My county sent me a license plate renewal for $188, and gave me the option of paying online for a $5.00 “convenience fee.”

I know, it’s just $5* but I don’t like wasting money – even more, I don’t like what I believe to be illogical, bureaucratic policies, so instead of paying $5, I took two minutes and 50 cents to mail a check.  Those of us in business know if the cost of paying online were free or close to free, the county would instantly have the money and reduce administrative processing costs.

This little anecdote offers suggests two points to consider:

• Incentives do drive behavior, and not always in constructive ways. When customers aren’t behaving as we’d like, could we be incenting them to do so?
• It’s election season – considering my “convenience fee” example, let’s put people in charge who have shown that they will govern with business thinking.

* By the way, pre-tax one may have had to earn $8.00, which compounded at 5% over 20 years is $21.23. That 2 minutes became $637/hour.