Posts tagged ‘Customer Evangelists’
Gandhi on Customer Service
I love this sign I found over at Andy Sernovitz’s “Damn! I Wish I’d Thought of That!” blog. He saw it in the lobby of the Chicago Tribune:
We could all stand to think of our customers like Gandhi would. After all, this is coming from a man who was able to bring millions to his cause with no religious or political power. Maybe a little bit of Gandhi could rub off on my friend at the coffee shop!
Creativity in Advertising
Despite the constant cry that advertising effectiveness is dying, creativity is still critical in driving someone to notice and read your message. I am a huge fan of the online liquidator Woot. For those of you unfamiliar with Woot, they sell one product per day and when it’s gone, it’s gone. Occasionally, they will have a “Woot Off” where they will try and blow out all of their extra inventory by selling several products in a day or there is always their 2 for Tuesdays where you can get two of the same product for one price. What has really endeared me to Woot, however, is the blog they write for each product they sell.
I was just reading their blog this morning promoting the Mark of Fitness Wristwatch Blood Pressure Monitor. The blog is a story right out of a fairy tale involving a medevel village, an angry mob, and a child born with the “Mark of Fitness”. I couldn’t stop laughing. It would be great if this were only once in a great while, but this is an every day occurrence. It is this snarky commentary combined with great prices on random items that has created a rabid following for Woot.
Seth Godin does a good job of pointing out how creativity helps “to find the right people in the right frame of mind at the right moment”. His example is even a paid search ad by Woot that shows up when you do a Google search on the stock symbol for Google (GOOG).
Woot has created a following by delivering a great product, but it keeps people coming back because it is more than a place to buy cheap stuff. It is the hilarity of the experience that keeps me checking it every day.
My Precious…
I broke down and bought an iPhone a month ago (OK, I begged my wife to let me buy it). I am a total gadget guy and I had to have one.
Anyway, the iPhone has two speakers on the unit for external sound. I put my iPhone in my cup holder in my truck and got some dirt lodged up in the little holes on the bottom. Then a couple weeks ago, I noticed one of the speakers wasn’t working. (You iPhone people might know where I am going with this) I couldn’t have a broken speaker on my month old sleek toy.
I called up Apple to tell them about my problem and possibly get a replacement. When I told the guy at Apple about my problem, at first he didn’t understand. Then he realized what I was telling him and he informed me that one side is a speaker and the other is the microphone. Honestly, I don’t know how he did it without openly laughing at me. Not only did he not laugh at me, he was extremely helpful about how to clean out the speakers and answering any other questions I had. I felt like I was the only person he had to talk to all day. When I got to the office, I checked my e-mail and he had sent me an e-mail with some additional information.
Those of you who have read previous blogs of mine know that I am an Apple fan. I think they produce incredible product. I have an iPod (along with my wife and 3 daughters), an iPhone, and I have sworn that my next laptop will be a Mac. However, I have officially made the switch from loyalist to customer evangelist. I have never been treated so well by a tech support person. It is the product combined with the cause, the position, the culture, the experience, and almost all of the other pieces of the navel model. In the end, Apple is one of the few companies that has put them all together.
Long live Apple!!!!!
You Are Insignificant
I love this new Brand Camp cartoon from Tom Fishburne:
One observation and one suggestion:
Observation: The reality is that as marketers, we are so wrapped in our own product or service (in this case, pickle relish) that we don’t take the time to step back and really understand what our customer cares about. How often is pickle relish at the forefront of their mind? Maybe when you are standing in the pickle relish isle looking at options is it one of the few times it is on your mind. Al Ries and Jack Trout always used to say, “you position your product in the mind of the customer”. Well, how much of her mind can you honestly hope to occupy?
Suggestion: If you really want to create an evangelist, target what she really cares about. This is really where a cause comes in. Pick one of those big chunks of grey matter and provide value there. If you provide value to the customer, they will provide value to you. This means giving her something that she can really emotionally invest in and the result will be more sales of pickle relish. Take Roaring Springs, a local water park, for example. Instead of focusing on selling more season passes, they focused on giving mom’s daily meaningful activities for their kids. The result was more ticket sales, more food sales, and more merchandise sales.
