Why technology adoption fails even when it works

Trust determines whether customers will continue to use the digital service or even refer their friends to use it too. [Courtesy]

Someone recently said that the thing they fear most is internet downtime. Reason being that most people’s daily routines are powered by technology.

From hailing a taxi, to shopping online, attending virtual meetings, sending and receiving money, taking and paying back loans, buying insurance cover, paying school fees, the list is endless. Technology is a daily companion

Many of the digital platforms offering daily relevant services start off successfully. Registrations rise and then consumer usage slows down. Customers quietly disengage.

The usual explanations come quickly: Low digital literacy, high cost of using the services such as cost of internet, data bundles and weak network connectivity in many areas.

These factors matter, but they are not the real reason technology adoption and usage fails. The deeper issue is simpler and more uncomfortable for those who invest in these digital solutions. In many cases, customers stop using the technology because the providers misunderstand trust.

Trust, which can not be seen or touched, but only experienced, is the unseen driver that supports the acceptance and continued usage of digital solutions.

Trust determines whether customers will continue to use the digital service or even refer their friends to use it too. Trust cannot be seen on a balance sheet but without it, digital systems cannot grow and scale.

Take an example of a family that gets ready to travel on a Sunday morning to visit their child in a boarding school. Both parties are excited at the pending union after one month.

One of the parent then remembers that the car insurance had expired a day before. He goes online to renew the insurance cover, but the insurance system is down.

He tries to call his insurance agent but cannot reach him on the phone and neither can he reach the insurance company itself.

Nobody is picking calls on a Sunday, yet, they had promised to carry the risks of their customers at all times.

He knows that if only they could pick the call, he would get a cover even for a month to enable him use the car.

Using the car without an insurance cover is an offense, and in case of an accident, the family is exposed. That means the family has to cancel their trip until they can access the insurance cover, or urgently find other means of travel.

The level of frustration for that family and the embarrassment is unexplainable. Such a parent will never trust promises of online accessibility for critical services. This is because the promise of being available 24/7 was broken at a crucial hour.

When customers respond to an invitation to start using a digital service, they don’t begin by asking “ is this service innovative? Instead they ask, “ is the service convenient and efficient? Is it safe? Is it reliable?  Incase something goes wrong, is it possible to get help when I need it”?

The providers of the service may not easily quantify the cost of such an emotional cost.

They look at their dashboards and see how many activities happened that day. They read the number of registrations, transactions and system uptime. But they rarely, if at all, capture and quantify fear, embarrassment and lost opportunities.

When usage of such a platform start to slow and stagnate, the management describe it as a low marketing effort, lack of consumer education or persuasion, and they immediately rump up these efforts. Trust is not built through louder messaging. It is built through response when under pressure, such as when the services fail, mistakes occur or customers feel exposed.

The irony is that many digital platforms lose trust not through failure, but through silence. Customers who feel abandoned do not always complain. They simply leave.

This “silent exit” is the most expensive failure mode of all, because it arrives without warning and is detected too late.

Until trust is treated as infrastructure: Designed, invested in and governed well by service providers, technology investment will continue to rise while adoption and usage quietly fails.

- The writer is an enthusiast of applied technology for advancement of society