AbleBrains

Experiencing v. Observing. What do your customers do?

My wife and I like to dance.  I admit it.   Typcially, we're 20 years older than most of the patrons in the clubs that we go to though.  She  - typically to Rock... me too, although I am a big fan of swing dancing and love Midsummer Night Swing @ Lincoln Center.

But last week we had a really interesting experience that got me thinking about how customers behave/react to your marketing and customer experience that your brand is aiming to deliver.  Do they truly experience your marketing and get immersed in the brand experience or do they simply observe it but don't react?

We were at the Santos party house in TriBeCa.  And we were having a great time,  Cold drinks, Hot dancing... a perfect early summer evening.  The band wasn't playing many covers... mostly original stuff, which we were digging and we were just flowing and dancing.   We stopped to get a drink, went back to our spot on the dance floor and noticed something odd -- we were the only people in the place that were dancing.  Everyone else was just standing there.  

Now, there were three reasons why they were just standing there -  (1) they thought the music sucked so they were waiting for another act to come on - but that clearly wasn't the case because most of the audience knew the lyrics to the songs being sung and were in fact singing along. (2) Kids these days (just loved using that phrase) didn't know how to have a good time - well I ruled that one out too for some obvious reasons or (3) the audience was observing the event and not experiencing it. They were not immersed or connected to the event emotionally and so they didnt' dance. 

 

Was there something different about my wife and I vs. the Millenial rich audience we were a part of? Did they not enjoy dancing?  While this notion of experiencing v. observing is an easy one to latch on to, I think there is a more nuanced reason behind the difference in behaviors.  The millenials in the room were experiencing differently.  Their enjoyment of the event was derived by a personal connection to the performer... talking to him - which they did, singing his songs and swaying to the music.  My wife and I, on the other hand, had different intentions... we went their to dance... we had a different intent based on our life experiences.  

The same happens with the the experiences that brands try to deliver to their customers. Brands today are trying to deliver compelling customer experiences in the digital engagements they serve up to their customers.  But they typically neglect to customize those experiences based on customer intent or generational influences.  One size does not fit all.  It doesn't work for digital engagement nor in-person.  The same holds true to sales engagements.  If, as a sales rep, you are not customizing your engagement strategy based both customer intent and generational influences you are not optimizing that engagement and are most likely leaving cash on the table.

If your brand caters to multiple generations or customers that engage with you with different intents, its a necessity to customize the Cx to those intents and generational differences.  To not do so, leaves loyalty and revenue opportunities on the dance floor.

Rock on! 

The Intersection of Marketing and User Experience

The pace of change in the online world is causing organizations to struggle to keep up with their online interactions with their customers. More and more of these interactions happen nowadays via the Interweb.  While these digital interfaces serve consumers everywhere, the user experience these consumers have shapes how they view the brands in their lives.  These visual interfaces and the user experiences they convey represent the the digital persona of a given brand. This means that the role of a Marketing Executive is more difficult and their influence must reach further into the organization than ever before.

First off, consumer expectations are much higher.  Many folks have lost patience with technology… they don’t want to learn, they want to do! To use technology that performs to expectations whether it’s a TiVo, a Mac Book Pro, iPad or TouchPad (whoops no worries about that device any more).  This impatience with user experiences has extended well beyond the consumer sphere and into enterprise applications as well.

Why is this happening??? Its because we have made great gains in user experience in the consumer space that individuals have expectations that those experiences be as engaging and intuitive in their work environments and why not?  It’s an entirely reasonable expectation.  The question you have to ask and answer is:  How can I as a marketer connect customers to my brand and by influencing product developments inspire lasting engagement?

Digital Interfaces live on and on

While marketing campaigns can change at a rapid pace, digital interfaces can live for years, sometimes decades, before undergoing major identity changes. SaaS solutions can change much more rapidly but do you want that?  If you change an interface too quickly, the user will never master the interface and guess what… they’ll be just as frustrated with a continually evolving interface as one that’s just plain awful to use.  Visual interfaces need to express and utilize what I like to call Iconic Implicature – a sense of intuitiveness that occurs just by looking at the graphical representations in that interface as well as  timelessness – a consistency that the user can count on so that the digital persona of the brand isn’t constantly changing.

Because both on-premise and Web-based applications have become more complex, we must balance style with usability in interface design. A good interface is a humble servant of functionality, but this means we have less opportunity to show a strong visual identity. Instead, the identity must live in the visual details, and the interactivity and usability become the memorable experience that the end user is seeking. But what about the brand?  Well, the brand's identity can still be expressed through the consistency of that interface.  Therefore, as Marketing Execs its incumbent upon you to extend your brand guidelines to those things well beyond creation of  Direct Marketing or Email Marketing pieces but to the product themselves.  As the true digital persona of the brand, these guidelines should guide interface designers to develop a consistent look and feel to your solution that is consistent, reliable and fun!

If your marketing organization is NOT involved in the look and feel of the solution, then get a SEAT AT THE TABLE.

The Marketeers Takeaway

Good design drives users to be more engaged with brands but don’t forget that how a product behaves irrespective of design also influences users to either be engaged or not. If you don’t focus on simplifying the complexities of a given solution and you are totally focused on the design then its just lipstick on a bulldog. If you think about it, a product’s design sets expectations as to the functional capability and usability of a product – if the interface is kludgy and complicated, then folks think the behavior of the product will be kludgy and complicated. If its easy to use then users expect the behavior of the product to be easy as well.  To understand where on this ease of use continuum your product should reside means having a thorough understanding of your customer (more on this in another post).

As product marketers, if you were to recommend a completely simplistic and consistent experience you may miss entire segments of your market – that is to have your product speak to many different groups of users – each with unique goals and usage contexts. At the end of the day you will need to implement some sort of Experience strategy, which will enable you to define an interface for multiple market segments and multiple user types, yet still, using a standards-based guidelines approach to developing user experiences.  

 

German User Groups Stepping Up The Pressure On SAP

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung notes that after the quarrelsome and strained relationship with former CEO Léo Apotheker, starting with but certainly not ending over proposed maintenance hikes, the SAP German User Group - DSAG is experiencing a better relationship with the SAP's new co-CEO, Jim Snabe. 

What I gleaned from the article is that  DSAG is moving from "critical distance" to "critical closeness" with SAP.  At least that's what  DSAG chairman Karl Liebstückel said.

It also looks like SAP customers are demanding that that they be more involved in product development and pricing decisions.  I gotta tell ya. I love this simply because, the company has been preaching co-innovation with customers and the market for years now. In fact that was one of the founding reasons to create the SAP Community Network. Now customers are coming back to SAP and saying "ok, put your money where your mouth is (literally!) and co-innovate with us."

So for customers to be demanding this "critical closeness" it says to me that the customer relationship (as viewed by the customer) is not as close as SAP thinks.  Only time will tell.

Hubris

From Wikipedia:

Hubris: extreme haughtiness or arrogance. Hubris often indicates being out of touch with reality and overestimating one's own competence or capabilities, especially for people in positions of power.

When I woke up this morning the word hubris popped into my mind (I also had the weirdest dream about overcoming hurdles but that's for another post).  Hubris.  I like the way it sounds.  The way it rolls off the tongue.  We all display a bit of hubris from time to time, whether we are in positions of power or not, as do organizations. 

Drawing on my experience in the enterprise software space, I've been thinking about the major enterprise software players. Are they hubristic in their dealings and the way they position themselves? At times... but at worst, its situationally dependent.  For example:

Vinnie Merchandani may see some hubris in how SAP had dealt with its customers regarding its maintenance policies.

Is it hubristic of Microsoft to not offer upgrade pricing or transfers for Office 2010?

Was it hubris that led Oracle to shut down a free support blog authored by one of its senior support people?

Overall, hubris seems to rear its ugly head in dealings with customers.  And that is indeed unfortunate. Typically, I don't believe these companies suffer from hubris although there are behaviors that arise from time to time that can be classified as such.  But the more these (or any) organization puts the customer at the center of their dealings and partners with them in all aspects, the less the tendency to display hubris.

Hubris occurs when an organization (1) thinks they know better than their customers what is right for them & (2) an organization believes that they can maintain the status quo that is beneficial to the firm, ultimately harmful to the customer and takes a "don't worry, the customer will just get over it" attitude.  They believe that customers will get used to the firm's new old way of doing things - when in fact its just a tactic to extract more value from the market. 

I do think that rather than trying to extract value at the expense of customers, customers need to be included in the process. In that way true sustainable value is created for both the supplier and buyer. 

Customers get down right evangelical when they are included.

Twitter Downtime: When Expectations Aren't Met

I'm on Twitter and I love it.  I love it because of the multi-threaded, real time social networking it provides me. I love it because of the opportunity to build new relationships with folks such as Sam Lawrence or Gia Lyons or David Armano or Erin Kotecki... I also believe in the customer experience a tool like Twitter provides.   It has multiple easy to use interfaces - that's a good customer experience, heck that's a great customer experience.  I like the extensibility of Twitter, the fact that an ecosystem of tools and related Mashups have sprung up to enhance the overall experience... There is one major problem with the experience tho and you all know what it is - the Twitter dial tone is frequently absent. And there's talk of the Twitterati moving to FriendFeed... why?

Inconsistency is a death knell to any customer experience.

Folks like you and me have expectations... for just about everything. How will our favorite restaurant be tonite?  How much traffic will there be on the roads?  How will our car drive? And how much uptime to expect from our online services?  Everyone has expectations.  Those expectations get set from our total experience with a service or product.  And when expectations are not met, over time they fall below an internal threshold (which only you know what that is) we seek alternatives, in everything in life, everything.  Twitter's downtime issues are no different, its users/customers have expectations around ease of use, portability, extensibility and availability.  Each of these affect the customer experience to more or lesser degrees but availability is a biggy! Twitter is an incredibly sticky tool not only because of its ease of use, portatbility and extensibility but because of the human networks that develop on Twitter - because of the relationships that are there.  But not even these great elements of a customer experience can withstand having our expectation threshold blown. Once doubt is sown, once expectations are missed, trust is blown.

Once trust is blown it doesn't matter if Twitter fixes its availability issues in a week or a year. Its already lost the opportunity it currently has. One might say, its already lost that opportunity for good.  Time will tell.

Starbucks Customer Experience Redux

A LOT has been written about the Starbucks Customer Experience and the companies' return to basics... re-training all employees on the core customer experience values that the company has driven in the past. Well I gotta tell ya, no amount of customer experience training makes up for a lack of product that is your bread and butter. 

Today, I went to catch the 8:03 train from New Canaan to Grand Central.  There is a little coffee shop right in the station and a Starbucks across the street.  I chose the Starbucks today because I wanted an extra strong coffee this AM.  I get on the line and notice its not really moving... hmmmm no announcements, no information being given out...

CE FAUX PAS NUMBER ONE - keep your customers informed!  Bad news is worse than NO News... ok, finally get to the front of the line, ask for my large coffee with a shot of espresso.. "oh Sir, we don't have any coffee right now but if you wait 5-10 minutes it should be no problem"... I got to the front of the line @ 8AM, train leaves @ 8:03... sorry, and I dashed, just getting to the train as the doors closed.   

CE FAUX PAS NUMBER TWO - ALWAYS, HAVE YOUR CORE PRODUCT AVAILABLE.   This Starbucks does a HUGE commuter business and really takes home the bacon on their commuter traffic.. so to not be able to support those customers (i'm not the only one who was left high and coffee dry) is not putting the customer at the center of your business and its not going to drive customer loyalty. Now I feel, "gee, what if they run out again tomorrow, I think I will just play it safe and buy my coffee at the station."

So...
CE Suggestion number 1:  You know those 12 cup "travel packs" that you sell?  Fill a few of them and keep them on hand for short falls just as this.

CE Suggestions number 2: Create a "Commuter Line", for those of us dashing for a train, we show our ticket, get on the line and get fast tracked service.  Think of it as an extension to your loyalty program

CE Suggestion Number 3: There really is no excuse for running out of brewed coffee, suggest that you look at the process and management of this particular Starbucks and refine.

During these rush rush times Starbucks has the opportunity to deliver a little (or big) cup of joy during the morning rush.. and that is afterall what they are selling... what a missed opportunity to drive affinity for their brand. Especially to non-fans such as myself.

Mashing Up Social Media and Customer Experience

Lets face it. Many of the markets we all play in have either commoditized or are on their way to commoditizing.   Product differentiation, once the critical element by which supplier's set themselves apart from competitors is fading. I'm not saying that product innovation isn't critical or that it shouldn't be pursued, or else how do we get these cool new toys but in highly competitive markets, how should you plan on setting yourself apart to gain competitive advantage?

My thesis has always been that Customer Experience is the lever to pull. Driving Customer Intimacy and enlarging the "tribe" of individuals who will evangelize your brand and your solutions is the key differentiator in today's markets.  Delighting customers with your products is certainly a step in the right direction but  what about the end-to-end experience of obtaining your products, using them, getting serviced on them?  Have you studied the way your customers want to acquire and use your solutions?  Have you put together a Voice of the Customer program to achieve customer co-innovation? Many of these programs can be facilitated and driven via Social Media tools and techniques. Some of my favorite tactics include:

• Digg-like clones are a great way to promote product ideas and have your customer community weigh in
• Corporate blogging initiatives promote the transparency that many consumers seek today and give them the vital window for them to peer in but for companies to look out on the market and talk with it
• Customer Ethnography - follow me home programs, such as the one Intuit developed to watch their customers actually use their software are critical to customer-led innovation elements. These real time engagements should be paired with online efforts and ongoing discussions that can be held in customer communities.
• Getting out of the way of your customers and prospects - its super when you close a sale but even better when your current customers want to do it for you.  Creating the opportunity for customers to evangelize to prospects is a great way to enable Word of Mouth marketing and gaining credibility for your organization - amazing what happens when the organization shuts up and lets the market talk!
• Social Networks which embrace friend and foe - check out GMNext.com.  I had a great conversation with Chris Barger, the strategic architect of the site and we discussed in great detail how GM has used this social networking platform to engage with not only proponents but market adversaries - such as the green movement to begin to heal old wounds and work on common solutions.  They've launched an explicit blog for this called Our Thoughts, Your Thoughts - kind of like a corporate "He Said, She Said" where both corporate and ideas or positions not taken by GM are also presented. This is then followed up by conversational commentary.

Delivering a compelling and unique customer experience is a huge culture change for many companies.  Most believe that they know the customer better than the customer knows his or herself.  That'd be incorrect.  There are many paths to building these experiences though but I think a great place to start is with Social Media... in a controlled and business-aligned fashion.

Toyota... do I look stupid???

I must. Because tonite I had one of the worst car experiences I've ever had. Susan and I are moving in a few weeks so it was time to get cars... that's right cars..not one but two in one shot.  We need both a Minivan to schlep the kids and dogs and stuff. And I need a car to commute or to get to the train station... we looked at the Honda Odyssey and Honda Accord and we looked at the Toyota Prius and Toyota Sienna.  We ended up going with the Toyotas because they drove better. Susan liked the Sienna over the Odyssey.

So we go in tonite under the following assumptions. (1) We could get a good deal on the slightly used floor model that the manager had been driving and smoking in and (2) because we were buying 2 vehicles at a shot we'd get a decent "volume" discount.

We explained what we wanted and we the answer back was a list price, including for the smoked in used Sienna. When our sales guy came back with our counter offer.  It was circled in Blue Ink with a Big "HA HA" written under it. If that wasn't a poor customer experience nothing is.

Did we not explain ourselves? So Mr. Ha Ha comes for a visit. I asked if he was Mr. Ha Ha. He said, yes he was and that our price for 2 vehicles was funny.  Really? I didn't realize that that amount of money out of my pocket was funny! Based on Toyota's recent advertising, it was perfectly reasonable pricing.  Mr. Ha Ha had to be the worst Toyota has. He was arrogant, self-serving, customer disinterested ...what's called in Yiddish a Chazzer... should I have been surprised that auto companies put customer experience on the back burner?  I was surprised that Toyota did.

So what did we do?  We then "downgraded models" so we could get the model with just the things we needed for the price we wanted... he came back with a price that was insulting.  Maybe 3K under list combined for both cars.

At this point we tried to leave, we put our coats on and were out the door, truly insulted but we were treated with a "no no no" don't leave we can work this out.

We then tried to lease.  To which we were treated with another absurd price. We went thru another "what just do you need in the cars" exercise. He dropped the lease price 30 bucks. 

It was... at the end of the day,one of the worst, most infuriating experiences we had ever had.

So Toyota, I've owned you before and I've owned Hondas and Land Rovers and Acuras and hosts of other vehicles but never will I buy a Toyota again.  We're going to give Honda our business.  And all because of the customer experience we had with Mr. Ha Ha.

From The: "Great Designers Don't Always Deliver Great Experiences" Department

Fascinating that a company so dedicated to design, innovation and superior customer experience in their products and online, doesn't know how to manage unsolicited  co-innovation suggestions from their fans.

clipped from www.allbusiness.com Fortune Magazine lists 101 Dumbest Moments In Business (2007). Here's number 51: Nine-year-old Shea O'Gorman sends a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggesting ideas for improving her beloved iPod Nano, including adding onscreen lyrics so people can sing along. She gets back a letter from Apple's legal counsel stating that the company doesn't accept unsolicited ideas and telling her not to send in any more suggestions.

The Viscious Cycle of a Poor Customer Experience

The New York MTA - who runs the City's mass transit systems is no stranger to poor customer experience.  Its actually ingrained in almost every aspect of their business.  And its a vicious cycle...

...which begins with the expectations of the customer.  This reinforcing negative customer experience cycle, while different at the nodes, is one that ANY organization can fall into. The Subways offer a dramatic example though so we'll stick with them for now. All customer experiences begin with the expectations customers bring to those experiences.  In the case of the NYC Subways, customers expect a clean, safe and on time delivery to their destination.  That's it!  I'm sure there are long tail expectations as well but for the most part that is it.  But if just one customer expectation is missed, the value of the customer experience begins to fall apart.  Continuing with the Subway example - the subways are overcrowded.  Why?  My experience is that there are too few subways running, therefore the cars are crowded, which if you've ever ridden a NYC subway means a delay.  A delay as people try to jam into the cars so the conductor can't close the doors.   The end result is that the MTA is forced to make continued adjustments to their schedules sometimes sitting in a station just waiting for the stars to align or taking a local train and having it run express.  This is extremely destructive to the customer experience. Why?  Lets go back to expectations again.  Customers expect to a clean, safe and on time delivery to their destination.  But when your train skips your stop or goes express forcing you to change trains, one is forced to make an adjustment to one's own commute and very often as a result are late getting to one's destination.  So what can the MTA learn from all this?

When a customer's experience is not equal to their expectations, especially when there has been a monetary exchange then a Detractor is born.  Not that I can find any real proponents for the NYC Subway system but the MTA is headed down a slippery slope. Eventually the customer population will reach a tipping point, when in fact the customer experience for the money is so poor and the frustration level is so high that customer will revolt.  I don't know what form that revolt might take, whether it be a boycott or increased use of transportation alternatives but it will happen.

As in all markets, competition makes for better products and services.  But lacking competitive pressure, a monopoly has few incentives to deliver a superior customer experience...and their customers are subject to poor decisions on a daily basis.  Competitive pressure is a key lever in the quest for differentiation in crowded markets.