"They Have No Choice but to Sign": How to Reframe the Consumer Contract Experience
̶ “Mr. Ernesto, do your clients read their contracts before signing them?” I asked my banker, who had just handed me an 18-page contract printed in small black-and-white type.
̶ “Never. I’ve never seen anyone do that,” he admitted with a slightly embarrassed smile.
"They have no choice but to sign"
No one says it out loud, but we all think it and have come to terms with it.
Membership and consumer contracts are everywhere.
Bank account
Financing Products (education, home, projects, etc.)
Registered Savings Products
Electricity and Gas
Auto
Insurance
Television
Cell phone
Internet
Software and Applications
It's hard to avoid it.
These contracts are rarely open to discussion. They are often long, dense, and difficult to understand, and in the short term, reading them is generally pointless. On the Internet, try negotiating with an “I Agree” button, just to see what happens.
Consumers sign contracts that they cannot avoid if they want to participate in society, and over which they believe they have no control (generally with good reason). This situation is conducive to what psychologists call “learned helplessness.”
What is learned helplessness?
It is the feeling of having no control over a situation that is perceived as inevitable.
For example, in India, elephants are tied up with a rope from a very young age. They try to escape, but the rope holds them back, and they eventually resign themselves to their condition as tethered elephants. As adults, these elephants have more than enough strength to free themselves by tearing apart the rope and even the post to which they are tied. However, because they have made the association between their freedom and being untied by a human, it seems impossible to them to free themselves on their own—so much so that they don’t even try. They have developed a sense of learned helplessness (or acquired helplessness).
When someone finds themselves in a situation like this, it may seem absurd to someone who has had a different upbringing. Take a look at the unsettling experience this teacher had with her class.
Do you read the terms of use before installing a mobile app?
We all compulsively click the "I Agree" button. This almost unconscious acceptance stems from learned helplessness. We've learned that this step is inevitable, and that there's nothing we can do about it.
Because their experience with contracts is discouraging, consumers have given up on trying to understand them.
It's no surprise that these people rely on everything except their contract: sales representatives, advertisements, recommendations from other consumers... these are much more pleasant sources to consult! Especially when you consider the following figures:
19% of Quebecers are illiterate, and
34% of Quebecers have difficulties that prevent them from fully participating in society. For example, reading a bus schedule is a challenging task for these individuals.
As for the rest, consumers lose interest before they even start reading—even though, in theory, they are capable of understanding their contracts. It must be said that nothing is being done to encourage them.
Reversing the Trend
Psychologists who have studied the phenomenon of learned helplessness have discovered that it is possible to reprogram this feeling. In the famous series of experiments by Seligman and Maier (who coined the term “learned helplessness”), dogs that had sadly resigned themselves to receiving electric shocks were able to regain their autonomy and relearn how to avoid them. However, someone first had to show them that it was possible.
Since the mid-1980s, Seligman has dedicated his career to developing tools to counteract the negative effects of learned helplessness in humans. One such tool involves reframing one's experiences to give them new meaning.
Reframing the Consumer Contractual Experience
It is possible to make consumers want to read their contracts again. Clear and simple contracts help reduce errors and complaints and strengthen companies' brand image.
However, this requires sending a strong message. Some people have understood this clearly:
Source: https://karmaassurance.ca, 2017
Quebec businesses and organizations are increasingly committed to simplifying the experience for their customers and users. Every day, we see that Quebec is taking a clear new direction.
Very often, efforts to simplify and clarify content make a huge difference. But a clear and simple document is not the same as a document that is clearer and simpler than its previous version. Consumers don't compare two versions of the same contract!
How to Convey Simplicity
Consumers make critical decisions in a matter of seconds.
On mobile devices, 53% of internet users abandon a site that takes more than 3 seconds to load. I think consumers do the same thing with their contracts: if they feel it's complicated, they give up after a few seconds.
In other words, clarity and simplicity must be immediately apparent.
In fact, the Supreme Court recognized that consumers are in a hurry and easily distracted in its decision in Richard v. Time:
[...] an average, gullible, and inexperienced consumer [...] pays no more than ordinary attention to what immediately catches their eye upon first encountering an advertisement. Considerable importance must be attached not only to the text, but to its entire context, particularly the way it is presented to the consumer.
Among the techniques we use to convey a strong sense of simplicity—whether in a contract, a letter, or even an invoice—here are the ones we most often recommend to our clients:
Pay attention to the presentation. A contract is, first and foremost, a physical object—just like a chair or a microwave oven. A simple appearance conveys ease of use and makes it a pleasure to read.
Respect consumers' way of thinking. Consumers don't think like lawyers—and they have no desire to learn to do so just to understand their contracts. You can't blame them!
Make the information easy to understand. This can be achieved, for example, by providing context, using clear and evocative headlines, writing in clear, simple, and natural language, and effectively chunking the information (breaking it down into small pieces).
Learn more
Discover our service for simplifying your complex content.
Sign up for our training course, “The Art of Clear Communication and Information Design.”
