Church of the Customer: March 2004 archives
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March 31, 2004
Giving NPR evangelists a voice
John Moore from the Brand Autopsy blog writes of his distaste for incessant groveling by NPR stations during on-air pledge drives. Then, in a follow-up post, he offers ideas to make pledge drives more bearable for everyone, including this:
Why can’t these public radio stations... use current paying subscribers to make the sales pitch? I would love to hear current subscribers tell me why they choose to donate money. Public radio stations could reach out to their subscriber base and invite long-time subscribers, first-time subscribers, and intermittent subscribers into the studio to record their story of why they choose to donate. Then, instead of hearing on-air talent ad-lib their inane sales pitch, listeners would hear passionate and articulate stories (disguised as pledge pitches) from current subscribers. That sounds like a much more meaningful and appealing way to drive donations.
John's right: It's the word of other members that's the real, and more trustworthy, marketing.
Back to the bad old days
The Dallas Morning News is the one of the 10-largest newspapers in the United States, and it's the flagship property of the Belo company. The News used to have a good-looking website, too. (I helped launch the site in 1996 with my old buddy, Mark Weinberg.)
Unfortunately for readers, The Morning News website has been assimilated into the corporate design machine, an inelegant and garish presentation, circa 1994. Belo's corporate cloning mandate has each of its television station and newspaper websites looking exactly the same, without a hint of local branding (see pict of the Dallasnews.com site below).
It's hard to imagine what parent company Belo company is thinking by presenting enduring and well-respected local media leaders in a zombie-like, soulless manner. Maybe it has something to do with creating shareholder value.
Customers are probably thinking worse.
March 30, 2004
The picture horse race
Here's how things are shaping up on our "Be the Marketing Director" vote for deciding which portraits we should use on our updated business cards.
Jackie: So far, picture 3 is the clear leader. With 351 votes in as of this writing, the percentage tallies tell the story:
Picture 1 21%
Picture 2 12%
Picture 3 67%
Ben: With 324 votes in as of this writing, Picture 1 has a respectable lead. Photo 3 with the funky Kangol hat is a close third.
Picture 1 44%
Picture 2 31%
Picture 3 25%
Be our marketing director and cast your vote now:
* Jackie pictures
* Ben pictures
SolutionMan's infectious entreprenerialism
Today's New York Times has a nice feature today on Gerald Haman, founder of SolutionPeople and one of our case-study companies for Creating Customer Evangelists.
The Times' story is a first-person account of how an unexpected and delayed layover at an airport became Gerald's studio for ideation and brainstorming with fellow passengers. Rather than stew in anger, Gerald took a difficult situation and created an entire new customer base from it. He's isn't called SolutionMan for marketing purposes alone!
March 29, 2004
What drives Google?
A Q&A with Google CEO Eric Schmidt in today's Wall Street Journal on what the company looks for in new employees:
The principle that Google operates under is to hire very, very strong-willed, sort of driven persons. We have relatively little management and the management is very, very thoroughly vetted. They both have the intelligence and the history of working in high-tech, and they want to work, they want to change the world.
By actively recruiting employees who want to change the world, it's little wonder that Google has so many worldwide evangelists.
March 26, 2004
Don't believe the street hype
Today's Wall Street Journal features a textbook quote from a Wall Street analyst who's trying to lead Costco to the Street's slaughterhouse:
"From the perspective of investors, Costco's benefits are overly generous," says Bill Dreher, retailing analyst with Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc. "Public companies need to care for shareholders first. Costco runs its business like it is a private company."
What's Dreher's dread? Costco takes care of its employees, as evidenced by this chart:
Myopians like Dreher care only for short-term gains. They say, "Bump up that stock price now, Costco, or I'll downgrade you and make a fortune on the downturn!" An analyst, investor, board member, consultant or author who bangs the drum for "shareholder value" would rather roast puppies on an open flame than focus on creating customer value first. The root of strong customer relationships is strong relationships employees have with the company.
A shortsighted focus on quarterly results and "keeping up with Walmart" kills companies. If Costco were to do everything what Ponzi-scheme-minded Wall Street wanted, it would alienate employees. Unhappy employees alienate customers, who are more likely to fire the company.
March 24, 2004
Decide our photo fates
Call it participatory marketing or Napsterizing your decision-making, but we want your vote on our marketing. Specifically, our business cards.
Here's the scoop: We include our pictures on our business cards as a way for people to remember us when taking the card back to the office.
It's time for us to update our cards, and we want your help in deciding which pictures to use. We have established a way for you to vote for your favorite. The pictures with the most votes will be the ones used.
UPDATE: The display of the photos and the voting system looked horrible on TypePad, so the follow these links to cast your votes:
* Vote on Jackie Huba's pictures
* Vote on Ben McConnell's pictures
We'll keep the voting open until the end of March.
March 23, 2004
World's biggest thank you
Best Western kicks off its third annual "World's Largest Thank You" this week.
Best Western owners, general managers, sales managers and corporate staff will make more than 11,000 personal visits to travel agents and customers March 24-28 in 20 countries.
"With current world events, there is no better time to say 'thank you' to our customers. It is one of those things that we often forget to do in the press of daily business," says Best Western Hotels CEO Tom Higgins. "The travel agent community accounts for nearly 50 percent of our total bookings, and we want them to know we appreciate everything they do for us. You don't become the 'world's largest' without help from your friends and this is a time to remember our friends."
It's a buzz-worthy way to thank your best customers. What innovative ways have you thanked your customers?
Textbook customer evangelism
An article in the New York Times about airline Jet Blue and its passionate customers is textbook evangelism, right down to the language used by customers and observers.
When a company manages to appeal to such disparate market segments [as Jet Blue does], according to Youngme Moon, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, it ends up inspiring "fanatic loyalty.""It's the lack of pretentiousness combined with delightful features that drive people nuts," she said. "Those customers become enchanted, and once they become enchanted, they become brand missionaries."
Of course, JetBlue's devotees are pretty much limited to the routes it dominates, like those from Kennedy airport to Fort Lauderdale; to Long Beach airport, outside Los Angeles; and to Oakland, near San Francisco. But dedicated they are. Grant Kikkert of New York, a regional sales manager for the publisher O'Reilly & Associates, who often travels to company headquarters near San Francisco, says he would choose JetBlue over any other airline, even though "every flight takes me out of my way."
"Flying JetBlue is like being part of a secret club," Mr. Kikkert said. "It's universally understood that you'll have a good flight with no stress."
March 19, 2004
How a business is changing cultural lives
Netflix is a service that is changing people's cultural lives. Customers are modifying how they spend their time, and they love that they love this!
Here's how William Grimes, writing for the New York Times, describes how Netflix has changed his life:
I became one of Netflix's nearly 1.8 million users several months ago, and I have never looked back. Overnight, life became much simpler. No longer did I have to make a mad dash to the video store, either to rent a film or to return it by the noon deadline. Late fees vanished and so did the check-out line. I cursed the endless hours spent prowling the aisles in search of misfiled films, or something — anything — to watch... Netflix not only changed my routine, it also turned me into a different kind of movie watcher. Culturally, I am no longer the same person.
This is textbook customer evangelism. A service that changes someone's life. Can you say the same for your product or service? Are you trying to change the world, no matter how small or niche-oriented that world may be?
