More chances to serve customers in the information revolution

Wikipedia defines customer service as follows:

The provision of service before, during and after a purchase.

Takeaways:  One – Customers are gathering intel about your brand before you even have an opportunity to “sell” them.  Two – Every aspect of your brand (including business processes) that surrounds them during the sales process matters.  Three – Customers file mental score cards about your brand that matter…sometimes much later.  And in the digital age, sometimes at scale.

Surprise and delight

Jamier L. Scott is quoted by Efraim Turban, a professor of information systems at California State University, in his book Electronic Commerce – A Managerial Perspective, as saying:

“Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.”

Takeaways:  One –  Attributes of service should be dovetailed with each milestone of the conversion funnel/decision cycle; there are tactics and even processes appropriate for each progressive layer.   Align your brand message with relevant consumer tasks.  Two – Service overlays or boosts satisfaction.  Therefore, customer satisfaction is derived from met rational and emotional needs, creating an environment for trust and affinity.  Two – Service is about holistically addressing and even anticipating triggers along the decision path.  Answering before asked, giving before needed, introducing other to add more value than expected.

Service isn’t overhead.  It’s the cost of doing business

Micah Solomon writes the following in his Fast Company article titled “Seven Keys to Building Customer Loyalty and Company Profits”:

“Online customers are literally invisible to you (and you to them), so it’s easy to shortchange them emotionally. But this lack of visual and tactile presence makes it even more crucial to create a sense of personal, human-to-human connection in the online arena.”

Takeaways: One – Just like email can omit tone, inflection, and body language (often leading to misunderstandings), eCommerce transactions and self-serve info search omit the human element, the personal touch, the concierge level of attention to detail.  Like the mint on your pillow, you can certainly live without it, but boy do you take notice when its there, a sweet surprise.  Two – The nature of online platforms and task completion can be very sterile, for reasons of utility, personal security, and more.

That means more than ever – as the web is the first destination for product research and a growing slice of retail spend, you’re relying on your brand to carry a lot of weight in the spaces where prospects and customers spend time.  Are your brand messages woven consistently throughout each channel, to provide optimal brand experience (and customer service) where other inputs (touch, taste, smell) don’t exist?

Not a drop in the bucket

In their book Rules to Break and Laws to Follow, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D. write:

“Customers have memories. They will remember you, whether you remember them or not.” Further, “customer trust can be destroyed at once by a major service problem, or it can be undermined one day at a time, with a thousand small demonstrations of incompetence.”

Takeaways:  One – brand promise still matters, even in the information revolution.  Two – everyone spending their money wants to feel like they matter, that they count and are appreciated for having made the ‘right’ brand selection.

Give ‘em more than what they ask for and you’ll be repaid ten fold.

This is a busy weekend in Las Vegas.  At the risk of sounding oxymoronic, let me quickly add that I’m referring to BlogWorld & New Media Expo 2008, the convention for connectivity.  I’m workin’ the laptop, and my TwitterFox keeps catching my eye – so I invariably check out the new Tweets and read all about the after parties, the panelists, see the Flikrs.  Good times had by all, it sounds like.  Although I’m here and they’re, well, there, the stream of updates and photos and even fresh posts has me feeling like I’m a partygoer.  It’s like being included without all the slot machine noise and long line hassle.

So to connect the bunny trails, there’s the idea about inclusion without borders/distance.  And I’m pairing it together with an 9/15/08 AdAge article about General Motors’s historic branding and advertising strategies.  And where this mashup leads (at least me, anyway) is a space full of opportunity for a brand whose lineage of positioning demonstrates tremendous success at building community through customer affinity.  Only now there’s the element of viral.

Connecting with Customers – Then

GM is celebrating their centennial, 100 years of invention and innovation, and the 9/15/08 issue of AdAge is chock-full of great articles even marketers who are non-GM fans should read.  I’ve found the chronology of positioning and message particularly intriguing because at my age I can recall a good number of those campaigns, and by extension they resonate with periods of my life.

Author Nick Lico (“Chevy takes value, volume message, and wraps it in flag.”) shares a graphic with the caption “Campbell-Ewald advertising draws a line from America’s pastime to America’s car in this mid-1970′s campaign.  Chevy’s US unit sales topped 3.69 million during that 5-yr span.”  The graphic – I’ll bet it rings a bell – pictures a baseball, a slice of pie, and a loaded hot dog.  Yes, I’m referring to the Americana-esque campaign from your childhood that suggested Chevy’s were as genuine and authentic as our country’s favorite pastime, home-baked goodness, and nitrate-laden fun friend food.  These trucks have long been a crucial element in Chevy’s product portfolio. And American cowboys, firefighters, farmers, and construction workers – the elemental backbone of the country – were central to the campaigns.

Advantage Lost Due to Change in Clime

Consider that same iconic brand and today’s tumultuous political, economic, environmental space.  Legislation surrounding manufacturing, the rising cost of gasoline, an unbalanced national budget, consumer debt/spending woes, natural disasters (think Ike and refineries), and the dire urgency to conserve non-renewables.  That’s the makings of a marketing quagmire.

Enter brands like Toyota and Honda, with reputations as dependable and reliable.  Their primary product foci have been (and continue to be) cars, which undeniably achieve higher fuel economy than their larger truck counterparts.  The comparison may involve fruit, but certainly not fruit borne from the same tree (car vs. truck).

Connecting with Customers – Now

The necessity of focusing and promoting  gas-friendly Chevy choices rather precludes the line of trucks because it lacks a ring of authenticity and credibility.  While there are 8 Chevy vehicles that achieve over 30 miles to the gallon, the truck certainly isn’t one of them.

The same message – and means – for reaching and connecting with prospective buyers just isn’t applicable to those in the truck target set.

That’s the Weaknesses and Threats (the W and T of the academic SWOT analysis). Let’s consider the Strengths and Opportunities before Chevrolet.

Find Them Where They Live

Okay, so the green and efficient message gets worked over for GM cars.  GM trucks, not so much.  However the greater market may swing, there’s still a very real need for quality workhorses.  How might GM  reach and message these prospects and potential evangelists?  And what do they need to consider?

• Be authentic, be frank.  Be real.
  • These are key personality traits that consumers associate with the brand.  They must be maintained.  There’s enough “duck & hide” going on elsewhere in the news.
• Self deprecation never hurt anyone.  In fact, it could engender consideration and trial.
  • Trucks have and will consume greater amounts of fuel/energy than cars.  Talk about that.  Not the kinetic mechanics, but the reality that trucks are what they are.  And for a reason.
• Share a long-range vision.
  • Realities shared, what about a peek into the possibilities of tomorrow?  There’s room for improvement, and I’ll bet somebody smart is figuring out some opportunity areas right now.
• Reinforce smart decision-making.
  • It’s okay to need, or even want, a truck.  Undeniable reality is that car’s aren’t appropriate for every body, every task, every locale, every family and its dynamic.  If you’re gonna buy, Chevy is the right place to look.
• Embrace the mediums that will encourage and cultivate connectivity
  • The warm fuzzies of yesteryear have worked so well for Chevy, there’s no need to completely abandon the implied invitation to join their proud and stalwart group.  That group needs to be nurtured and community fostered through careful planning and management.  Huge potential for leveraging SM platforms to link up like-minded individuals, and foster the affinity.  Link up those with specific models, those with oldest models, those who have pimped out their wheels.  What are some of those amazing stories just waiting for a forum?
• Continuity and sustainment required
  • Like anything in life worth having, an active and vociferous social community takes time, attention, parenting, defending, and maintaining.

I’m looking forward to seeing what General Motors, and its agency partners, whip up.  Things may look tough for the US automaker right now, but my bet is on their ability to stick it out, suck it up, and come out with guns blazing.  For their sake, for ours, and for the planet’s.

Timeline of Compelling Campaigns

1975  “Baseball, Hot Dogs, Apple Pie and Chevrolet”

1986  “Heartbeat of America”

1991  “Like a Rock”

2003  “An American Revolution”

Which is why I’m just now getting to the August edition of Multichannel Merchant, patiently gathering dust for like 3 weeks now.  On my pass through the mag tonight, I found an article by Andrea M. Hill titled “The Multichannel Trilogy,” and I’m so very glad I read it.

Ms. Hill article opens with a classic scenario of “who dunnit?” including a conversation about which clues to follow. 

What I mean is, the article discusses how the various stakeholders of a project or product – creative director, marketing manager, Web manager, and in many cases, client – are all wondering where failure stems, and which pieces of the marketing mix (especially media) are rejiggered to try to set things to rights again.  There are a lot of choices and variables which makes the determination all the more confusing.

The essence of the article is that if your organization finds itself in this place, it’s likely an indication of misalignment between value proposition, strategy, and brand, and by zeroing in on foundational truths, achieving stability and growth is possible.

The article features a reference – and I believe endorsement – of a book titled The Discipline of Market Leaders by Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersma.  The book encourages brands to choose a primary value proposition and let it lead.  The authors believe there are only three propositions:  customer intimacy, product/process superiority, and operational efficiency.  Think Nordstroms, Chrysler, and Wal-Mart as branded representatives, respectively.

• Customer intimacy focuses resources to the people, programs, and investments that promote strong customer relationships to increase customer value.
• Product/process superiority focuses resources to the people, programs, and investments that guarantee they have the hottest, most advanced products in the category.
• Operational efficiency focuses resources on the people, programs, and investments that guarantee Operational efficience is about costs – containment, reductions, and transformations.

The authors don’t suggest mutual exclusivity, however.  More that a brand choose to channel its energies most strongly on one value prop – kind of like “this is what we will judge every decision by.” This will be our RTB, a strand of our competitive advantage DNA, our POD.   The other two propositions factor into the equation (alas, you can’t ignore fiscal prudency or new product innovation altogether, can you?).

At that point – when you have collectively landed on a single value proposition – you’ve granted yourself the keys to solving all kinds of management issues.  Now you can begin to build sound strategies to address goals because you have a defined and consistent metric.  Rather than discussing the media mix or tactic, the aforementioned conversations should shift to discuss messaging, building emotional connections, and cultivating affinity.

A last poignent suggestion the author makes is that the brand is nurtured by the entire organization.  As the recent author of our company’s strategic methodology which centers around engaging all organizational departments within a hospital in order to develop and carry forth blue ocean strategies, I gave a “hurrah!”and felt some measure of personal satisfaction.

A recent article in .NET (UK) magazine provided a quote from an agency principle who said (paraphrase) “We have lunch together frequently.  People work things out much more effectively and efficiently over a crust of bread than they do in 300 emails.”

That quote provides perfect closure for me.  For a brand to be successful, it must know precisely, articulately what it stands for, and it must actively invite all of its constituants – employees, partners, local communities – into the circle to share the love.  Inviting stakeholders rather than pushing them to another policy or announcements page demonstrates trust and encourages two-way conversation.

My husband selected Veridian Credit Union, formerly John Deere Credit Union.  Long story short, I’ve pledged my allegiance, and my paycheck, to Veridian.  What makes them different from Wells Fargo (boo!) or Bank of America (hiss!)?  Well, it’s simple – they treat me like a valued customer.  An obvious and perhaps even passé’ philosophy, but it’s one that works on me.  And maybe you, too since I’m a brand steward creating my own conversation.

The “Valued Customer” philosophy manifests itself through the way that Adam or Aimee (depending on their schedules) recognize me immediately (uh, I don’t exactly qualify as a “big depositor” so that’s not why).  They are quick with a smile and a kind word, they verify which account I need to use.  They let me email them with transaction instructions, and they even make suggestions about ways to earn a little more, or save a little more.  Sure, that’s simple persuasive selling of their own products, but I’m unoffended because they’ve gained my trust and emotional attachment.

My point is this:  I must have a bank.  I can choose any bank.  And then I can change my mind and choose another bank.  But I make the conscious decision to drive 6 blocks out of my way to Veridian where there is no drive thru (gasp!) and bank with Adam and Aimee.

I believe that strong emotional attachments borne out of a genuine cultural philosophy can help brands prevail in today’s climate.  What do you believe?