Insights and Ingenuity

One Moment. One Opportunity.

That may sound (and is, sort of) an excerpt from an Eminem lyric, but the words are pretty powerful whatever your favorite musical flavor.

Considering the impact – reputation, collective perception, financial – of each and every moment constituting a customer’s brand experience, well it could very well seem like they’re all ‘make it or break it’ opportunities.

Customer engagement and the potential for ensuing brand affinity are milestones and objectives I think about a lot.  In relation to the place customers hold Ovation (my employer), but maybe even more so with respect to our clients and their customers/prospects.

Our clients are hospitals and banks and retailers – all institutions comfortable with messaging out (sometimes heavily) to target audiences about products and services that matter to the mother ship. It’s our job to help them understand that all marketing doesn’t have to be overt or resemble a monologue.  Conversely, customer experiences are greatly enhanced (dare I say the potential arises for satisfaction to bump up to affinity followed by engagement) when generous, sincere, and holistic efforts are made. To provide value. Offer convenience. To explain the ‘why’ and not just the ‘what.’

Stay With Me

Consider this quick scenario – instead of creating video about your new XZY machine that makes you state-of-the-art, create a video that focuses on a compelling person’s health issue. How their family and friends cope, and how together they battle the beast. Feature the nurse angels that treat with compassion, and how they do special things to make the intimidating XZY machine manageable. How at the end of the day, people (and their touch) made a difference.

Those nurses who, seven years ago, gave my premature 3-lb son a lion Beanie Baby to keep him company in his incubator, well you could say I’ll never forget them. There’s the story. The real story.

That’s more interesting to me (to others too) than any news about a cold hunk of metal and plastic. It’s more easily relatable. Warm, not cold. Amazingly, along the way, the way I began to feel about your brand and what you had to offer changed some. The story touched me in an emotionally compelling way, a way I’ll remember when I’m faced with making future decisions.

Feed me the stories about people and events, of victories and even of hardships overcome. Feed me information to help me think or inspire me to act. Heck, tell me the best places to park and the best time of day to reach a human on the phone.

But don’t tell me about your ZXY machine, please. At least, not without the ‘why.’

A convenient Truth

I’m taking some liberties here with a friend’s tweets. They weren’t directed at me but rather for @Cogiva and available for all participants to read. This isn’t necessarily her intended context either, but I think it applies here as well so I’m running with it .

Gennefer Snowfield (of SpaceTruffles fame) is someone I’ve never met, but love to listen to in the Twitter space. She’s sharp, articulate, always strong with a point and passionate about her ideas.

Here, what strikes me most strongly is “…let the content shine, unfettered by overt brand messaging.” and “…the halo association of a memorable [entertainment] experience is more powerful than a marketing push.”

Holy smokes.

While Gennefer is totally rockin branded entertainment experiences during her day gig, clearly her fundamental core is all wrapped around the consumer psychology. And she understands (champions) that spewing uni-directional, self-serving messaging isn’t going to yield long-term results.

Lead the way to stellar customer experience, Gennefer! I’m following you every step.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Customer Relationships. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.