The most powerful union in Manhattan is not the Teachers Union or the Transit Workers Union. It’s the Dry Cleaners Union. I have reached this conclusion based on the observation that they all seem to close at 7pm, while every other shop in the city, no matter whether it sells coffee, sunglasses or sandbags stays open later. This has never really bothered me until last week when I was asked to go to a meeting in London unexpectedly. On my way home to pack for the trip, I realized I didn’t have many clean shirts and since it was past the 7pm deadline I was going to be stuck with whatever I had in my closet…

I got home and found 3 clean shirts. Unfortunately, as I packed them in my suitcase I noticed that two of them had rips in the sleeves. 31 expletives later, I calmed down enough to realize that my predicament was my own fault. This wasn’t the first time this had happened. Twice in the last year I got laundry back from my dry cleaner which was damaged in some way. Both times I decided to try somewhere new, only to find myself going back to the same place a few days later. As I finished packing, the question I asked myself was why - why hadn’t I at least tried somewhere different?

The Status quo effect *
Richard Zeckhauser and William Samuelson would likely blame the ’status quo bias’. In their words ‘In choosing among alternatives, individuals display a bias toward sticking with the status quo’. Their studies show how this bias is evident everywhere - it can influence everything from our choice of who to vote for, where to eat or how much to contribute to our retirement funds. Put simply, inertia influences our decision making even when we are not aware of it and even when changing our behavior would be the ‘rational’ thing to do (for example, changing your dry cleaner when they keep ruining your shirts). In Nudge, Richard Thaler points out how magazine subscription services take advantage of our natural inertia to their benefit. They will offer people 3 months free magazine subscription, on the condition that the recipient cancels after 3 months if they no longer wish to receive the publication. They do this with the knowledge that our natural inertia means a good portion of those who take up the offer, will never get around to cancelling their new subscriptions, even when they no longer want them.

And it’s not just my dry cleaner and magazine subscription services who are harnessing the power of the status quo bias. The day I got back from London I received a letter from my credit card company offering me $50 if I set up a direct debit to pay my bills through their new online bill payment service. This is presumably based on the insight that once I have a direct debit set in place, the disruption it would cause me to change to another card or bank will put me off doing so. They are relying on my inertia to prevent me switching in the future.

Marketers, inertia can be your friend
Generally, marketers don’t like to embrace this feature of human behavior. We like to be positive - to talk about the transformative power of brands and great customer experience. We like to believe ‘emotional’ loyalty is more powerful than inertia and habit.  And sometimes it is. And I am by no means advocating poor customer experience as a corporate objective. However, it’s also important to pay attention to what we know to be true about human behavior. So, it’s worth thinking about how you can leverage the status quo bias, or at least how it might be impacting your business, because it does have an effect. Just ask my dry cleaner. Or my shirts.

* The ’status quo’ effect is not to be confused with the British band ‘Status Quo’, who produce an all together different affect. Take a look for yourself. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-8K8Hj8bxE

Zeckhauser and Samuelson, Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1: 7-59 (1988) 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston’

Thaler & Sunstein, Nudge - Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness, 2008, Penguin Books,