hooked

Nearly four out of five smartphone owners check their device within 15 minutes of waking up every morning.  They're HOOKED!

This is a book about habits—things we do with little or no conscious thought.  Companies increasingly find that their economic value is a function of the habits they create.

The author has formulated the Hook Model—a four-phase process companies can use to help form habits among its customers:

1. Trigger
2. Action
3. Variable Reward
4. Investment

For new behaviors to really take hold, they must occur often.  Frequent engagement with a product, especially over a short period of time, increases the likelihood of forming new routines.  The author walks the reader through each of the four phases providing examples along the way, including a case study.

Two concepts I found particularly interesting:

First, the Habit Zone—a company can begin to determine its product's habit-forming potential by plotting two factors: frequency and perceived utility.

Second, the Manipulation Matrix which provides a framework for answering the question "Should I attempt to hook my users?"

As customers form routines around a product, they come to depend upon it and become less sensitive to price.  As usage increases over time, so does customers' willingness to pay.  Hooked users become brand evangelists—megaphones for your company, bringing in new users at little or no cost.

The author admits that successfully changing long-term user habits is exceptionally rare.  Nonetheless, the Hook Model framework makes sense.  The final chapter will guide you through the process of habit testing your product or service and also point you in the direction of where to look for habit-forming opportunities.

Access Gene Babon's reviews of books on <strong>Business Leadership</strong> and <strong>Business Strategy</strong> at <strong><a href="https://www.pinterest.com/webapprentices/" target="_blank">Pinterest</a>.</strong>