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.

My husband is a builder and has a tendency to view solutions through a utility lens.  Is it the right size?  The right shape?  Does it work?  Will it last?  Yes? Move on.

I tend to take a more aesthetic route.  No, I don’t think there’s actually a place for a backless couch covered in fragile white fabric in a living room bare of aditional seating.  Not even for the sake of art, or in the absence of small sticky-fingered children.  That’s just pretentious.

I think there’s a special place where materials, purpose, and design coalesce into truly attractive, usable solutions that serve a life’s need.  Granted, there are fewer goods that land out of this category than those that actually do.  Those that are successful are primarily manufactured by Apple, no surprise.  I suggest there’s a lot to learn by looking in their direction, and it’s not only to be found with covetous eyes.

Focusing your business strategy on creating rewarding experiences while delivering functional necessity isn’t rocket science.  It’s about giving people what they want (and maybe a dash of vision for what they don’t yet know they’ll want) in a way that feels natural and intuitive.  Is that the definition of fulfillment?

I was reading the 9/8/08 issue of Businessweek and read an article titled “The Shape of A New Coke” by Jessie Scanlon and was really impressed by what I learned about Vice President David Butler.

When challenged to “do more with design” for the iconic brand, he didn’t just think about packaging in the sense of a graphic makeover. To quote the article, “. . .[he] talks about the benefits of smart design in language people understand.”  After lots of field research, Butler evidently gleaned that Coke needed to focus on brand identity, user experience, and sustainability.  The result?  An aluminum countour bottle that’s less expensive than a glass bottle, delivers colder beverages, and has a resealable cap.  It’s also made from recycled aluminum that’s also recycleable.  In a word, wow.

It would seem that Butler’s developments would help advance the brand in emotional ways. People tend to get a warm & fuzzy when they can have a product they like that’s comfortable to hold, convenient to port, is sexy-looking, and shelters them under the umbrella of eco-friendly.  And they identify with the distinct shape, to boot.

I can’t think of anything that would make it better – except maybe revert back to the original price point of it’s 1916 launch.  That would make for a fulfilling experience, wouldn’t it?

“Not all that rotates is gold.” – Jerry McGovern

and

Word of the Day for Wed., Aug. 13, 2008

chichi \SHEE-shee\, adjective:    Affectedly trendy.

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So although I’m posting remotely (purportedly on vacation, although perhaps the very act of me posting implies that there’s a “not so much” factor inherent), these two blurbs make me think about approaches to site design.  And perhaps because I’m female, I suggest the schools of thought are not entirely dissimilar to selecting a prom dress.

Does one go with the orchid lame with intricate beadwork?  Or the classic French blue cut in clean, sleek lines?

One shows and says.  The other suggests and implies.

Now, beyond the technical discussion of Flash and its optimization for search, there are a number of other facets to this academic discussion. 

For instance:

• Think about your brand essence.  What are the best ways to convey – to communicate – that essence?
• Consider your audience.  What are their expectations for authenticity and message integrity?  Credibility in platform, particularly in a 2.5 era, is vital.
• Factor in your audience again.  What do your segmentation profiles suggest about their skills and adoption curves?  How would feeds, video clips, drop-down menus, etc. play out for them?
• Form follows function. How do drivers of task, objective, and purpose factor in to the satisfaction and experience equation?

So I’m just thinking.  Some organizations might be smart with taking the chichi, fa-fa route.  Others might be smarter wtih the more purantanical route.

• Unify the vendors, ride operators, and other staff through team shirts styled in yesteryear fashion.  Nothing fancy, but a solid color button-front shirt with some embroidery and traditional styling would just “feel” right.
• Bring a sense of “event” by exacting simple hygiene and dress code standards.  There’s a saying about feeling the way you dress; if operators and vendors appear seedy, then they aren’t empowered to be confident, nor are they encouraged to interact with ride-goers in a positive way.
• If operators and vendors aren’t interacting with the crowed, then some of the authentic atmosphere is lost.  There should be a convivial feel to the experience, a sense of magic and awe.  That can be improved by the energy and vibe projected by the operators.
• Bring in the fair master, the charming, persistent, cajoling buy with the straw hat and cane who says things like “Step right up!” and “Win the little lady. . .”

I was disappointed at our fair to find the operators, well, dirty and inattentive, more focused on their text messages and their cigarettes than on delivering joy to fairgoers.  Surely my $100 should have bought me a little charm, a little authenticity.

One advantage of a deep understanding of your audience, of empathizing with their experiences both joyful and sorrowful, anticipating their needs and their receptor points, being sympatico with your customers – is critical insights that state of “oneness” could provide. Channeled insights could help a savvy marketer substantiate and garner internal support for a non-traditional branding endeavor: a purely experiential social media site. Which indirectly, yet implicitly, builds their own brand. Brilliant.

Obviously it’s critical to provide a corporate site with common elements and core fundamentals. And certain sectors necessitate certain functionality, as well. Online banking is cost of entry, isn’t it? Users are accustomed (trained) to sites delivering a set of function and value (Contact Us, About Us, etc.). Yours had also better pass the usability test or it’s as effective as talking, with no one around to listen. That is, I’d better be able to send Somebody an email when the system shuts me out for Repetitious Password Failure. They may come once, but dissatisfied or frustrated customers won’t come again.

I believe consumers today yearn for more. More than a scripted Our Philosophy and sanitized News. A special place where like-minded people can go to learn, laugh, share, and swap. Even escape to and explore. A virtual playground may just be their utopia.

I think Pruina hit the nail on the head with PetCentric Place (it pains me some to say that, my former Iams clients). PetCentric Place is a bona fide magazine site that “. . .presents the Purina brands to consumers in a fun, engaging, and light way,” says Kristin Ryan Fauss, director of marketing at Nestle Purina Petcare. “It’s a different way for consumers to experience our brands, other than going to dogchow.com or beneful.com. We wanted to reach the pet-owning consumer by combining useful content with engaging activities that will appeal to pet owners.”

By hosting the barbecue and inviting the pet owners to attend, so to speak, Purina is initiating the discussion and listening (what do you want to bet, steering, too?) to their advocates. By providing an outlet in which to make an emotional connection with the product, they’re strengthening a deep psychological involvement that delivers real value to the user.

How cool would it be if your tricked-out hospital site had a section where someone could design their own MD “diploma” or a section especially for families of preemies where growth can be catalogued and shared?

Hey, Clark Kent (your corporate site) knew when the situation called for Superman (your experience site).  He needed a phone booth in order to make an impact on the community.  fortunately, you already have your customer insights and your imagination.  No phone booth (or embarrassing Spandex) necessary!