Archive for the ‘Customers’ Category
B2B? B2C? HOW ABOUT H2H?
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011[Originally posted June 2, 2011 on The Huffington Post]
To B or not to B? Hamlet is not the only one asking that question as I’ve been queried many times by readers of my book PEAK about whether the self-actualizing business principles I espouse are just as relevant to B2B (business to business) as they are to B2C companies (business to consumer). The thought behind this is that PEAK speaks to the idea that great companies address the higher, transformative needs of their key stakeholders, like their employees, customers, and investors. So, companies like Apple, Whole Foods Markets, Southwest Airlines, Netflix, and the like are B2C companies effectively focusing on understanding the “unrecognized needs” of their core customers and delivering on those needs. If you do that well, you create customer evangelists who are feeling a little more self-actualized.
Somehow, when we imagine B2B organizations – IBM, Deloitte, Boeing – we assume that a business doesn’t have higher needs that you can address. Of course, this is a little more complicated because understanding the higher needs of an individual requires a little less mind reading than understanding the meta-needs of a whole organization. But, at the end of the day, most decisions in companies are made by humans. So, it’s fine to imagine how your company can meet a higher need of the organization you’re trying to sell to, but I highly recommend that you look at the key decision-maker, the human, and ask yourself three key questions about this person: (1) What’s the survival need of this decision-maker such that they will not look like a fool a year from now within their organization for having chosen to buy from us? (2) What would make this decision-maker look successful – giving them greater esteem within the organization – if they buy from us? (3) Is this decision-maker looking for a transformative product or service that will help elevate their company far above their competition and how are we communicating those “higher needs” benefits to this decision-maker and their colleagues?
Amidst the spreadsheets, org charts, and policy manuals, there is a heartbeat in our organizations and it comes from humans. Even in the silos of America’s biggest corporations, there is a man or woman, full of emotions and aspirations, wants and needs, who is making the buying decisions that can fuel your B2B company. The most neglected fact in business is that we’re all human. Don’t forget this fact when strategizing about how you can make a sale to that B2B company you’ve had your eye on.
Please Don’t Tease Me With Automated Respect
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010SOUTHWEST MEETS AN UNRECOGNIZED NEED
A few months ago I dialed Southwest for some assistance and heard a recording “Your wait time will be 10 minutes. If you would like, you can leave your number and we’ll call you back.” I was so surprised and utterly delighted to get that message. Finally some company respects my time! An unrecognized need of mine was met…because I hadn’t ever imagined that a call back could be an option. All of a sudden, I had flashbacks of all the horrendous waits I’ve had on the phone over the years (don’t ask me about Dell or Time Warner).
RAISING THE BAR FOR ALL
Southwest has raised the bar for customer service hot lines. I predict that because Southwest customers will now recognize this as a need, it will now become their desire that other companies follow the same suit. This is how innovation works in the marketplace – someone raises the bar, others follow suit, and before long, it becomes a price of entry.
This is what we call “the pull of gravity” in thePEAK Customer Pyramid (scroll down on page)
Examples:
WIFI Availability. Years ago it became expected that WIFI would be available at hotels. Six months ago, McDonalds starting offering WIFI at some of their locations, and in the past week, Starbucks announced they will provide it for free. (Before just their card-carrying loyalty members had access.)
Movie Theatres. The new movie theaters have stadium seating, the ability to reserve specific seats, and even eat dinner and drink wine. People who have had this experience may now see these amenities as a desire (because not all movie theaters offer this). For those who don’t have access (and/or knowledge of), these amenities will remain as unrecognized needs.
During our strategy sessions, we work with companies to identify the gravitational forces affecting their company and industry.
TEASING
About a month later, I phoned Southwest and was disappointed. They announced the wait time (around 9 minutes), yet I didn’t hear the offer for a call-back. Last month I hadn’t even known that I had a need for an automated phone system to respect my time – yet thanks to Southwest for fulfilling that fantasy last time – it became a recognized need. My expectations for service were raised and then not met. Would I have been better off not knowing what I could have had?
SUMMARY/QUESTIONS
As a consumer, when unrecognized needs are met, they then become a recognized need. When that need is repeatedly fulfilled, an expectation is born.
A/ Please think of an example where a need was met that you didn’t even imagine was a possibility.
B/ Can you think of an example when you felt “teased” by a company/service fulfilling an unknown need, and then subsequently not delivering it consistently?
C/ If you have raised the bar for your customers, how are you ensuring that your delivery will be consistent so that they won’t feel teased and disappointed?
D/ How long do you think it will take automated call backs to become an expectation across service hot lines? Any guesses?
Within an industry, category or in services, an unrecognized needs will eventually become a point of entry.
A/ In your industry, think about what bar has been raised. Are you behind or ahead of the innovation?
B/ What do you anticipate will be the next innovation and are you working on fulfilling it now?
We would love to know what you are thinking out there – so let’s start a dialogue!
When In Doubt, Make Them Smile
Tuesday, November 11th, 2008We’re deep in doubt these days. I could create an alliteration that includes the words depression, doo-doo, and darn it in it, but I’ll just let a picture (or, more accurately, a viral video) tell the story. Take a look at this video which has just been posted on YouTube and is virally making its way around the world even though the customer message is specific to only Californians.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aakVmfva6lg
Misery loves company, but it also needs a chuckle. How are you using empathetic humor (or even pathetic humor) as a means of building a relationship with your core customers during a time when fear pervades? How are you using “word of mouse” to get your message out there when your marketing dollars are thin? The natural tendency during a downturn is to hunker down, which usually means “eat your spinach and don’t complain.” Add some panache to your spinach – it’s the way your customers will remember you when all your competitors are soberly slashing prices.
Maslow-Minded Merchandising
Monday, November 26th, 2007OK, it’s that time of year when we all become transactional. We overstuff our bellies on Thanksgiving Thursday and then overextend our credit on Black Friday when America’s malls remind us that capitalism is alive and kickin’ in the good old US of A. But, what if a retailer were to take a more transformational approach to their customers during this busy time of year? Or, what if you or I were to purchase experiences rather than possessions as a way of gifting our relatives and friends?
Abraham Maslow suggested that we all aspire to self-actualization in the course of our lifetime after we’ve had our base needs met. In my book PEAK, I suggested that peak-performing companies move beyond the transactional nature of most customer relationships at the bottom of the pyramid so they can address their customer’s higher needs (which are often unrecognized or unspoken by the customer). A great company creates peak experiences for their customers in a way that almost transforms them into a self-actualized customer.
I was reading the SF Chronicle today where I saw a Business page cover story on how Apple is remaking their already-successful retail stores. The first line of the article is “Not a cash register in sight.” Ron Johnson, who runs Apple’s retail stores worldwide (and is quoted in my book), tells the reporter, “We try to pattern the feeling to a five-star hotel. It’s not about selling. It’s about creating a place where you belong.” Apple’s “Genius Bars” (friendly technical support, especially for those self-actualized Apple customers who pay $99 annually as part of the Procare program which allows them one hour a week of extra training and attention) have been expanded. It’s almost like a hotel that came to realize they were making big bucks on their lobby bar so they decided to extend the bar. Well, at Apple, they’re dispensing wisdom, not cocktails, but they’re finding this relationship-driven approach to selling computers to be highly profitable. It’s a far cry from Radio Shack.
In fact, Apple has now banished the cash registers so that their “concierges” who help customers find their products can just whip out a portable scanner on the spot in order to facilitate the payment for the goods. Notice that the transaction is the last step of the process and is completely understated. Has this worked? You bet it has. Conventional wisdom in 2001 (when AppleHi ch opened their first stores), suggested computer retailing was passe as Dell’s “Direct” approach was going to take over the world and Gateway was going out of business. Yet, Apple became the fastest retailer of any kind to ever make it to $1 billion in sales. Now, they’re up to $4.2 billion annually just in retail sales.
So, how can you apply Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to your shopping habits this holiday season? First of all, just remember that most of us have way more stuff than we need and we have precious little storage space to “stuff” all this additional stuff we’re going to receive these next few weeks. Take a lesson from MasterCard – who frankly would appreciate it if we all bought billions of dollars of useless crap for each other – which reminded us that what’s most important in life is what’s “Priceless.” What’s priceless in our lives isn’t the material possessions, it’s the experiences and memories we create with our loved ones. The big gift I give the 11 members of my extended family each Christmas is an annual family vacation. Last year, it was an art-themed weekend in LA. This year, we’re going (along with an additional 3 family members) to the Ahwahnee Lodge in Yosemite where we’ll have a traditional white Christmas and experience the legendary Bracebridge 17th century English yuletide ceremony (which has been celebrated annually for 80 years at the Ahwahnee and has to be booked a year in advance).
If you want to create a transformational holiday experience – as opposed to the typical transactional approach – consider the following three questions: (a) what kind of unique experience can you create that your family or friends will remember for years? (b) what kind of gift can you give that will self-actualize your gift recipient (for example, how about donating $100 to a teenager’s favorite cause?)? or (c) what’s an educational experience you can gift someone that will boost their sense of esteem and will benefit them for years to come? In sum, as the feverish shopping season kicks into gear, consider a new approach to creating a more meaningful season of giving.
Creating PEAK experiences for Strangers
Monday, October 8th, 2007One of the most basic tenets of corporate marketing is that a company should focus its promotional investment on its target market. In other words, market to those who are most likely to buy from you. Seems simple enough and, having run a niche-oriented boutique hotel business for more than two decades, I can say that this focused approach creates great bang for the buck.
But, I want to share a story with you that may shift your thinking from being a marketing mercenary to being a marketing missionary. A marketing mercenary focuses on the return on investment (ROI) associated with marketing to their target market. 95% of what my company, Joie de Vivre Hotels, does fits this category. But, every once in a while, it helps to throw a “Hail Mary pass” – a marketing promotion that is more about your company’s mission than it is about your product. If you can get this right, you will develop huge long-term benefits because you will create stories, memories, and goodwill that will last longer than any short-term marketing mercenary initiative you and your company could deploy.
Let’s take a step back before I tell you my story. As a devout believer in Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I know that what engages the human spirit most is what’s at the peak of his pyramid: self-actualization, that transformative feeling when what ought to be, just is. For an employee, that’s when you feel that you are being “all that you can be” and you are getting great meaning or inspiration from your work. For a customer, that’s when experiencing a product or service gives you that transformative effect of “it doesn’t get any better than this,” or as MasterCard calls it, that “priceless” feeling that is truly intangible. Any company that can do this will create evangelistic customers as you see with those who are part of the Apple or Harley-Davidson flock. Companies that create “peak experiences” for their employees and customers naturally engender greater loyalty. These companies have much lower employee turnover and tend to spend far less in marketing. Fortunately, Joie de Vivre has employee turnover that’s one-third the hospitality industry average and our $200 million company spends less than $50,000 annually on print advertisements for our 40-50 hotels, restaurants, and spas. So, I guess we “get it.”
Creating peak experiences for employees and customers is a no-brainer. You gotta do it. But, recently, we created a peak experience for a bunch of strangers – albeit strangers who had something in common with each other and the company. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Joie de Vivre, we invited 10,000 people (I’m assuming mostly women) from the state of California with the name “Joy” to a JOY PARTY at our luxurious Hotel Vitale on San Francisco’s waterfront. Our company has spent 20 years understanding the significance and responsibility of having a name associated with such a positive emotion so we thought it would be provocative to invite these women together to share their experience of living with this name their whole life. Excuse the pun, but we ended up with a roomful of joy (or Joys) — 125 women sharing the name with dozens and dozens of husbands, significant others, friends, children and even a few media there to capture the occasion. What was miraculous was how these strangers bonded in their storytelling so quickly. As if they were long-lost friends. It was remarkable how much they had in common and how many of these women had gone into the service or helping professions. One who received a special award from Joie de Vivre that night talked to the group about the Seeds of Joy non-profit she’d created to help facilitate more poetry therapy in the world. Others spoke of how their name was a daily reminder of their purpose in life (something we often talk about in our company – why not name your company after your mission statement?!). It was one big “joy bubble.” Lots of tears of joy flowing. For the couple of dozen Joie de Vivre employees who came to the event, it was truly a highlight of their time with the company to see that we could conceive of and create such an event that brought what will be a lifetime memory to these women. And, since the event, we’ve shared many of the emails and letters we’ve received from these Joys with our employees (25 Joys received a free hotel room at the Hotel Vitale so they could have a Joy slumber party).
Creating a peak experience for a stranger? A waste of marketing dollars? I don’t think so. While I think it could be dangerous to allocate the majority of your marketing funds to a missionary event like this, I also believe that the word-of-mouth (which has been huge for our JOY PARTY) and internal and external goodwill that comes from this kind of marketing proves that being a “karmic capitalist” pays off in the long-run. Doing good can mean your company will do well. The next time you’re thinking about how to make a splash with your promotions, think about making a difference in someone’s life in a profound way that will serve as a peak experience for them. While other marketing ploys may fade with time, those marketing initiatives that have a deeper mission attached to them will stand the test of time and give you a remarkable long-term ROI.
Creating Peak Experiences for Strangers
Monday, October 8th, 2007One of the most basic tenets of corporate marketing is that a company should focus its promotional investment on its target market. In other words, market to those who are most likely to buy from you. Seems simple enough and, having run a niche-oriented boutique hotel business for more than two decades, I can say that this focused approach creates great bang for the buck.
But, I want to share a story with you that may shift your thinking from being a marketing mercenary to being a marketing missionary. A marketing mercenary focuses on the return on investment (ROI) associated with marketing to their target market. 95% of what my company, Joie de Vivre Hotels, does fits this category. But, every once in a while, it helps to throw a “Hail Mary pass” – a marketing promotion that is more about your company’s mission than it is about your product. If you can get this right, you will develop huge long-term benefits because you will create stories, memories, and goodwill that will last longer than any short-term marketing mercenary initiative you and your company could deploy.
Let’s take a step back before I tell you my story. As a devout believer in Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, I know that what engages the human spirit most is what’s at the peak of his pyramid: self-actualization, that transformative feeling when what ought to be, just is. For an employee, that’s when you feel that you are being “all that you can be” and you are getting great meaning or inspiration from your work. For a customer, that’s when experiencing a product or service gives you that transformative effect of “it doesn’t get any better than this,” or as MasterCard calls it, that “priceless” feeling that is truly intangible. Any company that can do this will create evangelistic customers as you see with those who are part of the Apple or Harley-Davidson flock. Companies that create “peak experiences” for their employees and customers naturally engender greater loyalty. These companies have much lower employee turnover and tend to spend far less in marketing. Fortunately, Joie de Vivre has employee turnover that’s one-third the hospitality industry average and our $200 million company spends less than $50,000 annually on print advertisements for our 40-50 hotels, restaurants, and spas. So, I guess we “get it.”
Creating peak experiences for employees and customers is a no-brainer. You gotta do it. But, recently, we created a peak experience for a bunch of strangers – albeit strangers who had something in common with each other and the company. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of Joie de Vivre, we invited 10,000 people (I’m assuming mostly women) from the state of California with the name “Joy” to a JOY PARTY at our luxurious Hotel Vitale on San Francisco’s waterfront. Our company has spent 20 years understanding the significance and responsibility of having a name associated with such a positive emotion so we thought it would be provocative to invite these women together to share their experience of living with this name their whole life. Excuse the pun, but we ended up with a roomful of joy (or Joys) — 125 women sharing the name with dozens and dozens of husbands, significant others, friends, children and even a few media there to capture the occasion. What was miraculous was how these strangers bonded in their storytelling so quickly. As if they were long-lost friends. It was remarkable how much they had in common and how many of these women had gone into the service or helping professions. One who received a special award from Joie de Vivre that night talked to the group about the Seeds of Joy non-profit she’d created to help facilitate more poetry therapy in the world. Others spoke of how their name was a daily reminder of their purpose in life (something we often talk about in our company – why not name your company after your mission statement?!). It was one big “joy bubble.” Lots of tears of joy flowing. For the couple of dozen Joie de Vivre employees who came to the event, it was truly a highlight of their time with the company to see that we could conceive of and create such an event that brought what will be a lifetime memory to these women. And, since the event, we’ve shared many of the emails and letters we’ve received from these Joys with our employees (25 Joys received a free hotel room at the Hotel Vitale so they could have a Joy slumber party).
Creating a peak experience for a stranger? A waste of marketing dollars? I don’t think so. While I think it could be dangerous to allocate the majority of your marketing funds to a missionary event like this, I also believe that the word-of-mouth (which has been huge for our JOY PARTY) and internal and external goodwill that comes from this kind of marketing proves that being a “karmic capitalist” pays off in the long-run. Doing good can mean your company will do well. The next time you’re thinking about how to make a splash with your promotions, think about making a difference in someone’s life in a profound way that will serve as a peak experience for them. While other marketing ploys may fade with time, those marketing initiatives that have a deeper mission attached to them will stand the test of time and give you a remarkable long-term ROI.
Room Service & The Emotional Connection
Saturday, June 2nd, 2007One of my friends once reminded me, “The moment you give up the expectation that things (or people) will be perfect is the moment when your life will be so much happier.” Good advice…maybe it’s something we should remind our hotel guests.
I had a less than perfect experience in a hotel recently that I thought I’d share. I don’t like to beat up on my fellow hoteliers as, God knows, there are enough customers with a little extra emotional baggage who are world-classin their “beating up” skills. But, I thought my recent experience at the Anaheim Marriott was instructive.
Marriott is a fine company–sort of boring, but they usually get the details right and they have a long and rich history of being very employee- and customer-focused. I’m here in the Disney orbit to make a keynote speech at the Southern California Hotel & Lodging Conference. So, I order room service this morning and the server shows up efficiently–but unfortunately while I’m in the shower. I rush out to get the door, looking for a bathrobe….you’ve got to believe that a four-star hotel like this has bathrobe, right? No bathrobe. I show up at the front door in a towel. The room service attendant gives me an odd look and asks if he can enter the room. I apologize for showing so much skin and mention that I couldn’t find a bathrobe. He says tersely, “you’ll have to call housekeeping…I don’t know why we don’t have bathrobes.” I look at the $20 skimpy parfait and small tumbler of orange juice (I know, I know, room service is painfully expensive at nearly all hotels…I’m sorry) and look at the bill a little more closely. I see there’s a 20% service charge, which is fine, but there’s also a $2.50 delivery charge. I ask the attendant why are they charging a delivery charge for room service as it should be built into the prices. He sheepishly says “I guess we’re just trying to make as much money as possible.” Of course, when I read the room service menu bleery-eyed, I’d missed the very small print that did say they charge for both delivery and gratuity. OK, OK, a hotelier shouldn’t complain about such things but this attendant really seemed to have no care about my bathrobe request or delivery charge inquiry.
So, now I sit here with the bed throw over my shoulders writing this musing. I’m remembering back to last night when I checked in and the passive and socially disconnected front desk clerk gave me a robotic overview of the hotel. I asked about Wi-Fi and was amazed to find out this behemoth of a convention hotel doesn’t have it. Found out they charge $10 for an internet connection (most of our hotels don’t charge, but I think the strangest irony is that more expensive hotels charge for the connection while less expensive hotels don’t…for example, I don’t think Marriott Courtyard charges but the more expensive full-service Marriott’s do…this doesn’t make sense). Long story short, this hotel–from its
1980’s-style armoire in the guest room to its artwork that looks like it was purchased at Wal-Mart to the complete lack of warmth I’ve seen in the staff–shows that much of the hotel industry has devolved into one big personality-less transaction. Fortunately, my keynote address today is about how the boutique hotel segment of the industry is giving the big chains a run for their money…based upon my experience here at the Marriott, I’m confident about our prospects.
I want to segue into talking about the emotional connection that is created with customers. We are launching a new Joie de Vivre Hotels website tomorrow that’s pretty revolutionary. It’s all about engaging in a relationship with our customers. It’s not just the new graphics (although I love the new logo signifying the Joie de Vivre heart). It’s the California Connect part of our site (very Web 2.0) where people can connect with each other based upon common interests revolving around the California travel experience. Check out the cool People Map that allows you to see which people in the JDV online community are most similar to you and how you can learn interesting hidden treasures from them. Of course, we still have Yvette the Hotel Matchmaker, but she’s now a person and not a cartoon. She still provides a mass customized method of connecting you to the hotels, locals, and things to do that perfectly fit your personality. Our “JDV Gives” portion of the site allows you to understand which specific grassroots non-profits each of our hotels supports (each General Manager has annual philanthropic giveaway goals just like they have net income goals). All in all, this website is really about creating a community around how to experience California in a way that ideally suits who you are.
Since the dawning of hotel websites a decade ago, hotels have gotten better and better at making their product look good on the web…better graphics, better reservations capabilities, better information. But, in many ways, most hotels are stuck in the thinking that their website is just an electronic brochure and booking engine. Once again, they’re too focused on just the transaction, not the relationship. A few hotel companies have tried to move beyond the transaction. Sheraton has spent $20 million on their new “belong” campaign and what they consider to be a Web 2.0 website, yet from what I can see, all the website does is allow guests to upload photos of their experiences at a Sheraton along with their brief description of their time at the hotel and in the city. It’s just a more personal approach to the transaction — it’s definitely not truly creating community. Furthermore, Hilton launched an expensive and glitzy PR campaign around their new slogan “BE HOSPITABLE.” Those marching orders haven’t resonated all that well as I don’t see a new Hilton-focused community naturally rising up around this mantra. It just feels like some failed attempt to try and make a huge worldwide transaction-driven company look a little more personal.
OK, enough of my ranting. In sum, people aren’t stupid and they know what’s authentic and what’s not (an interesting observation given that I’m in the shadow of the Magic Castle here in Anaheim). The real magic is in how you create a culture that truly cares. Southwest Airlines has done it. Whole Foods Market has done it. Starbucks has done it. But, all these big hotel chains seem to be putting more energy and money into how they can look like they are personal and emotionally connected to you when, in fact, they aren’t investing in their people and culture to assure that this is true on a person-to-person basis with their customers.