Episode Details

Today I am very pleased to introduce you to Dr. Henry Stott, cofounder of Dectech, a behavioral science consultancy in the UK. As you'll hear on the show today, Dectech works with all sorts of companies and industries, from banks to insurance and food delivery. They use randomized controlled trials and other techniques to help companies understand behavior and properly apply it within their businesses.

Dectech is not new to the space. It was founded nearly two decades ago in 2002, so they have lots of background and foundations they build upon.

During our conversation, Henry and I talk about all sorts of concepts, like nudges, anchoring, relativity, framing, habits, and more—and all those past episodes are linked for you in the show notes, as well as the book The Mind is Flat written by Henry's cofounder of Dectech, Dr. Nick Chater.

• [00:40] I am very pleased to introduce you to Dr. Henry Stott, cofounder of Dectech, a behavioral science consultancy in the UK.
• [02:43] Dr. Stott started Dectech about 20 years ago with his cofounder, Dr. Nick Chater. They have spent the last 20 years refining their view on how you harness those methods to more accurately predict how consumers and other people will behave in novel situations.
• [03:54] There are two classes of problems. The first class of problems is a precedent problem when you are trying to forecast the future.
• [04:46] The second class of problems is harder (and often more valuable) where there has never been anything like it before. These are the types of problems they have set out to understand.
• [06:06] Dr. Stott shares about the Deliveroo project. The question was whether they were going to launch a subscription product or not.
• [09:04] Pricing is not about price. The way you present everything before you get to the price matters more than the number.
• [10:34] Designing the proposition so it fits snuggly into what people want is the first objective. A lot of people fail to do that. They often have to drop the price because they haven't added value.
• [12:06] A lot of the designs of features and propositions are driven by an excessive fixation with competitors and an excessive self-confidence of the management.
• [14:36] Looking to competitors when determining your pricing is a mistake.
• [16:58] At least half of the judgment is made up of the movement of prices within a store as opposed to contrasting across stores.
• [17:40] People are much more sensitive to the order of things than the size of the differences.
• [19:54] When you are able to feel like you are part of the process waiting can feel less painful.
• [22:51] Sometimes a time delay can be a good thing.
• [23:36] Dr. Stott shares about the Lloyd's Bank case study and the customer journey optimization process.
• [24:31] They were looking to design a home insurance renewal process that worked best for the customers and the bank.
• [25:37] They also tested a "name your price" condition, but it ended up not being very popular (which is good to know because it would have b