March 15, 2016 | While researching their book, Marketing to the Ageing Consumer, ageing experts Kim Walker and Dick Stroud, discussed the issue with senior representatives of academia, government, healthcare and industry. They identified the need for a measurable process that could evaluate any environment from the perspective of older people.
Being Age-Friendly means questioning the entire human experience including products, services, communications and processes, to respond to the physiological differences, or human factors, that ageing brings.
Walker and Stroud codified 25 ways that ageing impairs the senses, body and mind. These 25 Effects of Ageing directly affect our day-to-day lives. The primary reason for detailing these ageing effects is to enable them to be matched to customer touchpoints.
The physical, sensory and cognitive differences between generations amplify from around 50 years of age. This demands that almost every interaction must be re-evaluated and adapted in response to these physiological differences.
The Walker and Stroud research is now incorporated into a new tool from Silver Group. The tool allows organizations to ensure their customer experience (CX) responds to the physical, sensory and cognitive ageing of their clients.
The AF Cities app uses an adapted form of the questions developed by the World Health Organization’s Age-Friendly Cities initiative. Prototypes of the tool have been used to evaluate over 50 customer journeys for businesses in the telecoms, financial services and hospitality industries.
For the first time, companies can evaluate all the physical and digital touchpoints with their customers. The tools provides a common language and metrics that can be used to improve all aspects of older people’s lives.
Stroud and Walker are working with functional experts to apply the tool to places where older people work, live and receive healthcare.
To learn more about the design implications and the apps in development, visit age-friendly.com.
