Be Different or be dead

December 23, 2010

Why the best product to sell the market is ‘happiness’

Source: Pexels

Why the best product to sell the market is ‘happiness’.

Happiness has significant implications for marketing to stand-out and be more successful.

The simple truth is that marketing happiness makes good business sense. But I don’t see it happening anytime soon.

I find marketing for the most part today predictable and for the most part lacking imagination.

As I’ve said elsewhere, probably greater than 80% of all marketing activity is spent flogging products and services to mass markets (although the internet technology available today allows a higher degree of personalization) based on persona composites of the ‘average’ person in the crowd.

Product myopia is the result of a supply-minded view. Marketers are infatuated with the capabilities of what they produce. The coolness of their technology. The functionality of their gadget.

The problem is, with virtually everyone following this marketing pedagogy none achieves the exalted position of DiSTINCTION, UnFORGETTABILITY, UnIQUENESS, GaSPWORTHINESS and ReMARKABILITY.

Consumers see a blur of offerings and capabilities with no one standing out from the herd. Value is a spoken word with no substance. It’s all about the ‘iron’ of production. The secret desires of the fan are lost in the flurry of product management activity to ship the product.

The course of marketing must change if it is to be relevant in today’s markets.

A person buys when they are happy and it’s the experience that triggers it.

Tangible goods at best deliver short term euphoria; they don’t produce long term happiness.

A new SUV initially delivers awesomeness to its owner for a period, but the euphoria soon fades as it becomes a used car. A new condo is amazing as the paint dries, but thereafter is an asset that has to be cleaned and maintained.

And if the new MacBook Air delivers all the functionality it promises, it’s rated ‘ok’; it’s acceptable but no long term adulation is created (in fact if the functionality of a tangible good is not delivered as promised, the purchase creates short term ‘pain’ for the producer as the consumer’s anger is spread to their friends and family).

Experiences on the other hand are a different matter. People remember experiences. They feel experiences. They talk to others about experiences. They buy repeatedly on experiences. They are happier when they are in a memorable experience. It’s not rocket science.

The trip to Maui leaves long lasting impressions and the family dinner leaves gratitude indelibly etched within us. And we want to experience those feelings again and again.

So why don’t marketers listen?

- They don’t understand the power of the happiness marketing strategy and why it should take priority over a product-push one;
- The product push approach has worked in the past and they trust that it will continue to work in the future;
- They like what they’re doing and don’t want to change;
- There is a great deal of effort required to engage niche customer groups and find out what experiences, specifically, would make them happy;
- They see happiness as a ‘fluffy’ value with little evidence that marketing it will produce economic benefits.

Yet credible opinion exists on the power of happiness and the benefits produced:

- University and other studies — at Cornell for example — show that experiences bring greater happiness and satisfaction than buying and owning possessions;
I attended a Deepak Chopra event in Vancouver where he argued that experiences deliver happiness in three ways: planning an experience creates anticipation and excitement, participating in the experience creates in-the-moment euphoria and remembering the experience creates lasting memories;
- Tony Hseih, CEO of Zappos in his book Delivering Happiness, discusses ‘how using happiness as a framework can produce profits, passion and purpose in both business and life’;
- And happiness has even taken on a political dimension. Tiny Bhutan has made ‘Gross National Happiness’ the central aim of its domestic policy to increase well-being and improve the quality of life for all their citizens.

The current attitude to marketing happiness must change if the craft is to become an even more relevant and vibrant profession.

What we need is a ‘happiness pandemic’ in the marketing community where the virus is encouraged to spread.

The new marketing order — happiness marketing — must focus on creating memorable experiences for people. Where feelings reign supreme. Where emotion rules. Where marketing success is measured by how many mind-blowing experiences are created for people rather than how many products are sold.

There is a simple, practical way to get started. Establish the position of ‘Experience Manager’ to marketing organization charts to complement the product or customer manager position.

Hold the experience manager accountable to:

- Learn about what types of experiences in various customer groups make people happy.
- Define the high emotion experiences with the strongest appeal.
- Use the ‘happiness secrets’ that are discovered as the vaccine to inject into company operations as well,as products and services;
- Measure and track the number of memorable experiences created in the organization every day.
- Set experience targets in the marketing plan.
- Work with product management to determine the products and services that produce the best experiences for customers and find ways to replicate the happiness impact with the broader product portfolio.
- Build an annual marketing ‘experience plan’ that influences what the product and customer managers do.

Happiness can be an amazing business builder for any organization and epic experiences are the way to trigger it in any person.

Establish the Experience Manager and use the position to give your organization a competitive advantage over the product-floggers.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 12.23.10 at 11:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

December 20, 2010

What does a successful change leader look like?

Source: Unsplash

Stand-out organizations are dominated with people who love change.

This is the difference between leaders of change and managers of change.

The change manager…
         
- Loves continuity  
- Protects status quo                    
- Manages momentum
- Limply reacts to unforeseen events            
- Incremental change artist
- Huge Comfort Zone
- Tolerates change
- Takes baby steps
- Evolutionary speed

The change leader…

- Hates continuity; loves change
- Morphs current state to something new
- Creates discontinuity
- Brilliant reaction agent
- Breakthrough change driver
- Huge Discomfort Zone
- Drives change
- Takes Giant leaps
- Revolutionary speed

What if your organization had more change leaders than managers?

Remarkable not invisible. Distinctive not common. Unique not average.

DiFFERENT not dead.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 12.20.10 at 11:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

December 16, 2010

Your customer service: is it is really bad or is it great?

Source: Unsplash

Your customer service: is it is really bad or is it great? Is the service you provide dead or alive?

DEAD service

— Rules, policies and procedures are created to serve the organization’s purposes. They are put in place as control mechanisms to satisfy the auditors. They have the intended impact of keeping the customer at a distance. An arms-length relationship with the customer is the result.
— Frontline responsibilities center around enforcing the customer engagement rules of the organization.
— Leadership is in the command and control mode. Frontline empowerment is restricted.
— There is little or no flexibility for people to deviate from established procedures. Those who do so are punished in some way or another.
— Short term results are stressed. There is little time to build sustaining relationships with customers.

— Efficiency is the focus in customer contact operations. Call Centers are measured on the length of time they are on the phone with a customer and on the number of calls processed.
— Call Centers are outsourced based on economics. Service is driven by the need to reduce costs to the lowest possible level.
— No loyalty programs are contained in the marketing strategy.
— Customers are viewed as transactions where the only thing that is important is the money exchanged.
— Customers don’t have personal identity. The organization considers mass markets to drive their activity.
— Telemarketing is used extensively and products are flogged to people without regard for the interruptions and inconvenience caused them.

ALIVE service

— The organization has a culture of caring for it’s people and this transcends to how customers are dealt with.
— Leadership believes that their primary role is to serve their employees; to make it easy for them to do their job. They believe that if the frontline is served well from within the customer will be served in the same manner.
— Internal rules, policies and procedures are created in the image of creating memorable service experiences for the customer. Good business practices are of course applied but the organization is flexible enough to restrict the mandatory controls to the necessary minimum.
— Frontline employees are empowered to bend the rules in order to say yes to a customer. The service strategy in play is to find a way to do what the customer wants and not enforce rigid rules.
— Service heroes are recognized constantly, reinforcing the importance of the serving ethic.
— Humanity is built in to service operations. Leadership understands that mind-blowing service is delivered by people not machines. Hi-Touch rallies over Hi-Tech.

— Call centers are not outsourced; they are considered a core competency of providing dazzling service.
— The quality of the customer contact is considered the primary objective. Each Moment of Truth is engineered to produce an emotion-rich experience for the customer.
— Quality of service measurement is based on the customer’s perception of how they were served. Internal operational statistics are used only to diagnose a customer perceived problem.
— The organization gives gifts to their loyal customers as a “thank you” for their continued patronage.
— The recruitment process is geared to finding people who love humans. The belief is that they can learn the business but are borne with the gift of serving.
— The organization heavily invests in service believing in long term results rather than emphasis on the short term.
— Social media tools are extensively used to connect with and learn from their tribe.
— The organization is open to feedback and criticism; they use it to improve how they serve customers.

Dead or alive service. Which characterizes your organization?

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 12.16.10 at 11:00 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink

December 13, 2010

Why a charter of rights should be given as a gift to your customers

Source: Unsplash

Why a charter of rights should be given as a gift to your customers.

It’s about time we created a list of things that we, as customers, expect of the organizations we do business with. It should go something like this…

I, as your customer, have the right to…

— be respected by every employee I connect with;
— feel important as the person who keeps you in business;
— be listened to; no I mean REALLY listened to!
— be the center of attention rather than an annoyance who takes you away from your “real job”;
— guide you in the formulation of your internal rules, policies and procedures;
— determine the appropriate systems and processes by which I do business with you. I expect you to make it easy for me to do business with you;
— have a voice in who you recruit into positions that govern the service experience. I expect you will hire people who will move heaven and earth to take care of me;
— personalized marketing offerings that recognize my own personal needs, wants and desires;
— NOT be on the receiving end of product flogging. I expect you will create offers that expose me to new experiences that will make me happy and joyful;
— afforded the opportunity of giving you honest yet at times critical feedback on how I am being treated, knowing you will take my comments and make my life with you better;
— NOT be ignored no matter how simple and trivial my request of you might be;
— dazzling service experiences. I expect you to surprise me with gifts that you give freely with no expectation in return;
— feel the humanity in your organization. I don’t want to constantly confront technology that replaces people. I despise voice response systems and call centers that require me to wait up to 30 minutes for one of your people to answer while I listen to you tell me “Don’t hang up. Your call is important to us”;
— a deep meaningful relationship with you rather than being viewed as a commercial transaction where all that is important is the money exchange from me to you;
— be rewarded for my loyalty to you on occasion;
— be communicated with regularly in terms of what new things you have that may meet my needs and my feedback on how well you have been treating me.

Is that too much to ask in a world of fierce competition, plummeting customer loyalty and tenuous organizational survivability?

I think not.

Cheers,
Roy
Check out my BE DiFFERENT or be dead Book Series

• Posted 12.13.10 at 10:59 am by Roy Osing
• Permalink