Customer Experience Crossroads

The ugly dark side of permission marketing

Permission marketing was thought to be the salvation to getting connected to customers, and simultaneously getting control of spam. Well, we're experiencing it now, and it has some nasty side effects.

Here's one that I seem to be experiencing several times a week, and maybe you are too. [Or maybe you are in charge of a program like this, and just never gave it any thought.]

The bad old way:
[1] We got your address and just sent you stuff, like it or not
[2] Once we got your e-mail address, we just sent you stuff electronically, like it or not

The even worse new way:
[1] We call you to check if we can send you stuff. This is important, since we don't want to be spammers. We only want to send out material when we have your permission.
[2] If you agree, we ask you to confirm all your details, including e-mail. We may ask you a few other qualifying questions about your company. Don't worry that you're not getting any information here, it's all going to be in the informative attachment.
[3] We send you some e-mail -- usually it has an attachment that is a PDF file of a PowerPoint or a brochure.
[4] We call back later to enquire if you have read it. You did give us permission to send it. Is there some reason you haven't read it?
[5] If you haven't had time to read it, that's okay, we'll diarize to call you again.
[6] Still haven't read it? No problem, we'll keep calling.

What's the problem here:
Most of these programs are run by people who have no ability to answer questions about the company or its services. If they are salespeople, they don't want to take the time.

If you ask them questions, they tell you that the information is contained in the PDF, if you would just agree to let them send it to you.They would really like you to read it first, and THEN call with your questions.

Typically, these organizations know totally nothing about the company they are calling. [That would be me, my company. Or you and your company. They haven't read our web site. They haven't read our directory listings. They haven't read your stuff either. They have invested nothing so far.]

Even if I tell them I'm not interested because we don't do that type of work, they want to send me stuff anyway. And they call back anyway. They think my needs might change in future, and they would like permission to keep in touch.

Someone, somewhere, thinks this is good direct marketing. I hope you're not one of them.

Go back to the past to find the future -- find a real sales person:

Here's the thing. My boutique organization is getting two to three calls like this each week, and on rough weeks, two to three calls like this a day. I'm starting to not take calls from numbers I don't recognize. Just how much traction do you think you can get from this approach?

Real sales people talk to prospects. They don't waste their time talking to non-prospects. And they do this quickly and politely. I've encountered a few -- they are out there, and you can hire them if you look. They are worth their weight in mailing lists.

Before you embark on a program like this, ask yourself why anyone should invest any time at all reading about your company if you haven't invested in reading about theirs.

Self-expression in the office: Staples M line

In our culture, we are all engaged in a labour of self-creation. We create and present the self to the world through all of our many choices -- where we live, the kind of work we do, our hobbies, our clothes, our accessories. This is the essence of a consumer culture, and a major reason that brands are so important. Brands are signifiers of meanings, and this project of self-creation is a process of building and communicating meanings. [Yes, we are getting to office supplies.]

Staples has discovered that office supplies are a form of self-expression. Even those that can go get a pen from a stationery closet spend their own money on office supplies. Fascinating too that men spend more:

"Staples reports that consumer appetite for such things is so strong that they spend their own money rather than charge it as an business expense. On average, workers spend $90.14 per year on office supplies that reflect their style, with men spending an average of $134.00 per year, and women spending $101.00." (MediaPost, May 13, 2008)

Personally, I know that the ring-bound notebooks and classification file folders I take into meetings have garnered comments more than once from clients. [And I wish they were a little more unique. If Staples was offering classification folders with style, I'd be putting in an order today. I have to work with what's shown below.]

We know that expensive pens have been the mark of executive for years. In some industries, it's not just a pen, it has to be a fountain pen. Or a felt-pen or gel-writer if you are a creative type. And either a limited-edition design, or a genuine antique.

Staples has research that suggests a huge majority -- 82% -- notice office supplies such as "an eye-catching file folder or pen", more than they notice shoes, for example. Which totally makes sense -- how much time do you spend looking under the table at meetings anyway?

Staples has launched this venture with a completely un-Staples looking web site.

If you visit a few of these pages you'll immediately see the message of indulgence. These items are being presented like cupcakes and petits-fours. There are charming push-pins shaped like old typewriter keys, and paperclips too fancy to throw away.

The look of these materials suggests to me that Staples has learned a lot from the success of the scrap-booking industry, where people spend hours just to make a single photograph look nice.

Susan's take:

Some brands are all about the organization. It's all "we, we, we". But customers are all about "me, me, me". Buy Apple and it says you are a person who appreciates good design, and you are probably creative too. Buy Starbucks and it says you are an urban sophisticate with a European sense of style. But what the heck does HSBC say about you? What does Fidelity say about you? What does AT&T say about you? In my view, not much -- most services brands are about the service, not about the customer. Virgin is one of the real exceptions to this pattern.

For readers:

Our assignment this week is to see how the Blackberry brigade adds their unique style to their berry. All observations welcome. Extra credit for photos or links to Flickr, etc.

Resources:

Staples Says File Folders Sum Up One's Personal Style by Sarah Mahoney, MediaPost, May 13, 2008

More on Toyota innovation: relentless, relentless

"If Toyota doesn’t look like an innovative company it’s only because our definition of innovation — cool new products and technological breakthroughs, by Steve Jobs-like visionaries — is far too narrow. Toyota’s innovations, by contrast, have focused on process rather than on product, on the factory floor rather than on the showroom. That has made those innovations hard to see. But it hasn’t made them any less powerful."

- James Surowiecki

I like thinking about Toyota and innovation, because they have many characteristics that are challenging for companies, such as:

• a large workforce
• huge, embedded infrastructure costs
• subject to the vagaries of commodity price swings
• highly regulated industry at national and international levels
• highly competitive market, and getting worse every year
• mature industry
• well-known, well-established product category
• not a digital product, and unlikely to be part of the free-conomy any time soon

These are structural challenges that most of my clients have to deal with. They are not Apple, and not Google. This is a company that has all the problems above, and yet has brought their ability to manage steady progress to an art form.

In fact, at senior levels, the real work is on the meta-task of improving their improving.

Any of us can learn from this discipline. We can challenge ourselves to make daily small improvements to systems and practices. We can stop settling. Stop settling on small stuff today, and you'll be surprised at the energy this gives you to push at bigger problems.

Don't settle

In managing customer experience, a lot of settling goes on. Small things are assumed to be too small to matter to customers, and so they are allowed to go on. Here's a few that immediately come to mind:

• We only open one side of the double doors in the morning, leaving customers to push into a locked door for the rest of the day
• We don't worry that there aren't enough places to hang all the clothes in the change-room
• We excuse the fact that the print is too small to read
• We post signs telling people if they park there for more than 15 minutes, we can tow their car
• We leave people on hold with a steady stream of advertising in their ear, while reminding them that we really care

In a number of years of consulting on customer experience, I have been involved in presenting recommendations to clients. There are usually some that are easy to implement. I mean REALLY easy.  Like making your parking signs friendlier. And there are some that are much more difficult, like reorganizing work roles. Clients almost never implement the easy stuff, even when they agree it's a good idea. And they often make a pretty half-hearted effort on the difficult stuff, expecting great results in a month or two.

For example -- pets are important to people. So make your premises pet friendly. Put a water bowl out in the good weather. Have a tie-up zone outside the front door. You could even put out a colorful mat that says something like, "for our favorite customers". But many organizations don't bother with these small things. They want the great leap forward. After which they plan to coast again.

Many organizations can't even be bothered to copy obviously good ideas that the competition generated.

With customer experience, however, there are rarely great leaps. It's a game of inches, not Hail Mary passes. Oddly enough, you complete more long passes when you are really good at the inches. And Toyota is a good example of that, too.

Resources:

A great short article in The New Yorker about how Toyota stays on top and keeps relentlessly pushing ahead: The Open Secret of Success, by James Surowiecki (May 12, 2008 edition). Brought to my attention by one of my favorite daily scans, Marketing Daily, from MediaPost.

Co-creation watch: Lolcats

There seems to be an endless appetite for amusing ourselves with frippery. Here's the LOLcat I made today.
What I am wondering is this... is there anything on your web site that is designed only to amuse, only for the sake of amusement? Or is it all sales, sales, sales and more sales?
Just asking.