The
Battle For Coca-Cola
Rages On.
Ain't
Nothing Like
The Real Thing, Maybe.
I
Don't Mean To Say
I Told You So, But...
Are
Consumers Smarter
Then We Are?.
The
Four Great Myths
Of Global Branding.
Mr
Bevis Butts Heads
At Mitsubishi
The
Best Laid Plans
Of Mice And Men.
Dare
to Be Great:
The Mad Genius of "The Matrix"
Mitsubishi's
New Marketing Boss
Out Of The Frying Pan.
Concept Is Stronger Than Fact.
Value
Perception In A World
Gone Mad With "Cool"
The
Future of Advertising
The Brand
The
Future of Advertising
The Targets
The
Future of Advertising
The Grid
The
Future of Advertising
The Swarm
Technology
Making The Message
Meaningful
The Only Business That Matters Is The One You're In.
What
Ever Happened To The
Big Idea?
The Post-Advertising Era Is Here
Confessions Of A" Liar For Hire"
Good, Bad and Ugly At the Moment of Truth
A Post-Advertising "Big Idea".
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The Post-Advertising Era 1.7. The Value Of A Paying Customer In the Post-Advertising Era. What does it take to win a customer? What does it take to keep a customer? What does it take to convince that customer to bring other customers into your brand community? Few questions are as important than that, in the Post Advertising Era. Recently a client asked me, what should she be selling? Should it be her wonderful service? Should it be her exceptional product offering? Should it be her beautiful retail selling environment? Should it be her prominence as a category leader? Should it be this? Should it be that? Finally, I had to give her the "Stop In The Name Of Love" hand. "Enough, with the should I's!" What you should be selling your customer is how much you value their business. |
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This is not Rocket Science. Most of us are" working hard for the money so you better treat us right" as that diva philosopher Donna Summer said, years ago. ( Everything I need to know, I learned at the Crisco Disco) The idea of customer value has been turned around to mean the perception of value as experienced by the customer. What a crock of crap that is. Customer value is and will always be the value of the paying customer to the person who is selling something ...anything, to them. |
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"Step Up America" is a brilliant idea. If you can pull this off, you should run for President. No thanks. The job doesn't pay enough.-HW |
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We lost sight in the Age of Advertising of exactly how valuable a customer can be. We started talking about "Fly-over States" and "How will it play in Kansas," as though our customers were some lower life form that we had to dumb down our messaging for. Madison Avenue had us believing that we in marketing were somehow smarter, brighter, cuter, then those great unwashed masses of consumers who were making our car payments, mortgage notes and Country club dues with their scores and scores of $9.95s. Well,
it's now the Post Advertising Era and we all need to get over that
hump. The first thing we need to realize is that advertising has
not one thing to do with customer retention. Nada. Nunca, Zip. Enthusiasm
at every customer touch point has everything to do with customers
feeling and believing that they are valued by a given firm. Enterprise Car Rentals get my business every time because those over-the-top starched white shirt types never forget my name and always go the extra mile to make me feel that my money is well spent with them. The TV spots with the wrapped cars suck. I'd much rather know if they get a discount on all of those white shirts and how they maintain that cult-like smile in all their counter people coast-to-coast. Until they tell me that in their advertising, I'll just continue to think of them as an advanced landing party from a galaxy far, far away. Or a front for the Church of Scientology. Whatever it is, the feeling those front-line people communicate to their paying customers is that you are the only thing that matters in their life at any given point in time. You can't buy that kind of persuasion in any form of media. You have to build it into every single employee. And the minute it breaks down, you have to send that employee to the shop for an adjustment. Back in the day, Delta Airlines had the absolute best in-flight personnel in the skies. That was because they were nonunion and the Captain of the plane had the power to fire anybody on that plane who pissed-off a passenger by being discourteous or inattentive. Once they unionized, those days of stellar service flew the coop. Along with "Customer Touch", anybody who knows their Marketing 101 knows that 20% of any customer base will generally be responsible for 80% of the sales. Just what makes that 20% so damned valuable, year after year after year? Most companies are smart enough to keep track of who those customers are and cater to them accordingly. But how many of that 20% are actually bringing new customers into the brand experience as a result of their high level of customer satisfaction? That should be an even more important metric to keep track of. And to reward. If 10% of the most valuable customers, each brought in one of their buddies, who had the same or more buying power, you would have your 20% But what if 4% of those 20% were responsible for 12% of that 20%? It would be damned important to know what it will take to keep that 4% happy. So you can't just stop at figuring out who that key 20% is and just send them a chotchka. Not in the Post Advertising Era, you can't. Word of mouth and customer Evangelism are just too important to be left to their own devices. According to Jill Griffin, author of "Customer Loyalty: How to Earn It, How to Keep It." There are six stages of customer loyalty: suspect, prospect, first-time customer, repeat customer, client and advocate. Jill believes that it is important to devise the ways and means to migrate customers through these six stages on an ongoing basis. And if your customer relationship processes and programs aren't moving customers forward, rethink them. Sounds like great advice to me. Except for one key issue. At every one of those six points along the way, if the customer perceives that you are trying to move them, or migrate them, or motivate them, they are going to feel like they are not in charge. It is still their decision to buy that is key to the customer relationship. If they are not satisfied at the point of the product experience, no matter what you do to "migrate" them forward, they are going to be migrating themselves outward. This means that rather then thinking of a customer as moving forward as opposed to backward, you need to think about moving a customer inward as opposed to outward Here in California, In and Out Burgers has developed an entire "secret menu language" for those "in the know" to order special off-menu items. For instance, a "3-by-3" means three meat patties and three slices of cheese. A "4-by-4" means four meat patties and four slices of cheese. A "2-by-4" means two meat patties and four slices of cheese. "Animal Style" means the meat is cooked and fried with mustard and then pickles are added, extra spread and grilled onions are added."Animal Style" means the meat is cooked and fried with mustard and then pickles are added, extra spread and grilled onions are added. To know this you have to get closer to the In and Out "Brand Essence," to use a popular buzz phrase. Not forward. Inward. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to determining the value of a paying customer now that customers no longer value advertising. What does it mean? It means that you and your organization are going to have to get up off of your collective asses and go out there and work to keep your customers satisfied. In other words, let them know how much you value them. Not just how much value you're giving them,
Stay tuned.
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