Nudges are little prompts to customers to take a certain action – but without removing their choices. They’re incredibly powerful at driving successful outcomes. Our infographic provides a overview into the science.
If you’ve not heard of behavioural insights, it’s possible you’ll recognise the term ‘nudge theory’. This has become pretty famous (in some circles!) as a result of the 2008 international best-seller ‘Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness’. If neither rings a bell, here’s a quick overview.
A nudge can be defined as “any aspect of the choice architecture that alters people’s behaviour in a predictable way without forbidding any options or significantly changing their economic incentives” (source). In short, it’s encouraging people to make a certain choice without removing their free will to make a different choice. Behavioural insights is the science that helps you identify and deliver effective nudges.
Classic ‘nudges’ are the fast-food upsell (“would you like to super-size that?”), placing traffic light colour-coded nutritional information on food packaging, and automatic enrolment in a scheme that people can opt out of, but tend not to (source).
Nudges can be used very effectively by Local Government, Housing Associations, Utilities and Financial Services to help these businesses engage more effectively with customers; this may be to encourage payment, or to adopt a new behaviour (e.g. turning lights off to save energy), or to consider a new product or service.
But applying nudge theory is not a question of copying a message strategy from another company; it’s critical that you understand your customers so that your messages have impact, and drive the desired outcomes. That’s where behavioural insights come in – the insights drive the messaging strategy.
Our infographic, developed off the back of our webinar with the experts at Voicescape, provides a brief insight into how behavioural science works.
If you’d like to find out more about behavioural insights, do check out our webinar, recorded live with the behavioural science team at Voicescape; we’re here to support you when you’re ready to start your messaging trials.
