Category: Customer service

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Customer service Engagement Marketing

The Secret to Differentiation in a Me-Too World

In a recent “Marketing Minute” segment on Trish Lambert’s Internet radio show, Real People, Really Leading, Trish talked about the challenges of maintaining a USP (unique selling proposition) in a world of basic sameness.

She is so right on.  In today’s highly commoditized world, you can stand out with the latest, greatest new product or service … for a while anyway, until someone else comes along with something better.

Putting the “People” in USP

It’s an organization’s people who make the brand’s USP really unique. Competitors can match your product, price, promotion, even place … but the one thing competitors absolutely cannot copy is the relationship your people have with your customers.

That’s the real point of differentiation.

Maybe we ought to change USP to stand for:

  • Unique & Stellar People, or
  • Uniquely Superb People, or
  • Uniquely Successful People … you get the idea.

Considering the quality of your people, would your competitors be able to stand up to your USP?

Note: You can hear Trish’s “Marketing Minute” on her radio show broadcast on Thursday afternoons (5 PM EST/2 PM PST) or listen to the archived shows found in the Content Library section.  And if you want to hear my interview on internal marketing (Marketing from the Inside Out), scroll down the content library for the March 16, 2006 show.

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Customer service

Georgia Aquarium – A Must Sea Experience

If you’re taking a trip to Atlanta, check out the new Georgia Aquarium.  And if Atlanta isn’t in your future travel plans, I suggest you reconsider … believe me, it’s worth the trip!

Last month while in Atlanta on business, a friend arranged a special visit to the Georgia Aquarium, the newest and largest aquarium in the world.  Here’s why I recommend it so highly:

  • The variety of marine life is incredible, ranging from beautiful & graceful beluga whales to a variety of wacky-looking sea creatures.
  • The place was designed with the visitor’s experience in mind.  There are great displays all around – you can actually walk underneath a giant tank to see fish swimming above you.  And you can get real close to the sea-life with several hands-on activities, including being able to touch manta rays.
  • Somebody there (the aquarium planners or staff) has a great sense of humor – on entering the aquarium I recall a notice that visitors are welcome … as long as they don’t bring their fishing poles!

What also impressed me was the staff’s enthusiam & commitment to the visitors’ experience.  While on tour with the Director of Education, there were several times he stopped to clean up some napkins or paper litter that was left on the floor.

Needless to say, I was hooked!

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Customer service Engagement Marketing

Invitation to a Brand Marriage & More

I forgot to mention this in my last post when I told you about Bill McEwen’s book, Married to the Brand.

At the end of the book, readers are offered a complimentary six-month trial subscription to the Gallup Management Journal.  It’s a great way to keep up with the latest in customer- and employee-engagement.

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Customer service Marketing

Holiday Shoppers: A New (Unscientific) Segmentation Model

What a relief!  The holiday shopping frenzy (pre- and post-Christmas sales) is over!

For my own shopping, I use a mix of in-store and on-line purchasing.  The in-store retail experience gives me the opportunity to observe the behaviors of consumers and service providers.  (I’m a social psych major who ended up as a career marketer, so I can’t help it.)

While waiting in long lines at a few stores with centralized check-outs, I noticed three types of consumers:

  • the impatient ones – characterized by frequent checks of their watches, heavy sighing or expressions of disgust, and/or glaring looks at the cashiers in front of the slow-moving lines
  • those clearly overwhelmed by holiday pressures – who wandered around the stores with that “deer-in-the-headlights” look
  • the more patient consumers – who made the best of the situation by socializing with other like-minded folks in line, maintaining goodwill given the spirit of the occasion (“You’ll have this during the peak of the Christmas shopping season …”), and/or rationalizing the trade-off of low service levels for discount prices.  (It’s also possible for some in this segment that their extended tolerance was induced by eggnog or other pre-holiday toasting.)

Granted, some people enjoy the hustle & bustle, sometimes push ’em & shove ’em experience of holiday shopping (including those procrastinators whose goal is to get the latest possible postmark on their April 15th tax returns); but I don’t think it applies to most of the shoppers I observed.

Inclement weather & transit strikes aside, is it any wonder that on-line retailers did so well this holiday season?

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Customer service Engagement Marketing

Employee & Customer Trauma Cause Brand Damage

My recent posts dealt with the employee-customer happiness/satisfaction link and employees as personification of the brand.

Unfortunately, some managers may be blind to these self-reinforcing relationships, but not customers.

Customers are quick to pick up on signals of employee frustration & dissatisfaction, whether conveyed deliberately or not.  Consider a consumer’s experience in dealing with employees who:

  • lack sufficient product knowledge to help customers
  • are not clued in to the marketing messages being communicated to customers
  • genuinely want to help customers, but are hampered by a lack of internal support.

Any one of these situations that repeatedly occur reflect negatively on a company, its employees, and management.  Even worse, it puts an organization at risk to:

  • lose customers & income
  • lose employees (while incurring turnover expense)
  • negatively impact the company’s reputation (as a result of customer & employee churn), and
  • inflict serious brand damage.

Here’s a case where preventative medicine is preferable to acute care.  My prescription?  A healthy dose of internal marketing’s 3 Rs (Respect, Recognition & Reinforcement) applied regularly.

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Customer service Engagement Marketing

Happy Employees & Customers

I came across a great post (one of many) in Olivier Blanchard’s The Brand Builder blog that reinforces the happy employee-happy customer link (it even sports a title similar to one of my earlier posts).

What I love about Olivier’s post is “The Wheel of Customer Service and Brand Identity Doom” that models what he describes as “a self-perpetuating vicious cycle of substandard customer-to-brand experiences.”

It’s a great visual and one that many managers need to be reminded of.  Sadly, there are also too many consumers and employees who would agree.

More to follow in my next post …

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Customer service Engagement Marketing

Employees Personify the Brand

In his blog, From the Marketing Trenches, Jonathan Dampier reinforces the critical role employees play in presenting a company’s brand to the public.  And he laments the fact that there are organizations out there who still don’t get it.  (As consumers, we all have our horror stories about these companies.)

With the best intentions and creativity, a company can put out a spectacular marketing message; i.e., the brand promise.  But if the customer’s experience – as actually delivered by employees – is inconsistent or conflicts with the company’s marketing message, who are customers gonna believe:  the marketing or their own experience?

That’s why organizations need to be reminded that employees ARE the brand.  As Len Berry, marketing professor at Texas A&M, so aptly put it: “the brand walks around on two feet.”

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Customer service

Hooters Air: Flight of Fancy is a Real Bust

If customer service and service reliability are important to you, then don’t even think of flying Hooters Air!  Trust me, I know from personal experience.

In June I booked the airline for a cross-country trip to attend a family wedding in October. Yes, people laughed at me when I told them we were flying Hooters Air, but the choice was appealing based on a combination of great rates AND the schedule – particularly the one-stop/no change of planes.  My husband, brother, sister-in-law and I were traveling with my elderly mother who can’t easily navigate airports that well (especially changing planes).

I figured business was good for them, especially with five new passengers.  But alas …

In confirming the flight just this week, I learned the flight was canceled.  No reason given other than being told they decided to stop flight service from Las Vegas to Allentown.

Damage control: what not to do

So I asked: at this point, since they had our reservations (and money) in hand for several months and it’s just three weeks before our departure date, what were they gonna do to help us with other arrangements?

The answer?  Other than refunding our money, not a thing.

And we’re stuck making other travel arrangements with limited seating (this close to the trip) and almost all fares double in price.

Hey, Hooters: ever hear of the concept of service recovery?  It’s a basic part of customer service —  taking care of your customers when there’s a problem, especially one you created.

Just like your brand, whatever genius is handling your airline’s customer service is a big b – – b!

My marketing advice?  When it comes to wings, stick to the buffalo kind … it’s way too much of a stretch for you to be competent in handling any other type of wings.

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Customer service Engagement Marketing

Corporate Culture Thought for the Day

Don’t you just love all those car ads promoting consumer pricing based on employee discounts?  (“You pay what our employees pay!”)

Treating customers like employees … an interesting concept.

Ponder this (if you dare)

Let’s take it beyond sales promotion for a moment.  Here’s an interesting question for you to consider: What would be the impact on your customers if they really were treated like employees of your organization?

The answer depends on your organization.  If you and your colleagues can respond positively, you’re among the fortunate.

If your answer is anything less than positive, my heart goes out to you (and your fellow employees and your customers).  In this case, if you’re able to explore other options, here’s my advice (with apologies to Lee Iacocca): If you can find a better deal with another employer, take it!

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Customer service Musings

Go Figure!

OK, so it’s not a perfect world. Even in successful, customer-centric organizations there are still pockets of staff who don’t recognize or respect their internal customers.  It’s hard to believe, though, how certain areas can get away with this.

One of my colleagues works for a company that is part of a larger organization.  When we met recently, she shared her frustration about a particular (more like peculiar) department in the parent company. In dealing with some of the staff there, her requests for assistance are typically met with one of three responses.  “Sometimes we’re mildly ignored, ” she told me, “and other times we’re barely tolerated or just dismissed.”

We pondered this situation over lunch, including various efforts to bring it to management’s attention at the parent company (to no avail).  And we concluded that it’s just one of corporate life’s little mysteries.

The good news is the rest of the organization is genuinely committed to customer satisfaction.  And the even better news is my colleague and her associates don’t let this one department affect how they treat their own internal (& external) customers.  Way to go!