First Impressions: How Design Thinking Can Shape First Impressions and Improve Long Term Member Satisfaction
It only takes seven seconds to establish a first impression and less than a one second to get a sense of traits like trustworthiness.
First Impressions are critical. Making a proactive effort to design and optimize new interactions will help increase trust – and trust is the cornerstone of member/customer satisfaction. While maintaining trust can be instilled through what your utility organization says and does over time, first interactions are a blend of initial vibes, feelings, appearance, etc. Yes…what you say matters, how you look matters, but how the the customer feels about the experiences matters first. The good news is you can do a lot of things to “design” their experience.
When I say design thinking, I’m speaking more liberally about design and the process of understanding the member experience and adding and subtracting things from each interaction.
Perception is reality.
Design thinking might have impacts on tangible visible things like your website but most likely will be things more intangible and invisible like how a customer feels when entering your lobby. You can control way more than you think about these first interactions.
First Impressions
When you first meet someone you have an immediate instinct about the person in front of you. Will you like them, are they trustworthy? True trust is built over time based on the actions and words we display—but that doesn’t stop people from pre-judging. And it’s in these initial seconds that matter a lot. While we can shift perception over time, it’s easier to just start off on the right foot. Everything matters. How you say hello, what you’re wearing, how you smile, how you smell, how you say your name, how you say their name, who introduces you or how you approach. Utilities are no different. So how do we control that instinctive first impression without having seen or heard their words or actions—through design thinking. We can use design to set a positive start to any relationship.
Four Key Interactions to Analyze and Design
Let’s think about a few key places people have “first interactions” with your utility. There are really four specific first interactions we’ll look at: search (Google), your website, an initial phone call to start service, or for some a visit to their local office. One or more of these are likely the bulk of first interactions people will have with you and your brand.
Search is Probably First
Have you Googled your utility recently?
What photos show up in the images tab, is all the information correct? Much of what can be found on Google can be adjusted through your google my business profile or by generating and adding content. What about Bing, or DuckDuckGo? The next time someone looks you up they might just be doing so through an AI search tool. What do these platforms say about your utility if you ask it to tell you what people complain about most or compliment about most? Does it pull accurate phone and office location information when prompted? Have you asked ChatGPT, Grok, Gemini, or CoPilot about your utility? While you can’t directly control what a search AI says about your utility yet, you can influence what it says about your cooperative by ensuring your website and online presence are authoritative, informative, and consistently reflect your brand’s message.
Your Website is Probably Second
Due to how Cooperatives utilize their websites, the design of your site’s interface and experience matter so much! Is your site searchable? Have you tested it? Do you organize your website based on your internal business operations or do you organize it by how site visitors look for information? Is it a warehouse of information or an index of bullet points? Can they find what they are looking for in one click? Does your branding follow through into your bill pay portals and your apps? Do these feel like consistent products?
Phone
When someone calls, this could be their very first time ever interacting with your staff. What kind of experience do they have? Are they met with an IVR system or a human? Either way, is the voice warm, friendly, helpful, and clear or do they feel robotic and impersonal–even IVR doesn’t have to feel robotic? These first few seconds are critical, and the right tone can make all the difference in building trust from the get-go.
Local Office
What’s the vibe when a someone walks into your office? Is it welcoming, comfortable, and easy to navigate? Or does it feel chaotic and unorganized? Or does it seem like you’re not paying attention to the details?
Greeting/Staff
When people are greeted, is the interaction warm and welcoming? Are your staff members trained to engage with a friendly tone, or do they seem disengaged? The way they greet and approach people can set the tone for the entire relationship, so making sure they feel genuinely cared for is key.
Designing the Invisible Experiences
Designing for feelings is a challenge. But with some basic guardrails you can improve member experience. Knowing exactly what feeling you want for that experience is a great start. Document that. Then do it for yourself, and have others on your team do the same. Talk with customers who have just experienced something. Did they leave feeling what you intended? Ask yourself and them lots of questions about the experience. If what you felt and what you should have felt don’t match, pick something to adjust in the process and try again.
A Simple Exercise
Let’s try a simple exercise we’ll call: Expectation, Experience, Question
First, take a second to close your eyes and transform into a new member…..I’ll wait….Okay, you can open them now. You’re now a customer and congratulations you just signed the documents to get your new home or apartment. Now, the first part of the exercise (Expectation). Document as clearly as you can what a new member should experience when calling you for the first time and better yet every time. Second, (Experience), take the actions your members would. Call customer support and tell them you’re interested in getting a new account. The first time take note of how the experience feels and write it down. Then call back. Now for your third part of the exercise (Question), take note of the technicals….how long it took to talk to someone. If you hit the IVR system, did you feel like it helped you or annoyed you, is the voice greeting you friendly, neighborly, etc? Now go into your lobby and repeat the exercise steps. (Or have a friend or family help out) What do you want your customers senses to experience? (Expectation) What should they see, hear, smell, taste, touch, feel. Now, let’s do it. (Experience) How does it feel to walk into the space. Is it a comfortable, friendly space? Is it tidy, are there stacks of utility magazines lying around? Are the brochure racks tidy or askew? Is it clear that you push or pull the front door? How does it smell? Did someone stick gum under your counter? Is it echoing when I walk across the lobby to the Member Support Specialist? What are the exact words they use to greet you? Can you tweak those? Did you offer them a sucker, water, or candy?
If you enjoyed that exercise, try it again with some other personas who might have different needs:
For your website, before you go to it in your browser, create a list of up to 15 actions customers will take with the first one being signing up for service. Starting from the homepage on each listed action, how many clicks does it take to find the information or actions you’re trying to complete? Do you have to search for it? Does the search option work well? Is the information clear and simple? There are plenty more things you can investigate, but starting with a list of customer actions and performing them yourself will reveal things you can most certainly work on and fix.
Do this for every customer experience you can think of and I can promise you’ll see an increase in positive member perception which will have an on-going impact on customer satisfaction scores.
