Church of the Customer: January 2004 archives
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January 31, 2004
When the lawyers take over
The NFL is almost consistently the best-run organization in professional sports, but not in this case: It has sent threatening letters to hotels that were planning to host Super Bowl parties.
"When we become aware of a potential violation, we take action," an NFL spokesman said. "It's not a city issue, it's a copyright issue."
Whenever the word "copyright" is mentioned, you know the lawyers have squashed the marketers.
The NFL's greed-based move it making it look more like the RIAA than the smart organization it usually is. With the hundreds of millions of dollars the NFL and CBS will earn with licensing deals, advertising from multiple-themed shows and oodles of ancillary products, a few hundred hotels hosting watching parties is hardly damaging to the broadcast's business value. If anything, the NFL should encourage these parties and hundreds more of them -- communities inspire stronger loyalty and help lure new fans into the vast community. A Super Bowl party at someone's house or in a hotel is the perfect induction ceremony for new fans.
The NFL's cease-and-desist letters say, in effect, "We would rather threaten our customers in pursuit of ultimate control than make more money by giving up a tiny bit of control."
Professional gambler Tom Burton said it best: "You can't go to the Super Bowl because all the seats are taken. The NFL just wants to dig deeper and deeper and wants to get as much money as they can. When is it going to end?"
January 27, 2004
We'd roll out the red carpet, but we can't find it
Welcome to Washington, D.C. Bring your own shovel.
I picked the perfect time to visit the District of Columbia: during my two days here so far, the area has had six inches of snow topped with glistening freezing rain. Good luck trying to land a taxi out of National airport -- they're scarce because city streets aren't plowed. Many of them aren't salted, either.
With most schools closed and the government telling workers to go home early, D.C. has largely shut down... because the streets (and most sidewalks) are slippery, slushy conduits of non-commerce. My friends here say that it snows heavily several times per year, so winter weather isn't big surprise like it would be in, say, Miami Beach.
Contrast D.C. to Chicago where, if there's snow or freezing rain in the forecast, an army of trucks patrol the city's vast network of streets and highways, daring Mother Nature to bring it on. From a customer service standpoint, D.C.'s frozen municipal government fails.
Tangible effects of Napsterized knowledge
NASA is reaping the benefits of making its knowledge and intellectual capital widely available, as reported by the New York Times.
Since the rover Spirit landed on Mars three weeks ago, 32 million people have visited the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's Web site, dwarfing the numbers of any other space event, including last year's space shuttle accident. The agency recorded four billion hits, one for each item called up on the site, as the visitors browsed through hundreds of pictures considering what rock to zoom in on. That was well over the number of hits recorded in the entire previous year.
Last weekend, tens of thousands of Mars fans went even further, gathering at planetariums, around television sets and in Internet chat rooms to monitor the scene inside the control room as the rover Opportunity landed.
The interest, experts say, is driven largely by the vast amount of information NASA is making available for the public. As a population acclimated to video games and cyberspace finds itself immersed in a not-so-virtual Martian reality, it is eagerly using familiar tools to explore the unknown.
Instead of merely admiring Mars, people are now interacting with it. And while the activity may be dominated by a core of self-avowed space geeks, they have been joined by novices — nurses, real estate brokers, students and teachers — drawn by the drama of the mission as well as the ease of access to it.
By making its intellectual capital easily and widely accessible, NASA is creating millions of evangelists for the Mars mission, which in turn will help the space agency's fund-raising efforts for future exploratory missions.
The more you give away your knowledge, the more valuable it becomes.
January 26, 2004
Evangelist for: Lexmark
Our office makes good use of a Lexmark T630 printer. It's a workhorse, and it's fast.
Today, though, it broke down. The fan died. We tried a few fixes outlined on its website to no avail. A call to its customer support line (waiting time on a Monday, about 1.5 minutes!) produced this diagnosis: The company would ship a replacement printer to arrive tomorrow. Tomorrow! No hemming or hawing or hidden charges. Just ship the broken one back using the pre-paid shipping slip. Lexmark honored its warranty without hesitation.
That is pure customer service heaven. Long live Lexmark.
January 24, 2004
Pining for plasma
Not a week after reading this Wall Street Journal article about hotels installing flat screen TVs in their rooms, I experienced it.
Last week, I stayed at the Millennium Hilton in New York City. The hotel's website said it had 42-inch plasma screens in every room. OK, I'm there!
Upon check-in, the hotel assigned me a lovely corner room on the 26th floor, huge for New York standards. The view was spectacular. But no plasma TV! A call to the front desk brought the explanation that corner rooms have too many windows, making it difficult to install a large plasma TV anywhere. (Perhaps the hotel could examine this concept: television screens built inside window panes.)
Call me crazy, but I would rather have a smaller room with a plasma TV than a corner room with a view. A transfer to a new room brought me into close proximity with one of these shimmering plasma beauties. Was it worth it? It was very cool, to say the least. Here's a pic:
If high-end TV manufacturers are not subsidizing their expensive plasma and LCD TVs for hotels, they should be. It's a perfect bite-size chunk, a way to experience a product -- in this case, a $4,000 investment -- without having to take a $4,000 risk.
January 23, 2004
Evangelist for: Television Without Pity
Television Without Pity writer Gustave writes recaps of TV show "24" that are always twisted, dark (but in a light way) and funny.
A real whopper
In the can't-win marketing world of fast food, innovative agency Crispin Porter & Bogusky (not to be confused with innovative actor Crispin Glover) has been named marketing agency for Burger King.
Crispin Porter is the firm that built the grassroots campaign launch of the Mini Cooper and created "The Truth" antismoking campaign, which cigarette companies loathe because, it seems, it was effective.
Taking on Burger King is a big risk for Crispin Porter because... how can it succeed with a product that most argue is not good for you? The Mini Cooper is a great car. Everyone knows the evils associated with smoking. But obesity-causing fast food?
Crispin Porter's executive creative director, Alex Bogusky, says their assignment also includes the customer experience, including signage. "Within the drive-through, the signage of the drive-through, how you tell them to go, stop and confirm their order -- all those things are branded experiences."
Absolutely, Alex. But what about the food?
Burton Morris, superstar
Both Jackie and I are so proud of our friend, the pop artist Burton Morris, who designed the artwork for this year's Academy Awards. How cool is it to have a 33 x 78 ft. banner of your artwork made and hung in Hollyood?!?!
January 22, 2004
Special offer for true believers
Jackie Huba's birthday is next month, coinciding with our Customer Evangelism University. So instead of receiving presents, Jackie would like to give one: Register by her birthday, Feb. 2, and bring a colleague to the University for free.
Bring your boss. Your assistant. Your cubicle mate. Your comrade. A customer. A prospect. Your mom. Whomever you think would benefit from one or two days of intensive understanding of word of mouth and assembling your own customer evangelism plan.
This is a special offer for true believers only, so you won't see it anywhere on our website, except in our newsletter and the blog! You can register via phone (312) 467-4755 or over the web via our University page; just put "birthday special!" in the "How did you hear about us?" field.
Creating evangelists by humanizing mistakes
Microsoft says it overreacted by rattling its considerable legal sword at 17-year-old Mike Rowe and his domain name, MikeRoweSoft.com.
Mike wasn't trying to pass himself off as Microsoft, or steal any of its business. That his name is nearly a homonym with the world's largest software company is part happenstance, part design.
Mike's story has leapt across blogs and the Internet to mainstream television. As they say in the news biz, this story has legs. Understandably, some people in Microsoft are asking, "What do we have to do to make this problem disappear quickly?"
It's the wrong question. In the customer evangelism model, the question would be, "How can we think creatively about this situation?"
Mike Rowe is a young web designer who, by looking at his portfolio, is an avid gamer. College beckons. Or a job. Or an internship.
For Mike.
MikeRoweSoft at Microsoft. In its games division, working on Microsoft Games websites.
Microsoft's chief legal counsel would show up unannounced at Mike's house, say hello to his startled parents, and offer Mike the chance to be a programmer for the summer. Then they dash to the local TV studio for an appearance together via satellite on the Today show and explain how misunderstandings happen. We're all human, Microsoft's chief legal counsel says, and we want to make sure Mike becomes a lifelong Microsoft customer. Doing the right thing creatively in difficult situations demonstrates a commitment to creating customer evangelists. Star-struck Mike would have a new calling in life: becoming a Microsoft genius.
Katie Couric would love it.
