Why No
Small Change May Be a Big Change
Pennies
and dimes have disappeared faster than toilet paper. Is it a pandemic effect or
something greater? You need to be aware of emerging trends, or risk being left
behind by them.
I guess I always understood the swarms on everything
Clorox by crazy grocery store customers when we thought that the COVID-19
virus was transmitted mainly through contact with contaminated surfaces.
Cleanliness has always been next to godliness in my book and who could fault
anyone for wanting to make sure that they had a sufficient stockpile of the
good stuff, which would hopefully protect them and their families from the bad
stuff. As long as you didn't drink it.
Just to be clear, I never attributed that
massive interest in liquid bleach-- even for a moment -- to the mad
ravings of the moron then in the White House or to the protestations of the
pillow people. Although I would have been first in line for the
privilege of watching the soon-to-be ex-Prez down a Clorox cocktail or two with
a chaser of hydroxychloroquine. As the old saying goes, "I'd buy him a
drink, but I wouldn't lend him any money".
The consumer panic around toilet paper and the
apparent need to empty the nation's shelves of every sheet of Charmin was a
little more inexplicable. Were that many conference calls really likely to move
from the boardroom to the bathroom? Was Dad gonna double down on his
"quiet time" reading in the toilet? Speaking of which, when advice
columnist Ann Landers reigned over America's manners, she'd receive tons of
mail about disputes between husbands and wives about which way the toilet paper
roll should be mounted and rotated. Now that's something really worth worrying
about. Not empty shelves at the grocery store. Of course, unless you want to
regularly repaint the wall under the roller, we all know that hanging the loose
edge on the outside is best.
From the very outset there was absolutely no
serious prospect of grocery stores and warehouses shutting down, or the
traditional supply chains suddenly collapsing. And frankly, even if they did
for a moment or two, everyone knew that Amazon would leap at the massive
logistics opportunity and acquire millions of new customers by shipping you all
the 2-Ply Quilted Northern you needed. Why there was such a scramble
for TP will always be a mystery to me.
But the most intriguing question of all was
how in the world the world (and especially the banks) ran out of change? One of
the privations of the pandemic was, apparently, pennies. Pennies, nickels,
dimes and quarters seemed to dry up and disappear virtually overnight and, all
of a sudden, everything was about exact change, charity donations, and/or
rounding up. Was this even a real thing or another crafty conspiracy to finally
get rid of those wretched and filthy pennies, the worst kind of pocket litter.
And, even more importantly, where exactly did the little devils go?
This isn't a purely rhetorical question. It's
not like "where does your lap go when you stand up?" It's actually
difficult to get a straight answer because the majority of the explanations
offered by banks and the media don't really make much sense. Were copper
pennies part of the COVID-19 conspiracy? Were dimes and quarters silver
spreaders? It's not like people were dining on their dimes or suddenly
collecting quarters. If the problem is that there aren't enough coins in
circulation because people aren't out there spending their change to buy and
sell things, then who really cares, because you wouldn't need the coins anyway
to support the non-existent transactions and make tons of change for the
shoppers.
If all the brave souls actually out in the
stores were using credit cards rather than cash, then it's not a problem at
all. In fact, one of the most common sights in the midst of the pandemic are
store signs saying that they are temporarily not accepting cash. Sadly, this
may have had more to do with fears about being robbed than about their ability
to make correct change, but the end result is the same. They didn't need your
lousy nickels anyway.
So, the mystery remains, and it may be one of
the lasting legacies of the pandemic. Maybe pennies are about to go the way of
postcards (remember those little things), autographs (before selfies), ashtrays
on every table, coin-operated parking meters, match books covered with logos
and advertising inside, Yellow Pages and, dare I say it, even business cards? A
year or two from now, if your phone doesn't automatically share your contact
info with anyone you choose, you'll probably have a QR code tattooed on your
forehead to accomplish the same thing.
Among the lasting pandemic effects we're
seeing is that traditional objects and ordinary behaviors are starting to
disappear right and left--sometimes for good and sometimes good riddance. Even
today, there are customers not worth keeping, but you want to make those
choices and ask that age-old question: how can I miss you if you won't leave?
The problem is that, at the speed the world is moving today it's not
entirely clear that we understand why these things are happening. We want
things to happen for us in a good way and not to us because we were standing
still and not anticipating and reacting to the ongoing changes. Adapting your
operations to new concerns and approaches-- whether it's fewer coins or
cashless transactions, touchless interactions and voice commands, or
drive-throughs and locker pick-ups in lieu of in-store visits-- is going
to be critical to keeping your customers coming back and staying happy.
You can't blame it all on the pandemic or on
technology. Many concerns drive customer attrition and migration. It could be a
matter of lost interest, diminished utility, or better alternatives, but,
especially as it impacts your business and the way you've done business in the
past, it's important to keep an eye on even the smallest things that matter to
your customers. Like making change, or business hours, return
policies, live operators, and safety and security matters. If you don't, you'll
turn around one day, and they'll also be gone, just like the pennies.
FEB 9, 2021
