Amazon MP3 Store, ITunes and Strategy
Wendy Davis writes today, “Around 90% of the people who purchase MP3s from Amazon have never used iTunes, according to the NPD report, as per Ars Technica. Additionally, the stores are attracting different customers, with men accounting for 64% of Amazon buyers, but just 44% of iTunes buyers.”
She notes that the good news for Amazon, MySpace and other existing or new digital music stores because the market has plenty of room to grow. True. She also mentions the DRM-Free debate which is a whole other but related subject.
What I found noteworthy about the NPD finding that the digital music market is bigger than the current ITunes demographic is the lesson about strategy, targets, and technology. Not that Amazon needs a lesson in where to fish or strategy; just that it seems to illustrate the importance of having a strategy, defining a target and introducing technology that is appropriate for your target and your strategy.
Although the NPD data on the subject was not available first hand and the data reported by ArsTechnica didn’t really say what percentage of Amazon MP3 users were Amazon customers, I think that it can be implied that they most likely were a significant percentage. Amazon has been built on consistent customer focused strategies.
A recent Fortune article quoted Jeff Bezo as saying, “Customers want three things: the best selection, the lowest prices, and the cheapest and most-convenient delivery. ” OK, you start with book, lots of books at low{er} prices, ship quickly (quick, even with free option), great experience design and service which brings a satisfied loyal customer base. Expand from there.
The Amazon MP3 Store is an alternative version of the “fish where the fish are” strategy; Amazon fishes in their own customer pond ( CDs, book buyers) but stocks it with different kinds of fish.
As quoted on Ars Technica, NPD analyst Russ Crupnick said, “Based on US CD sales, Amazon is among the largest sellers of physical music and boasts a substantial and loyal buyer base—many of whom may not be in the iTunes market sweet spot.”
“90% of those purchasing MP3s from Amazon have never purchased from ITunes” sounds like a positive outlook to me. Extremely positive. Conventional wisdom might have said that Amazon would be competing directly with ITunes because that’s where the pay for tunes crowd is.
But maybe Amazon focused on their own customer and applied their “three things”model and their strategy went something like, leverage Amazon Brand equity and offer DRM-Free music downloads to current customers who
visit Amazon.com because of positive past experiences or new customers who heard about Amazon mp3 through positive word of mouth.
As Bezo said in a Business Week Interview in 2004, “We work hard at being very customer-obsessed and expressing that through innovation…we see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts.” Amazon is able to expand the market for digital music downloads because people trust Amazon and want to do business with them.
And let’s not forget the strength of the Amazon recommendation system, “recommended because you purchased X”, “people who bought X also bought Y”, “You may also like”….this is behavioral targeting personified. Of course they also have peer reviews, ListMania, author blogs and product picture uploads. And if you are an Amazon customer you have an Amazon profile page. The elaborateness of it and the privacy settings
are up to you. But Amazon is a social place; by design. Which brings me to the strategy, targets and technology lesson I mentioned earlier.
Marketers seem to know that they are supposed to have a copy strategy to create advertising and objectives and strategies to build a marketing plan. Yet, it frequently seems that when it comes to social media, the strategy rules are not applied; not necessary. Wrong! Scott Donaton at AdAge courtesy of Ted Defren’s blog called it the GMOOT (Get Me One Of Those)Syndrome…a desire to do something in new media, strategy not required.
And I have met too many marketers; some of them are clients (I am reasonably safe in saying this because although they want a blog, they don’t want to actually read one even though I tell then people are talking about them on line) who take the GMOOT path to social media….aka Ready, Fire, Aim.
Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff write about their P.O.S.T method for building a social strategy on their blog and in more detail in their book, Groundswell; POST stands for people, objective, strategy and technology. It’s “Ready, Aim, Fire 2.0″.
With the POST method you begin building with People; by determining where your target customer is on the social adoption curve or the social technographics ladder. In other words, in which pond should you fish.
O means you need to have objectives such as you want your customers who are already in the Amazon pond and who are interested in music, have an MP3 player or who are currently buying one, and therefore tech savvy enough to download music at the Amazon MP3 store even though they are not necessarily downoading at ITunes. The Strategy will be about enhancing the relationship with your customer; in Amazon’s case by offering a huge selection of MP3 downloads with Technology that is easy, quick, less expensive than ITunes and DRM-free.
I think their strategy completely explains why Amazon will grow the digital download market. They have the pond. The fish are ready to bite and the bait is of the highesy quality for the lowest price; and no DRM. And 90% is about as big as you can hope for. So aim. And read Groundswell.
You can buy it at Amazon….and review it, tag it and get other recommendations based upon its purchase.
Dot-Chris: Exceeding Customer Expectations
As I thought about writing this blog post about how wonderful Chris at Dot-Chris Development is, I started thinking that many of my blog posts about service providers are critical; unmet expectations, unsatisfactory performance, poor customer experience.
So although the purpose of this post is to recommend Chris, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at why working with Chris is such a positive experience.
OK, first the recommendations. If you need someone to work on your existing Wordpress blog…..upgrade, re-design, change themes, add plug-ins, enhance SEO, suggest improvements or anything else you can think of that I haven’t mentioned, Chris at Dot-Chris will do a fabulous job for a fair and reasonable fee
He can also move a blog to Wordpress (he moved my Typepad blog to Wordpress) and he will reluctantly even work on a Typepad blog…he just prefers Wordpress. Chris will clarify exactly what it is you want done, tell you what he thinks should be done and he will give you an estimate for dollars and time. What you get will be all the whats and the shoulds for the price he quotes on the day that he promised it.
This past weekend he even fixed my beleaguered Sony Vaio which is now running perhaps better than it did out of the box. He calls this service, Remote Services.
In his own words, ” Have you ever wished you could have someone remotely fix your computer at a time most convenient to you and without even taking the computer out of your home. Well, with Remote Services by Dot-Chris, this is now possible. We will remotely login to your pc and perform tasks such as Start-Up Optimization, Clean-up of unused programs, and organization of your system, but Dot-Chris doesn’t stop there, in most cases if you are just having general computer issues we can guide you to a solution and best of all you can sit back and relax while we guide you.
Dot-Chris also strives for complete security in any dealings with clients. First, we only use software that allows us to use random passwords that only work one time. Second, Dot-Chris computer systems use AES encryption at partition level, thus any data on our systems is encrypted to government standards. This encryption is powered by
Truecrypt.”
Now, why does Chris (who by the way is the same age as my oldest son) get the highest rating in terms of customer satisfaction? Well, let’s look at his Remote Service as an example.
My Sony Vaio has been a pain from the beginning. The original battery had a nano second of life; a new Sony battery provided through a replacement program lasted about an hour. Then one day after about 6 months the replacement battery died so I had to go back to the original battery which means I am really tethered to the outlet. Yes, I could probably get Sony to provide a replacement for the replacement but since there is no obvious place on their website or on the automated answering system and on a trip to the Sony store at a mall my inquiry was greeted with a blank stare regarding the battery replacement program and a suggestion that I call tech support. Oh please, just shoot me.
In addition to this problem (the laptop was purchased in May 2006) and other issues such as USB ports that work unpredictable hours and days, over the course of the past year it has gotten slower and slower. Oh, it looks sleak and shiny but doesn’t act sleak and shiny. Mostly, I use my MacBookbut sometimes I regress.
One night, Chris was telling me about cleaning up and fixing his grandmother’s computer. I asked if he could do that for mine. He asked me what the issues were. I told him. He suggested a date and a time to do the deed. He explained the remote service. He set my expectations. I knew what he was going to do. I knew how he was going to do it. I knew how long it was going to take and I knew how much it was going to cost.
Secretly, I was kind of skeptical that anything would change the performance of this computer. I had spent hours on the phone with Microsoft thinking that maybe the issues were software related. Microsoft troubleshot all kinds of things and “fixed” numerous “problems”. The problem was though, that in the end, the performance by my definition never improved.
The outcome from Chris was nothing short of miraculous. OK, the battery life is still laughable but that would not be Chris’ purview. Everything else is working great….faster, less buggy, and much improved.
So, back to customer experience. He set my expectations. I understood exactly what I was going to get for my money. I knew how much of my time to allocate (Lack of respect for customer’s time is one of the underreported and unlabeled causes of customer dissatisfaction….another blog post).
He then exceeded my expectations, no extra charge. This has been the case with everything Chris has done for me. Further, he provides service beyond the “sale.” He will answer any question, change something that isn’t meeting your needs and otherwise provide ongoing “promise.”
Cam Beck uses the term “promise” as the fourth “p” in a great post about the “new marketing mix.” Although he is speaking of brands marketed by companies, his words apply to Chris’ brand also.
Cam says that a brand promise needs to be set; an expectation. Then the singular focus should be on meeting and exceeding expectations.
In a post written a few years ago that focused on custmer satisfaction surveys, I noted that, “Client experience is a marketing issue….the client experience is really the operationalizing of your marketing. Operationalization means specifying the exact operations that defines the marketing promise.”
I suggested that at the beginning of a client/customer relationship one should
- Determine customer needs.
- Agreeing on how those needs will be met.
- Set measurement standards.
- Then assess satisfaction by surveying performance versus those standards.
- Meet their needs and their hearts and minds will follow…as will high ratings on surveys.
In other words, Chris rocks; I promise.
How Many Different Ways Does This Say Disconnect?
Bob McCarty at Bob McCarty Writes sent me an email today thanking me for using his photos in my recent post about the tragic shooting in Kirkwood, MO and suggesting that since I was in marketing I might be interested in his photos of an Ameren UE billboard.
As he notes on his blog, this billboard which is partialy obscured by hanging cable and phone lines, is part of the $1billion Power On program that has as one of its components a “substantial underground cabling effort.”
The program apparently was initiated following numerous power outages over the last several years throughout the AmerenUE service area. We live in AmerenUE land and have been through several multi-day power outages resulting from trees falling on power lines. I have written about these adventures in the context of gratitude for the hot coffee and free Wi-fi at Panera Bread.
However, Bob’s photos illustrate the other aspect of those power outages: power lines disconnecting the company from its customers.
During both power outages that we experienced (one in the depth of winter and one in the summer heat) AmerenUE was completely inept at communicating with its powerless customers. During the first outage, when one was finally able to reach AmerenUE, the first choice granted by the automated system was to make a payment. It went downhill from there.
In a world of technology the friendly folks at AmerenUE insisted day after day that they had no idea when crews would be working in my neighborhood as if the guys in the trucks got in them each morning and flipped a coin to decide where they were going to work that day. No schedules or plans here.
During the second outage, similar disconnect. At the end of our ordeal we received an automated call informing us that crews would be in our neighborhood that very afternoon after our neighbors had phoned to tell us that the lights were on and the crews were leaving.
As I read the press release tonight about Project On which is a three year program(I must have missed it in July…..damn wires!) I was struck by four especially disconnected statements by AmerenUE:
- Thomas Voss, Ameren UE President and CEO states: “We know what out customers want. When they flip the switch they want their lights to come on.” Now, this is what I call keen customer insight.
- Voss is appointing a FULL TIME project manager for the{$1 billion} project. Well, I think that is probably warranted….500,000 residents without power in November 2006. Yes, this is a full time job for a company that has 1.2mm customers.
- In April 2007, AmerenUE hired an “experienced consultant” to evaluate “its reliability and storm response.” Hmmmm, well 1.2 million customers and a storm, half a million without power I would have to say unreliable. No charge.
- And maybe the “forward look statement” clause is my favorite: ” Statements in this release not based on historical facts are considered “forward-looking” and, accordingly, involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those discussed. Although such forward-looking statements have been made in good faith and are based on reasonable assumptions, there is no assurance that the expected results will be achieved. These statements include (without limitation) statements as to future expectations, beliefs, plans, strategies, objectives, events, conditions, and financial performance.” Sorry, about all those things we just said….well, maybe/maybe not. But we are interested in a dialogue with our customers. Press 1 to pay your bill.
So Bob, thanks for the photo heads up of yet another company that disconnects with their customers. Unfortunately, we don’t have a choice about doing business with this one.
Best Buy: Another Example of Customer Service Dilution of Marketing Efforts
AdAge announced that BestBuy has decided after 20 years to take their $170-$200 million brand advertising account into review. The roster of Best Buy agencies currently includes La Comunidad for Hispanic Advertising, Avenue A/RazorFish for interactive, Rapp Collins for direct and Ketchum PR.
That’s a lot of advertising dollars being spent and lots of talent creating advertising and marketing. It is a shame that BestBuy continues to disconnect the message between advertising, marketing and customer service. There is lots of negative buzz covering everything from poor customer service to the latest, a secret intranet site;There is even a web site devoted to chronicling customer’s Best Buy problems.
The disconnect between marketing and customer service s a frequent topic on this blog. I have personally experienced more than one less than satisfactory disconnect with Best Buy.
We have had the misleading explanations of their "extended service" contracts for laptops and IPods, their "sure we have it" response over the phone which is met with "who told you that" when upon arrival at the store the product is either a different price or not in stock. (I have told my kids to get the name of the clerk who answers any questions on the phone…instead of taking responsibility for their clerks, store managers consistently and gleefully discount what you say you were told if you can’t identify the clerk)
This latest, although not the worst, will be my last disconnect. In combination with the "Bait and Switch Website" described by Paul Kedrosky, this is enough data.
Earlier this week when I went on line to make a payment on my Best Buy account I noticed that the payment that I am reasonably sure I made last month had not been credited and there was a $35 charge (yes, $35!) for being late.
Since, I could have sworn I made an online payment last month as I do every month, I first checked my bank account; no debit. Whoops.
Well, I thought I will give them a call and explain that there must have been some kind of glitch and would they please waive the late fee just this one time. The few times I have had a similar issue with other credit card companies I have always been told, "we will waive the fee as a one time courtesy." First, I made an online payment covering both months.
Here is what happened next with Best Buy customer service:
(Preface: Like many customers including the Durbins, I found the offer of buying with no interest for a year one I couldn’t refuse…the way this works for me is that you make ridiculously minimal payments for a year, and then when the offer expires you need to be prepared to pay off the balance in full or they charge you an entire years "deferred interest" which at 22% is significant. Of course, presumably they are hoping that you won’t pay it off…ok, cavaet emptor.)
I phoned the "contact us" customer service number and was told that the online payment that I had just made was not showing up either so there must be a problem and that I needed to call another number where they would "help" me. She said I should discuss the late fee credit with that department,
I dialed the number and punched in the number that seemed to be the correct choice for my problem. The person who came on the line told me that I was now talking to "collection" and needed to call back and choose "2". I told him that I had called the number that I had been given and thought I had chosen "2"…he not very nicely insisted that I had made a mistake and essentially said, call back, do it "right", your problem, not mine.
So, I called the same number again, hit "2" again and then waited on hold for quite some time. As I was just about deciding that this had taken up more than $35 of my time, Gladys came on the line. She insisted that no payment had been made last month. I conceeded that I realized no payment had been received but since I had never missed a payment, couldn’t they just give me the benefit of the doubt and waive the $35. Gladys said, "No, we don’t do that." I asked for a supervisor.
After a long wait, the supervisor came on the line. She didn’t mince words. "We don’t do that, ever." You didn’t make a payment in February and you have to pay the late payment charge. I insisted that I believed that I had made a payment and that I always made payments every month and in fact paid off the balance each month except for the "promotion" balance. (That whole process of separating charges is another disconnect from the stated "customer centricity" policy…it is designed to confuse customers and to cause them to incur penalties…another post perhaps.) She persisted with a not very nice tone…you didn’t pay, we don’t waive fees, ’nuff said.
What, I had read about Best Buy’s stated strategy indicated that it was all about customer centricity. From Fortune,"Shifting the company’s focus from pushing gadgets to catering to customers" to their latest News Release:
"Best Buy’s business is growing as our employees continue to find ways to contribute their ideas and experiences in service to our customers….we know the better we listen to our customers, the better able we are able to privde the experiences that reflect their particular…prioirties….regardless of whether they interact with us in a store, in their home or business, online or on the phone."
Further, I kind of thought I was considered more of an Angel than a Demon.
Besides using the Best Buy credit card, we belong to the Rewards program and have made most of our electronic purchases at Best Buy which with two teenagers is fairly frequent.
"We don’t waive fees, even one time" is not what I would call a customer centric strategy. It is a disconnect between the talk and the walk.
Pete Blackshaw writes about the need for a new model, Listening-Centered Marketing. Peter Kim at Forrester speaks frequently on his research on Reinventing the Marketing Organization and the need to re-align resonsibilities and re-look at agency reelationships, metrics and P&L responsibilities.Peter found that "almost 80% of marketers don’t influence a critical customer interaction like customer service."
I believe that in this age of customer particpants and Citizen Marketers (great summary post of what Jackie and Ben mean by "citizen marketer."… for more buy the book and read the book!) that the businesses that don’t reinvent the way that they are organized and
their focus will see their marketing dollars go out the customer service window.
Advertising and marketing may get the consumer in the door but customer experience and customer service will either keep them there or require continued increasese in expenditures to replace their loss.
There are many metrics and ROI models that companies look at to measure the success of their strategic efforts. If a company came face to face with the number that told them that they were spending $200 in advertising and marketing and the dilution index for poor product quality or customer service, they might modify their infrastructure to align P&L responsibilities with all the consumer touchpoints that influence financial outcomes.
I don’t think you have to be a math major or a advertising genius to realize that Best Buy’s cost per customer acquisition is greater than $35. Yesterday my son and I purchased three items totalling $238…at Circuit City.
Toby Bloomberg has a great post about Social Media’s Positive Influence on Customer Service.
Technorati Tags: Best Buy, Circuit City, social media, customer service, customer experience, Pete Blackshaw, Peter Kim, Forrester, Citizen Marketing, Jackie Huba, Ben McConnell, advertising, Ketchum PR, Jim Durbin, Paul Kedrosky, Rapp Collins, Avenue A RazorFish, media2.0, Toby Bloomberg, La Comunidad, AdAge
Pay attention, Say Thank You
Church of the Customer recently highlighted a story from the Wall Street Journal about the law firm, Sullivan & Cromwell, LLP who in response to low morale and an excessive level of associate turnover initiated a program to encourage partners to show more appreciation and respect to the firm’s associates.
Specifically, the need to say "thank you" and "good job’ and to return associate’s phone calls and not cancel their vacations. As Ben McConnell notes, "that weird common courtesy stuff." When Ben says, "its no joke" I presume he means the facts of the story are true and, C,’mon, do you seriously need to be told to say thank you? It makes you ask some other questions:
- What’s wrong with the partners in this law firm that they are so un-appreciative of their associates?
- How do they treat their clients?
- Do they kick their dogs?
The title of the article asks the question: Does Saying Thank You Help Keep Associates? Well, doesn’t "that weird common courtesy stuff" help" keep" everyone? And, the opposite, being discourteous and unappreciative keeps everyone away.
Saying "thank you" and "good job" demonstrates attention and articulates appreciation. Paying attention and showing appreciation will improve morale and reduce turnover in all of our relationships, personal and professional….you can offer a money-back guarantee on that one.
David Pollard at How to Save the World wrote, "What people seek from others more than anything else, is attention and appreciation. I’ve observed that to be true in boardrooms, bedrooms and barrooms. You want to win over your boss, give him or her your full attention, and acknowledge his or her successes, without being a suck-up about it. You want to win over your audience in a presentation, make lots of eye contact, show empathy for their situation (which means doing your homework in advance) and thank them more than once for their attention and their awesome questions."
A study by Mitchel Adler and NS Fagley (2005) provides some basis for the other side of the equation…why being appreciative is a good thing…they found that being appreciative and expressing appreciation to others enhances feelings of well being; it makes us feel connected to what we have and to our experiences. They find that expressing appreciation builds social bonds and in fact "appreciation was significantly related to life satisfaction and positive affect. Importantly, they believe that even though being appreciative is a disposition, it can be taught. The WSJ article said that Sullivan & Cromwell saw an improvement in turn over after the partners went to charm school.
Another recent article in the Wall Street Journal about the Dali Lama addressed the ability to change our brains through a change in thinking….to actually become more compassionate and empathetic. In a study done with monks during meditation, it was found that indeed meditation could change the function of the brain and importantly, "monks with the most hours of meditation showed the most dramatic brain changes. That was a strong hint that mental training makes it easier for the brain to turn on circuits that underlie compassion and empathy."
So, mother was right: Say thank you, write thank you notes; be appreciative and don’t scrimp on expressing appreciation and gratitude. Should appreciation not come naturally, it is possible to acquire the traits that make it possible….through mental training or meditation. If you do these things you will grow up to have successful personal relationships, loyal customers and clients …and be especially successful at generating positive word of mouth.
Jackie Huba writes about the $800 million dollar company that connects with customers through the "thank you" note written by a sales associate. Andy Sernovitz sent me a handwritten thank you note for blogging at the WOMMA Summit that demonstrated recognition and appreciation that stood apart …I really appreciated that he took the time in our electronic age to write a handwritten note!
The Lesson: Pay attention, listen, observe those around us…let them know that you appreciate them and what they do. Practice it until it comes naturally. You will improve your own sense of well being as well as contribute to theirs. This will become the environment in which you live and work.
Kathy Sierra, in her post Angry/ Negative People Can Be Bad for Your Brain talks about social contagion/emotional contagion…the spread of attitudes throughout populations. She quotes Memetics and Social Contagion"…social scientific research has largely confirmed the thesis that affect, attitudes, beliefs and behavior can indeed spread through populations as if they were somehow infectious.
She quotes the Dali Lama, The fact that there is always a positive side to life is the one thing that gives me a lot of happiness. This world is not perfect. There are problems. But things like happiness and unhappiness are relative. Realizing this gives you hope." Paying attention to the positive side and expressing this to others gives everyone hope.
One final thought. My cousin, Dr Leonard Berg passed away several weeks ago. He was an incredibly accomplished man who left behind a legacy that truly produced positive change in the lives of people all over the world. At his memorial service one of his children noted that because of his work, he really wasn’t home a lot but she always felt that he was there for her. He was paying attention and she knew that what she did was appreciated; his attitude was contagious.
Tags: Church of the Customer, Ben McConnell Jackie Huba, Andy Sernovitz, WOMMA, Kathy Sierra, David Pollard, Social Contagion, Attention, Dali Lama, Appreciation, Sullivan & Cromwell,Wall Street Journal, Dr. Leonard Berg
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SuperBowl Ad Engagement Measured By Brain Scan
There were two messages that came accross loud and clear at the recent WOMMA Conference regarding new marketing versus old marketing : the consumer is in control of the information and advertisers are there to provide the means to the information; this means that advertising should engage, not disrupt, intrude, or "break through" the clutter.
There has been much discussion regarding the portfolio of advertising presented at the SuperBowl and many different opinions offered as to the effectiveness of the various ads. Researchers at the University of California at Los Angeles’s Ahmanson Lovelace Brain Mapping Center and FKF Applied Research used brain-scan images of people watching the advertising during Superbowl XL. They tracked the ads by measuring "activity in key parts of the brain areas that are known to be involved in wanting choosing, sexual arousal, fear, indecision, and reward" and then provided their results in terms of engagement: most engaging, middle of the road, and least engaging. The brain images are on-line for your viewing pleasure.
Their press release mentions that their sample was a group of "male and female SuperBowl viewers in their 20s and 30s chosen to represent typical audience viewers of the SuperBowl." Obviously, this has to be taken into consideration when interpreting their findings.
The "Most Engaging Ads" according to the scans were Sierra Mist, "Airport Security" and the Disney "NFL Dreamers" spot although this was engaging only on the first showing. The "Middle of the Road Ads" were Bud Light’s "Employee Incentive Plan" and Cadillac’s "Catwalk". The "Least Engaging" ads were "Aleve with Leonard Nemoy, " Burger King "Whopperettes," Budweiser’s "Junior Clydesdale," and Career Builder’s "Chimps Celebrate."
Dr. Joshua Freedman, UCLA Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and co-founder of FKF Applied Research notes that one of the advantages of brain scanning versus more traditional kinds of ad research such as focus groups, interviews and polls is that with brain scans the viewer’s emotional response is measured without relying on their interpretation of their reaction and without the influence of other’s responses or questions.
Other interesting results of the brain study were the contrast between the results at SuperBowl Ads.Com and the scans. For instance, FedEx Caveman placed #1 in the poll while failing to show activity in the emtional centers of the brain. The Dove "Real Beauty" ad which has been described as tugging at the heart strings did not show significant engagement in the emotional centers of the brain.
So…if the results of the brain scans indicate that none of these spots were engaging, what’s an advertiser to do at the Superbowl? All those consumers dressed up, but where do we go?
Manfred Marek summarizes some recent studies that incorporate neuroscience into the discussion of engagement in advertising. Scott MacDonald of Conde Nast presented a paper at the 2005 Worldwide Readership Symposium which looked at consumer’s relationship to magazine and television advertising. He said that with televsion, engagement with program content leads to
increased advertising resistance. Can we hypothesize perhaps that the more engaged the consumer is with the game, the less engaged they will be with the advertising?
Marek mentioned another study by Starcom which indicated that the most "time-shifted" TV
viewing happens during the most highly rated shows. Again, the message is the more involved the consumer is with the content, the less involved they will be with advertising that interrupts the content. Hence, the increase in product placement makes sense.
Viacoms Brand Solutions (VBS) conducted research using MRI brains scans of TV viewers and found according to Marek "that advertising content that is relevant
to the programme environment in which it appears is more likely to
stimulate brain activity in areas of the brain commonly associated with
advertising effectiveness…But the survey also shows that programme content
primarily activates the part of the brain that deals with absorption,
indicating that viewers lose themselves in the programme. But as soon
as the commercial break starts, viewers re-engage with their
surroundings – memory and decision-making faculties take over again."
A couple of possible conclusions: Superbowl advertising might be more engaging to the viewer if it was relevant to football. Remember Mean Joe Green? Maybe it was so mega-engaging because it was about football! US Today lists 10 Rules to Make Ads Magical that I think make some excellent points…one more might be engage with the programming.
Technorati Tags: SuperBowl, advertising, neuroscience, brain scans, consumer engagement, WOMMA, ad research
Hotel Allegro Chicago Scores High on Customer Satisfaction
While attending BlawgThink! in Chicago several weeks ago I stayed at the Hotel Allegro. We had 2 issues with our stay. Last week a customer satisfaction survey arrived in my email. I answed it.
My 12 year old son Sam had come with me to Chicago. The concept was that he wanted to hang out in the hotel room Friday and Saturday, sleep late, watch TV, play PS2, order room service, and generally just chill until dinner time. When we were finalizing our plans, he thought the room description of the flat screen TV and stereo CD sounded like it would work with his plans. On Sunday we had planned to check out and spend the day at the musems.
Well, the TV and the stereo CD did not exactly live up to their description. Bigger problem was that the TV did not work consistently. We had the maintenance guy in our room at least 6 times in 2 days. He was very helpful and pleasant but the equipment was just not working.
On Sunday, we checked our bags in the morning. When we returned to retrieve them in the afternoon there was a long line of people at the bell stand but no bellman. The people at the front desk essentially ignored the increasing line and when I asked them to locate the bellman, they reluctantly called him. When asked to help get the bags, they said they didn’t have a key. When finally, the bellman appeared, no one from the front desk lifted a finger to help speed along the process. I was astounded at their indifference. I definitely had those never staying here again thoughts.
A few days after I filled out the survey I got an email from the hotel manager apologizing for the problems and accepting responsibility; also he offered me $50 off my bill. It was an unexpected gesture. Having filled out many of these kinds of surveys, I have never once been contacted to follow up by anyone. I have had worse stays at hotels, complained on the spot and been argued with or been reluctantly apologized to. When taking my son to camp in Chattanooga, the Marriot we stayed in had a myriad of problems; the next morning the hotel manager offered a very generous compensation amount…but off our next visit. Two weeks later when we went to pick him up, we chose another hotel.
The $50 off THIS bill at the Allegro spoke volumes. There was a problem with THIS stay; we will compensate you for this stay and you don’t have to spend anymore with us to be compensated. Those never staying here again thoughts melted away
A "no excuses" apology and compensation for the inconvenience right then are 2 important ingredients for turning a situation of bad service around. And if you are going to send a survey….follow up if it is negative. I would stay at the Allegro again. I also have another suggestion for hotels….if a guest is staying multiple nights…find out how it is going before they leave and there is still time to repair the damage. Also, if there is a complaint, such as the TV…follow up afterwards to see if the problem was resolved. It tells your customers that you care and want this experience to be pleasant.
Technorati Tags: BlawgThink, Chicago, Hotel_Allegro,
Client Expectations and Satisfaction Surveys
This post is about customer experience, this time from the vantage point of a client satisfaction survey…specifically law firms client satisfaction surveys.
Rees Morrison of Law Department Management asked the question,
"Does asking clients to assess the department raise their expectations
for the future?" His answer was "Yes." He went on to say that customer
satisfaction surveys may raise the bar for performance expectations for
the future. Further he writes,
Social science researchers recognize that when you ask people about
a feeling – “How satisfied are you with the responsiveness of the law
department?†or “To what degree do you feel the law department meets
your needs for professional development?†–respondents over-rate their
feelings. In large measure, the respondents never give a moment’s
thought to the question, and when they do focus on it, they inflate or
distort their views, thus the focusing illusion.
To the extent this distortion operates, it undermines the validity
of client satisfaction surveys, employee morale surveys and value
questionnaires and other instruments that collect feelings and
perceptions.
Is Mr. Morrison suggesting that attorneys shouldn’t ask their
clients for feedback for fear that they may have to live up to their
client’s expectations? Or that by asking for feedback it might be
implied that attorneys upon receiving feedback might feel obligated to
improve their performance? Surely not.
But, a client satisfaction survey is market research. As such, the design of the research question is critical to the value of the information that is received as a result of asking the questions. I believe this is very analogous to for instance the questions asked in a cross examination. The meaning of the words in a satisfaction survey has to be exactly what the operational definition of the words specifies.
Ask a question about responsiveness and unless you have defined responsiveness, or operationalized it, to mean something specific to the client, such as returned phone calls, then collecting "feelings" will be useless information because you will not know how to improve responsiveness….or as Mr. Morrison notes, the validity will be undermined. Set up your client relationship with specific satisfaction promises, perform to those promises, measure the specifics of the performance by a survey and then you will understand the meaning of the feeling of responsiveness.
Remember Humpty Dumpty from Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland? He tell’s Alice that, "When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean…nothing more nor less." Alice asks him, "whether you can make words mean so many different things." Humpty says, "The question is, which is to be the master, that’s all." Master the operational definition of what you are measuring and the precision of the survey will increase its value. To carry the Humpty Dumpty analogy a bit further, if you and your client do not have the same understanding of responsiveness for example, then expectations will never be met and if your survey attempts to assess the situation based upon ambiguous words then…"all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will not be able to put Humpty back together again."
Client experience is a marketing issue. Measuring it is market research. The client experience is really the operationalizing of your marketing. Operationalization means specifying the exact operations that defines the marketing promise. A client satisfaction survey is research. If your marketing states that you "use technology to be a better lawyer" your clients should be able to experience tangible evidence of the technology.
If a satisfacion survey is used to evaluate how well the firm met a client’s needs in terms of technology, the client and attorney should have all ready agreed on the technology to be used on their case, e.g. to exchange cell phone numbers, be updated via Basecamp, and have a Power Point Presentation presented at the trial. Then a client can be truly asked about and assessed for "satisifaction". The latter is best practices for research design.The design of research is critical to its value. Ask the wrong question
and you will get the wrong answer….and you may never know why you lost you client.
Don’t blame your client for "over rating" their feelings. Establish
specific functional elements that will result in positive or negative
feelings and then assess those. Instead of asking, "to what degree do
you feel the law department meets your needs for professional
development" begin your relationship with the client by:
- Determining their needs.
- Agreeing on how those needs will be met.
- Set measurement standards.
- Then assess satisfaction by surveying performance versus those standards.
- Meet their needs and their hearts and minds will follow…as will high ratings onsurveys.
The Greatest American Lawyer, an attorney genuinely concerned with providing excellent customer service, recently posted that he was sending out his first client survey and posed some interesting questions regarding client surveys in general.
- Will client’s respond at all; if so will they provide constructive criticism that can really help improve service.
- Will the survey serve a marketing function….a reminder to clients.
- Will the survey produce surprises…provide feedback regarding issues we were not aware of or mistakes that we didn’t know we made.
It will be interesting to hear the results of his survey. If the first time a client feels like they are being asked about the quality of the service provided is by a satisfaction survey and they feel like they have received poor service, it is my experience that client’s will either not respond or you will receive criticism that goes beyond the constructive variety. If the foundation of the client relationship is based upon clearly defined and agreed upon service needs and goals, and the relationship is nurtured along the way, then the client will be more likely to answer the survey and feedback should not produce unexpected results.
Tom Collins, at morepartnerincome talks about applying Six Sigma to law firm practice. He insightfully writes, "It must place the client’s wants and desires first. It
must believe to its very core that when the firm improves the success
of their customer, it improves the law firm’s success as well. It must be willing to honestly determine what its clients want and be prepared to deliver it." Determing the client’s wants and needs should mean in conjunction with the client. Also, agree on the specifics of delivery. Then measure against specifics, not feelings.
I have one final thought about "raising the bar for performance expectations in the future" as mentioned by Rees Morrison. Expectation is what is considered the most likely outcome. It is based upon past experience as well as what standards are articulated for the future. In many ways, achieving customer satisfaction is setting the bar too low. As providers of customer service, we should seek to exceed customer expectations. If our clients express that they would be satisfied with phone calls being returned within 24 hours, find a way to exceed the expectation and return calls within a business day even if the return call is just to set a time to discuss the issue the next day.
When we provide our clients with a list of "frequently asked questions" this is a helpful service….add a list of "frequently not asked questions" and you will be able to really differentiate your service and expertise. When someone says to me, "Is there anything you would like to ask me about this?" I am limited by my own knowledge of the situation or problem. When someone says to me, "You haven’t asked about…" and then proceeds to tell me something that exceeds my knowledge of the situation, then the value of the relationship is enhanced and my expectations are exceeded.
Technorati Tags: customer_satisfaction, client_experience, customer_service
Expectation and Customer Experience
This post has two purposes. The first is to discuss expectation and our overall customer experience as determined by customer service or tech support. Probably that is the experience you are expecting based upon the title. The second, is to test what I have now called, the Mystery of the Technorati Tags. The Technorati Tag Mystery does ultimately relate to expectation theory and customer experience, as those of us who have needed tech support from Typepad or Technorati understand.
Businesses seem to forget the value of the post-purchase experience where frequently we make a decision to end our relationships with products and services. It is the customers most valuable recourse against a bad experience and should be viewed by businesses as such..ending the pain of customer/tech support hell is in in the hands of the customer. It can also end the relationship.
However,we are talking about the expectation of a bad experience not it’s value. So, simply put, expectation is what is considered the most likely outcome. In mathematical terms, expectation is expected value, which" is the sum of the probability of each possible outcome of the experiment multiplied by its payoff ("value")." This is usually demonstrated by a roulette wheel.
For customer experience, we formulate expectations of the experience based upon many variables such as previous experiences with the business, previous experiences with similar businesses, or things that we have been told or read about the business.
Our investment is our time and in the case of paid tech support, money. So, in a sense when we initiate the customer support encounter, we are rolling a roulette wheel where the odds of winning, problem solved, are based upon how many spokes (variables) give us reason to expect a positive outcome versus how many give us reason to expect a negative outcome. There are all kinds of different permutations of this…we expect a really bad experience and it isn’t as bad as we expected; we decide it was a good experience by virtue of being not as bad as we expected. However, rather than belabor this….my point is simply this: the expectation of a bad service experience influences the purchase decision. We weigh many variables in our purchase decisions but if we are at Best Buy looking for a new laptop and we have spent way too much time on the phone in the past with Toshiba with less than satisfactory results, that laptop is going to have to have many positive attributes to make me consider buying it. The most convincing trade-off is typically price. If the price is low enough I might devalue the expectation of poor customer service. If there is not enough to offset my expectations, I will purchase another brand. And, look at the inverse….I might even pay more for another brand based upon a positive experience that is now a positive expectation. For services, cell phones, cable, legal or our attorney, accountant, or even our therapist…negative experiences, post purchase make us receptive to competitive messages….our relationship with the brand or service who has put us into expectation high alert is a dead man walking; we might grant a stay of execution for a price but it will only be temporary.
Now, let’s discuss Typepad. or their full name, WaitingforTypepad. Typepad tech support is an oxymoron. Besides my own blog, I have several other accounts. Several clients and my son’s 7th grade parents’ blog. I have had questions and issues on all of them. My experiences with tech support has been uniformly bad. There seems to be an elaborate entire system designed to avoid fixing problems and answering questions. Easy or difficult…nothing gets answered in the first contact. I am totally in the expectation of bad experience paradigm and as soon as I find an alternative, I will leave the Pad. It is not my Type. Even the buy one year, get one year free offer, which initially made sense, is not enough to convince me that I should waste my time seeking service. I’ll pay month to month and wait for an alternative. Anyone listening? Didn’t think so…
And Technorati? Well, I guess their theory is that you can’t have a bad experience if you don’t have one at all. I am still waiting. My mystery of the Technorato tags? Well, I just tried another recommended fix. We shall see. Business Blog Consulting just posted that they are sick of Typepad. A non answer from Typepad was posted. LOW expectations!
Technorati Tags: Typepad, Customer_experience,
Hype, Buzz, Budget, Blogs, and Commodity Products
A great post at Crossroads Dispatches really gets to the heart of why the UpYourBudget blog is a perfect example of great hype but not of a blog as buzz, word of mouth, or business building. She says, speaking as a customer, that "You know you’re a commodity when I have to look for the rental
agreement jacket to remember which agency to return the car to at the
airport… give me a remarkable distinguishable service and experience, then you’re conversing."
The blog and the promotion are not conversations, more like screaming…usually what we feel like doing when at the rental counter. As far as the purchase decision goes, as License to Roam notes, one may begin the search for a car with Budget based upon the immediate hype…but the decision will be made most likely based upon price, availability convenience, and importantly how good or bad the last rental experience was or is remembered.
I think Budget might want to look at what their customers treasure, instead of sending them on a treasure hunt.
Technorati Tags: UpYourBudget, hype, buzz, blogs
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