Next time you are designing a customer support service, please be aware of, and avoid, the Animal Vegetable Mineral Effect. I explain.

In the 1980s my school had a game for the BBC Micro called Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, which was a computer implementation of the game 20 questions. The player thinks of something and the computer asks questions, starting with ‘Is it Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral?’, and refining its questions until guessing, e.g. ‘The object you are thinking of is: a CAT. Is this correct?’.

Support hotlines like those of your broadband, phone, gas, and electricity suppliers tend to have a script for their representatives to follow, and to a degree this is very useful. Maybe they have a pool of engineers able and qualified to answer technical questions and a pool of salespersons fully aware of the full range of products, and you don’t really want your sales-related call getting through to the tech guys.

However, if this is carried through too far, you get the AVM effect. The customer knows what he or she wants, but has the devil of a job navigating the script to be able to actually ask the question.

By way of analogy, let’s imagine our friendly corner shop works that way.

Customer: Good morning, I’d like some cheese.
Shopkeep: Thank you for visiting my store. You are a valued customer. Is it Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?
Customer: Um, cheese? Uh. It’s cheese. Uh, mineral.

After some further questioning (”is it yellow?”), the customer speaks to the Sulphur representative, and finally the Ochre representative, who candidly informs him Cheese is Animal in origin.

Customer: Hi, I’m back, turns out cheese is Animal! Can I speak to your cheese representative please!
Shopkeep: Thank you for visiting my store. You are a valued customer. Is it Animal, Vegetable or Mineral?
Customer: Animal. I just said Animal. I want some cheese.
Shopkeep: Does it go Miaow?
Customer: It’s cheese, no it does not miaow.
Shopkeep: Does it have a Tail?
Customer: No, it doesn’t have a Tail. I mean a tail.
Shopkeep: Does it have Two Legs Or Four?
Customer: It’s cheese! It doesn’t have any legs…
…
Customer: Uh, two.
Shopkeep: Does it have No Legs Or Two?
Customer: None! It has no legs.
Shopkeep: Is it Living?
Customer: No
Shopkeep: You have selected: a Dead Snake. I’m Sorry, We Do Not Stock Dead Snake. Please call again.