After all, aren’t strategies that build interest and demand for a business’s products far more sustainable – and viable for secondary advocacy strategies based on forged trust – than those that pluck weak runners from the back of the herd (if they live long enough, those guys end up feeling resentful anyway)?

Hmm. Same old funnel? What about the new decision journey?

Go on, take a closer look at the secondary copy:

What's wrong with this picture?

With the exception of the word “nurture” in line 2 (which I’d argue they don’t use the same way I’d use “nurture” when thinking about growing customer relationships), these words are cold, clinical, and imply some sort of automated and robotic process for adding new customers to the “done” pile. It’s one-way only. And the very nature of a one-way conversion funnel implies nowhere to go but down (as in, “sold!”). Nothing there implies establishing common ground or mutual interests served through fair and equitable relationships.

Fully recognizing that some B2B channels are very cut-and-dried (and admittedly, I’m not a “sales” person), I maintain that even with purchasing agents and rigorous policies guarding the forward territories, businesses that recognize the value of investing in the growth of deep (and wide) customer relationships will successfully overcome price-minded hurdles in many cases.

How about this approach instead:

• Offer products and services, uniquely positioned to serve the unmet needs of your customer base. Think in terms of a blue ocean.
• Develop rapport, ask questions, give advice, offer assistance. Humanize your brand by being a person first. Yours may not be the best solution; tell them that.
• Affirm the customer’s good decision to buy by continuing high levels of support and value after the sale. Give them reason to continue to feel good about their choices. Let them know it matters.
• Work to help them become vested in that decision to buy. Vested people feel a commitment, an obligation. Vested people make recommendations to peers within their trust networks –>word of mouth. Their success is your success, always.

I’m not out to get B2B Magazine; it’s one I often enjoy reading. I just think they’re off center on this one, and will continue to grow more obsolete as technology fuels competition and satisfaction/service gain weight in decision-making processes. No one wants to be sold to. But some businesses are looking for remedies and will gravitate toward companies that openly offer assistance and support.

What do you think?

As a customer, how many times has “It’s the rules, ma’am.” stood in the way of a mutually agreeable solution? How many times has the sharp drop-off between “Thank you for your business.” and “That’s no problem. We can work with you on that.” sent you spiraling over the edge of logic, into the abyss of disgruntledness and negative perception?

Black and white

Rules are meant to protect the primary interests of the issuer (“The Man”), and establish a field of parameters. We acknowledge rules, perhaps even study them (think: driver’s exam prep). We know they’re there; we’ve run into them before. They cause us to consider risk versus reward. But one size does not fit all.

…and shades of gray

Life and circumstances being what they are (unpredictable whims of nature, or holy master plans if you’re feeling more respectful), sometimes situations – everyday mundane stuff – don’t fall easily into clearly defined boxes. You know what I mean – the slight pause when you decide between 64 mph or the “safe bet” 60 mph for the cruise. The age you give the cashier at the restaurant where kids 12 and under eat free (and your kid’s 13).

The applicability or necessity of certain rules can be fuzzy, even sticky. Making the right choice, doing the right thing may not be so clear-cut, obvious or popular. The right choice may not make your company a buck nor cut out x-number man hours of annual administration time. The right choice may cost your company easily deployed, by-the-books, across-the-board simple rigidity (the kind even a monkey can parrot) that efficiency experts recommend.

“It’s company policy, ma’am. No exceptions.”  I call B.S.

Many times, doing the right thing – making the right choice – can be the right thing to do even if it’s against the rules.

Life, unscripted

It takes good judgement, independently vetted and dispensed, to determine the appropriateness of a formal rule to any situation.

The sooner companies citing “no exceptions” rules wise up to the fact that sometimes life won’t wedge into a predefined box of circumstances, that good people make human mistakes, that there are exceptions to every rule and statistically few customers are out to game the system, the sooner those companies dissolve high-handed barriers that keep their customers at arms length.

And isn’t the key to entangling your customer, wrapping them up in service and value to create loyal ambassadors, isn’t the key getting them closer, not pushing them away?

Business is business, I get that. Structure and procedure are important, especially to scale. But there’s a point when rigidity overrides just plain smart thinking, when a businesses’ need to exert control and maintain procedure squashes out the softer art of interpretation, situational awareness, service-mindedness, and basic human compassion.

Your rigid rules just made you look like a jackhole. And customers don’t like jackholes.

Learn from the likes of the Ritz Carlton. Turn your rigid rules into suggested guidelines, and let your smart employees serve your customers well.

Watch their lifetime value soar.  Bonus: they might even tweet about you in a good way.

I don’t expect perfection from a business (they’re run by people), and I don’t believe in histrionics unless the attitude of the person I’m dealing with or the corporation’s draconian policy calls for it.  There are people that have earned their Righteous Indignation stripes, and to Jason’s point, the unreasonable expectations of those loud few can force some businesses to take sweeping, drastic measures that affect all customers.

I pay attention to companies for several reasons.  One, I’m handing over my money and I need more for it in exchange (a couple of years ago, the country was screwed over by some greedy financial types, creating a giant sucking sound for many of us).  I haven’t stopped buying quality products where I think it matters, but the quality has to be balanced with a side of aftercare.

Two, we’re talking about my time and effort.  I know life isn’t one long smooth ride (remember the giant sucking sound?), but I believe businesses that truly intend to serve their customers have the necessary components, processes, and personnel in place to ensure my attention and my loyalty.  Maybe it was that damn reverberating sound again, but some companies saw the personal touch as an opportunity to shine brighter, deliver the unexpected.  Even involve the customer in ways that shape outcomes and virtually cement emotional connections.  These savvy companies knew they had to change (or were born) because the rapids of consumer spending had slowed to a trickle and they wanted their share when the river beds shifted.

When people talk about brand experiences they’re sharing vital bits that should be incorporated into feedback loops at all cost. Product development, innovation, IT, marketing and customer care groups can all benefit from real-world input (anyone who’s ever been involved with software development will tell you, all the internal user testing in the world can’t match what a handful of real users can do for finding bugs).

Voice of the customer taken in context can deliver more value than clinical focus groups or (horrors!) some board member’s historical recall.  While in the form of status updates, check-ins and tweets, these messages are the modern equivalent of a handwritten letter to the president.

The methods may have changed, but the (customer) messages are more important now than ever before because they can be amplified and immortalized.  Is your brand focused on creating rewarding experiences for customers?  Are you afraid they’ll talk about you?  Will their words sell your product for you, or give buyers pause for thought?

We’ve all enjoyed stellar service.  Not long ago my friend Jim remarked to me how tickled he was following a call he’d just made to Nike.  Interestingly, the agent couldn’t help Jim locate the shoe model he was looking for, but that didn’t really matter.  Despite the disappointment (Lord, save us from more black sneakers), Jim closed the call feeling hunky-dory.  Fact is, the dude had Jim at: “Brother, how can I help you tonight?”  It was 11:30pm on a Sunday, a real Jerry Maguire moment.

Late-night weekend friendliness may not be what you’d expect from a big brand.  But as a consumer, when did we become conditioned to expecting less?  How did we resign ourselves to tolerate substandard treatment?

Did you read our FAQ?  Use the community forms?  Submit a support ticket, then.

Last week I had something funky going on with PayPal.  Three emails and two phone calls (replete with a jacked-up IVR experience, thanks to the robo-menu) I was well on my way to mad when someone finally solved the issue.  While I never got clear explanation as to the cause, I *did* receive an obligatory “Will you rate your service?” survey link via email.  Huh?

So we have one big brand that surprised and delighted.  And we have another big brand that made issue resolution complicated, lengthy, unsatisfying, and vaguely insulting (I took their blinking survey, and for the record it was the longest in history, adding insult to my injury).

Rather than consider the PayPal issue an isolated case, in my mind I’m connecting it to other thought fragments to develop a bigger brand impression – the difficulties I’ve had canceling recurring subscriptions, the less-than-intuitive account interface.  PayPal’s ubiquity makes use a necessity.  I’m not a PayPal account holder with an affinity for the brand; I’m an account holder with limited choices.  There is no brand love, and that can make all the difference.

A customer is a customer is a customer.

All sales are not created equal.  A brand curries no favor when it holds a monopoly (or is otherwise the exclusive supply source) which forces a certain behavior (purchase) from consumers.  Yeah, okay, so you got the buck.  That’s a short-term win at best.  Consider the lifetime value of reinforcing a positive impression with a committed customer versus the value from an isolated or begrudged transaction.

Listen to the little people.

The point – in this increasingly social economy, user-fed outposts like Yelp and OpenTable provide microphones to amplify the voices of the little people. If the Nike example above is representative of most customer service calls, then it stands to reason those aggregated voices equate to positive brand impressions.

Disjointed operations and half-baked efforts (like I feel my PayPal experience was) will become increasingly obvious.  I’m willing to bet that as financial straits groom more cautious (and conscientious) consumer spending patterns, our tolerance for low quality customer experiences will weaken.

They’ll talk.  Do you like what they have to say?

Simple negligence, shoddy efforts, or intentional deceit (the fine print a legal team can’t decipher), these practices will indeed catch up to companies.  I think it’s best to do some housecleaning now and build a framework of turn-key practices with an eye on winning and keeping customers.

Mix it up

This post was inspired by (eyes averted) a country song by a band called Little Big Town.  I’m definitely not a country fan as a rule, but this band has a bit of a groove and some southern rock influences that make me think of home (their track “Boondocks” is a simple pleasure that’ll make you want to stop your WiFi service, if only for 4:36).  The song “Bones” is really about a man/woman relationship but has real implications for business.

What goes around, Comes around.  

Feel it breathing down heavy on you.

You made that bed you’re laying on, Deeds that you have done now you can’t undo.

You got bones in your closet, You got ghosts in your town

Ain’t no doubt yeah they’re gonna come out

They’re waiting for the sun to come down.

You can’t hide from your demons, Feel them all lurking around

You’re running scared because you know they’re out there

They’re waiting for the sun to go down.

It’s a long and hard row to hoe when seeds that you sow grow by the wicked moon.

Be sure your sins will find you out.

The past will hunt you down and return to tell on you.

It all stands to reason that every dog will have his day.

But your day is leavin’

Better hold on tight, here comes the night.

For kicks and grins, I’m going to try to start a little meme.  I’ll tag a few people and ask that they write a post inspired by the lyrics of a song, and tag 3 to 5 others to do the same. I think songwriting may be one of the most admirable areas of content creation.  It took me 898 words to say what I mean in this post, while good songwriters often express complex thoughts in just a hundred.

Amber Naslund, Brass Tack Thinking (star-quality wits and smarts with a love for music)

Paul Squires, Perini (funny, outgoing, and a newish Twitter find for me ((plus the accent))

Kellye Crane, Solo PR Pro (full of Southern charm and serious PR chops)

As a consumer, though, sometimes I just live my life and don’t think about what just is until I’m provoked.  Until I’m let down or felt misguided.  Or I’m delighted and surprised.

Thinking about all this information and stimuli, these questions emerge:  Am I made to believe?  Was I moved?  Did I take action?

Brand marketers, remember:

Consumers don’t live single-track lives.  If you aren’t spending time determining how your audience receives their information and taking the initiative to improve convenience factors, then they’ll outgrow you.

Fit the message to the channel.  It’s not so much what you want to say as it is what they need to hear.  It’s not about your product’s features, it’s about the benefits to their lives and peace of mind they’ll have for having made the right choice for their needs.

Practice active listening.  It’s called self-awareness, and it applies to brands too. Realize that you gain more by listening, paying attention, and responding than you do by projecting and distributing.  It’s the difference between talking with and talking to.  I don’t think brands are ever too large to still be able to talk with their consumers.  How better to inspire the kind of affinity and culture that makes your brand remarkable?

What are some examples of brands operating in multiple channels effectively?  I’d offer up Dell as a big brand using the outposts and doing a good job on the execution side.  What about a regional or small brand example?

And what other channels would you consider for the average consumer?  In some instances, direct mail and fulfillment marketing (the teasers, promos, and upsell pieces that are delivered with your order) work, too.  The key, I think, is to recognize the stage of the sales funnel I may be in, and my receptiveness for particular kinds of information in a specific channel.

Increase sales.  Reduce expenses.  These are the ways of the business world, yes?  Well, yes.  But as Zappos proves the indirect route can do something amazing in the process:  offer a guiding light that empowers and motivates employees, and reaches consumers in a “blue ocean” sort of way.

“…If Amazon gets a lot of customer service calls, it will try to figure out why — maybe there’s something confusing about the product description — and then it will try to fix the problem so that it can reduce the number of phone calls, which keeps prices low. But at Zappos, we want people to call us. We believe that forming personal, emotional connections with our customers is the best way to provide great service.”

Walking The Walk

Tony Hsieh is a remarkable visionary and a savvy businessperson.  I heard him deliver the keynote at SXSWi last year and was truly inspired by his story (and trust me, it was a story and not a stale, expected or overbaked presentation) about the Zappos culture. He set out to formulate a standout culture that became the true north by which all company decisions are made (see Oliver’s post numbers 1 and 10), and he stands stalwartly by the philosophy today (moreover, he applied the core ethics to secure the kind of long-term financial future that would serve the best interests of Zappos employees).  Sometimes outcomes of those decision methods were popular.  Sometimes people viewed the process as indulgent.  But no one can deny the sheer strength netted by infusing the Zapp’s philosophy throughout the company and its processes. Did Zappos make money?  Definitely.  Did the big rewards take a little while?  Probably.  But they decided early on that in order to differentiate – in order to really be different and matter in an enduring way, they had to go where no other service company, where no other etailer/retailer was going.  Price be damned, Zappos is about service, the one metric capable of withstanding fickle consumer fluxes. If you haven’t read much about the Zappo’s phenomenon, I urge you to do so.  Learn more about their Happiness Policy below or buy Tony’s new book covering profits, passion and purpose on Amazon today.

I’ll Spell It Out

Trust:  a relationship of reliance.

Relationship:  “…is managing and nurturing a company’s interactions with its customers…The overall goals are to find, attract, and win new customers, nurture and retain those the company already has, entice former customers back into the fold, and reduce the costs of marketing and customer service.”

Reliance:  “…a system’s ability to maintain its functions in routine circumstances, as well as unexpected circumstances.”

Trust Is To A Relationship Like Glue Is To…

Two-part epoxy is strong stuff!

Trust is like an adhesive; it takes time to set and cure. Test a bond too early and the joint can be stressed and fail. But waiting until it cures – has had time to properly mature through its developmental stages – results in a strong bond.

That’s my analogy, and I think it’s really very applicable to business/customer relationships.  Maybe even more so given the tenuous state of the global economy, set in motion by big business subterfuge and the banking world’s poor judgment.

Failure To Communicate

Consumers are skeptical of “newspeak,” and miss the personal nature of yesteryear’s account transactions.  Consumers are frustrated at the lack of swift and sure recourse (has automation, the IVR, and the form letter taken things too far?).  And consumers are outraged at what amounts to the complete and total absence of any application of rational, intelligent discretion when the applicability of policy comes into play (just because GE Money *can* increase a customer’s interest rate by 20% when payment is received one day late doesn’t mean that they *should*).

Hello benevolence. Hello valued customer. Hello accessibility and empowered front-line employees.

The Have And The Have Nots

I believe these “big business” mindsets to be polarizing. The indiscriminate application of sterile policy, the distancing of consumers from the human profile of the brand (emotion drives even the most practical and basic-need purchase decisions; the association of memory and related experience influences brand choice at the onset), and complicating the back-end details to dissuade customers from dispute, return, or issue resolution all work to segregate customers into similar-looking groups that can be  managed swiftly and dispassionately.

Dispassion. Wait a minute. Isn’t customer passion – engagement, affinity, loyalty, stewardship – the holy grail of brand marketing?  Don’t companies pay for passion, real or feigned? I’m talking about the passion that drives testimonials, product reviews, endorsements, word of mouth, fan-ning, retweeting, forwarding, logo-wearing….So passion is okay provided its the right kind, from the happy customers. The rest can eat cake.

Which Came First, The Chicken…

Circle back around to trust. You can’t be passionate about anything without being vulnerable and vested (hey! we’re talking emotions here!).  And you won’t ever willingly be vulnerable without having trust and confidence.

Buzzle.com author Don L. Price says it best:

“Trust is the true differentiating feature for any company in a world of increasingly commodity-like products and services. A relationship, founded on trust, is the only genuinely sustainable competitive advantage a company has.”

When there’s trust, when a brand truly recognizes transparency as an opportunity to get closer to its clients and chooses vulnerability (its mutual, you know) over cover-up, gobblety-gook fine print, and power games, good things happen. Like forgiveness. And an appreciation for respecting its consumers so much that being honest wasn’t really a choice at all. It was simply the obvious next step.

The Moral Of The Story

Your customers have trusted you to make good on their $19.99 or $1,999.99 investment. Don’t screw it  up. We’ve already lost too much already.  Another disappointment just might jade us.

1. When you’re late, I notice. If repeated, it makes me feel unimportant and insignificant.
2. When you reply to the punch list I emailed you without actually addressing any of my list items, I notice. And I begin to feel steamrolled.
3. When we have a recurring status call and you don’t join the conference, I notice. It tells me my time isn’t important to you.
4. When you accept my money but don’t deliver the product, I notice. One-sided relationships don’t work.
5. I recognize a “dodge and weave” a mile away (“…let me check with Joe Bob and I’ll get back to you, but he’s out today so it’ll probably be tomorrow afternoon, after he catches up from having been OOO…”)
6. It’s easy to determine when you really know nothing about my business, and haven’t tried to apply yourself either (Why else would you report our new site 95% complete and likely to launch in a couple of days? Any casual observer could see the styling issues, non-functional shopping cart, content misspellings, lack of inventory content…).
7. I expect you to do QA before you send me something to review. Even concepts have to be logical and relevent in order for me to evaluate them.
8. I never want to feel as though attempting to escalate my concerns would be fruitless. There has to be someone somewhere highly accountable for my satisfaction.
9. Don’t tell me all the reasons why something won’t work. Figure out what I’m trying to get done and suggest stop-gaps or alternatives or work-arounds.
10. Listen to me describe my needs, my situation, my ideas. Since you’ve read up on my market and my competition, you can ask intelligent questions to help me drill down to specific areas of pursuit, perhaps uncovering root cause/attention.
11. Recognize your own strengths and weaknesses. If you’re the creative visionary, don’t also blunder through serving as producer simply because your ego requires you to control everything. I know when I’m being condescended to. And because you *didn’t* immerse yourself in my biz, my market, you presume to know what’s best.
12. While I might seek to hire a skilled, experienced provider of XX (specialized) services, that’s not mutually exclusive to brand/market/category/channel interpretation.
13. Own your mistakes. I’ll own mine. I won’t persecute you for a genuine oversight when all other behavior indicates real interest and effort. But don’t get defensive when it’s your monkey.
14. Collaborative. Accountable. Quality-conscious. Detail-oriented. Reliable. Solution-focused. Attentive. These are key values to any service organization worth their salt.

I understand scope creep, well-written project briefs, statements of work, service level agreements, billable time, double-booking, and taxed account representatives. Having lived life agency-side for 16 years, I know the harsh realities of many clients not knowing what they want (need) until they see what they don’t like. Of decision-by-committee diluting the output of a project to the point it no longer serves the original objective strongly. But people, there are tools, processes, and plain ‘ole direct communication (phone! conference reports! status reports!) to address most of those challenges and threats.

Please get your act together. I’m not fooled. And while you may have already cashed my check, you won’t be getting any more.

* This rant dedicated to the shoddy web services companies, commercial photographers, and syndicated content suppliers I’ve run into lately. What the hell is wrong with you? Oh, and also to the propane company I prepay each winter that gave me the distinct displeasure of a freezing house and empty tank yesterday. Thanks, man. And yes, I did say *prepaid.* Also Iowa and December. ‘Nuff.

Those silly, disadvantaged monkeys…

Shut Up When I’m Talking To You!

Now those companies wouldn’t create marketing campaigns full of print ads, radio spots, direct mail, and online banners announcing their “La la la la, I can’t hear you, la la la la” position on social feedback, would they? Of course not. But if they didin’t, what do you want to bet their customers automatically assume some level of online listening, if only from the proliferation of corporate Web sites bearing “Follow us on Twitter!” badges, not to mention the astro-adoption rates and case studies documenting customer service satisfaction and general sentiment ratings skyrocket?

They wouldn’t formulate an official release statement stipulating that customers and prospects, even trade media and potential investors must phone toll-free 888-888-8888 between the hours of 8am-4:30pm CST Mon-Thur if they have hopes of being heard. Would they?

Tell us on our terms, or don’t tell us at all.  Huh?

That would seem a little stiff, a little rigid. It would put a lot of onus on the customer (et al) to initiate a connection under specific use terms dictated by the corporate giant. It certainly wouldn’t acknowledge the on-the-go consumer lifestyle, ‘always on’ connectivity, or the technology tools available widespread today.

And it dang sure wouldn’t send the message “We really care how you feel about our company and your purchase of our product. We know you had choices.”

And yet the newly released Social Media Survey conducted by PR Week and MS&L indicate that “Most marketers fail to use social media feedback to improve products or marketing efforts, even though monitoring customer attitudes and gaining business intelligence are the top two business uses of social media.”

Come Again?

Yep, you heard me.

• The communications channel exists.
• Er, lots of end-user customers use it. Prolificly.
• Companies know it.
• Customers are saying stuff (good, bad, and ugly) online.
• But many companies aren’t doing anything about it.

“Let Them Call Toll-Free!” (no cake)

The study reports almost 70% of marketers say they have never made a change to their products or marketing campaigns based on consumer feedback from social media sites.

In addition, 43% said lack of knowledge and expertise [Seriously? Do these folks not read? I have some Delicious tags I can share to help with that...] prevents them from using social media in their marketing programs. 39% said they are not convinced of its value or ROI.

The online survey polled 271 CMO’s, VP’s, and directors of marketing in the US during June 2009. Did I mention *online* survey? Can you say irony?

C’mon In, The Water’s Fine.

Yes, it takes resources, time, company-wide commitment, operations structure, ad nauseum to properly establish and maintain online customer support channels like the opportunity afforded by Twitter, for example (if adopted for that purpose) or online forums. I’m not making light of what could amount to an organizational shift, impacting several departments and certainly requiring new communications protocols be established. That’s big stuff, for sure.

But holy smokes, isn’t the risk far greater if you ignore the medium – and the messages (because they ARE happening) all together?

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.