Through the Eyes of the Customer

A loyal customer is like a timeless work of art.

On a wall in the Louvre in Paris, France hangs one of history’s most famous paintings – the Mona Lisa.  It took Leonardo da Vinci four years to paint the Mona Lisa; it didn’t happen overnight.

Why did one painting take so long, especially when da Vinci didn’t have the disturbances of text messages, email and cell phone calls that impede our focus in the 21^st century? 

The reason it took so long is because da Vinci was very deliberate with each stroke of the brush.  Each time the paintbrush came in contact with the canvas, the artist was intent on producing a very specific – albeit subtle - outcome.   The cumulative result of thousands of deliberate brush strokes was that renowned masterpiece that’s viewed by over a million admirers every year.

A masterpiece isn’t created overnight, and neither is a loyal customer.

Every interaction between an employee and a customer is like a single stroke of a paintbrush on canvas.  And the evolving relationship between the customer and the business is like the evolving image on the canvas.  Each brush stroke adds color and texture, and contributes to the outcome.  Similarly, each engagement between an employee and the customer adds color to the relationship, changing the customer’s view of your business in some very subtle – or not-so-subtle way.  Just as every brushstroke affects the image which is to become the paining, no interaction is without impact on the customer relationship.

Masters like da Vinci knew this, which is why each brushstroke was delivered with forethought, care, and in the context of his vision for a certain final outcome.  He took no brushstroke for granted.

Smart companies today understand this, and like brushstrokes on canvas, they make sure that every customer interaction is delivered with forethought, care an in the context of a clearly-envisioned outcome.  

They make sure by following certain best practices – they hire people that have a caring, nurturing attitude, they train employees with a focus on the customer, and conduct regular, daily briefings with employees to keep customer-focus top-of-mind.  In a word, they help their employees to understand that every brushstroke matters; every brushstroke must be delivered with care, and with an eye on creating the kind of relationship that results in a loyal customer.

Loyal customers aren’t created overnight.  But with careful attention to each individual interaction, and with a clear vision toward an ultimate outcome, a customer relationship can become a masterpiece, and one of many in a portfolio as large as the Louvre.

A tale of two counters: How human interactions spark customer loyalty.

The most powerful customer experiences are sparked by human-to-human interaction.

This week, I had a flight from Phoenix to Boston.  When I approached the US Airways Ticket counter at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport at 1:15 in the afternoon, there were no other customers in line – I was it – and there were three available agents!

I said to one of the agents, “Hi – I’d like to get a boarding pass.”  She motioned to a row of self-service kiosks in front of the counter, and said, “Help yourself to any one of those!”

Three idle flesh-and-blood highly-trained humans and they directed me to a cold, heartless machine.

I printed my boarding pass, took the escalator upstairs, and passed through security.  Next stop: Hudson News, for a bottle of water.  I walked over to the cooler along the back wall to the left of the magazines, opened the cooler door, and grabbed a large bottle.  Then I walked over to the cashier counter to wait in a short line.

One woman ahead of me – as soon as I approached the register with my bottle of water, the cashier looked at me, made eye contact, smiled, and nodded. That half-second gesture communicated a friendly, “I’ll be happy to help you in just a moment, sir, as soon as a finish with this customer.”  A brief and subtle connection, but just enough to spark a positive emotional response.  He made me a happier customer, even before the transaction.  Just that quick non-verbal exchange gave me something to remember.

The dismissive agent at the US Air Ticket Counter – she gave me nothing to remember.

Here’s the point:

The most intense customer loyalty is born of emotion.  And there’s no better way to spark positive emotions, than through the interactions that occur between human employees and human customers.  Employees should be trained to pursue opportunities to engage, and to make emotional connections with customers, whenever possible. 

Loyalty is based on relationships, and relationships happen between people; through human-to-human touchpoints.

Lesson from the Internet Piracy legislation: Don't mess with the Customer Experience!

There are a lot of legitimately bad guys out on the Internet that are selling stolen goods, and they should be stopped.  So legislation was drafted to restrict the travel of you and me - Customers of the Internet - to make sure that we couldn't drive on the roads that lead to the places that sell the stolen goods.     Customers of the Internet sensed this inconvenience, so they revolted.

Here’s the issue:

When you attempt to fix a problem, particularly a problem that lies in the "back office," that fix must be invisible to the customer.  If the customer might feel the fix in some negative way, you'll be hurting the customer experience. In attempt to fix one problem, you'll be creating a new one - resistance from a customer base, or worse, defection.  That's essentially why the anti-piracy  legislation has suddenly hit a roadblock.

There's a legitimate problem with piracy on the Internet, but the bill, as written, was attempting to stop the sale of pirated content by preventing the "customer" of the Internet from accessing sites that are involved with the selling of the illegal content.  The real problem has been that the people have been selling material that they have no legal right to sell.  The problem was in the "back office" - sellers had illegally acquired inventory. 

The legislation should act first or foremost if not exclusively on the seller.  Instead, as designed, the bill was attacking the customer and their beloved experience of going anywhere they chose to go on the Internet. 

Wikipedia, Google  and a host of other organizations were able to clearly see the issue; the issue of an indirect, rather than a direct root-cause solution an indirect solultion that potentially had a big negative impact on the billions of "customers" of the Internet.  They rallied the customer base, and the voice of the customers removed the momentum of the bills.

There's a big lesson here for any business:   If you're trying to solve a problem, particularly a "back office" problem, be sure that the solution you're proposing will be invisible to the customer; the customer should not feel the effects, unless those effects are positive. 

If the solution will impact their experience in any negative way, expect a backlash, either through vocal objection, or worse, the dreaded defection objection.

Does context matter in email marketing? (Hint: It does, and here's why...)

Email marketing is all about segmentation and relevant messaging, right?   If you separate your prospects into different segments, and communicate with each segment according to their differences, more prospects will respond, right?

Well sort of….

There is one other element to consider.  And that other element is context.  But I’ll get to that in minute.  First, I want to tell you about an email that I received last week  while I was in the office at work;  an email  that caught me completely off guard;  an email that was actually awkward to read at work.

You see, I work in the technology industry – software, to be precise.  So when I receive  unsolicited email, they’re usually about technologies and practices around technologies.  But last week, I received an email  that caught me completely off-guard, because it had absolutely nothing to do with my business.  The email was an offer for me to buy pre-paid cremation services.

That’s right –  cremation services.  Not your typical backup-in-the-cloud or information security solicitation that technology professional receive.  This particular solicitation came from a company that wanted to tell me how they’ll take care of my remains on some distant day. 

So far as I could tell, the marketer of the cremation sevices used the following two criteria to form a segment:  Locality and Mortality.

1. Locality: A company that I work for is based in San Francisco.  The provider of these cremation services is in San Francisco, and saw me as a “local” prospect.
2. Mortality:  All humans are mortal.  All mortals eventually die.  Anyone who dies is a good prospect for cremation.  Somehow, they knew I’m a human, and therefore, I’ll  eventually be a good prospect for cremation services. 

So, while the segmentation was properly defined (people in the San Francisco area who will someday die)  and the message was on target (an offer that fit the segment), the context was way wrong.  They delivered the message in a place that didn’t fit.  People don’t think about cremation while they’re at work.  Cremation is a more personal thing.  Email me away from work, when my mind is ready to consider personal matters.

So I clicked “unsubscribe.”  Then I clicked “delete.”

So here’s the point:

You may have good data.  And you may sort that data into good segments.  But if you deliver your message in a way that will be received out of context, you risk becoming worse than irrelevant; you risk alienating your prospects.

To  really maximize your response rate, and to establish trust and credibility through your email marketing, follow these three steps:

1. Segment your market using multiple data elements.
2. Deliver relevant messages alligned to each segement.
3. Deliver the messages in the right context; in a time and place where they’ll be best received.

Don’t be caught dead delivering an email out of context.  I can leave your prospect feeling very awkward.

Tie a story to your product to build your brand & enhance the customer experience.

There’s nothing like a good story.  And there’s nothing like great food and drink.  Unless it’s food or drink with a good story behind it.

Like Dogfish Head Midas Touch, a craft brew that’s made from the recipe for the beer consumed by King Midas himself.  Every sip is steeped in history and archeological wonder which give the beer a special emotional element.  In fact, sometimes I’ll serve the beer to friends, just so that I can re-tell the story.  As humans and as customers, we love a good story, especially with food and drink.   

So how about swordfish?  How can a grocer make a pound of swordfish emotional?  According to Hannaford Supermarkets, that’s pretty easy… just reveal the true story behind the fish.  Especially is the story has already been made famous.

 If you ever read the book, or watched the movie, “The Perfect Storm,” you have a sense of the adventure and dangers inherent in the livelihood of commercial fishing.   

The book prominently mentioned a fishing boat captain by the name of Linda Greenlaw.  Greenlaw is the only female sword fishing boat captain on the East Coast of the United States.   And she and her crew regularly endures the fears, dangers and life-risking tactics to catch those same swordfish that you and I can buy on any calm day in the neighborhood supermarket.

Hannaford buys the swordfish caught by the crew of the Hannah Boden, the boat captained by Linda Greenlaw herself.  And they sell that swordfish, branded “LINDA GREENLAW SELECT SWORDFISH.”

So suddenly, swordfish has become more than swordfish – it’s an emotional experience, now that the story has been revealed.  According to the Portland Press Herald, Hannaford Supermarkets sold its first purchase, 34,000 pounds of “LINDA GREENLAW SELECT SWORDFISH” in just a week – which the chain considered a very brisk pace.

While there may be other differences between the swordfish caught by Linda Greenlaw’s crew and the stock caught by other crews, the difference that the customer is buying is the story that’s been tied to Linda’s fish.  The story has always been there – the seas have always been rough, and commercial fishing has always been dangerous.  But taking the initiative to tell that story, and tie it to the product through branding, is the difference between an emotional product that captures the imagination of the customer, and one that can sit on the shelf, and well, become old fish.

Here’s the point:

What’s the story behind your product?  And how can you present that story in a way that will resonate with the people you’d like to buy it?

Everybody has a story.  What’s yours?

Put a story behind the product that you sell - an emotional story - not a fish story!

The value of long-term thinking in sports and business

What do NFL dynasties and customer loyalty have in common?

I read an article recently on ESPN.com called “Impatience spins the coaching carousel”  by Adam Schefter.  In it, he describes how NFL owners hired a total of 11 new head coaches in 2009, and only three of them remain today.    Apparently, the owners were looking for faster gratification than what history had demonstrated is needed, to produce a dynasty.

He gives some excellent examples to make the point:

Tom Landry didn’t take the Dallas Cowboys to the postseason until his seventh season, and most of today’s owners don’t seem  willing to wait half that time.  Chuck Noll of the Steelers, and Don Shula are other examples of coaches who went on to build hall-of-fame dynasties  after enduring consecutive losing seasons  at the start of the building process.

As I read the article, I couldn’t help but think of how some business owners and Boards of publicly-traded companies share the same mindset as the impatient success-seeking NFL owners.  They both want to create an enduring dynasty, and they want to see it happen overnight.

You can’t make either one happen overnight.  Winning traditions take time to transform from losing, or mediocre organizations into winning traditions that dominate their respective league or market, year after year.  To become a winning tradition, you need to have a long-term mindset.

Businesses that are successful and profitable over the long haul tend to have a base of very loyal, if not fanatic customers.  The leaders in these businesses realize that customers don’t become fanatics overnight.  It can take years to establish trust, and build that kind of relationship.  If you expect to make every transaction profitable from day one, you’ll wind up replacing your customers as often as those impatient NFL owners replace their head coaches.

If you want to establish a dynasty and dominate your market, exhibit patience.  Think long term.  Don’t sell off tomorrow’s loyal customer to gain today’s quick profit. 

Plan for the long term, and act for the long term.  Because in the long run, it’s worth it.

It takes years for an acorn to become an oak tree.

3 Tips for Making Retail Returns Profitable

A good friend of mine works in the retail business.    Within the weeks leading up to Christmas, business was brisk – the store was busy, there were a lot of purchases, and the sales revenue through December  24 was very strong.  All in all, the mood was positive.

But there’s a funny thing about the retail business and the holiday season…  It ain’t over till you’ve tallied the returns.  And the returns tend to come fast and furiously in that week between Christmas and New  Years.  So despite the strong sale numbers through the 24^th, there was a huge “Yeah, but the returns can kill us!” sentiment among the employees.

But the outlook needn't be so sour – it all depends on how you view the “Return.”

You can view the return as a transaction, or you can view the Return as an engagement.

The transaction is something simple – it’s accepting the purchased goods back, checking the receipt, and issuing a refund or a credit.  The customer leaves the store,  and you move on to the next transaction.  Dull, un-engaging, and yes, potentially downright depressing.

But an engagement is different.  An engagement happens between two people.  It’s when thoughts and feelings are exchanged, and when emotions are stoked.  Good engagements lead to good relationships.  And good relationships lead to good business.  Good business, strong business and enduring business.

So when that customer walks into the store with the item that they previously purchased, put on your engagement glasses, and approach the process differently.  Engage with the person, not the product. 

Focus on these three goals, as you approach each return:

1. Re-solve the original need.  Chances are, it’s still there.  The product that was originally purchased wasn’t the right solution that you and the customer originally thought it would be.   Ask questions, re-assess the need, and come up with another solution that you both agree on.  Often times, returns can turn into bigger sales than the original sale.
   
   
2. Prove that you’re easy-to-do-business-with.  Returns are a pain for everyone, including the customer.  So use this opportunity to show how easy you are to work with; why the customer should keep you on their  “short list” of preferred sellers to buy from  in the future.
   
   
3. Engage the customer.  Be human, and be memorable.  Execute what’s known as “The Deep Bump.”  The Deep Bump is a technique used at conferences, where you want to strike a balance between meeting as many people as possible, and making a memorable impression on each person, within what’s often a short conversation.
   

So there you have it – focus on re-solving the original need, prove that you’re easy to do business with, and engage the customer.  Focus on these three objectives with every return, and you’ll start to see returns as opportunities – which they really are.

Oh, and my friend in the retail business?  She tells me that the final results are in.  They had a record year.  Many of  those dreaded returns somehow turned into even juicier sales, and even sweeter relationships!

The Power of Authenticity in Growing a Business

Authenticity matters.

Companies that believe in something, and stay true to those beliefs over time, tend to attract like-minded customers.  And as the company stays loyal to those beliefs, the customers stay loyal to the company.  The result is growth – growth in trust, growth of the brand, and growth of the company – a growth fueled by authenticity. 

In Portland, Maine, a city of 64,000 people, there’s a coffee roaster called “Coffee By Design.”  Founded in 1994, it grew during a time when Starbucks was building its current 10 stores and Dunkin Donuts its 22 stores in the same small city.  Many small businesses find it a challenge to survive when a large national player moves in next door.  But Coffee By Design has been able to grow despite the challenge from these two industry goliaths.  And authenticity has clearly been a factor in that growth.

Coffee By Design was founded by two people that decided they were going to build a business around their passions – coffee and community.   As they grew, they retained that culture by being selective in hiring employees and choosing business partners.

“We believe that being selective is better, and therefore only choose to work with businesses who share our same standards and beliefs in environmental and economic sustainability.”

When companies grow and need to hire additional employees and vendors, their selection criteria are often limited to those elements which are easy to measure and compare:  differences like costs, logistics and other operational elements.  But those objective elements can easily obfuscate what’s beneath the surface:  the values, beliefs and passions of the people and partners that will become the face of the company within their new markets and neighborhoods.

Employees bring their values to the workplace.  And like it or not, their values become your brand by way of the customer experience.  Therefore, selecting employees and partners whose personal passions and values align with those of the company’s founders, the experience will remain consistent with the founders’ vision, and the result is authenticity.

Coffee by Design was designed around values.  But with each subsequent employee hired, and each business partner and supplier, they’ve included those same values in the selection process.  This has enabled the culture to stay consistent, and not become diluted by growth.

As a result, the brand has managed to stay rich and authentic over time, just like the coffee it serves. 

Nearly two decades later, the owners continue to be active in socially-focused causes through the local community, and those of their suppliers. The business has been an extension of core beliefs.  And this authenticity has produced a thriving brand that has enabled a coffee shop to distinguish itself from larger competitors, and grow a loyal customer base of like-minded coffee consumers.

People appreciate a great cup of coffee.  Especially when it’s served with authenticity.

How to Avoid the Cold-Calling Dilemma, and Build a Better Pipeline

When I was growing up, my father was an avid vegetable gardener.   At the start of spring, before the final snow had melted from the backyard, dad would plant tomato seeds in some soil in small paper cups on the kitchen counter.  He’d place those cups near the window sill, where they’d get some good morning sun.

By the time the snows had melted, and it was warm enough to plant a garden, we’d already had small seedlings ready for the soil.  We were one step closer to the harvest.  But just because those seedlings were planted didn’t mean Dad was finished planting tomatoes for the season.  He’d plant another round of seeds. His reason for doing this:  After that first round of seedlings had past their prime, the second planting was ready to begin bearing fruit. 

While our neighbors’ gardens seem to bear tomatoes for only a month or two, Dad’s garden seemed to produce an always-flowing pipeline of healthy, ripe tomatoes, from late spring until early autumn.

A lot of sales organizations seem to approach their business development efforts much like most of our neighbors grew tomatoes – they plant their seeds at the beginning of the year, and then invest all their efforts into the harvest.  When the fruit is gone, they face long stretch of time with no tomatoes, and begin the cold-calling all over again.  It’s a tough way to keep the pipeline flowing.

When it came to his vegetable garden, Dad was big on nurturing.  He always had a crop of seedlings going.   Sure, you couldn’t eat the seedlings, but if you continually plant more, and give them care and attention, you’ll always have another round that’s ready to produce fruit; your harvest won’t be limited to a single wave of crop. 

Several years ago, I was part of a sales team that thrived on cold-calling.  At the start of each quarter, we’d concentrate on cold calling.  As we made those calls, we were focused on one thing:  finding prospects that we could move into the sales cycle, and close this quarter. 

We’d inevitably find a few who were in enough of a “ready to buy” mindset.  Those prospects became our sole focus for the next several weeks, as we’d move them through the sales cycle, toward closing business for the quarter.  On the first day of a new quarter, many of us would wake up to an empty pipeline; we’d begin the cold calling process all over again, and face several weeks or months with no new revenue.  It was a very frenetic cycle that made us stressed out, and then burned out.

Unfortunately, many companies still operate that way.   And many gardeners still plant all their seeds at the start of the spring, have a single harvest, and then many stressful months with no fresh fruit.

So, what’s the right way to create a pipeline that’s always flowing?

For starters, get out of the “ready to buy” state of mind, and think more “nurture” instead.  Go out in the field, and get to know those future customers that aren’t ready to buy this month, quarter or year.  Develop relationships with those people who aren’t yet ready to buy (but will be some day).  Deliver value through content, ideas and expertise. 

If all you can talk about is your product, and they’re not ready to buy, you’ll have nothing to talk about.  And you can’t build a quality relationship without quality conversation.  Invest more of your business development resources by continually planting and nurturing seedlings for your garden patch.  And don’t stop.  Seedlings grow up to be big tomatoes, ready for picking. 

Another thing that my father used to say to me when we’d be out picking those big ripe tomatoes in the garden:  “Do you remember when these were just little seedlings on the kitchen counter?  If you pay enough attention to them when they’re small, before you know it, they’ll be jumping right off the vine, and onto your plate.”

Not every prospect is ready to buy today.  But if you put effort into building relationships long before your prospects are ready to be customers, and if you continue to do this on a regular basis, harvests will happen more naturally, and with a lot less effort.  And they won’t stop, either.

How QR Codes are Used in a 200-Year-Old Mansion

It’s fascinating to see how people lived two hundred years ago.

The McLellan House in Portland, Maine was originally built by a shipping magnate in 1801.  Through the efforts of the Portland Museum or Art, the McLellan House has been preserved as a wonderful place to learn about 19^th century architecture and design.  It's also a great place to learn how QR codes can deliver a better customer experience. 

This past Friday night, my wife and I joined some friends in touring the house, and this was far more than a walk through.   While there were no tour guides within the house, we came away from the tour having enjoyed a complete room-by-room learning experience.

What made the experience so fulfilling was the way that QR codes were placed surreptiously throughout the building; in many rooms and hallways, and on artifacts inside this stately mansion.  The QR codes are used in an innovative way to enrich each patron’s experience, by delivering short contextual videos throughout the tour.  Among them are a video of a master woodworker restoring the flying staircase (shown at left),  and the creation of a painted floor cloth.

Like most consumers, I’ve become accustomed to seeing QR codes printed in magazine advertisements, as a direct link to a webpage, and as a way to draw the reader  farther into lead qualification, or a sales process.

The Portland Museum of Art uses QR codes in an entirely different way; not to sell, but to serve; to serve their patrons with a richer, higher quality experience while touring an exhibit.  This is in fact something that any business can do; using QR codes to deepen customer touch-points in a way to enrich the customers’ experience, and ultimately build customer loyalty.

So, how can you put QR codes to work in your business, in ways that will delight your customers, so that they tell more people about you?  Think of the various high-traffic  touch-points between your company and your customers, and then think about how live videos might enhance that touch-point.

For example, if you sell products that require assembly, consider printing a QR code on the front page of the assembly instructions.  Your customer can take a picture of the code with his smart phone, and be brought directly to an on-line video that shows the customer how to assemble the product.  That would be a lot easier for the customer to follow, than small-font text, wouldn’t it?

Check out this list to learn about some of the cool ways that others have used QR codes.  Then think how you can do something similar for your customers.  

If QR codes can tell the story of a 200-year old building, just think how they can create a rich history for your business.