Join the conversation with your customers

I just finished a book you are going to love: “Join the Conversation: How to Engage Marketing-Weary Consumers with the Power of Community, Dialogue, and Partnership” by Joseph Jaffe.

You can probably tell from my blog that I love new models in business, communication and especially customer relationships. This book echoes these themes. It’s a wake-up call from the old style of marketing and one-way communication (from company to customers).

Jaffe has come from the ad agency world (where I started my career, too) and realizes the decline of old-style marketing effectiveness. He recognizes the radical transformation in consumers today in how they want to live, buy and engage. Jaffe says, “In a new marketing world, where conversation trumps communication, there is no hegemony, only partnership.” I love this--a company doesn’t own its customers or dictate terms anymore, it’s a whole new world and it’s a lot more flexible.

He also says, “Marketing must evolve.” Jaffe suggests it is time to find out where your customers are talking and engaging, and join in. He points out the road can be tricky but offers good ideas and advice. You’ll find he cites examples of brands doing this successfully and those doing the exact opposite--failing to be relevant to their customers.

I especially like two acronyms he uses. First, RUE: relevance, utility and entertainment, to describe the foundation for communication. Second, EPIC: experience, permission, involvement, conversation. (If you read this blog regularly you know these are some of my favorite words.)

Just yesterday I was sitting with the owner of a car repair chain and I recommended this book to him. He wanted to know where marketing was headed and I said it’s all about the customer experience--no more one-size-fits-all communication, and a shift towards putting resources and effort in growing customer relationships. He wrote it all down. He’s been taking steps in this direction and it’s been paying off.

If you want to read a good articulation of where marketing and customer relationship management is heading--pick up this book.

My negative Netflix experience

The more I use Netflix, the more negative customer experiences happen to me--and I can’t be the only one experiencing these things.

Negative experiences often start when a company changes or adds procedures without looking at all the ways customers may have to work through these new systems.

You can never forget to completely walk through what it’s like as a customer of your business on a regular basis (like quarterly)--especially when a change is about to happen. I do this kind of step-by-step analysis for my clients and they are often surprised when negative experiences exist. These negative experiences can crop up. It often happens because of the pace of business and change, not because you aren’t trying to provide good service. However, an evaluation of the experience you offer your customers is critical because when you can’t consistently deliver experiences that exceed customer expectations you are destroying business value.

Read on if you want to know the painful details of my negative Netflix experiences.

Issue One: Separate movie lists create multiple hardships

My husband and I have separate movie queues in Netflix. It alternately pulls one from each list. This was a new addition to the Netflix system, one that would seem positive. However, what actually happens with this separate list system creates negative experiences.

Once you have separate lists, whoever is the "name" on the account is the primary account holder and the other person becomes a pariah (I'm the pariah here).

• Each time I want to access my queue I have to log in on my husband’s side and switch over. Okay, not too big a deal, but not great when they sell the separate list thing as some great miracle.

• When I have a problem with my DVD--it is broken, cracked, skips (this happens at least 60% of the time for me), I can’t register the issue from my queue (where the DVD is). I have to log out and in again, and then dig around for the “report an issue” link.

This must happen all the time--the damaged DVDs--try shipping millions of DVDs without a padded envelop that are then shoved into all kinds of mail boxes (like my tiny vintage one).

I have no idea why Netflix has their system set up like this. I used to be able to report any issues from my queue. So now I have the incredible frustration of a DVD that skips or won’t play (bad enough) and then I have to bear the horrible Web site experience.

Issue Two: Giving a gift is a nightmare

Want to give a friend or family member the gift of Netflix? Seems easy enough. You pick how many months and what plan. BUT when you read the fine print you learn you are actually shafting your friend or family member.

• When the friend redeems the plan they have to put in their credit card number. Lame, why make a gift recipient have to do that. It’s annoying and makes the gift a lot less enjoyable.

• That same credit card number then becomes Netflix’s permission to start charging the gift recipient for the full service as soon as the gift term ends. WHAT? This is insane and wrong. They put the onus on the gift receiver to contact Netflix and cancel the subscription they never set up to start with--they were just redeeming a gift. This is lower than low. Once I learned this I refused to give a gift of Netflix. I like my family too much for this kind of treatment. And since I know Netflix customer service stinks (they never respond to my emails), I have no confidence that they will help the gift recipient either.

Netflix--boo--you can do better than this. You want to stay top dog? You have to fix these issues pronto. Customers will talk; they are in charge now--it’s time to listen.

P. S. When I first started using DVD mail rental service I started with www.walmart.com and they sold that part of their business to Netflix. I never had problems with Wal-Mart’s service.

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Update: I emailed Netflix my comments (again and a link to this blog) and they sent me a really poor auto response email which reads:

"Thank you for your message. All requests, suggestions, business inquiries and offers will be forwarded to the appropriate person. Due to the volume of messages we receive, we regret that we are unable to personally respond to each one..."

Please never write a message like this one. Nothing says "we don't care about customers" than telling customers you have such a high volume of activity you can't respond to them.

Change is good, right?

I was walking by an old Filene’s department store building--an old time anchor of the outdoor shopping area called Downtown Crossing here in Boston. The building is partially demolished. I mean a whole city block. The old structure looks sad. It looks like a relic and is so massive you can’t help but notice.

It made me think about how times have changed, and how business must evolve and adapt. When that building was first erected at the end of the 19^th century, (yes, that long ago) I’m sure it was cutting edge and such a delight to shoppers who could find everything under one roof. That physical building doesn’t represent how many people shop today--all in one physical place. This isn’t a blog on the doom of department stores or malls, but you’ve seen retail businesses changing and it is resistless. For example, how many stores now offer online buying and local pick-up? More and more.

What else is resistant to change? Your business. What changes have you made in the way you communicate with customers? Respond to their needs? Connect with other service providers you need to collaborate with?

If you haven’t changed your business much in years I’d be concerned. What can happen is that you don’t feel or see the changes in your customer base and then they walk out the door to your competition. Someone in your industry is taking the time to figure out customers want in 2008 and how they want to work with companies they do business with. (Lucky for me since this is what I do for a living.)

Customer’s expectations change, their needs change and you know how willing they are to change companies if they can find better service. How have your customer’s expectations changed of your business? How do they want to do business with you today? Via Web site appointment scheduling? Via email? With customer service agents who treat them well and are being honest. How fast are you adapting?

Good news is your customers will tell you what they want--ask them. Let’s start with something basic, ask them: What method of communication they want you to use when contacting them (phone, email, paper mailing)? As a customer I want certain things via email and others via paper mail and nothing by phone. If I could turn off my landline I would (partly because of all the spam phone calls / telemarketers).

There are so many ways to communicate today and your customers will have a preference. At the minimum ask them this question--it is an important part of customer relationships that last. Then get ready for even more change and make it step by step--and never ending.

Kudos to Starbucks

Businesses that want to grow should do what? Listen to their customers. That is exactly what Starbucks is doing. We all know they have been struggling lately and brought back their founder, Howard Schultz, in an active role to get the business back on track.

Starbucks has opened a Web forum to collect customer feedback and allow customers to vote on their favorite ideas--without any limit. I’ve voted on at least 15 ideas already. (It’s addicting.) Now, many of these ideas aren’t surprising or earth shattering, but let me explain what this forum does for Starbucks, and I’ll award points accordingly.

• Customers feel valued and heard when you allow them to share ideas and feedback. (5 points)
• Ask customers to help prioritize the ideas. (5 points)
• Show customers what you are doing based on their input. (10 points)
• Make this an on-going effort. (5 points)

Score = 25 points

Their Web site is doing all this. Here is a good article about the Starbucks Web site and recent efforts.

Other lessons here include:

• You can’t rest on your laurels even when you are a growing business and people love you. There is always room for improvement.
• When you don’t work to improve the customer experience you are on a decline--it’s that simple. Focus on exceeding customer expectations all the time.
• Small things have a big impact--one of my favorite lessons. For Starbucks, when the coffee is ground is critical--they learned that the hard way.
• Never underestimate your competition.

It’s time to hug your people

Jack Mitchell’s latest book, “Hug your people,” is great. It’s an easy-to-read book full of practical tips and examples from Jack’s experience and observations of years of running a family retail business.

I’m a fan of books focused on management because good management is a foundation of positive experiences, happy customers and a growing business.

I also like lists. Lists of top ideas, suggestions, and guidelines--the book has plenty. Here are a few of the great lists I found in this book. (You’ll want to buy a copy, this is just to give you a sense of the helpful ideas you can find inside it.)

High level concepts

The book begins with a focus on the power of positive words and actions. These 5 concepts each have a section, but their themes run through the whole book.

• Nice
• Trust
• Pride
• Include
• Recognize

Mitchell says that if you succeed in these 5 principles, “…you will produce loyal and effective associates and the strongest of strong teams.” I have to say I agree. His ideas are practical and I’ve seen them work first-hand.

Hiring

Jack offers 5 criteria in identifying who to hire:

• Integrity
• Positive attitude
• Passion to listen, learn and grow, to be the best you can be, every day
• Competent and confident
  
• Nice

He also gives good advice on how to interview--because that is where it starts. Hire the right people and then keep them. The rest of the book is about keeping your associates. The book also addresses how to set expectations with associates and how to include them, celebrate them and even pay them. I like the focus on how to build pride in the workplace--as a great way to grow engagement.

How to build the feeling of inclusion

The last list I’ll mention is this--how to help associates feel included:

• Invite
• Input
• Include
• Involve
• Invest

If you have to manage staff in any capacity you’ll want to check out this book. It has specific ideas and great examples. This is a terrific book to share with clients, customers, friends and your boss.

Have fun reading.

P.S. My other favorite management book is, “First Break All the Rules: What the World’s Best Managers Do Differently.”

Not a best buy

Many companies think the best way to ensure they deliver a positive customer experience is to make sure all customers are treated the same and all employees follow a system or process 100% of the time.

Wrong.

I’m going to share a story I was told about Best Buy. The story illustrates a company’s desire to make every experience the same.

This fellow, let’s call him Mark, had done his research and went to Best Buy to get a new computer for his son. He knew what he wanted, and wanted to buy the item and leave the store happy. Not possible. He found employees are required to ask everyone who buys a computer a series of questions (a 5-page form, in fact). While Mark tried to explain he was okay and just wanted to pay for the computer, the employee told him he had to complete the questionnaire or said employee would get in trouble (sign of a bad process). So Mark waited through the process then expected to go the register. Not possible. The employee escorted him to a long line of people at a special service desk. The employee at the service desk went through the paper the first employee filled out and tried to sell those features and services again.

When a process is this rigid and clearly customer unfriendly (long form, reviewing it twice, forced to wait in a long line instead of the regular check out) it cannot create happy customers very often.

While Best Buy’s intent may be to help customers think through all their needs while still in the store, they are surely trying to sell more services, too. There is nothing wrong in finding out a customer’s real needs in a natural conversation and then helping them meet those needs. I know a company that does this well--Jack Mitchell’s clothing stores in CT and NY. (Read his book, “Hug Your Customers,” if you want to know how he does this. And he has a new book out: “Hug Your People,” with a focus on employees that also is great. I’ll review that book here later.) However, an awkward and lengthy form cannot come across as anything other than self-serving for Best Buy.

I’d say this process is in the best interest of Best Buy and definitely not its customers. I cannot imagine anyone not being frustrated by this level of “support” and number of bottlenecks. Now that I’ve heard this story you can be sure I will be sticking with Costco and other e-commerce sites for my technical needs. Although, I did get my iPod at Best Buy and escaped without a nasty process I’m glad to say.

Lessons for companies to learn:

1. Don’t box employees into processes. Often the inflexibility of requiring employees to follow a set process means they can’t adapt as a customer or situation requires. What other company does this well? Southwest Airlines. (Southwest has the lowest number of complaints of all US airlines with 0.18 per 100,000 customers. Also, they are the only US airline to be profitable for multiple consecutive years--35 years, in fact.)
2. Do not create too many steps in any process for a customer to get to a satisfaction point (purchase).
3. Do not ask lots of questions at any point in a relationship--let alone when it’s at the start of a transaction or relationship. I don’t like long surveys period. It’s better to ask questions in installments over time.

What's up with iTunes?

This is an example of how to create a panicked customer experience. Why do I tell such a story? Because it is a cautionary tale of what to avoid and a story about a little piece of information paired with a customer’s real life issue creating a negative experience and association with a particular company.

I’ve just been reminded that iTunes only allows you to access your account and download music from 5 computers.

Why do I care? I went through 3 new laptops last year. Yes, I am serious. I bought a refurbished HP laptop that had problems. I made that mistake twice. Then I bought a brand new HP machine (Because I’ve been through Dell hell, which is worse.) that I’m using now.

The above scenario means I used up 3 account installs. That, in addition to our old household laptop, means we only have 1 iTunes account left. Since the old house laptop is slow and has keys that barely work we will have to replace it at some point. Ack. That would mean we’re on our last iTunes account.

Why am I panicked? I have no idea, but I just saw a message when I re-installed iTunes on my recently cleared-off hard drive (courtesy of HP--more on that in a separate blog) and it made me realize, oh no, we may run out of accounts.

I think this will mean all the songs we bought with that account will no longer be available to us in iTunes. We might have to burn them to CDs and then upload them again to iTunes. Maybe we can’t even do that. (And my husband LOVES shopping on iTunes.)

The bottom line…

My point is: the combination of a company message with the background of a particular customer can create a negative experience, even if it’s not intentional.

If you don’t know the context behind your customers’ interaction with your product or services--find out. Launch a brief e-mail survey or even have a phone chat with them. You want customers to enjoy your products and services, not panic. Be open with them (like iTunes is doing), but consider the impact of your policies and communications and think about how it may affect experiences and retention. Your bottom line will thank you.