scte long read
Negativity bias in 2024: repurposed into less life-threatening situations
“Leading broadband providers target less than six minutes of downtime a year for their subscribers. While that is a tough goal even for the local power utility, consumers expect that level of always-on availability from their internet service”.
Negativity Bias It is a strange, unhappy reality, but human beings are inherently wired to focus on problems rather than the absence of them. This evolutionary trait, known as negativity bias, has historically helped us survive by being more attentive to threats and issues. Much has been written about human physiological responses to threats; the role of the brain’s amygdala, how the flight-or-fight instinct manifests itself in dangerous situations and so on but firing off angry tweets when your internet is laggy and why we do it has been covered in arguably less detail. Fast forward some 2.5m years, in the context of customer service rather than sabre-toothed tigers, such bias means that consumers are more likely to notice and remember negative experiences, such as a network outage or slow internet speeds, than the times when their service is flawless. When everything works as expected, it blends into the background of daily life, becoming an invisible facilitator of routine activities rather than a noticeable service deserving of gratitude. Mustn’t grumble The problems don’t end there for ISPs. A curious dynamic exists, particularly in the national psyche of the British, who are, by some considerable metric, an idiosyncratic lot. In many areas the British excel, especially in the creative industries and in business certainly; the emergence of the crowded alt net market is an illustration of the ‘nation of shopkeepers’ approach to free enterprise that successive governments over the last half century have encouraged. An innately aggressive business acumen
and a strong desire to go it alone seems strangely at odds with the reluctance to complain, likely rooted in a horror of drawing attention to oneself, a fear of embarrassment. In fact, John Cleese once noted that “the British have made cringing a national pastime.” Authors and anthropologists alike, especially Americans, find this characteristic adorable; writer Sally Adee in her blog Last Word on Nothing delights upon the colour draining from the face of a British diner watching his New Yorker date completely rework the menu to her liking, only to receive something substandard on her plate, leading to ‘at least three bounce backs to the kitchen, a tide of increasingly loud, performative complaining meant to elicit sympathy from nearby diners (“Can you believe this place?”), and when the time comes to settle up, a heated exchange about removing the offending item from the bill. Don’t take your eyes off the Brit because you’re in for a treat. A man is about to rip off his own face.’ Adee continues, “This is an example of “Mustn’t Grumble” culture, is one of the principles on which British civilization was founded, deriving from “keep a stiff upper lip,” and which emerged during the Victorian period. As a concept, to foreigners its true meaning is completely untranslatable.” That untranslatable concept has likely had all manner of awful, unintended consequences; generations of people unwilling to ‘bother the doctor’ till it was too late, mental health problems for war veterans unable to articulate their trauma, until recently, world-renowned, inedible cuisine. And terrible customer service.
Dan Gledhill, Harmonic
In the age of rapid technological advancement, our dependence on seamless connectivity is more pronounced than ever. It has rocketed since the lockdowns of 2020 forced us into remote work, streaming entertainment took off, online education became normalised, and our homes became increasingly littered with smart devices, from weighing scales to kettles, from vacuum cleaners to mattress covers. Our adaptability as humans is largely what has made us such a successful species on this planet, but it is also why it is difficult to remember what life used to be like. Going into the bank to pay in a cheque. Counting your change. Rescuing a runaway cassette tape with a pencil. Giving your loved ones three rings. Waiting for the post. A bygone era now, the stuff of comedy for a millennial.
Yet, despite this massive shift and our wholesale reliance on Internet
connectivity, Bjorn Ivan Teigen, Head of Research at Domos and a member of the Broadband Forum, points out, “People do not necessarily remember to thank their Internet Service Provider (ISP) when the network is working flawlessly.” This statement touches on a profound aspect of human nature and customer service, shedding light on the often-unrecognised efforts of ISPs in ensuring uninterrupted connectivity.
SEPTEMBER 2024 Volume 46 No.3
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