theIdeaStudio (Customer Crossroads)

Carrefour's cool shopping carts

Seen in a Carrefour in Barcelona, this little cart really captured my interest. You can pick it up and carry it with one handle, or roll it along with another one. It's roomy, but it's low, so it doesn't get in the way of seeing the shelves. And it doesn't get heavy, so you don't stop browsing.

Talking in plain language -- and plain graphics too

Ever wonder if your customers extract any meaning from your brochures, your web site, your information or training materials? A lot of what I see is so filled with marketing-speak that people have trouble obtaining the meaning.

By way of contrast, check out these wonderfully simple presentations about new communication technology, produced by CommonCraft. All short, all entertaining, all communicate brilliantly. (And if you are one of the people who has asked me to explain RSS to you, this will be better than anything I ever said.)

[Links to their presentations on:  RSS, Wikis, and Social Networking.]

While the production method is fresh and engagingly human, I'm not suggesting you just copy this approach. I am suggesting that you test the clarity of your materials against something like this, and try to shift to the plain and simple end of the spectrum wherever you can.

I test brochures and such in research from time to time, and what I notice most is that walls of text are not very engaging for people, no matter what the topic is. Even when they are being paid to read something, you'd be surprised how little time and attention even the best brochure can attract. Imagine how this changes in the day of a normal person's life, where there is a river of information flowing by every second.

By keeping your message simple, you make the experience better. Note how similar this diagram is to  IKEA assembly instructions, or some of the explanations in BestBuy stores? Both are companies known for delivering a highly consistent standard for customer experience, and incidentally, being pretty successful while they do it.

You also have to choose between making your customer feel informed, versus making the brand look pretty. Even better, reach for both.

Thanks to the CommonSensePR blog for this.

Custom-manufacturer with clever marketing idea: Freddy + Ma

Custom manufacturing really seems to be taking off, and here's another example: Freddy & Ma, makers of custom handbags.

Pick a basic style, choose a leather color, then go wild on fabric choices, from a fantastic selection of fabrics. So many wonderful possibilities, and a very engaging interface.

And how did those clever people entice me to their web-site? They offered TypePad bloggers a generous discount on a bag. And look at all the free publicity they are going to get from this, to say nothing of new customers.

The injustice of new customer incentives

I posted a few days ago about social justice research among primates. Jack added this provocative comment to the post:

"A thought at a customer level: Should an offer to renew a service be equitable with the offers being made to new customers? How many times do you see an offer that is available only to new subscribers?"

I have to agree. This is so one sided, it hurts. Instead of being repaid, our loyalty gets taken for granted. While these kinds of incentives are totally understandable from the company side, and they work, existing customers often do feel hurt by the lack of parity. New customers get a cool widget of some kind, and current customers get a piece of cake on customer day. Makes us feel like we would switch ourselves, if it wasn't so darn much work!

It's a sticky problem, because we know that an incentive to try out a new organization is often important to overcome the inherent change/risk avoidance of most people. How do you do that and still make current customers feel valued?

One thing I've seen is programs based on volume of business. A good example is Staples/Business Depot, which sends out coupons every quarter for bonuses and discounts based on how much business you did with them.

Some credit cards have preferred-access packages available to customers. I'm taking in the film festival later this year because VISA cardholders can buy a three-film package where festival staff pick the films for you at times you specify. Kind of a concierge approach that is really nice. It's available to all VISA customers.

Special events for customers can be a nice way to show you aren't taking them for granted. I went to a retirement seminar sponsored by my investment company some months ago. This kind of thing works great to attract new prospects, but it was offered to me as an existing customer, which I really appreciated. I know of another company that is hosting a concert series for loyal customers later this year. My lawyer sends me ball tickets every now and again, which make me feel very special, since I know I'm a very small account for him.

Pricing is an area where loyal customers are often punished for not shopping around. While we understand the mechanics of this, this too feels really unfair.

The thing is, you know what your loyal customers do for you -- you can measure it. Your costs of acquisition are long gone. You can afford to invest a little. Don't take them for granted -- do something special for them, too.

Idea City wrap-Up: Jane Juska on how to teach

Jane Juska is the author of a few books, but she made her mark as the woman who wanted to have a lot of good sex before she turned 67, after 30 years of celibacy, which she documented in her book, A Round Heeled Woman. A fabulous speaker at this year's Idea City, she reminded me a lot of June Callwood.

Jane teaches students to write by writing with them. When they are writing, she also writes. What an  amazing concept. Imagine teaching people how to serve customers by serving customers along side them, instead of giving them concepts in a classroom?

Something for next year

I plan to attend Idea City again in 2008. And I have a guerrilla plan. I'm going to tag things I think would make great topics, and then send a list to the event planners. You can help. When you see something worthy of the best conference you could ever imagine attending, tag it in Delicious "IdeaCity." And then you really should attend. TED may be sold out for 2008, but our homegrown version isn't.

Idea City wrap-up: The science of aging

Dr. E.E. Baulieu spoke to Idea City about the science of aging, and the challenges of a world population that is aging.

No one signs up to get old, he says, because it means "frailty, vulnerability and dependence." Not exactly a marketable brand promise, as it were.  He hopes to change this to "autonomy, freedom and independence." 

He showed us that the maximum life span is not going anywhere, but the average life span is longer. What this means is that the aging and lifespan curve now looks more like a cliff, with many people living to an older age, and then dying within a relative small age range.

The implications for us here, however are this: as aging becomes a healthier experience, we will need to think very differently about the business and marketing opportunities presented by consumers in the last half of life.

This is a mega-trend that has already started, and will continue to pick up speed for decades. We simply must abandon any notion that everyone over 65 is in the same segment -- they aren't. We need to map out some entirely new life-stage models and look at ways to engage these consumers quite differently.

Idea City wrap-up: Greenification of everything

g As concerns about the environment continue unabated, we need to start thinking carefully about how consumption patterns can be changed. I have a bald assertion to make here: almost no one will be willing to change to something significantly LESS appealing just to be environmentally friendlier. The people who are prepared to make personal sacrifices for the environment have already done it, and there aren't that many of them. Unfortunately, the rest of us are going to have to change. And how will we motivate changes short of legislation?  I believe we are actually going to have to offer benefits -- emotional and rational -- that go beyond feeling good about being green.

With opinions like these, I was naturally very interested to hear the presentations of ZIP Cars and ZENN cars at Idea City this year.

ZIPcars

Zipcar is a shared-car company, very similar to AutoShare. Scott Griffith, CEO and president spoke. Here are a few of the facts he shared that interested me, based on their research:

• One Zipcar takes 20 cars off the road  -- these are shared autos, and that's roughly the ratio of usage of customers to cars
• Users save about $5,000 per year through not owning a car (full cost of ownership, including insurance)
• Once people sign up for Zipcar, they use the car less. He attributes this to the need to make a financial decision each time you drive. Because you pay each time, you think about car travel differently. Zipcar users take transit more often, walk more often, bike more often than they did before they were Zipcar users. Lots of good impact, and no public money involved.

Their operating model is all about making the booking and use process very seamless and simple, with a minimal need for staff support.

It seems that many of the benefits Zipcar users experience have little to do with the environment: they save money; they don't have to maintain a car; they can drive a Mini sometimes; they don't have to find or pay for home-base parking for the car, which can be a challenge if you are an urban dweller.

ZENN Cars: Zero Emissions No Noise

ZENN cars were completely new to me. Ian Clifford, CEO of Zenn Motor Company spoke to us. They are a Toronto- based manufacturer of fully electric cars that use a standard 110 volt plug.  These are two-seaters that have a top speed of 40 km/h (25 mph) and can go about 56 kilometres (35 miles) on a charge. 

The reason we've never seen these cars in Toronto is --- they're not street legal here yet. [jeez..!] So ZENN is mainly exporting to the U.S.A. Most of their dealers are in Florida and California. The cars are ideally suited to gated communities where you might otherwise zip around in a golf cart. They are inexpensive, wierdly cute, and they are quiet. Compared to a golf-cart, they are also a lot more luxurious, in addition to weather-proofing the occupants.

Mr. Clifford believes that most cars could be electric powered by using off-peak generating capacity. He noted this wouldn't help much if we are still making power from coal. And batteries are not a very efficient method of storing energy yet.

However he told us about an interesting development in energy storage that might change things a bit. ZENN has invested in EEStor, an Austin, Texas company that is developing a new type of highly efficient energy-storage technology. He showed us an object not much bigger than a free-standing hard drive, and suggested that this type of object would in the near future be able to power a car. 

Conclusion: electric vehicles could suddenly get a lot more interesting, along with other electric stuff.

One of the images Clifford used stuck in my mind -- if you have energy storage that is highly efficient, you could gather energy in very different ways. You could build large boats with solar collectors, send them out to sea, and bring them home with batteries fully charged, then transfer that power. And wouldn't that be cool?  Business 2.0 wrote about this here.

Idea City wrap-up: mammals with empathy, sensitive to injustice

Dr. Frans B. de Waal is an expert in the social intelligence of monkeys and apes. His was one of the best talks at Idea City this year, I wish I could have heard much more. Here are a few highlights:

• All mammals tested show empathy. Pet dogs, for example, have similar levels of empathy to a 1 year old child. Apes console each other. 
• Emotion is contagious -- in the same way yawns are catching
• Some birds may also have empathy
• Elephants have a sense of self-identity -- when they are presented with a mirror (an elephant sized one), they do all the things that other clever creatures do. They try to look behind the mirror. They do funny things with their trunks to see if the mirror is "mirroring" them. And once satisfied that they are indeed looking at themselves, they check out the parts of their bodies that they can't see without a mirror.
• Monkeys have a sense of justice, and an aversion to inequity

This last one is pretty interesting. Dr. de Waal devised a test where monkeys perform a task and get a treat, either a piece of cucumber or a grape. A grape is a better treat than a chunk of cucumber, if you are a monkey.

When two monkeys can see each other performing the same task, they expect to get the same treat for their work. When one gets a better treat than the other for the same job, the one getting the cucumber gets upset. That monkey will reject the bit of cucumber, even throw it away, then will withdraw, show signs of anger, and act hurt and depressed.

No wonder workplace compensation is such a minefield. More importantly, for those of us in customer experience work, we have a sense of justice and fairness that is deeply rooted in our genes. No-one is going to fool you by passing off some bit of cucumber when there are grapes to be had.

Idea City 2007 wrap-up: intellectual property protection

My brain was in overload after Idea City, a three day conference about ideas, based on TED, but held here in Toronto. I've pulled out a few of the most interesting tidbits that I think relate to our theme.

• A new way of protecting intellectual property
• How to teach people to do things according to Jane Juska (the round-heeled woman)
• Greenification of everything -- Electric cars and car sharing
• The science of aging
• Mammals with empathy, and a sense of justice

New model for protecting intellectual property

I heard inventor Alexander Bock, inventor of the PowerSkip boot, talk about his new method for protecting his intellectual property. His concern, of course, is that unlicensed fraudulent goods would leak out of China, and his small company would never be able to police the situation. He has come up with a clever solution. I had the chance to talk to a few people there who have more experience in these things than I do, and they agreed that it was a radically different concept, and definitely worth exploring. So here's a fuller explanation, with visuals.

And here's the Zurich Insurance video link on YouTube that shows the boots in action. Or you can see them at the PowerSkip web site.

Original palm-sized device from ancient Rome: the more things change...

This device is a wax tablet dating from ancient Roman times, and found underneath the city of Barcelona. Just about palm sized. Easy to tuck into a purse or pocket, folds of your toga, or whatever. When folded, it would be just about the same size as the original Palm Pilot.

Seeing this on a recent trip to Barcelona reminded me that many of our needs are old and unchanging. We've wanted ways to record information and take it with us. The difference now is that we have found more and better ways to do that. The wax tablet was an improvement over papyrus because it was small and reusable. Papyrus was probably invented to be an improvement over stone carving. The fundamental need to record things has clearly been with us for thousands of years.