Archive for February, 2011
Saturday Morning Reads: Is Smaller Better When it Comes to the Customer?
People have been asking me if small businesses are better at being customer-centric. So, I thought I’d do a little research this morning to see what the trend is. As you will see, the discussion on the topic goes back a few years. I will need to do some digger deeper to provide examples of small businesses who have been successful as a customer-centric business (Note: adding that to the “to do” list. If you know of any, be sure to let me know.).
The one thing I noticed when researching—and this is very important—is that a lot of articles and blog posts around the topic of small business and customer-centric were focused solely on customer service.
Please understand that customer-centric and customer service are not synonymous.
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Tags: Customer-Centric, Small Business, SMBs | 
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Do Your Stakeholders Find You Enchanting?
Enchant. Enchanting. Enchantment. Words we don’t hear in the business world, but I think that is about to change with Guy Kawasaki’s latest book, Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actions.
Can you recall a time when a stakeholder said your brand was enchanting? If you thought had to think about that question for more than 30 seconds, you are probably not enchanting to your customers, shareholders, partners, community and employees.
I know what you’re thinking… No one uses that word, so your question is pointless. Okay. Let me re-ask it another way. When was the last time your stakeholders compared your brand to Apple or Zappos?
Need more time to think on that or do you know the answer?
What is Enchantment, When Is It Necessary & How Do We Achieve It?
According to Guy, “enchantment [is] the process of delighting people with a product, service, organization or idea. The outcome of enchantment is voluntary and long-lasting support that is mutually beneficial.”
If that sounds like something you want for your brand, Enchantment will get you there but only if you take it seriously, roll up your sleeves and get down to business. Being enchanting is not easy, even if Apple and Zappos make it appear so.
What could possibly make enchantment necessary? Isn’t it enough to sell a good product or service? Not always, unfortunately.
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The Return on Investment (ROI) Craze Won’t Last
For over three years, I have sat back and witnessed the resurgence of a concept that seemed to be largely ignored or only found in dusty marketing books: Return on Investment.
I am referring to the buzz (or is hype a better word?) around social media ROI. What I find interesting is that marketing management is requiring social media ROI to qualify its worth before implementing it. Smart marketers know that it is impossible to determine ROI (a financial calculation) without having net profit, sales and investment numbers, which are not available without actually having done something. Could it be that demanding social media ROI is a stall tactic?
The next logical question then is if there is such a keen interest in social media ROI, why isn’t management requiring the same for all marketing, communications and branding? We should have those numbers readily available, right? (By the way, cost per lead is not the same as ROI.)
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Saturday Morning Reads: Does Your Brand Resonate?
res•o•nant adj. Having a lasting presence or effect; enduring.
Anyone who has been in the business world for a while (B2B) or has been around the block a few times (B2C) is sure to have a few stories (i.e. experiences) that have left an indelible mark—positive and negative. It is when an experience lingers in one’s brain for too long that it becomes a story. We have all done it. We turn an experience with a brand into a dramatic story that includes emotion and drama. Then, human nature kicks in and we share those experiences with others.
What happens when a brand doesn’t plan for this sort of resonance? Their story becomes someone else’s story and they do not get to choose their part (hero, villain, etc.).
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Tags: Branding, Nancy Duarte, Resonate, Storytelling, Visual Presentation |
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Designing An Organization from the Outside-In
“No company will tell you, ‘I don’t want to be customer centric,’ but do you know the difference between taking an inside-out versus an outside-in approach?”
-Ranjay Gulati
Most companies (small to Fortune 500 and everything in between) are not customer-centric—even if they think they might be (market-oriented or customer-focused isn’t the same, but they are a great start!). Driven by revenue generation, product and service development (i.e. profit centers) usually takes the lead and determines the hierarchy, culture and power within the organization. While products and services may be innovative, creative, and useful often the complete inward focus creates a fundamental disconnect between function and actually solving a customer’s challenges—from the customer’s perspective—and therefore companies only gain a temporary brand loyalty foothold. It’s why products and services (whether B2B or B2C) continue to face the challenge of commoditization. Even if customers force fit a product or service that alleviates short-term pain, there is still the hurdle of solving long-term challenges. If they are not focused on or solved, the next company that comes along with a solution and complete focus on achieving loyalty will win. Because companies focus on short-term gains, they lose 50% of their customers every five years or so. Ironically, it is more costly to acquire new customers than it is to make existing customers satisfied.
Breaking the Cycle
There is a reason why companies are not customer-centric. It is an operational practice, which can be difficult, challenging and downright painful especially considering it requires a hard look at what—and who—is wrong when it comes to focusing on the customer. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible, however. There are examples of B2C and B2B companies that get it like Zappos, Southwest, Target, Best Buy, Carnival Cruise Lines, Cisco, Jones Lang LaSalle, and Lafarge.
So then, how does one break the cycle of being solely hierarchical and product-driven?
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The Harte of Marketing by Beth Harte is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.theharteofmarketing.com. [If you have a question about what you can use from this blog, click on the above Creative Commons link to learn more.]
