Show Them The Back Door

I was in downtown Vancouver last week and walked past the Vancouver Art Gallery. It's a nice old (by Vancouver standards) building famously used in many movies and TV shows and is very popular with tourists.

Because it's an old building that has been re-purposed over the years, the main entrance to the gallery is actually not on the original "front" side. It's not ugly, but this definitely isn't the most attractive and architecturally interesting part of the building. Nevertheless, a group of tourists were taking photos of this side.

It got me thinking: if they like the looks of this section, imagine what they'll do when they get around to the original front side with its wide staircase, tall columns, big doors, fountain, and so on.

In a way, it almost makes sense to purposely lead unknowing tourists to the "back door" first. The concept of "saving the best for last" hardly needs explanation.

A lot of businesses focus primarily (or even solely) on making a grand first impression. They make their front door as impressive as possible to try to draw you in and to "wow" you immediately.

But when you're done, they don't think to impress you with anything more than a cheery thank you. Other than leading you through a gift shop, there aren't many venues (retail, entertainment, or otherwise) that put an enormous effort into making the final impression memorable and exciting.

An obvious example is movie theatres. The same mega-multiplex that spends millions on props and fancy lighting and signs and so on seem to be in a huge rush to just get rid of you as soon as the film ends. Many even make you exit through a different door than the front lobby.

And this doesn't just apply to the real world. Most Web sites try to "wow" you with beautiful home page imagery, a (shudder) Flash intro screen, or similar techniques. This makes sense, since a user needs to be immediately impressed or they're likely to wander off with a simple click of their mouse.

But how many sites put the same effort into impressing you at the end of your visit? Why not do something pretty or interesting or exciting or just plain nice after an online sales transaction? Some sort of reward for going that far. On too many sites, it's unlikely you'll even get a cheery thank you.

Funnily enough, right after I wrote this post initially, I did some online banking. And when I was done, I was shown the following on the final page.


Going back to the literal back door example...

I also started thinking about an experience my parents related to me about a back door they saw on a recent trip. They were in Hong Kong and took a tour of the harbour. One of their first sights was the back of a very famous floating restaurant.

From the front, this restaurant is very striking, especially at night. It's tall, colourful, and definitely has the "wow factor". But the back is another story. It's dreary, dirty, and not at all attractive. For any business this is bad, but for a place where people are literally consuming your product it's terrible.
By showing an okay-but-nothing-spectacular back door, at least a business is illustrating that they're all show and no substance (even if this isn't entirely true, since the back door becomes an extension of the show).

I'd like to see more businesses:
a.) Make the back door (whatever that may mean to them) more remarkable
and
b.) Start with something good, but lead up to the front door (whatever their most impressive feature is).