American – turning a problem customer into an advocate

I had one of my rare ‘bad experiences’ with American Airlines last week. We are planning to visit our friends who retired from Microsoft last week and are off to live in Rome for a year.

I haven’t travelled much this year, so my Platinum Executive status will evaporate at the end of this year. I want to use my VIP upgrades and (being a Yorkshireman) apply them to a mileage ticket. I can see that may not be an everyday thing so I call, I ask the question and am assured that it is OK. I’m pleasantly surprised how easy it is. We go through how I need to do that. Book our tickets on the web, then call back and apply the upgrades.

I do.

When I call back, I’m told that I CANNOT apply VIP upgrades to the tickets I have booked. That was obviously a disappointment, but what got to me was the brusque – not quite rude, but not the usual helpful, ‘let’s find some alternatives’ approach that I’m used to. I asked how I could complain, and got a short treatise on filling in a web form. Under pressure she did agree to cancel the tickets with no penalties and refund my taxes. I took the offer and retreated.

After fuming for a while, I called back and got a third person. This is the person AA should be lauding, she turned a pissed off customer back into an avid advocate. Robin ended up getting Barb and me seats in business, across the aisle from each other (she also told me that it was only acceptable if we had been married for at least 10 years!) with upgrades confirmed there and then on the flights we originally booked. We ended up booking one revenue and one mileage ticket, with which I’m more than happy

I asked how and why she put so much effort into making it work (there were lots of holds and the whole call was well over 40 minutes). She replied ‘I always know I have to pull out all the stops when a customer calls and says “I need your help. I’ve had the worst afternoon of American customer service ever.”’

And she did! It emphasizes once again how easy it is to turn a problem into an opportunity to delight your customer. In so many instances companies (and the individual representing them) take a ‘That’s the way it is’ approach and I walk away – either to relate the experience to others or – if possible – to another supplier.

It’s the people who deliver on policy and company ethos.

{Brand, Customer Service, Product, WOM}

Technorati Tags: Brand, Customer Service, Product, User Experience, WOM

Why are We Here?

The context for this post is long, but worth the effort – I promise!

Companies – and marketers – exist to profitably meet the needs of their customers.
This implies that they a) recognize the communities (customers) that they serve and b) relate to them (the customers) and can identify their needs. Simple huh?

I’ve been redoing my web site recently and feedback to one of my standard lines ‘Marketing is isn’t rocket science, but it is very hard work’ from clients caused me to add a lot of explanation to the definitions for brand and for marketing in the hope that the subtleties behind the simple definitions would be clearer.

One of my skills, my clients tell me, is seeing the simple things, the fundamentals, with clarity (my friends explain that is because I’m simple), but it seems to me that the more we remember the basics the easier it is to decide what to do and how. Let’s try a thought experiment:

Golden Rule 1: ‘Treat others as you would like to be treated’ (more background on this here)

Golden Rule 2: ”Every interaction with your Brand influences my perception of it’ (and here)

There is a small cadre of friends, all of whom are English born (in the North!), married to Americans, became Americans and who live and work in various US states as marketing and / or business development professionals. We have a remarkable similarity of view and have often debated why this is. One of them, let’s call him Chris, and I have been playing the role of ’support and sounding board’ for each other over the last 12 months or so in a weekly call. Chris has been trying to make the consultant to corporate transition whilst I have been doing the reverse.

This week our call got to on to a topic that we have touched on before – the way an organization’s brand and persona come through when they recruit. We have been known to commiserate about the lack of civility towards, care for and interest in, the individuals being recruited.

We compared notes and agreed that a smart organization’s REAL persona would shine through and make an individual WANT to work there. For example – compare and contrast:

One of the aforementioned wives volunteers with an organization – let’s call it Habitat for Humanity – who are looking for a marketing person. Said wife brings home job description and says ‘this looks like you!’. Along with the resume a carefully crafted cover letter is sent, to a named individual, mentioning the wife’s involvement with the organization as well as a brief bio on not for profit experience.

A well organized not for profit will recognize that it has three key constituencies: it’s clients (or members), it’s staff & volunteers, and it’s funders. So the couple in the example above are in two of the categories – volunteer (the wife, to the tune of about 25-30 hours per month) and funders (the husband / family to the tune of, well let’s say that they are sought out as donors with organizations that they support).

I feel a decisive moment coming on!

Here is a delicate situation, two individuals whose perceptions of a brand will shift – perhaps significantly – depending on how the organization reacts. So far all I know is that 14 days after submission, no response, acknowledgment of any form has landed with the family.

Read the Golden Rules (above) again.

Habitat are not unusual, the conversation on recruitment that started this train of thought was discussing how it has become acceptable to not respond, not acknowledge receipt and not to advise candidates if they are successful or not. Nada. No wonder that most organizations recruiting online remain anonymous!

Contrast with a company called Working Assets who say this “Once you have completed the [online] interview, your information will be sent directly to the hiring manager for decisions on the next steps. Regardless of the outcome, Working Assets [or Accolo] will keep you updated as to your status by e-mail or phone.” And they did!

Read the Golden Rules (above) again.

Which organization is better serving it’s brand persona better? Which one would you want to work for?

Read the Golden Rules (above) again.

I know my answer.

{WOM, Brand, Marketing, Product}

Technorati Tags: Brand, Customer Service, Marketing, Product, User Experience, WOM

Bose exceed expectations again!

I’ve commented on my satisfaction with Bose (and triggered comments to the contrary from others!) and the fact that premium products and pricing do – in this case at least – equal outstanding service!

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my experience with Magnolia. I bit the bullet (really I got fed up of walking to the Bose unit to change volume or CD, rather than doing it remotely!) so I called Bose customer support. After one poor experience – the guy wouldn’t tell me if they could help, just insisted that I call when I’m alongside the unit – I explained the problem and the rep explained that they would need to have the unit back for an out of warranty repair. But get this, they would refurbish and set to new specs the whole unit, warrant if for 12 months and ship it back to me for $165.

That seems remarkable value to me!

I was a little concerned that I didn’t have the shipping cartons and asked if I could drop it at a Bose outlet store. “Oh, that’s no problem, I’ll ship you the box, packing instructions and everything you need overnight.” And he did! The empties arrived, I packed the unit up and shipped it to Bose – the cheapest UPS ground I could find was $55!

Two weeks later (my outbound package was so cheap it too a week to get there), I get a note that it is complete and on the way back. By UPS overnight no less!

I have no idea how Bose can ship (an albeit empty) huge carton – that weighs over 50lbs at a guess when the unit is in it – overnight, repair and warranty my unit and overnight it back . All for $165 – and Bose took the replacement remote back and credited me in full.

I like this company!

{WOM, Customer Service, Product}

Technorati Tags: Brand, Customer Service, Product, User Experience, WOM

Lexus – Truth in Advertising?

I have pondered before – and sometimes here, in public – if I’m from a different planet. Many others have made comments that might cause me to thing that they think I am too!

So I am always reassured to find others who question the ‘truth in advertising’ in similar ways as I do. If you have read much of my blog, you will know that I’m a passionate naval history buff and subscribe to an email group about the same. Actually, they draw the boundaries a little differently ‘Two topics: the works of Patrick O’Brian and everything else’.

The list is packed with interesting people who have a range of backgrounds and expertise (they can sometimes be a little intimidating, not for nothing are they known as the “All Knowing List”) but who are also amusing, fun, erudite and inspiring.

One who contributes a great deal is Gary W Sims, a California engineer and desert dweller with a background in – amongst other things – developing the GPS system. I’m going to quote – with his permission – his email.

But before I do, my point: Advertisers are trying to get us to feel good about something. In order to do so, they must put all aspects of their message – and their Brand – together so that they do NOT cause the type of dissonance that Gary experienced watching the ad.

Sounds easy. It’s not!

You do not have to be an engineer, or as smart as Gary – or both as is Gary – to get the feeling that something “Ain’t right”. That’s enough to dissuade many buyers – or at least create an – albeit small – niggle and negative perception.

If you would like to see the debate that the post engendered, just Google some of the text below.
Read on:

“The purpose of a television commercial is to grab your eye, and often they explicitly do *not* want you listening, since they must by law say distracting things better left to very fine print. Like ”use of this product may cause parts to fall off some people.“

The only obligatory statements I know of in automobile ads are those ”professional driver on closed course“ notices, which are always reassuring after they show the car leaping off a roof or some such thing. (We might have thought just anybody could do that.) But sometimes the fine print or sotto voce comments are just plain confusing. Case in point:

A current Lexus commercial shows a helicopter dropping a Lexus coupe. This is definitely a thirty-second show I would enjoy far more if I were not such an obsessive about detail. As the car begins to fall toward a runway with a target painted on it, another coupe begins to accelerate down the runway.
They are converging as this script is read:

”Gravity will propel this Lexus IS over 4,000 feet in a matter of seconds.“ [camera shifts to car on ground]

”*This* Lexus IS will attempt to cover the same distance even faster.“

[car on ground passes target just before the falling car impacts.]

”So much for gravity.“

First time I saw this, I started to do the arithmetic every engineer among us just began. How long would it take that Lexus to fall 4,000 feet?
Muttering about terminal velocity estimates and so forth. Oh, no matter, I realized about one premise into the calculation. Can’t happen that way because ordinary street cars are limited to about nine tenths the force of gravity in any axis because of tire adhesion. Call it 29 fps gained per second as compared to 32 for a falling object. And that is when cornering a sports car, or stopping a car with excellent brakes. You can cheat and bounce off walls to generate higher acceleration, but that’s a technique with limited utility. Or strap on JATO units like the Mythbusters did.
But…

Only the most powerful cars approach that 0.9g in the forward direction and then only for a few tens of feet. Current verrry fast street cars can only sustain about 24 fps2 in the forward direction. Cars that cost about like a house. A big fancy house. Top Ferraris, Bugatti Veyrons and the like.

No, I realized quickly that it takes a top-of-the-line race car to generate the sustained acceleration that falling car is experiencing. And I do mean ‘top’. Something like a Formula One car, and it cannot sustain that rate for 4000 feet. So a Lexus definitely cannot do what is shown in that commercial if they ”cover the same distance“ as the script says. ”Ehhh, so what.“ Went back to book.

Commercial came on again. Watched for disclaimers or explanation:

”Based on horizontal drop. Aerial sequence simulated.“

Oh. They… No, they… Huh? There’s the challenge for our group. What the Devil does this mean?

Well, no. Obviously, it means nothing, since things cannot fall horizontally. That’s one way of defining ‘horizontal’ for all love. (e.g. A ball will not begin rolling if placed on a horizontal surface.) But we’ll assume they thought it meant something when they wrote it.

The challenge I offer is to figure out what that ad agency *thinks* they were saying. So the non-geeks or novice geeks can enjoy the game, let me donate a couple of techie hints. [I might add that any non-techie interpretations are far more likely to be right than anything we geeks will come up with living under the constraint of knowing physics.<g>]

So, you may do better ignoring these tidbits of reality, but:

1. Traveling 4000 feet ”in seconds“ permits us to assume an average speed much slower than objects fall. It hints at ten seconds of course, but 59 seconds is semantically acceptable as ”in seconds“ just as well. (That’s good, because the falling car — neglecting air drag — would reach about 350 mph and only take 16 seconds to cover that 4000 feet.)

2. 4,000 feet in 59 seconds is 89 seconds to cover a nautical mile [just slipped that in for the POBishness of it] or about 46 mph. Call it 75 kph since I don’t care to find my calculator. Big deal. We have sailboats that go that fast.

3. To cover that distance from a standing start is nearly as trivial. Suppose that Lexus accelerated like the Old Man in a Hat… uh, older man who always seems to be in front of me at freeway on ramps when the traffic we must merge with is going 85 mph. Call it a nice gentle 4 fps that won’t spill his Geritol. (As an aside, this rate takes 22 seconds to reach 60 mph, which the OMH ahead of me rarely does by the end of the on ramp. This is like parallel parking in reverse at 25 mph when you try to merge at that speed. At least at the speed of traffic in the ’slow’ lane of our freeways.) In fact, let’s not scare the OMH with that frantic rush. Let’s call it 3.2 fps or one tenth the acceleration of gravity. Unless I just miskeyed my calculator [which I gave up and fetched] it still will take only 50 seconds to cover that 4,000 feet. The final velocity would be about 110 mph, but that’s within the reach of nearly anything on the road today. Even a slightly refurbished Yugo. Certainly with the ”professional driver on a closed course“ of commercials.

So I return to my challenge: what the Devil *are* they trying to say? Seems unlikely the ad agency meant to brag that the new Lexus IS 350 will keep up with an aged Yugo.”

{advertising, Brand, Product}

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Brand, Marketing, Media, Product, Product Management