Consumer Centric

There are some places that just get it.  Sure, they have their problems, but, generally speaking, you come to almost always expect the best when you get there.  When it comes to Apple, for me they deliver.

This morning, after an all too exciting meeting with our accountants, I had to drop out to the Apple store at the Barton Creek Mall here in Austin.  I needed to pick up some software and I was in a hurry.

I walked straight into the store, found the display version for the software, and then a nice young lady approached me and asked me if I needed help.  I showed her what I was there to buy, she went in the back and brought me the copies, and then the magic happened!

Ok, so it was the first time for me!

She pulled out her iPhone (maybe iTouch) and proceeded to complete my purchase with a bar code scanner and card reader right there

on her phone.  Within about 10 seconds I was signing my name with my finger and the receipt was emailed.  I got back to the office,filed the receipt in its appropriate place.  Apparently, they shifted to this procedure this Fall.

Obviously, I was impressed enough by the experience to now take the time I had expected I would spend in line (that place was packed and I figured I was stuck for a while just to make one quick purchase) instead sharing the love about the Apple experience.

Awesome demonstration of putting the customer first and creating relevance and utility in the experience.  Yeah, I realize they’d done it before with the PC-based handhelds, but this was way better, faster, and certainly had the cool factor.

Thanks, Apple!

Now, back to using that software to get some work done… the really weird part, I was purchasing MS Office (PC) software for the Mac (see my previous post and you’ll understand why).

Co-creation, social media, engagement, viral campaigns, etc. New tools for today’s marketers? Well, yes and no.  The digital side is new… the practice is not.

I’m reading the new book by Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and came across a piece of NBA trivia new to me about the 1979 draft that landed Magic at the LA Lakers.  Little did I know it involved a co-creation exercise with a viral component and a social media spin.

The result was the Bulls missed out on drafting Magic Johnson and, instead, picked up UCLA senior David Greenwood.  But they had engaged their fans in helping make the decision:  ”heads” instead of “tails” was the consensus.

Turns out the Bulls and Lakers were up for the first pick in the draft, and Magic was the expected first pick.  On June 25, 1979 the issue was resolved by a coin flip.  But the Bulls general manager, Rod Thorn, didn’t call it out on his own.  The Bulls ran a fan promotion in which the poll results showed more fans wanted Thorn to call “heads” and win the toss to pick up Magic.

As reported on a NJ Nets fan page:

“I’ll never forget that,” Rod Thorn recalled. “We had some sort of promotion with our fans, and we let them choose what we’d call. And Bill Sharman, the Lakers’ GM — he was on the line from L.A. — Bill was so gracious, he let me call it. Then I hear, ‘Tails, L.A. wins.’ I would have always called tails. It was always luckiest for me, but we did it for the fans.

“But it’s amazing and ironic how life works out, isn’t it? Had the Bulls gotten Magic, we never would have gotten Michael Jordan five years later. The Lakers won all those titles, but I’d say it worked out great for everybody.”

Fascinating concept:  engage your loyal fans to help win the prize on draft day.  So, was it good or bad for the fans given they ended up picking wrong?  Or did they?

Would it have been better to get Magic Johnson in 1979 and miss picking up Michael Jordan in 1984? Obviously, not a question you can answer… and not the point.

The real point is brands have been doing things to involve their customers for years.  Today’s tools make it so much easier, but the rules of needing to provide relevance and utility have only become more important today.

I think the Bulls’ actions show how brands have to be “all-in” to genuinely involve their customers in charting the future of their franchise.  And they have to be willing to risk that what you create together may not payoff in the short term.

Stick with it, though, and you just may find the next Michael Jordan in the process.

Who knew?  Sports, the NBA, social media, and co-creation… all 30 years ago.

Daily course of a rather busy day led me to some nuggets of examples:  one not-so-good actual customer service interaction and one really great idea.  The primary criteria I use for evaluating these types of things:  does it help someone and make them like you even more?

Bad example first.

Story.  Well, we’re opening a new account with Salesforce.com to track some opportunities and stay organized, etc.  I’ve used it at a large company before, but was trying it on for size (free trial period) for small biz use.  I’m ready to buy, but the options online were different from what I recall, and the features and fees were not clear — I needed to chat with someone to decipher the fine print.

When I first clicked that I was ready to buy (end the free trial and pay them money!) I got the automated email from my personal sales rep almost immediately.  How cool, right?  Well, his email informed me he was out of the office until the 16th, but “so-and-so” was covering him the 8th – 11th.  So, no worries, I can contact that gal in his absence.  Which I promptly did, forwarding the mail I’d sent to my personal rep.

I asked:  ”I only need contacts, accounts, leads, opportunities.  That’s it.  What is the best solution for us?  We’ve been using it now for a few weeks.”  I provided a little more context and background info.

Her response:  ”I am actually at an off site meeting right now.”  She continued:  ”You can actually purchase directly from your trial if you are ready to move forward. You can review the feature comparison on our main page to see what edition may be best.”

Basically, she let me know that, although she’s the one my personal rep has covering for him from the 8th – 11th, that she, too, is not able to break out of a company meeting to help me.  What’s more, she thought she’d tell me to read it myself and figure it out, as if I’d not already spent time doing just that, only to arrive at some questions that silly me thought a sales person could answer!  When I shared my surprise at her response, she let me know she’d be happy to talk with me on Friday when she gets back.

Wow! And the funny thing… Salesforce.com sells a tool to help you stay in contact with your customers and your prospects to help sell your product.  Oops!  Maybe they should work on the human side of interacting with their customers… not just relying on technology.

On the positive side… I can’t take any credit for this. But it’s such a great idea of demonstrating value to people in a customer service perspective that I had to share it.

David Armano posted this tweet mid-day:

It speaks for itself.  It’s an example of thinking from the consumer experience to create a relationship that keeps people coming back.

This type of thinking, however, only comes when a company truly puts themselves in the position of why their customer behaves a certain way.  When you think about it from that perspective, an airline can realize that people on the plane love getting a surprise visit to the first class seats… those seats are their greatest relationship-building asset.

Wen you think about it from that perspective, a software company can realize that people wanting to buy their service sometimes need a short conversation to understand how to buy the product they’re most likely to use, not the one most likely to make the company the most money.

You see… when a company thinks about people in that way, consumers become people who purposefully choose to enter into a relationship with a company.

Relevance. Utility. Authenticity.

It’s about connections. It’s about being real.

How many times have you bought batteries or a new electronic gadget or a DVD and it takes you 10 times as long to get it open as it ever took to find and purchase it? It can’t be just me who has wondered why they package certain items as if they really, really don’t ever want you to open it and use it.

Surprise! Innovation has hit the packaging world.  Maybe this has been around for a long time, but last night was my first pleasant introduction to the simple change that rocked my world… OK, it really did for about 30 seconds. And then it happened twice in the same night with a second purchase.

First, I bought an iPhone car charger (made by Monster) because I needed one, but really because my phone was dead and I had to make a few calls and was a long way from home or the office.  Got out in the car, looked around for something hard and sharp to pry may way into the plastic safe.  But, no… check this out:

How amazing is that?  Someone realized you could perforate the plastic case in the back to make it so a person who most likely wants to get into it after buying it can do so easily.

I was irrationally excited about a simple, consumer-centric innovation.

Then, this morning I went to open the new Logitech wireless mouse that I bought. Again, I prepared to cut through the very strong plastic case to extract the device.  Lo and behold… someone at Logitech had a similar epiphany, but they took it one step further.  They told me how to do it!  On the case!

Way cool.  I’m just excited someone got around to solving for that little problem.  A great example of taking a consumer-centric insight and taking the time to solve for it.

Thank you Logitech and Monster.

The irony seems too perfect, almost scripted. Big brother “snatching” of illegal e-copies of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984). A totalitarian regime in a future world?  Or just Amazon trying to abide by copyright laws? 

Follow up Amazon’s actions with a public apology with candor rarely seen from the corporate world, especially from the CEO.  Watch the apology spread across social networks in our living of the futuristic world Orwell anticipated back in 1949.  Problem solved.  Case closed.  Or not?

I was very impressed by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ public apology posted yesterday on Amazon.com’s own Kindle community forum.

Bezos’ apology is powerful because of its sincerity.  Sure, you can find ways to pick it apart.  But, absent any more information this seems like the perfect way to be authentic in today’s fully connected world.  Kudos to Bezos.  Well done.  And it’s clear the overwhelming majority of comments in the forum applaud the action.

Setting aside the apology, the lasting impact, and the real irony of this situation, is the debate it has already fueled and, most certainly, will reach a new level intensity.  Amazon effectively demonstrated to the average John Q. Public that it can very easily get into your system and delete a “book” that you purchased from them for any reason.  Now, this isn’t new–the ability has been around for sure.  But this is the most widespread and potentially most public such action that literally brings it home. 

Consider this comment to Bezos’ apology:You can easily laugh this off to naivete. [UPDATE: Reached Eric via Twitter @vrtsflipflop and as an IT guy he's well aware of capability, but like most of us would not have expected functionality built into the Kindle product] But you can read many of these comments in the discussion with people not realizing this is possible in the world of e-commerce and cloud computing today.

The technological reality of today enables companies to be truly people-centric in building solutions that meet all our needs and wants, on our terms, and delivered in our preferred way.  Convenience.  Utility.  Value.  All great.

But the same reality presents a quandary, especially for e-tailers like Amazon.  And it causes, or should, people to consider the same realities of what is given can be taken, or watched, or copied, etc.

Amazon’s user agreement for Kindle expressly “grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display…”  When faced with the news that the product sold (copies of 1984 and Animal Farm) were illegal and violation of copyright laws, Amazon acted to protect publisher and author’s rights.  

It has since informed its users it will no longer delete purchased content.

But, as Eugene Volokh comments in his blog, the move could prove to be more than a PR blunder:

Even if Amazon had reserved such a right under its contract, I think that would have been something that many readers would have found quite troubling, especially given that the reservation of this right would have been unexpected, contrary to the way things are done with traditional books, and put somewhere inside an agreement that no-one reads. The contractual term might have been enforceable, but still understandably upsetting to readers. But as best I can tell, no such right was reserved; in fact, the deletion was a breach of its contract, and quite possibly a trespass on readers’ Kindles.

Amazon has since said it will not do this again in the future.  Spokesman Drew Herdener stated in an email:  “We are changing our systems so that in the future we will not remove books from customers’ devices in these circumstances.”  Importantly, the statement ends in an interesting phrase:  ”in these circumstances.”  Not never.  They can’t say never.

Apparently, some have responded with more fervor with reports of a class action lawsuit being pursued (or at least a threat of one).

My own view is this is hardly worthy of lawsuit settlements as Amazon is taking steps to repair the $5.99 purchases made of illegally copied material.  

But the bigger issue it raises is a worthy debate for companies to consider and people to ponder.  How do we enable the convenience and utility the online world affords us, while also protecting content?  How does a company handle a dilemma like this in the future?  What impact will it have on receptivity to, and use of, products like Kindle that house online content?

I’m intrigued by commentary from Jonathan Zittrain, author of “The Future of the Internet — And How to Stop It”, about this situation almost a week before Bezos’ apology.  Zittrain writes in his blog:

Another fascinating aspect of the Cloud: everything is rented rather than owned, and can be taken away with only a refund to show for it.  I worry about this phenomenon in my book — I just didn’t have any good examples at the time of writing. My concern isn’t just about publishers having second thoughts about their material.  It’s the tool handed to regulators: someone could allege defamation for a passage in a book and a court, aside from awarding damages, could order Amazon to excise the offending passage retroactively.  Same for politically sensitive speech.

I suppose I don’t gravitate too far to the conspiracy theory and Big Brother mapped by Orwell in the very book deleted by Amazon in this situation.  But, like both of these Amazon customers, I think this case study will point to new ways to consider how the individual is kept at the center of the issue when companies face such decisions in the future:

What do you think?

To me, Mutual of Omaha still makes me think of those Sunday evening programs out in the wilds of Africa.  I don’t remember if that’s where it really took place, but that’s what childhood memories that persist tell me.

They’re a lot more than that, apparently!

Tonight, my colleague, Jim Wilkerson (@jim_wilkerson) forwarded a site for a current initiative by Mutual of Omaha all centered on the “Aha Moments” of life.  We were interested given a client in the long-term care space… and it aligns with some concepts we’ve been brainstorming for our client.

Turns out for the celebration of a “century of service”, the heritage brand has created this “aha moment” community online and are traveling across the country capturing real experiences from Americans of all walks of life.  You sign up via the website, they schedule you for when they’ll be in town with the bus, then you come down and they take a professional quality film of your story. 

They have over 15 pages of stories (20 per page) that are 1 to 2 minutes in length and cover every aspect of aha moments in life you can think of… literally.

I love the definition and explanation:

“What is an aha moment? It’s a moment of clarity, a defining moment where you gain real wisdom – wisdom you can use to change your life. Whether big or small, funny or sad, they can be surprising and inspiring. Each one is unique, deeply personal, and we think, worth sharing.

Mutual of Omaha celebrates and honors these moments and the people who act upon them. We’re proud to have the products and services that can help people insure their possibilities.”

The experience at www.ahamoment.com is very people centric.  The individual stories can be searched by category (health, financial, career, education, spirituality, etc.) or by any keyword you’d like to use.  And the stories are real — they are fun, interesting, and examples of clarity in life, if not but for just a moment.

Mutual of Omaha is spreading these stories and making it easy for people to get high quality online video sharing a powerful moment from their lives (I’m sure there’s a lot of sharing with family and friends, etc., a little bit of celebrity-like exposure).  Key question, beyond story sharing… what further value/utility are they creating that brings your back to the security and help Mutual of Omaha can deliver when you realize in life that you need a plan B (insurance)?

Very interesting.  Nicely done.