theIdeaStudio (Customer Crossroads)

This just in: the $40,000 coupon; direct mail on the cheap

The $40,000 coupon

In today's Globe and Mail, [my daily addiction]  I saw this coupon for $40,000 off advertising agency fees on a contract of $250,000 or more. Offered by The BrainStorm Group. [New clients only, of course. There's no escaping the switching bonus anymore.] 

It certainly caught my attention. I really loved how easy it was to find the coupon page online through their sponsored link on Google. A good illustration of how they can coordinate the elements in a campaign. Very impressive web site too. And you've totally got to admire the chutzpah of this approach. Are they desperately seeking clients? Perhaps. But with brio.

Direct mail on the cheap

Seeing the coupon above put me in mind of a clever direct mail campaign launched by a small business in my neighborhood.

A nice looking woman -- very well dressed -- was dropping letters off in the neighborhood.
The letters introduce a local law firm, Jennifer A. Bishop.

"Dear Friends: We  are a small firm centrally located at the corner of Yonge and St. Clair Avenue East (building has subway access) specializing in ...  deliver highest quality personalized legal service at a reasonable rate.... Price for a standard residential purchase or sale is $499, regardless of the cost of the property..."

I think I saw Ms. Bishop herself dropping letters off in her neighborhood to potential clients.

You've gotta love this approach. She probably met a ton of people, and got a chance to say hi and shake hands, maybe proffer a business card. Extend a little free advice. Invite people to come in for a consult. Door knocking works well for politicians. It was a strategy heartily endorsed by Edward Jones. Why not lawyers? 

And other than the time involved, you can't beat the price. [And what a radical strategy to show prices for basic services?]

Walk in the customer's shoes: What's the view from kid height?

I've heard people tell a story about Walt Disney, that he knelt down to look at Cinderella's Castle as it was being built, so he could see the view from the perspective of his customer. True or not, it's a good story.

I was in a framing and art store recently that had a similar insight. Here's what they have at kid height below their counter: a blackboard and chalk.

A simple thing with great results:
- Kids don't get bored and act up while adults look at art and choose framing, activities that take a lot of time
- No screaming kids means adults are likely to get what they came in for, instead of abandoning the hunt. I expect this improved sales.
- Chalk is not likely to damage anything, even in an art gallery

Many bank branches have small play areas for children. I've also seen play areas in optometrists offices and medical laboratories. It's a small effort to make for kids that has beneficial effects on the adults with them, and can ensure a peaceful environment for other shoppers. What's not to like?

If you have children, or disabled people, or older people in your environments, you might consider walking in their shoes.

Bringing a new experience to consignment clothing: Vespucci

On a recent trip to Calgary, I had the pleasure of visiting a truly different consignment clothing store called Vespucci.

It's different because:
[1] Sheer size -- most consignment stores are tiny. This place is huge. It has it's own building.
[2] Quality, not just quantity -- I didn't see anything junky. There is a sense of a curatorial approach here, where the owner is bringing an aesthetic to the collection, not just taking what is out there
[3] Range of prices -- there aren't many places you can buy a Feraud suit that's gently used. But you can here. I also picked up a nearly new denim jacket for $10.
[4] Great staff. When I started snapping pics with my Blackberry, the owner suggested I check out the view from the balcony. And encouraged me to check out the formal wear while I was up there. Now that's friendly.

This is a store that gives you the thrill of the hunt, like a Winners does, but with much better quality clothing, for the most part.

You can bring a great customer experience to practically anything with some thought and attention.

The waiting area. Chairs match the overall aesthetic.

Main floor view. Fabulous building with skylights adds sense of luxury.

View from the balcony.

Formal wear has its own section. A good idea to prevent grubby little hands from touching the most expensive items. But also adds a boutique feel.

Every category has room to develop an interesting and differentiating experience. Although the owners were concerned about having expanded during a recession, I expect they will do quite well with their approach.

ADDENDUM

Thanks to Adam Lawrence of WorkPlayExperience Blog who let me know that "consignment store" is an unfamiliar term outside North America. A consignment store is a store that sells new or gently used second-hand clothing on behalf of the seller, in return for a commission. Some such stores may actually purchase selected items for their inventory, but most is sold on a contingency basis. In the UK, such a store might be called a "dress agency."  Thanks Adam! Much appreciated!

This just in: digital nomads, social networking in the workplace, Burger King Studio reprise - how to manage social media

I have to tell you that the guys who created Burger King Studio -- Mess Marketing in Chicago -- demonstrated awesome social media management skills.  You will recall my post wherein I gushed about the cool t-shirts you can make online, and gave them what-for about glitches on their purchase process. Look at all the things they did right here:

♥ They are keeping track of social media mentions of their project. [check]
♥ Rob Robinson, creative director, immediately posted a comment on the blog [check]
♥ Then he tracked down my e-mail and sent me a personal note there too [check]
♥ He apologized for the problem, acknowledged my concerns, said they would give the feedback to the web team, and would also try to find my custom designs!  [check, check, check, double check!]
♥ I got an additional wow when a package showed up at my office, with two t-shirts, some cute buttons, and a catalog of the project showed up. [2 checks and a gold star for that one!] 

This is totally going to make workouts more fun while trainer TK - aka the princess of pain - is tossing medicine balls at me.

♥ Oh, and one more thing. They went hunting for my custom designs, and have promised to send them along as soon as they are made. [extra credit!]
Here they are:


I told him, via e-mail, that I was planning on using the t-shirts as prizes for a workshop I am doing for a client on consumer trends. Because I thought their project was pretty leading edge.  Which it is.

Okay, so he's getting a little earned -- aka unpaid -- media. And he had to exert a little effort for it, as do you. But look at this circle of happiness that was created. He gets more profile. I get cool t-shirts. AND I get a killer story for the next dozen or so presentations I give. Everybody wins.

And an even more loyal BK customer, who really likes to have it her way.

***

Stopping by Chris Brogan's blog I found an interesting report from Citrix about web commuters -- the workshifting phenomenon.  Some startling statistics like these: by 2008 there were 33.7 million US teleworkers. Forrester is projecting big growth, such that as many as 1/3 of the workforce will work from home at least part of the time.  Given that you can't flip burgers or change hotel sheets from home, I'd guess that this means knowledge workers will be telecommuting a lot.

A study Citrix Online commissioned found that 73% of American workers and 53% of small business owners want to be able to work remotely.

In the late 80's I was part of a Future of Work Secretariat that the ministry of labour in Alberta launched. We were talking about this stuff then, but the technology just wasn't there. Now it is.

Apart from technology support, what does this group of people need?

***

In a similar vein, Aon Consulting has published a report about employee attitudes around social media in the workplace. Aon is looking at the big shift towards Millennials in the workplace, and their comfort level with social media, and seeing a disconnect with the ways employers communicate.

45% of the 8000 respondents in the study already work remotely. Almost half use instant messaging at work. Four in ten use text messaging at work -- not to talk to family and friends, but to exchange information.

"The internet’s power not only gives people access to a wide range of news perspectives, but it grants each  person an outlet to express his or her own opinion on it. Employees are using social media to collect  information, to interpret and communicate it to others."

So many organizations seem determined to keep the lock on social media. If this study is any indication, it's not going to work.

***

Have a great weekend!
 

Common research mistakes

I logged in to Constant Contact a few minutes ago to start writing a newsletter. There was a button for completing a survey, so being a naturally curious [some might say snoopy!] person, I clicked.
Constant Contact now provides a survey platform. Sadly, they made several common mistakes. So egregious and common are these errors, it seemed essential to post about it and save others from the same mistakes.

This is a screen shot of the first page of the survey. I see three mistakes here:

First mistake -- ask for my name right up front. If you are going to make this non-confidential, you might want to ask for this information in the last question. Because then if I don't answer, you still get the rest of my data.

Second mistake -- non-exclusive categories. If I am in business 6 years, I have two choices. Same problem with 8 of the response categories. Oddly, the sequence changes from 8-9, and 10+.

Third mistake -- the person who wrote this survey has insufficient knowledge for the task. Two easy solutions. Either take a survey writing course -- there are lots of them around, and some are available online. Or, spend a small amount of money and hire a researcher to write the questionnaire for you. Seriously, this is not a complex questionnaire. It would be likely a half-day of work for an experienced person.

Or, you can just get poor data and look like a goof to the world.

You know, the thing is, the fact that I can use a power saw does not make me a carpenter.

What do you need to know now? (About customer experience)

At a workshop on the weekend, several people suggested topics that I should write on. 
I thought I'd share this list with you, and see what you think.

The ideas list:

1. How to create a spirit of service among employees
2. How to gain / increase customers
3. How to improve sales and loyalty
4. How to train the customer
5. How to train and get results from front-line staff
6. How to get to an insight
7. How to motivate staff to give better customer service
8. Why must organizations ask for feedback and then ignore it
9. How to create + ensure customer satisfaction
10. How to create consistency in experience
11. Insights=Perspectives (Not sure I get this one, but I'm pondering it. Any thoughts?)

Is this the stuff you want to know? 
What would you add to this list?
What do you need right now to get through this day, this week, this month, this quarter?
Just to make this fun, I'll put all the responses into a hat and draw for a nice treat. Spam doesn't count, of course.

I'm off to speak at a conference in Chicago this week: the Symposium on Excellence in Qualitative Research. I'm speaking with a client about employment branding, a fascinating and growing requirements.

When I get back, I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the list above. Seriously, comments would be welcome. If you hate the idea of posting a comment on the blog, send me an e-mail. susan[a]abbottresearch.com.

Are you building customer equity with cross selling? Or damaging it?

"A marketing tactic that boosts sales in the short term can have a negative effect on customer lifetime value." ^*

I heard a great story today that highlights this issue brilliantly.

A bank customer got a replacement credit card in the mail, with instructions to call to activate the card. After working through the automated process, the customer was asked to "hold for an agent". So they did hold. And hold, and hold, for quite a while.

When the agent came on the line, they said they wanted to tell the customer about their balance protection insurance. The customer said: 'This is a sales pitch!'. 'No, no, this isn't a sales pitch', claimed the bank employee. Customer indicated all he wanted to do was activate the card. Employee advised that the card was active after the automated procedure was complete.

This little interaction damaged customer equity, didn't it? It's so obvious. And easy to fix.
Either stop doing it altogether, or tell the customer in the recording, "Your card is now active. If you would like to hear about balance protection insurance, please stay on the line for an agent".

Holding your busy customers hostage like this is just dumb.

Had a good experience recently? Or a bad one? Send us your story. We'll publish a selection of the best ones.

Resources

* Marketing When Customer Equity Matters. by Hanssens, Dominique M, Daniel Thorpe and Carl Finkbeiner. Harvard Business Review, May 2008

Twitterati vs the banks

Twitter is one more thing that somebody said of it: "this changes everything". [656 hits for that exact phrase on Google, and probably bigger now]

One of my favorite reads is Bankervision, and author James Gardner had the audacity to go public with a Twitter-is-a-stunt-for-banks stance, releasing a firestorm in a teacup as Twitter defenders and bank bashers both rose to the challenge of commenting.

Some of the points made are interesting, though, so let me see if I can distill the main arguments.

From James:

• Banks that hang with the cool kids want to be first on everything. They like getting attention from social media mavens and marketing gurus
• Unpaid media is a compelling value proposition, but you have to be first to get any benefit
• Twitter is not economic for reaching thousands of customers with relevant messaging, because you'd need a roomful of people tweeting to do it
• It's a lot like virtual worlds -- looked important, but off the radar at the moment
• To invest real development time, banks need to see a real money business case
• Twitter experiences a lot of user churn - a lot of people go dormant after a few weeks
• Bank innovators should focus on mobile

Commenters:

• Twitter is more about listening than talking, if you are an institution. Case in point here.
• Twitter may not have reached critical mass, but it's way too soon to write it off
• Twitter is part of social media, and if you are going to be relevant to your customers, you need to find a way to be relevant in social media
• Twitter opens a channel to pass on good stuff, and limit the damage from bad stuff (Remember the Domino's viral video situation)
• Twitter has more utility when you add a bunch of other tools like Tweetdeck, Twhirl, Twitscoop, Monittor, etc
• Bankers just don't get it
• Virtual worlds that require a huge software download and big investment of time are not comparable to razor-thin Twitter apps that take almost no time and are totally mobile

Okay, I think you get the picture.
Among the more interesting remarks made on both sides is the challenge of scaling up such a system to communicate with customers.

Let's consider customer wants

The part that I think is getting short shrift here is the underlying desire, need or want. [I know, I do go on about that, don't I?]

Yes, banks and others need to monitor Twitter. But if that ever became a primary communication channel, something is seriously wrong. I do think that the banks running a help line on Twitter are probably doing a good thing. I monitor a few of these, and I don't see them getting that much traffic, and what they are doing is redirecting the enquiries, for the most part.

Long before the internet, a disgruntled customer could call their local newspaper columnist or local TV consumer reporter with their gripe. And the company would get right on the problem and fix it. This did not mean it was a primary communication channel.

Since that time, banks have made many changes. They have standards of customer service, much better quality control and quality tracking, faster decision turn-around, and many other service improvements at banks. And ombudspeople as a last resort.

Social media have a democratizing effect: it means small voices can more easily be heard. They help balance out the power imbalance of one customer versus a big institution.

The scaling thing is still a big issue

Regardless of what the communication channel is, people want more access to institutions. They want it fast, and they want it convenient. They don't want to be on hold for half an hour. Call centres were certainly scaled up to provide more convenient access. And a few institutions do a good job with e-mail, which has got to be a demanding operation, and fraught with potential problems.

Twitter seems to offer possibilities for alerts

Relatively few banks offer customers feed services for things like rates. This would appear to be a good application for Twitter. What about campaigns and promotions, announcements of new locations, all that sort of stuff.

Or maybe an automated system should tweet me about the status of my application.

Lots of other innovations are possible using these new channels.

[Note that what I am suggesting here would also work well or better on mobile. And probably be more secure]

Most consumers expect banks to innovate first in helping them stay on top of transactions and money. They expect a lot less in the 'cool' department than they do of brands like Virgin Atlantic or Pepsi.

We are all trying to figure this stuff out, for ourselves and our clients. Thanks James for putting on a nice show over there.