Letter To Vaccination Task Forces: Focus On Experience

Dear Vaccination Task Forces (both Trump and Biden administrations):

I'm writing this letter because I believe that Experience Management (XM) is a critical, yet potentially under-appreciated ingredient to the success of our nation's vaccination program. You can develop a vaccine, manufacture the appropriate doses, and distribute them to the right locations, but those steps are only necessary... not sufficient. For the vaccination to succeed, you need to design experiences that motivate millions of people to change their behaviors. That will be very hard to accomplish without a deliberate focus on XM.

I've heard some statements from the current and incoming vaccination task forces, but none of them demonstrate an appreciation for the importance of XM. While these groups are dealing with a lot of the necessary logistics, they're missing the purposeful consideration of human experiences, whether its focusing on the citizens who will be vaccinated or the people who will be administering the shots.

I am hopeful that the focus on human experience is well underway, but isn't yet making it to the news briefings. If not, it's time to put a heavy emphasis on XM. To help you think about the work ahead, I put together a very high-level journey map of the citizen experience for a two-shot vaccination. It represents an ideal case for the journey, but it's a good place to start. Each of the 12 steps needs to be carefully considered, designed, and instrumented to collect insights from people about how well those steps are working and what improvements need to be made.

The citizen journey can be broken down into four phases:

• Phase 1: Motivate Citizens. During this phase you need to communicate the value of the vaccination and overcome any concerns. Citizens will go through these steps: 1) Learn About Vaccine, 2) Gain Confidence In Vaccine, and 3) Make Vaccination Plan.
• Phase 2: Make Vaccination Easy. During this phase you have to ensure that every step of the vaccination process is not only well communicated, but designed to be as easy as possible to navigate. Citizens will go through these steps: 4) Schedule Initial Vaccination, 5) Prepare For Initial Vaccination, 6) Get First Vaccination, and 7) Maintain Vaccine Confidence.
• Phase 3: Ensure Second Vaccine Conformance. During this phase you need to make sure to keep vaccination top of mind and people follow through with their second dose, as the initial vaccinations require two shots. Citizens will go through these steps: 8) Schedule Second Vaccination, 9) Prepare For Second Vaccination, and 10) Get Second Vaccination.
• Phase 3: Create Vaccination Promoters. During this phase you need to encourage people who have been successfully vaccinated to encourage others to do the same. Citizens will go through these steps: 11) Maintain Vaccination Confidence, and 12) Recommend Vaccination To Others.

In addition to designing at least the 12 steps above, you will need to develop a segmentation model so that there are variations of experiences based on the specific needs of different groups. Some of the segmentation elements likely include primary language, medical literacy, COVID health risk factors, and pre-disposition towards vaccinations.

I truly appreciate all of the amazing work that you are doing to create and distribute a vaccine. Hopefully you will incorporate XM as part of your efforts to ensure that the vast majority of Americans get vaccinated.

Godspeed!