Customerspective

QANTAS recognizes the importance of Online Customer Experience

The passion for travel and travel deals is growing strong and is driving the popularity of various online travel sites making the Online Travel Industry one of the most competitive industries online today. Users are beckoned and lured onto various sites by the latest low fares of the month, great packages, and exclusive deals.

Consumers are quick to resort to the "big 3 Online Travel Agents" - Orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity to find these great deals.

And the major airlines out there today are taking notice - and will not be left behind. Recognizing that online consumers may be task oriented and are still highly price conscious, they too are taking advantage of the online travel industry and the effect it has to their bottom line.

A perfect example is Qantas - the largest airline in Australia - They have taken steps to measure online visitor behavior in order to ensure a positive customer experience and increase online profitability.

We will be on the look-out to see the impact and direct correlation between this effort and Qantas' market share and revenue growth. Stay tuned...

Happy Thanksgiving All!

Kill it, it's SPAM!

Bad news for email marketers. In a recent survey, almost 4 out of 5 consumers (79%) confirmed they used their internal system's "spam" or "junk" button to eliminate email they don't want. And almost two out of five (37%) did it as a way to unsubscribe from stuff they'd opted in to receive.

What does this mean for you? If your company uses email as a marketing and communications channel (who doesn't?), then you've got to think very carefully about several things:

1) Keep your email lists clean. Use double opt-in methods to ensure people really agree to your email communication.

2) Keep your content relevant. Consider segmenting your email lists into micro-lists, then develop content for each group.

3) Don't barrage your readers. Too frequent communication is one of the top reasons people drop off lists.

4) Put your unsubscribe option at the top of your message - not the bottom. Give people an easy out, and they'll take it - letting you know that they're not getting value from your communications. This will also give you a chance to re-recruit them when they see a relevant offering on your site or in your ads.

On a related note, an Email Labs study from last October showed 52% of at-work users "always use the preview page" and 17% frequently use it. Think about writing and formatting for preview pane users (HTML turned off, graphics suppressed, small viewing window)

Ultimately, the customer (and prospective customer) experience determines whether you’ll retain them over time. The better you get at communicating with people when, how and about what they want, the stronger your relationship will be.

Does Pay Make an Employee Happy?

"Companies with less than 10% employee turnover also had 10% higher customer retention rates than those with employee turnover rates around 15%." Source: Towers-Perrin

It is important to keep employees happy. When employees don't care or aren't happy, customers notice. Mike Hartman admitted this is his blog last week, "Happy Employees."

But what makes an employee happy? Is it their paycheck? Chicago's City Council is voting today on a minimum wage for 'big-box' retail employees in the city. The proposal would require major retailers to pay at least $10 an hour in wages plus another $3 in fringe benefits by July 2010. Will this make an employee happy? What about friendly?

As I said before, customers notice when an employee doesn't like their job, and it's a turnoff. What can companies do (besides pay more) to make employees enjoy their job?

Artvertising?

Remember the Million dollar homepage? It's now moved through the looking glass - from virtual to physical - at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam.

Cool idea. But I've got to ask, is it art? Is it advertising? What's the value to the viewer?

And didn't we see something like this already - called Times Square?

Brand Stormtroopers

The World Cup is in the news and so are the "Brand Fascists". FIFA, the international organization overseeing the world cup, is aggressively protecting its sponsor's brands. So aggressive are they that over a thousand members of the Dutch contingent watched one of their latest matches in their underwear because of a non-sponsor beer logo on their lederhosen.

No joke! A Dutch beer, Bavaria, produced these patriotic orange shorts in a marketing push in the run up to the world cup. On June 16th, as Dutch fans lined up for the Ivory Coast match, FIFA ordered ticket holders in the queue to throw their shorts away before entering the stadium.

I really wonder if Anheuser-Busch's Budweiser marketing team (Bud being the official beer sponsor) was closely in the loop on the FIFA decision. If they were, then that's a really bad call on their part. If not, they should be complaining as loudly as the fans to try to set things right.

If you're not providing the event free to the public, sponsorship should only mean prominent name placement, not a ban on competing messages. The repercussions of being perceived to be "brand fascists" must far outweigh any effort to stop brand dilution. The thing to remember is that brand expressions by the attendees wearing/carrying/consuming competing products are usually an indication of personal preference, and not a systematic attack by another brand.

When you start tangling with restricting attendee preference expressions, you're in essence trying to dictate personal behavior - which wasn't the core reason you sponsored the event in the first place. Even if another brand has been smart enough to piggy-back their message on something that an attendee might wear, the downside of negative customer experience isn't worth it.

So, be a "brand fascist", and be remembered sharply negatively as such by the people both directly and indirectly touched by your policies. That's in sharp contrast to the soft, positive message you were trying to achieve by the sponsorship.

Talk about understanding your Customer

The Microsoft Research campus showed off a faster way to search the Web and easier ways to share Web links with your friends.

Their latest invention is known as the Wild Thing, a search technology so dubbed because it allows for wildcard searches on MSN by using only a few characters. For example, if you find it difficult to spell the last name of California's actor-turned-governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, entering "ar* sc*w" will find him. An entry of "ar* sc*w mo*" will find films from the former Terminator.

Whatever will they surprise us with next?

The Best Advertising?

I listen to NPR on my daily commute and yesterday I heard a piece by Robert Reich, on an ad agency, working for GM, that reportedly offered him money to comment positively on a GM employee pension buy-back program.

Reich was not amused - and made the point that this was, in effect, bribery. GM commented that neither they nor their advertising suppliers/vendors conduct business in such a manner. The ad agency said this was all a misunderstanding. I don't know the facts in all this, but I'm inclined to believe Reich's view of the situation.

What's this all got to do with a better customer experience? Plenty! If you even think that someone is deliberately lying to you, or circulating lies, you're not going to trust that person, right? And trust is the very first thing you've got to have if you're going to engage customers. Without trust - no engagement. Without engagement - no good experience. Without a good experience - no loyalty.

Any company that tries to influence public opinion by paying for positive messages through supposedly impartial third parties has got to expect a horrendous public opinion backlash. On the other hand, maybe GM doesn't have much to loose. Their loyalty rates for repeat buyers are abysmally low.

There is a glimpse of good news on the horizon though. DuPont has officially endorsed the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Code of Ethics, making it applicable to all sales and marketing employees and vendors. With a Fortune 100 company coming on board, that's a big boost for transparency in advertising practices.

Shopping and Politics

I noticed an interesting Business Week article, Companies in the Crossfire, through a RetailWire synopsis/thread discussion this week. There are a number of good thoughts in both the article and the posts on how consumer activism is affecting companies. These break down into 3 major issues:

1 - Is shopping becoming more politicized?

Given that vocal minorities are finding more and better ways to get their message out I'd say yes. However, the take-away for the manufacturer/retailer/service provider seems to be that good ethical business practices will keep you out of the majority of controversy.

Walmart's shifting some product like Brokeback Mountain DVDs from front-of-store POPs to the general shelves, and dropping product from some stores based on community response shows a good model for how a general merchandiser handles these issues. Walmart doesn't have a stand on the morality issues of the film, and they're not caving in to the "Moral Majority" - they're just addressing the interest or lack thereof in local communities for the product.

2 - Should companies invest shareholder dollars in political contributions?

To my mind Jim Senegal of Costco has it exactly right. If management compensation is properly structured, then they'll put their personal money behind political issues that are meaningful for the health of the company.

Company funds used for issues seem to break out into a couple of buckets: a) the large bucket of corporate Political Action Committee (PAC) donations which are political / regulatory relief issues; and b) advertising/branding/corporate philosophy stands on topical issues such as pro-/anti-gay rights or pro-/anti-gun control.

In the PAC case, I'd suggest that senior management benefits more strongly than investors. These individuals get access to politicians, and career and networking benefits through that access - while the trickle-down to the average investor is very limited. Wendy's Denny Lynch says it all with his comment that Wendy's PAC is party-neutral, they just fund whoever is in power.

Also, many times when I’ve noticed a company taking a stand on a topical issue my general impression is that this is an effort to spend dollars marketing to a niche segment rather than a well-thought out extension of the company brand.

3 - Is there a benefit to shareholders to their company taking a political or issue stand?

I'd answer this with a qualified yes. Companies should research their [loyal + profitable] customer base to find additional ways to retain their loyalty and attract like-minded prospective customers. If one of the key findings is a propensity for one side of an issue, then there's a big up-side to weighing in on the issue. Stated in this fashion, the argument sounds somewhat cynical - but when executed correctly it really isn't. Think of Avon's support for breast cancer research.

The corollary here is that if you are not attempting to segment your market and then address the needs of a both loyal and profitable segment, then there's really no benefit to taking a stand on an issue.

Think about the American auto makers, with their dealership on every corner and abysmal loyalty rates. GM or Ford wouldn't benefit from supporting specific causes because even if they do know who they're selling to, they're not keeping them loyal after the sale.

Lexus takes a diametrically opposite approach to segmenting and selling in the automotive market. Lexus could benefit from overt political support for an issue if a) they found their rock-solid customer base was strongly behind it; and b) their prospective customers were also strongly supportive.

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If you do take a strong stand on a controversial issue, be sure you know why you're doing it, and how it fits in with your overall brand strategy. To do it right research your loyal and profitable customers!