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).

Always on the lookout for those things that add relevance and utility to our lives, I was struck by the irony of this code blue emergency call service in a Fort Worth parking garage on a local university campus.

The point of a phone with a flashing blue light in a dark parking garage is what?  Well, I’m thinking it pretty much means if you don’t have a phone and you need help right away, come here, we got you covered.

Imagine you’re facing a real emergency, broken down vehicle or, worse, an attempted assault, etc.  You see the flashing blue light, you get hope for help, and you run toward the light.  When you get there you find a piece of paper taped to the phone with typewritten instructions explaining that the CODE BLUE is OUT OF SERVICE.  But, have no fear, call this emergency number for help, if you need it.

Hmmm… if I have an emergency and wanted to use CODE BLUE it’s probably because I don’t have a phone in the first place.  So, while the thought is nice to give me the emergency phone number, it has absolutely no relevance nor does it add any constructive utility to my current situation.

They might argue and explain it’s temporary because things break down, so what are you going to do?  Well, I’d start with the suggestion that if an emergency phone line service with a flashing blue light doesn’t work, turn off the light and cover the phone with a canvas bag so it is never mistaken as a beacon of hope.

I can see no rationale thought behind taping a notice with an emergency phone number, temporary or not.  This action amazes me even further given the significant boosts in security efforts on university campuses in recent years after major crime sprees.

Here’s to hoping that no one faces that challenge here.

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.

A long day in the LA area yielded two bizarre encounters with strange marketing practices. One seems innovative and cool but with a few weird elements, the other was ridiculously frustrating.

First, between meetings this morning, Andy Hunter and I were looking for some food and a solid WiFi connection.  I suppose where we ended up was the last place we’d expected to look:  the ING Direct Cafe at the corner of Santa Monica Boulevard and I-405.

That’s right, a cafe branded entirely by banking services ING Direct!  You can get food, drinks, and WiFi for incredibly cheap prices for surprisingly good food.

Why would ING Direct do this?  They explain on their site as follows:

We believe saving money should be as simple as having a cup of coffee. So we invite you to come in and experience just how refreshing it is to sip a latte, surf the Internet for free and talk to us about how we can help you Save Your Money.

Given the prices for some really good food, I’d say their claim to save your money is accurate.  And during the time we ate neither of us was pursued by financial services sales people.  

Turns out ING Direct has eight cafes across the country (NYC, Philly, Chicago, Honolulu, Wilmington, St. Cloud).  While it first seemed strange, it’s an innovative concept that delivers on the promise and stretches to a connection to the brand.

The strange part?  Aside from trying to figure out why ING Direct had a Cafe, the glass-enclosed bathrooms took the prize.  Sure, you couldn’t exactly see through the glass, but the idea of catching the shadows of the person in the bathroom was odd.

Then, in the men’s room at least, the ING Direct Cafe designers had some fun with marketing and branding by placing ING spelled out in braille above the urinal.  

I had to snap a picture as I sat there wondering what in the world it said.  I couldn’t figure out what you possibly would want to communicate via braille in that specific location.  Thanks to some Twitter friends I learned it spells out their brand name:  ING.

The net takeaway:  find a relevant value (save money on good food and get free WiFi while you wait) and offer it in a disruptive way that results in a memorable experience (put a cafe into a bank, etc.).  Way to go ING!

You made an impression upon me… and I now think of ING Direct being a partner to help me build strategies to not just make money, but to save money.

Wacky encounter number two…  Headed back to the airport hotel we were on our way to drop of the Hertz Rental Car but realized we needed to get gas.  As I quickly put in my card to prepay (or authorize) for use of the pump, I saw a question pop up on the screen that I’d once again next never thought I’d see.

Apparently, I was being asked by the machine if I wanted a $0.45 fee to use the card, or not.  Naturally, I selected no (why would I want to pay a fee?).  Then, I received a second message explaining that the card I was trying to use was rejected.

After trying to get the card to work I finally had to go into the am/pm convenience store and pay at the cashier.  I was then told in no uncertain terms that the gas station does not accept credit cards, only debit cards.  The clerk tried to convince me that my check card was not a debit card… but I finally gave up and just paid with cash.

Wow, was that frustrating.  It turns out this trend of not allowing credit cards is growing and started the summer of 2008 as gas prices rose as did the fee the station is charged for each time the card is used.  

While I’ve found mixed opinions online about whether we should care about not being able to pay with a credit card, the inconvenience and frustration of not being able to complete a task that I’ve grown accustomed to being quite simple and easy was palpable.  That was a major step back to the 70s or 80s when the only option was cash.  In fact, the only reason I stayed at the station and paid with cash was because I had no choice given time and the need to fill the rental up before dropping it off.

In the real world of normal life, removing basic steps that make the purchase experience easy for the customer is not innovative marketing.  It’s ignoring the user experience to save a buck–in the end, the am/pm convenience store will lose one or two more than they save.

Thank you LA area for two wacky finds in a single day!

I have so many other things I need to get done that I really should stop this post right now and get back to work. But, alas, some experiences offer such perfect subject material to demonstrate key concepts that you just can’t pass ‘em up. 

Enter American Airlines. [To be fair, you could enter any number of different names here and it would fit].

If you do any travel at all you’ve been here before:  Realize this morning a business conflict requires me to change my outbound flight. Simple change… need to leave Austin to LAX next Monday instead of Tuesday. Same itinerary. No change to other flights on Wednesday or Thursday. Easy. Right? Wrong. $485 later in extra fees, the change is made (to a ticket that originally cost $419).

For 45+ minutes of mostly wasted prime work time, I was the lucky participant in a game of, ha, you think this is about you, think again! The experience epitomized a near-perfect example of the opposite of being consumer-centric:  too bad for you, there is nothing I can do, and it’s not worth our time.

Too bad for you, #1. As far as frustrating voice-directed phone systems go, the American Airlines line has got to be among the most obnoxious. Have you ever used a system that actually responds to your request for a representative by scolding you: “I understand you’d like to speak to someone. If you’d like to try again, please say…”? Wow! So… basically… I know you want to talk to a human being but you can’t until you do it my way… you’re not going anywhere until I say so! You have to ask scary computer girl three more times before she relents! Hilarious if it wasn’t so frustrating.

Too bad for you, #2. You should have booked this earlier. Without the seven-day advance purchase, the change will cost you $335 extra plus $150 for a change fee (to a ticket from Austin to LAX to JFK to Austin bought for $419). Great idea! If only I had thought of it first… plan this last-minute change when I first bought the ticket more than seven days ago. Why didn’t I think of that? Duh…

There is nothing I can do for you, #1. Now I’m speaking with the shift supervisor. “The computers tell me the price for each flight, there’s nothing I can do”; it’s the computer’s doing if it costs more. During this conversation, supervisor extraordinaire actually quoted me $584, $785, and $900, consecutively, for changing the same ticket. She explained the (evil) computers change the ticket price almost every second as the flight gets more full–”that’s how we can afford to offer the really low advance-purchase fares.”

Luckily for me, my fourth call to the 800 number (two disconnects) got me to a new gal whose computer miraculously decided my incremental cost would only be $485 (I guess there was a massive sell-off of tickets on flight 311 in a period of 3 minutes).

There is nothing I can do for you, #2. My favorite such moment came after I asked my supervisory friend if she would please at least waive the $150 change fee given the circumstances. She replied that while she has discretion to waive or lower fees, American only does so if American is at fault. My situation was not their fault and, once again, there was nothing she could do more for me.

It’s not worth our time. After sharing my point of view and asking to do the same with a customer relations specialist, my friend the supervisor–just doing her job she assured me–explained American Airlines discovered it took too much time to answer calls and it was more productive for them to review emails rather than talk with people. “They get so much more done that way.”

My point is not to slam American Airlines. Rather, to ask… what would happen if American operated as if the customer’s world mattered most? Would they make more money? Or would they lose money? Done with genuine intent, they would most certainly make more money.

What if they knew I am a business owner? I travel a lot? I’m going on a cross-country trip next week (Austin to LA to NY to Austin) in a short time period? 

Well, they knew all that, and more, about me already–before I got on the phone with them (four times, no less). So, I guess the real question is what if they planned their marketing, their product, pricing, and service based on what they know about me (and you)?

1. They would incentivize their agents to solve my business conflict. 
2. They would let me talk to a person when I need to and work with a computer when I don’t. 
3. They wouldn’t double the price of my ticket for a 12-hour shift in the time I need to leave. 
4. They would close the conversation by asking me what other trips I have coming up so they could see what rates I could lock into right now if that would be helpful to set up sales meetings with my prospects.
5. They would… (enter idea here)

In short, they would have me at hello. That is consumer-centric. Actually, it is people-centric.

What they actually did… well, that’s the opposite.

Your thoughts?