Taking a Hiatus

Human relationships are founded upon mutually understood - and usually unwritten - social contracts. That is, the trust required for healthy relationships is maintained through the understanding and fulfillment of certain expectations.

A friendship, for example, rests on a social contract that includes respecting one another, standing up for one another, listening to one another, being there for one another, investing time in one another, etc. An employer-employee relationship rests on a social contract in which the employee follows the instructions of the employer, the employee shows respect to the employer, the employee pursues the goals set for him by the employer, the employer pays the employee the agreed-upon wage, the employer provides a healthy working environment for the employee, etc.

These social contracts may vary depending on the culture in which they exist; however, social contracts do exist for every type of relationship, and when a social contract is broken, the relationship deteriorates.

The social contract between an organization and the community stipulates that the organization will provide some benefit or meet some need in the community; that the products or services of the organization will maintain a consistent quality; that the organization will steward its share of the community's resources; etc. The social contract among users of social media includes meaningful interactions, consistency of communication, timely responses, etc.

As a blogger, I operate within social contracts described in my last two examples. My blog is a product offered to readers; the social contract mandates that my blog posts benefit my readers and offer consistent quality, if I am to maintain healthy relationships with my readers. As part of social media, my blog is expected to be consistent in its frequency and responsiveness to readers.

My blog posts have gradually been declining in frequency and consistency. I suspect that some readers may have found them to be declining in quality also. For all of this I do apologize.

As I allocate my resources of time - much like an organization allocates its resources - I am finding it difficult to devote the kind of time it takes to produce well-written, thoughtful, frequent blog posts without detracting from my performance of other obligations. Since I cannot commit the time to fulfill the social contracts implicit in a good blog, I am hereby going to take a hiatus from Haley's Marketing Blog.

This will be my last blog post for some time. I expect - and hope - to return to steady authorship of Haley's Marketing Blog at some point in the future. Until that time, I will not waste my readers' time as they wait for a new post, only to be disappointed.

Be sure that I will continue expressing marketing ideas on Twitter (@HaleyDD), and when the time comes for me to revive Haley's Marketing Blog, Twitter will be the main channel by which I announce the blog's renewal.

For now, I must bid my readers adieu. I look forward to chatting more later.

Blessings to all! Happy marketing!

Thanks for reading,
Haley

To care or not to care?

Last Sunday, mechanical failures caused a four-hour delay for my first flight on the way back from vacation. This delay, not surprisingly, caused me to miss my connecting flight - and all of the remaining flights that day.

When I arrived at my connecting gate thirty-five minutes after the last flight had left, the American Airlines gate agent heard my story and quite promptly provided me with a $15 food voucher, a free hotel stay, and a boarding pass for the first flight out the next morning. Standard operating procedure for flights missed due to the fault of the airline. Have a nice day.

Now, I'm very appreciative that American Airlines has a policy like this. I'm thankful that I can book another flight with no hassle, and that the airline covers my meal and hotel bills incurred from an unexpected overnight stay. I'm thankful that I don't have to fight the airline on this; I'm thankful that they provide these services automatically when the airline is at fault in travel delays.

However, this is not the first time that I've been in this situation and received this response from American Airlines. And this time, the response seemed almost too automatic. The gate agent simply followed procedure; she didn't apologize on behalf of the airline for the inconvenience. It was as if the airline was making things right, but only because that was their system, not because they actually cared about my thwarted travel plans.

Contrast this with the way Disney handles one particular customer inconvenience:

When a family arrives at Walt Disney World with a car full of overjoyed, rambunctious kids, and manages to find the closest available parking space (which still seems miles away from the front gate), and unloads all the kids, packs the littlest one in a stroller, grabs the backpacks and cameras, and begins to dash off toward that land of magic, there is an odd chance that they might lock their keys in the car.

This circumstance, in contrast to my missed American Airlines flight, is completely the fault of the customer. In their excitement, they locked the keys in the car, at no fault of Disney. It's not Disney's problem.

However, when this happens, all a customer has to do is contact Disney customer service. The sympathetic customer service person assures the customer that Disney can help. Within five minutes, Disney's on-site locksmith crew arrives at the customer's vehicle, uses their tools to open the door without any damage, and retrieves the keys for the customer. The customer reaches into his pocket to pull out some cash to pay the locksmith's charges, but the Disney locksmith stops him and says this:

"No charge, sir. I'm sorry the keys got locked in the car. You and your family have a magical day."

I'm sorry the keys got locked in the car. Even when this inconvenience was completely the fault of the customer's absentmindedness, Disney sympathizes. Disney apologizes. Disney solves their problem. And Disney encourages the customer to continue on with a wonderful day at the Mouse House.

Now, this is a standard procedure for Disney, just like the food-hotel-flight-reimbursement is a standard procedure for American Airlines. But when Disney employees follow their procedure, they do it with an attitude of caring for the customer's predicament and wanting to do everything they can to redeem the customer's experience with their brand. When the American Airlines employee followed her procedure, she completed the right actions, but the caring attitude was missing.

And that attitude is what makes the difference.

At your organization, do employees have an attitude of caring, or just following procedure?

Good communication covers over a multitude of sins

We see that communication is critical to any human relationship - that between a husband and wife, between parent and child, between employer and employee, between teacher and student, between roommates, between friends. And between company and customer.

A countdown timer announcing "time until next ride" can help reduce impatience among customers waiting in line for a ride at an amusement park.

A response email acknowledging receipt of a complaint and assuring a quick resolution can help a customer feel that his issue has been heard and is being addressed.

An easily-found set of guidelines for what constitutes an acceptable submission can help customers to contribute better customer-created content to a social media campaign.

A periodic phone call to check on a client can help her to feel that she is cared for and that her vendor is eager to meet her needs.

A notice that a service provider has not received payment from a customer can help to uncover the oversight and elicit payment before service is discontinued.

A voluntary recall of a defective product and an immediate, free replacement can help to prevent customer injury and mitigate ill-will toward a brand.

Good, timely communication is such a simple thing, requiring little of your time, effort, and money. Regular communication - even a quick "how are you doing? what can we do to serve you?" helps to maintain a strong customer relationship. An immediate and courteous response to a frustrated customer helps to restore the customer's sense that the company really does care and really is working to make things right. These forms of communication are quick, painless, and inexpensive (or free).

Lack of communication causes the tenuous, tense, or broken customer relationships that lead to expensive fixes - customer service wars, legal battles, reparation to soothe an irate customer, or a lifetime of value lost when a customer leaves.

What damages might have been reduced, whose reputation strengthened, or which customers retained through simple, clear, timely, reliable communication from your company?

Caring about customers - at home

Yesterday I used my brand-new Kitchenaid electric hand mixer for the first time (baking banana bread - yum!). Inside the instruction manual (yes, I admit that I actually flipped through the instruction manual), Kitchenaid had printed a dozen recipes that involved the use of my mixer - some cream cheese spreads, whipped toppings, coffee cakes, and other desserts.

Now, it's not uncommon for purveyors of foodstuffs to print recipes on the outside of their food packages, for obvious reason: a consumer is more like to purchase a food item if they have a delicious-sounding recipe for which that item is an ingredient.

But why would Kitchenaid bother to print useful recipes in the instruction manual inside the box of a kitchen appliance? In a location where the recipes would only be discovered after the consumer purchased the appliance and took it home?

Could it be that Kitchenaid wants consumers to have a good experience actually using their product? That the company wants their product to be useful to the consumer, not just a wasted expense that sits in a cupboard? That they care about the Kitchenaid brand experience - not only before the purchase, but after?

Sometimes we marketers get so focused on acquiring new customers that we forget to take care of the customers we already have. We spend our time making a product look useful enough for customers to buy, and forget to make it useful enough to use. We work to improve the in-store or online experience, and forget to improve the at-home experience.

As marketers, we ought to spend 80% of our time improving our product - making it more useful and more enjoyable for the customer - and 20% of our time improving the way we communicate about that great product. Sometimes we get this backwards.

It looks like Kitchenaid is getting it right.

Look, Ma, the moon's on sale! Let's buy it!

Allsup's, the convenience store chain local to Texas and New Mexico, is currently offering a promotion called "Pump. Drink. Win."

When customers buy at least eight gallons of gasoline and a twenty-ounce Pepsi product in the same store visit, they receive a game card that gives them the chance to win prizes from any one of a number of brands, including Allsup's, Pepsi, Frito-Lay, Wrigley, Blue Bunny, Jack Links, Kellogg's, Mars, Cadbury, and Tyson.

A promotion like this one is great way to (a) reward customers who purchase gas and Pepsi products at Allsup's stores; (b) motivate customers to purchase Pepsi products over another brand of soft drink - that is, if those customers have no strong preference for one brand over another; and/or (c) motivate customers to purchase a full tank of gas at Allsup's, rather than just a few gallons at a time.

This promotion is meant for those customers who would normally (or who might) buy gasoline and a drink during the same stop at the gas station.

Now, when I stop for gasoline and sees a promotion like this one at the gas pump, I have to avoid the temptation to go inside and buy a bottle of Diet Pepsi just for the sake of getting a game card. I don't normally buy soft drinks when I stop for gas, and I don't need to get soft drinks when I stop for gas. I wouldn't even have really wanted to get a soft drink at the gas station if I hadn't seen the poster. And if I had bought a soft drink and gotten the game card, I wouldn't have really been interested in drinking the soda anyway.

As a consumer, I have to remember that the fact that an item is on sale is not enough reason for me to buy it. As a consumer, I should buy on-sale products when those are products that I needed anyway. Just because the moon is on sale, does not mean that I need to buy the moon.

As marketers, our promotions are meant to provide a product to consumers who needed that product (or a similar one) to begin with. We do not market to convince people to buy products they don't need.

Who Gets the Final Say?

It happens every so often that a marketer disagrees with his client or CEO on how something should be done - how a product should be designed, how a loyalty program should be structured, how a website should be organized. In most cases, the opinion of one party or the other can be swayed into consensus. But sometimes, the difference of opinion cannot be overcome by any amount of persuasion. When such a disagreement occurs, how should the marketer proceed?

A proper respect for authority (or a desire to keep one's job) would say that the marketer should submit to his employer's opinion. After all, the marketer works for the client or CEO; he doesn't work for himself. He ought to follow the instructions of the person who pays his salary.

But what if that client or CEO is wrong? What if the employer's plan will completely ruin the company's reputation and sabotage all of their efforts? What if the marketer is absolutely sure that the employer's idea is a bad idea?

Who should have the final say?

The customer.

The employer's customer should have the final say. After all, both the marketer and his employer do what they do in order to serve the final customer. The customer is the one whose opinion matters. The customer is the one who will be using the product, or loyalty program, or website. The customer is the one who will decide whether it is a good product, a rewarding loyalty program, or a helpful website. The customer is the one who will choose whether or not her experience with the company merits continued support of that company.

So, marketer, find out what the customer's opinion is. Find out what she has to say about your product, loyalty program, or website. Find out what she's looking for, what she needs, what she likes. Research. Ask your customers. Gather data. Discover what your customers actually prefer, not what you or your employer think they prefer.

Let your employer see the customer data. And resign yourselves to act on whatever the data says. Design your product, structure your loyalty program, and organize your website based on what you learned from your customers.

Let the customer have the final say-so in your decision-making.

(Of course, though, if your employer refuses to do what the customer's say, you should ultimately follow your employer's instructions. Then let the results speak for themselves - one way or the other.)

Why Should You Care?

A few nights ago, some friends and I were discussing the differences between various fitness clubs.

One friend observed that sports training clubs - like the martial arts school he attends - care deeply about the attendance of their members, because they are invested in teaching those members and developing their skills. On the other hand, he commented, typical gym owners don't care how often their members visit the gym to work out, since the owners receive the monthly membership dues, and don't require anything more.

As I've been thinking about my friend's comments, I've come to disagree.

That is, I agree that most gym owners probably don't care whether their members work out every day, or once a week, or hardly at all, but I believe that good gym owners do and should care.

Sure, a gym owner still receives the same membership fees whether his members attend once or thirty times each month. But if a customer pays a gym membership, without ever actually visiting the gym, sooner or later she will decide to stop wasting money and cancel her membership altogether.

Even if a customer does attend the gym regularly, but her gym owner doesn't really care, that customer could easily be convinced to switch membership if another gym opens that is closer, less expensive, more lavish, or offers more appealing classes.

But what if there was a gym owner who did care about his members? What if their physical fitness mattered to him? What if he spent time thinking of new ways to help his members stay healthy? What if he helped to motivate his members to work out more, and offered them free services to teach them more about their bodies and about fitness? What if his members knew that he cared about them as individuals? How would that affect their membership?

I suspect that those members would be motivated to continue their membership over many years, that they would be loyal to the gym and fairly resistant to the promotions of competing gyms, and that they would rave about their gym to friends, family, and coworkers.

I postulate that those members will have a longer (and more profitable) relationship with the gym owner.

The good and successful gym owner is the one who actually cares about his members.

The good and successful business owner is the one who actually cares about his customers.

Do you care?