Nir Eyal (author of Hooked) explains that the primary criterion for a product to become habit-forming is usage frequency — roughly at least once per week — regardless of whether the product is enterprise or consumer. He gives enterprise examples (Slack, Salesforce), notes not every business needs to be habit-forming, and invites questions while pointing to his book and blog.
Chapters
Hi, this is Nir, author of Hooked how to Build Habit Forming Products. And today I want to talk about what makes for a good habit forming product and what kind of products just will never become a habit. So a question I get asked all the time is can you apply the principles of the hook model to the enterprise? And the answer is absolutely. You see, the criteria for whether a product can become habit forming or not is not whether it's enterprise or consumer web or mobile, but one other key factor and that key criteria is frequency. The product has to be used with sufficient frequency or it will never ever become a the rule of thumb is that the product has to be used within a week's time or less or it's probably not going to become a user habit. Larry Page at Google famously called this the toothbrush test that he wants the company to build products that are used as frequently as a toothbrush. So it doesn't matter if we're talking enterprise or consumer web, what we really care about is how frequently should the behavior occur in the user's life. So for example, in the enterprise, checking Slack is a frequently occurring habit. Checking on sales leads on Salesforce is another good example of an enterprise habit. A lot of enterprise software companies even use this variable reward of data to keep people coming back through this variable reward of watching these numbers go up and down. So that's really the key question if you're building a habit forming product is number one, does the behavior that you want to turn into a habit occur with sufficient frequency? And I should mention here that not every business needs to be habit forming, right? There's lots of ways to get your customer to come back to your place of business without a habit. You can use search engine optimization, you can pay for advertising. Heck, you can have a physical storefront on the street corner. It's not that every business needs a habit. It's that every business that needs a habit needs a hook. If you want to learn more, check out my book how to Build Habit Forming Products and as always on my blog nearandfar.com and on Twitter. But here's the most important thing. I love to take your questions. So if you have any questions about design, product psychology, consumer behavior, please let me know here on Snapchat or my blog.
