Chapter Seven

Customer Bias

Retail

The first thing that comes to mind when we think of customer bias is the allegory of the car salesman. In the story, two people walk onto a car lot. One of the people is impeccably dressed and the other looks disheveled at best. The two car salespeople on the lot flip a coin for first choice at a customer. The salesperson who wins is ecstatic as he approaches the well-dressed patron.

We think you know how this story ends. Turns out the well-dressed customer doesn’t buy anything and instead spends an hour and a half of the salesperson’s time asking questions and test-driving fancy cars. The disheveled customer, on the other hand, was wealthy and decisive. She knew what she wanted and came prepared to purchase. It’s a “don’t judge a book by its cover” story, but it happens all the time. The winner of the coin toss was biased against the poorly dressed customer and lost a sale as a result. Did you assume the patrons were male even though women are statistically more likely to make major household purchasing decisions? How many businesses miss opportunities and lose customers because of bias?

Nonprofits

Customer bias is not a phenomenon that is exclusive to the for-profit economic sector. We have also worked with nonprofit organizations that recognized they were missing out on potential donors due to inadvertent donor profiling. When you think of a large nonprofit organization, who do you picture as the people who can afford to make donations?

If you reread that last sentence, even the question was laced with customer bias. Who are we to judge who can afford to donate if we don’t have access to people’s finances and spending habits? Are we prejudging donors based on occupation, socioeconomic status, age, or some other external variable that we think we can ascertain? All of this is problematic because wealthy, older, white people are a commonly sought-after donor demographic.

Nonprofits are increasingly seeing the value in nurturing relationships with younger, middle-class donors of all races. Most importantly, the truly forward-thinking nonprofits are building authentic relationships with people who have far less disposable income than average, sometimes meeting them through their service offerings, and sometimes through community engagement.

It turns out that if you cultivate honest relationships with people while they don’t have a lot to offer you, they can (1) remember the impact your organization had in their lives once they get to the other side of their struggle or (2) find ways to shape the vision and clarity of an organization’s mission and vision that far exceed financial donations, empowering an organization to empower those in need despite whatever made them not fit the profile of a typical donor.

Performing Arts

Another example of customer bias takes place frequently in the performing arts. Theatre, television, and film producers, for instance, have habitually cast majority demographics to all or most roles in their productions.

One of the most egregious approaches to this was the use of blackface—a practice of painting white people to depict other races when they could have hired actors of color. This shameless practice began with staged minstrel shows in the late 1800s yet continued all the way through to the early film era with well-known actors such as Bing Crosby and Buster Keaton performing in blackface on film. This practice was mostly eliminated by the 1930s but still made appearances in cartoons and some film through the 1960s, when the Civil Rights movement helped push this practice to an end.

Unfortunately, a similar bias takes the form of “whitewashing” in modern film and television. The 2015 film Aloha features a nearly all-white cast yet is set in the state of Hawaii. One of the characters, Allison Ng, is stated to have parents of Chinese and Native Hawaiian descent, yet the character is portrayed by Emma Stone, a Caucasian actress.¹

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences annually nominates films, actors, and associated professionals for the Oscars, also known as the Academy Awards. In 2016, there was a public backlash against the Academy for failing to nominate any minority actors or majority-minority–cast films for the Oscars. A hashtag was developed, #OscarsSoWhite, and a boycott ensued.

In April 2012, acclaimed television producer Shonda Rhimes debuted a TV show called Scandal starring Kerry Washington. Shonda Rhimes is the award-winning screenwriter and executive producer of Grey’s Anatomy. What was remarkable about Scandal was that it was the first prime time American TV show starring an African American woman since 1970. The common assumption was that none of the major networks believed an African American woman could carry a show, or more likely, that no one would tune in. The doubt aimed at Rhimes and Kerry Washington at the launch of Scandal is clear customer bias, and is epidemic in Hollywood’s entertainment industry.

In fact, this kind of customer bias in Hollywood is so epidemic that the Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA has begun regularly releasing a report on Hollywood’s diversity problem. Their report discovered that much of the problem happens because the position from which “green lighting” decisions are made in the Hollywood industry are overwhelmingly dominated by white males—and the perception, conscious or unconscious—is that the television and movie industries are best propped up by white males.

Even in “diverse” broadcast television, white actors were found to monopolize the top credits, and racial and gender stereotypes, though muted, were still present in virtually all shows. LGBT characters were almost always relegated to lower-credited actors. Across the board, minority leads were more prominent in only sitcoms, while white leads were featured in both sitcoms and dramas.²

Despite these findings, the Hollywood Diversity Report also named something that most of us already know—this institutional bias not only creates inequity, but it’s also based on misguided assumptions on the part of television and film executives. Films with diverse casts made the most money at the box office and cashed in on their investments with the most success.

Median viewer ratings were highest for broadcast and cable scripted shows written by minorities and these same ratings peaked for shows with diverse casts. In other words, not only is Hollywood’s customer bias wrong—it’s costing Hollywood viewers and money!

Let’s look back at Scandal for a moment. Remember the network’s assumption that an African American woman couldn’t carry a dramatic television series and that no one would tune in? Well, both theories were proven wrong as millions of viewers tuned in and as of 2018 it was ranked TV’s fastest-growing returning series. Scandal is one of the most popular shows on social media and has been acknowledged by many of the major television awards.

In 2018, Marvel Studios and Disney Motion Pictures released Black Panther, a superhero movie with a predominantly black cast. It quickly became the highest grossing film by a black director, despite Hollywood’s ongoing reluctance to feature a majority minority cast for fear of box office failure. As of the writing of this book, Black Panther is also the ninth highest grossing movie of all time.

It may be obvious that the minority actors who are not often cast in lead roles might be disheartened by the bias present at all levels in the performing arts. What many people may not know is that the majority white and male actors who are cast can be just as disillusioned by bias in the arts. Seasoned actor Scott Wichman shared the following perspective:

Since childhood, the protagonists of virtually every major story’s narrative have been white. It caused me to view myself as “The Hero of the Story” in a visceral way while growing up. I saw people who looked like me, who were the “heroes of the story” and I was filled with an intrinsic confidence that the world was “made for me.”

That is an invaluable mindset for a child to have—to be able to look at popular culture and absorb the message that “You’re the hero of the story.” It is really tough to imagine what my life would have been like without that ever-present influence while growing up. Whether it was Luke Skywalker or Superman, I have always seen people who looked like me doing amazing things on screen.

And, in my career, I have also benefited from lead roles in stories about white people while never really stopping to think about the implications of that.

When asked whether he has been able to change the status quo, Mr. Wichman responded:

I am part of the status quo in my community. I feel that it is up to me to listen and advocate for a shift in the stories we tell and the representation of individuals in the stories we choose to tell.

Technology

By now we are certain that you have figured out the pattern. Never underestimate the power of any demographic to exceed your expectations as customers. Product developers have long known that one cannot predict precisely how a product will be used or be received by customers.

There are countless innovations that have emerged due to customer exposure, so limiting your customer base limits creativity and growth.

The Nintendo Wii, for instance, was a phenomenal innovation in gaming as it allowed users to stand up and exercise their bodies while interacting with videogames. Nintendo is a gaming platform that has historically been marketed to children and young adults. Well, it turned out that when the Wii hit the market, it was immensely popular with senior citizens. Wii was not marketing directly toward the older demographic, but seniors were using the tech to get out of their chairs, get moving, and enjoy themselves. Nintendo executives ultimately decided to actively market to seniors and created an entirely new market share for the company.³

Food and Beverage

In the United States, there is a widely held perception among restaurant servers that black people do not tip as generously as white people.⁴ One could argue that the massive and ever-widening income disparity between races in the USA likely contributes to said phenomenon because black people have far less disposable income than white people on average.⁵ Nonetheless, perception tends to influence reality, and the problem with that is that it perpetuates a vicious cycle.

When restaurant staff expect smaller tips from black customers, they may deliberately or inadvertently provide subpar service. If you were a black customer, or a customer of any race, would you be inclined to offer a generous tip for bad service? So the cycle continues. When you add to this the historical legacy of humiliating treatment of African Americans in restaurants before, during, and for a while after the Civil Rights movement, this bias only adds salt to the wounds of those who still remember those days.

What Do We Do?

It is important that as we scan our institutions for possible biases, we do not omit the customer experience. We definitely want you to take plenty of time to consider the needs and experiences of employees within the workforce, but not to the exclusion of, or at the expense of, your customers. Institutional bias can affect any of your stakeholders, so taking a comprehensive scan is very important.

Once you have asked yourself and key stakeholders in your organization the aforementioned questions, then you should review the preliminary four steps before embarking on the six steps to erase your customer bias. In review, the four steps from Exercise 1, Preliminary Personal Work, Individual Focus, are:

1. Evaluate your (old) role in perpetuating systemic bias.

2. Define your (new) role in breaking down systemic bias.

3. Cultivate allies.

4. Create a movement.

The six steps to erase institutional bias include:

1. Set a clear intention.

2. Lead with data.

3. Diagnose accurately.

4. Deconstruct: eliminate subjective processes.

5. Reconstruct with objectivity.

6. Build in accountability and ongoing measurement.