October 12, 2009

Marketers -  you are in the Value Creation Business

Want to BE DiFFERENT in your marketing efforts? Then get rid of a product mentality and adopt a value creation one!

Pushing or flogging products is all about what you have chosen to provide the market rather than value that customers find relevant and compelling. Particularly in these tough economic times people are looking for getting great value for their scarce dollars. They are not particularly enamored over flogging suppliers; they will follow their ‘value noses’ to the BE DiFFERENT business that has figured it out. Winners market value propositions; they don’t promote products and services.

Take the BE DiFFERENT value test. Write down the specific value that your chosen customers get from what you produce. Take each product feature and write down the value that the customer receives when they use it. You’re not in the business of supplying anything. You should be in the business of creating value for customers. Not high speed internet access but fast access to information, or entertainment at your fingertips or learning in the solitude of your home or? You get where I am going here. Get yourself thinking of why your customer buys your product. It’s not driven by cool technical functionality. NO! It’s what all of this does for the person…. the value it creates when it is used.

I was recently directed to a study presented to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in San Francisco California. Check it out: ‘Buying life experiences rather than material possessions leads to greater happiness for the consumer...’

Think about the implications for marketers. Doesn’t experience define value to a large extent? Absolutely! So when you set to creating value for your customers (a right angled turn away from pushing functions and features remember) put your customer experience lenses on and ask yourself ‘What cherished experience am I creating for my customer? What memories am I fostering? If you were a value creation manager for a hotel resort in Whistler BC you might think about ‘Mountain Adventures’, ‘Unforgettable Weekends’ and ‘Mountaintop Flying’ and not hotel rooms, Italian food and Ziptrekking. The Fairmont Chateau in Whistler BC is offering some interesting expriences.

I want to hear from those of you who are spending every awaking moment of your day creating experiences for your most precious assets. Bring it on!

Cheers, Roy Osing

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
Holistic Offers
Customerize your Marketing
Twitter Value
Twitter - Customer Learning Tool
BE DiFFERENT Quiz

Posted 10.12.09 at 02:46 pm by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 8, 2009

Holistic Offers = Premium Pricing

The market is being flooded these days with product or service bundles that try to capture the imagination of consumers who are spending less in these challenging economic times. Chapter 26 in my book discusses the practice of creating Holistic Offers and how they differ from the ubiquitous bundling activity that we are seeing.Telecom companies bundle wireline, wireless and customer calling services and banks bundle mortgage rates, savings accounts and investments.

I discovered an example a while back of a rather creative Offer that provides a learning opportunity for those on this marketing path.

The White Spot restaurant in Vancouver has created the ‘White Spot Family Nights’ Offer that consists of the following components that I obtained from the Giants website:
- 4 tickets to any Fri/Sat/Sun Vancouver Giants hockey game
- 2 Legendary Burger Platters
- 2 Pirate Paks
- 1 game-night parking pass
- $10 gas coupon from Chevron

I am impressed with the engineering of this offer to include the basic components necessary to meet the needs of a family who attend a hockey game. My hats off to White Spot for putting this together and for extending it to include outside partners such as Chevron. That’s the good news; the opportunity to learn and improve it, on the other hand, lies in the way they priced it and promoted it.

The ad on the website (and also the on-premise poster ads that I have seen in the individual stores) priced this Offer at ‘Only $89 ($130 value)’.

Roy’s BE DiFFERENT suggestions for improvement:
- Increase the price point; I think it is too low given value considerations and also the marketing effort that goes in to integrating an Offer like this that involves with multiple external parties.
- Rather than discounting from ‘regular prices’ price the Offer against what might be considered a substitute? If you say there isn’t one you are making my point!
- In terms of promotion, why tell people that the Offer is valued at $130? You are admitting that you are willing to provide all this amazing value and ‘eat’ the $41 discount. Communicate the price and leave it ‘naked’. If the Offer has compelling value to the intended customer the price will speak for itself. Get off the discount pricing kick!

Lets see…. adding value for the customer, making an incremental marketing investment to create this Offer and then taking it to market at a 32% discount. Doesn’t line up for me! Definitely a marketing Leaning point for White Spot marketers.

Holistic Offers are all about providing a package of synergistic value at a price that reflects that value. It is not discounted a la carte pricing!

Cheers, Roy Osing

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
Holistic Offers
Customerize your Marketing
Twitter Value
Twitter - Customer Learning Tool
BE DiFFERENT Quiz

Posted 10.8.09 at 08:48 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (1)

October 1, 2009

Sales - Recovery Addicts

In Chapter Forty of the Serving Customers section of my book, I discuss the four ways you can vary the way customers are treated wth the out come of dazzling them to build loyalty. They are:
1. Hire human being lovers
2. Bend the rules and empower frontliners to ‘say yes’ to customers
3. Kill dumb rules
4. Recover: Fix your blunder and do the unexpected

Sales are in a critical position in the organization to influence the outcome of a customer screw-up yet they are rarely held accountable for it. Service Recovery is not a vital component of Sales’ performance plans and as a result it is not reflected in their compensation plan for bonus pay.

To BE DiFFERENT in Sales, recovery needs to be front and center in what they do. Who is in a better position to initiate action when a customer has been disappointed? When the organization has broken a promise? When the solution provided doesn’t work to specifications? When the solution was not provided when it was promised? Typically, if the salesperson has developed a trusted relationship with a customer they will get the call and will be expected to get things back in order. Yet in too many cases, the salesperson will pass this ‘service complaint’ off to others in the organization whose role is to deal with ‘after sale’ matters.

Sales needs to take the lead in the service recovery process. They are responsible to build meaningful relationships with customers and therefore must include actions taken when things go wrong. The Sales Behavioral Charter defines those behaviors that sales must continually demonstrate - Recovery must be part of it.

Cheers, RoyOsing

Remember to follow me on Twitter

Related Blogs
Recover from Your Blunders
Hire Human Being Lovers
Kill Dumb Rules
Sales as Secret Agents
Discover Customer Secrets
Sell Relationships NOT Products
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Sales as Recovery Addicts

Posted 10.1.09 at 05:39 am by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 26, 2009

Marriott is a BE DiFFERENT Company

In Athens Greece at the moment as part of our 2009 vacation in Europe. I am always on the look-out for BE DiFFERENT companies to use as examples for my readers.

The Athens Marriott Ledra is doing the DiFFERENT thing right! Here’ are some of the things I noticed during our most memorable recent stay….

- An unmatched 8th floor view of THE attraction in Athens - the Acropolis.

- Personalized room service - you get to pick the time you want your room made up.

- Consistent service across all Marriott properties - same caring attitude & responsiveness wherever you go.

- A say yes attitude. We showed up at 9am after getting off a cruise ship and they checked us in. We asked for flowers for some friends and they found them and had them delivered to our room precisely when they promised.

- The best BEDS in the world! A distinguishable difference in comfort between the Marriott and any other hotel.

- a Retail Offering - bed packages - around their beds. Their customers want the Marriott comfort at home.

- Images of their other international properties at the reception area, scrolling on flat screen TV’s. This emphasizies their scale and scope and it visually displays the beauty of their properties coupled with dazzling service.

- Multiple power outlets in each room with 110 and 220 service to accommodate their international guests.

- A ‘Ledra Business Package’. For 49 Euros you get breakfast for 2, unlimited high speed Internet access and mini-bar contents - water, soft drinks, wine and beer. No talk of discounts either. Brilliant marketing!

- The manager is part of the customer serving team. It was extremely busy in their 8th floor Panorama Restaurant and the manager was actively engaged providing sealess service to the customers.

- Personalized communications. We had messages on our TV asking if we were interested in having them arrange for airport taxi service on the specific day we were leaving. They were offering a competitive fixed rate to avoid any surprises and to make it easy for us to pay for the service - on our hotel bill.

There you have it. Simple things that they do to BE DiFFERENT and earn my loyalty. The only time I will stay elsewhere is if Marriott isn’t there.

Cheers, Roy Osing

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Posted 9.26.09 at 10:07 pm by Roy Osing | Permalink | Comments (0)