in being a trusted source.
6. Build routines:
Building new routines is hard, particularly when we’re used to doing something else altogether. Brands can help consumers build new routines by using techniques such as temptation bundling. This involves linking an unappealing behaviour, like doing home cooking (for some at least), to a reward, such as listening to a favourite podcast, helping to build a routine around the behaviour.
7. Manage outcome expectations:
If people don’t think something will work, they’re less likely to do it. A big barrier here is ambiguity. For example, if individuals are unclear about the outcomes of online shopping, they won’t use it. However, if people can be assured of the outcomes, they’re more likely to act. This means that brands should communicate openly about the nature and degree of risks vs. leaving people in the dark or confused.
Processing
The other internal consumer attribute that merits attention is how our cognitive processing influences behaviour. These reflect the different ‘heuristics and biases’ that can subtly guide our behaviour in a systematic manner.
8. Identify and make use of mental shortcuts
Several mental shortcuts are relevant to changing behaviour in the current environment. For example, Construal Level Theory might suggest we may often find COVID-19’s risks psychologically distant and abstract thus not impacting behaviour. However, when COVID-19’s risks are closer at hand (when we go to visit a shop for example), this produces a greater focus on concrete thinking about outcomes and activities associated with hygienic and planning behaviours. This may, for example, offer guidance for retailers for example on how to effectively promote and implement new hygiene rules in-store.
Physical and social factors that change behaviour
We must now move from the internal consumer attributes to the external – the environmental, social and cultural factors.
9.Consider how well set-up the environment is:
We can’t ignore how supportive the wider environment is for facilitating behaviour change. Whilst this may be out of brand’s immediate control, they must be considered when making changes. For example, while the obvious response to COVID-19 is to move services to digital delivery as much as possible, the necessary delivery capacity or in-home kit must be able to deliver the services effectively.
10. Be culturally sensitive:
Consumer activity is a cultural practice. As such, changes that fail to recognise the significance of this could fail. So, in some countries, moving to online shopping and away from traditional high streets or markets may not fully respect customs and traditions. It may sometimes be better to consider how to continue to operate as normally as possible but with changes (e.g. new layouts to facilitate social distancing in grocery retail) vs. automatically attempt to move to a fundamentally new business model (e.g. online grocery retail).
11. Recognise social norms:
When trying new behaviours, people often feel self-conscious, as if they’re the only people practising them. This feeling of marginalisation is a real barrier to changing behaviours. Therefore, it can help to illustrate the prevalence or social consensus of the behaviour or belief. If people feel that others are doing this behaviour too or believe that others think they should do the behaviour, they’re more likely to maintain it.
Implications
Any brand’s priority is managing its staff and customers’ health & safety. But they must also manage the rapidly changing commercial environment. A big part of that is understanding how consumers can be encouraged to change their behaviour. There’s little value in brands rapidly changing their business models with new propositions and channels to market if this does not change consumer behaviour. Working through these issues with a behaviour change will help to optimise commercial strategies in this rapidly changing COVID-19 environment.
