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Autopilot reset
October 20, 2008

“No, I’d like you to change my profile. No, I want compact cars,” my husband was visibly flustered after 15 minutes of conversation with a representative from a national car rental company.

I could tell what he wanted to say, “How many times do I have to tell you that I don’t want your upgrades.” But he controlled himself.

My husband is a regular business traveler and rents cars from a particular national car rental company that is in virtually every U.S. airport, big or small. Often, when he gets to the counter, he is told that his reservation for a compact car is no longer available. “Fortunate” for him, he is getting an upgrade, varying from a luxury car, a truck, a minivan to a Hummer. But right there at the counter he doesn’t feel so grateful. He wants his reservation to be honored, because he doesn’t want to lug himself and only himself around in a minivan.

“When I complain at the counter, I always get the look – like hey we are giving you a Grand Cherokee. What’s your problem?” my husband related his experience to me.

My mind was somewhere else. I wondered why the compact cars were often out. I wondered if more customers preferred smaller cars these days given the gas price. I wondered if the rental company intentionally gave “upgrades” to business travelers since they could get their expenses reimbursed by their employers, thus were less sensitive to gas price.

“Hey, you are not listening,” my husband saw me wander off, “the point is that they refuse to see my perspective. I don’t want to drive a truck even when I don’t pay for the gas.” That is why he was on the phone with the company to try to end the “upgrades” once and for all.

Good point. But you can’t really blame the reps behind the rental car counters. For years, people want bigger cars and indeed feel lucky when they unexpectedly get an upgrade. I will bet if I worked at a rental counter for a few years, my mind would click into the autopilot mode – bigger being better.

When someone shows up and makes a counter-intuitive demand, it trips the autopilot. The reps have to readjust their auto responses trained over years of working behind the counter.

Going against the grain upsets the autopilot.

But you know what? If the autopilot gets tripped often, then the program in the corporate brain and therefore the employee responses will be reset.

Another example is the checkout counter at grocery stores. Ever notice the efficient bagging procedure? The clerk opens the plastic bags on the rack, puts the grocery in, lifts the bags and puts into the cart, in a matter of seconds. They do it a few hundred times a day without thinking about it. But then you come along, bringing your own bags, completely interrupting the autopilot process flow. It is not a big deal, but it interrupts the flow and it trip the preset mind. And you wonder why the grocery store clerks get annoyed. At least they used to be.

But human minds can be retrained fairly easily. The clerks at my local Wholefoods and Trader Joe’s stores have gotten used to seeing a variety of bags brought in by customers.
Efficiently they have reset their procedure. Look for customers’ own bags first. If yes, bagging procedure starts with the bags. If no, ask paper of plastic and start the procedure there.

It takes about 3 seconds more. No customers have ever complained about the additional 3 seconds at the checkout counter. Program reset successful.

For years, I put just-washed laundry to the dryer that is stacked on top of the washer without really thinking about it. Reading other people air/sun dry their laundry did not reverse my automated action for months, until one perfectly sunny and hot day. From that day on, I reset my laundry autopilot program. Now I have a new wash and sun/air dry routine to follow, not harder, just different.

In many aspects of our daily life, we train our brain to operate automatically to be efficient. How many of us think about, really think about the route we take to go to work or drop off kids every morning? How often do we think about our before-bed routines?

What does it take for us to stop in our normal tracks and reset our autopilot programs? External incentives, such as bag credits? External disincentives like increased electricity rate? Internal motivations? Whatever it maybe, may we all stop the autopilot every so often, reset and readjust.

CindyW at Organicpicks

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