You could argue that with the “social aspiration gap — the gap between the world we aspire to and the one we have”, this is a contradiction that has always been deeply embedded in our human nature.
As public services up and down the land are making transformational changes to the way they provide services in response to Covid 19, how will the people that use its services react? If the service has been outsourced, who will be accountable for providing good customer service, the provider or the commissioner? If a smoking cessation service has been wiped off the map, will people look to other ways of trying to stop smoking?
From demographics to social analytics
What do you think was the Twitter’s fastest growing demographic over the last couple of years? Generation X? Generation Y? Generation Z? No it’s the baby boomers, growing a whopping 79%!
A mixture of social trends and technology integration has meant that we can no longer use traditional demographic segments:
1. People are using different devices to interact with a service provider
What happens if your users tweet your council to fix a pothole rather than using your issue reporting system? What if they come into your offices to discuss a social care assessment to get staff to empathise with them rather than fill in your form online.
2. Moving from one type of service to another depending on the experience it provides them.
What can we learn from the bike hire schemes that have made it cool to ride in the city and have created their own brands to extend it to new audiences, like the P’tit Velib for kids?
Welcome to the internet of caring things
Trend Watching has benchmarked applications that are part of the internet of things against Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, as you can see below:
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
1. Internet of healthy things
Connected objects that weave self-tracking through daily life will supercharge self-improvement of fitness and physical wellbeing.
2. Internet of mindful things
Stressed, time-poor, over-stimulated consumers will expect the internet of caring things to attend to their mental wellbeing, too.
3. Internet of safety things
Physical safety is one of the most fundamental human needs. Now, a network of caring objects can unlock new ways to serve it.
4. Internet of security things
A truly smart network of connected objects means enhanced oversight and control of valuable or cherished possessions.
5. Internet of family things
Supercharged oversight of the physical world doesn’t only apply to possessions. It will also help consumers stay close to their loved ones.
How will public services be able to make use of this data to make sense of how citizens live their lives? Through personal data stores that people can opt in…or out to provide data to those same services? Or perhaps public services should focus more on helping citizens better make sense of those insights themselves? Digital…and data literacy?
And what are the needs that the internet of things doesn’t seem to have yet tackled? Respect by others? Intimacy? A home? Access to water? If you know examples where they do, do let me know and I’ll update this post accordingly!
From pathetic customer service to empathetic business?
We’ve all experienced shocking customer service, whether in the private or public sector? But what can public services learn from groups who help their customers above and beyond what their business model expects of them?
Tienda Amiga is a channel set up by the Asamblea Popular de Hortaleza for over 150 businesses to offer discounts to unemployed customers in their neighbourhood.
