The Value of Intentional Friction: The Trade-off Between Convenience and Customer Engagement

Modern businesses have leveraged advances in technology to make the customer journey as fast and frictionless as possible — and with the rapidly growing use of agentic AI, it is poised to become even more so. However, in this age of hyper-convenience brands must consider what both they and their customers are giving up in key touch points as they continue to optimize the journey.

While it remains true that you don’t want to make it difficult for a potential customer to buy your product or interact with your brand, experiences can become so streamlined as to lead to missed opportunities to demonstrate value to the customer before they’ve slipped out the door. By slowing things down at appropriate points, a brand can use that moment to offer meaningful engagement.

Take a customer service call as an example. A frictionless experience would encourage the agent to answer questions and not keep the customer on the phone longer than strictly necessary. But this misses the chance to share useful information. Imagine a call to your health plan where the agent — after answering your question — offers an insight about how to maximize your benefits or a guide to manage your condition. That "friction" of slowing down to listen and learn has value for the customer. While some customers may not want to take the time, few will fault a brand for looking out for them.

Friction-free experiences can also put customers on autopilot, reducing the capacity for elevating satisfaction and brand building. When a customer only needs to open an app, click reorder, and get a grocery delivery to their home, their brand engagement is fleeting and not memorable. Taking a beat with an in-app notification to tell them that an item from a past order is now on sale or offer a recipe that uses the ingredients they’ve purchased can be notable and helps to foster a relationship with the brand because it’s provided value beyond speed — it makes a customer feel cared for by addressing an unmet need.

Intentional Interruption

Brands must be thoughtful about adding friction. Conduct a high-level cost-benefit analysis to ensure you’re not just introducing disruption. Consider the opportunity cost: how much of an interruption or slow-down are you asking of your customer, is it happening at the right time and place in the experience, and how often are you asking it? Consider the value to the customer: are you offering them something new that they didn’t already know, are you addressing a current need, and will it have a lasting impact? Ensure the value you’re providing is worth the time or attention you’re asking of your customer. 

As you evaluate your customer touch points to understand your missed opportunities, two factors are of critical importance:

1. Consider how well you know your customer journey as it continues to evolve with emerging technologies. Brands should evaluate what touch points have been eliminated or reduced to understand how this impacts overall customer engagement.

2. Create strategic value-adds that align with your customer’s goals. There’s an opportunity to look beyond your traditional category scope — such as a grocery chain sharing recipes to help a customer get out of a meal rut — to differentiate your brand in their eyes.

Reach out if you’d like to take a fresh look at your customer journey map or if you’d like to explore cultural shifts that are driving emerging consumer needs with the empatiX Consulting Insights and Strategy teams.