The other day I was at the usual cafe I go to, down the road and I happened to notice something so common yet fascinating ..

I watched this man order an Iced coffee. It was unusual for a few reasons, for starters it was 10 degrees and he looked at the “seasonal favourites” for 5 whole minutes, took his sweet time to decide and said ,”actually, I’ll just take my usual" . 

Good for him, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since. 

Even though it’s better, it’s not the SAME 

We catch ourselves saying this so often, don’t we? And it’s true, it isn’t the same. It sometimes really is better, a seasonal hot drink that’s 30 rupees cheaper sounds way more enduring for a cold day but that’s the thing about SAME it often wins against better . 

Is that irrational ? 

Honestly it’s Humane. 

Even I was at my usual coffee shop, so are you ! Usually of course . 

We all do this. Every single day. We take the same route to work even when Google Maps suggests faster alternatives. We order from the same three restaurants. We keep scrolling Instagram even when we're bored of it.

The familiar doesn't have to win on merit. It just has to be familiar.

Now flip that around.

What If You Were The Iced Coffee ?

Imagine you're a business trying to reach customers. You've got:

• An app they need to download
• An email they need to check
• A website they need to visit
• A form they need to fill

You're essentially the "new seasonal drink" of communication channels.

Meanwhile, there's this other place. Where your customer already is. Right now WHATSAPP !! They've checked it three times since they started reading this. They trust it implicitly. Opening it feels as natural as breathing.

It's got 3 billion users. Messages get opened 98% of the time. Half the people who see a message actually respond.

But sure, let's ask them to download another app.

The Uncomfortable Truth

Companies spend millions trying to be "better." Better product. Better service. Better prices. Better marketing.

And then they ask customers to jump through hoops to access all that "better."

Click this link. Create an account. Verify your email. Download the app. Enable notifications. Learn our interface.

Each step loses people. Not because they don't want what you're offering. Because familiarity isn't asking them to do any of that.

JioMart figured this out. They built an entire shopping experience inside a chat app people already use. Orders increased 9x. Not because they invented new technology. Because they stopped fighting human nature.

KLM sends you your boarding pass where you actually check your messages. Revolutionary? No. Obvious? Apparently not, since they were the first airline to do it.

Skullcandy saw people abandoning carts, the universal e-commerce heartbreak. They sent a simple message on a platform people actually read. Cart abandonment dropped 30%. Return on investment: 150x.

They didn't reinvent the wheel. They just put it where people were already walking.

The Question Nobody's Asking

What if the problem isn't that customers don't want to engage with you?

What if the problem is you're asking them to engage with you somewhere unfamiliar?

When a banking app lets you check your loan status through a chat interface you've used a thousand times, query resolution jumps 80%. Same questions. Same answers. Different wrapper.

When payment apps leverage the trust you already have in your messaging platform, people send money across borders through a chat. Not despite it being a chat. Because it's a chat.

Feedback forms get completed 70% more when they're inside conversations instead of separate apps. Not because the questions changed. Because the context did.

Familiarity for the win though

Wins are the fuel, habit is the tool 

And winning isn't about being better.

Maybe it's about being familiar.

And if you can't be the thing people are already familiar with, maybe you should meet them where that familiarity already exists.

There's a platform with 98% open rates sitting in everyone's pocket. It's the digital equivalent of that Iced Coffee, chosen not because it's always better, but because it's always there. Always comfortable. Always trusted.

Some companies have figured out that you don't need to pull customers to you.

You just need to show up where they already are.Which in your case happens to be Whatsapp.

And why is that you ask? 

Well, I would if I were you …it’s the most used app in the masses’ phones (after scrolling on Instagram, of course), they use it every day for work, communication, crashing out, confessions, connections ... .It's in each good morning greeting, for everyone’s personal tweeting …

WhatsApp! Surprised? Well, you could be.

Iced Coffee doesn't win because it's the best drink.

It wins because it's the usual.

Become the usual! and let that fuel you! We’ve all heard consistency matters but that’s just the half of it. Being consistent where it really counts matters. 

Iced coffee does that so could you !