Archive for the ‘Customer Experience’ Category

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Marketing for Appearances

Friday, May 27th, 2011

Have you ever driven past a small business and thought it looked dingy, dilapidated or outdated? Have you ever been on a website that felt cumbersome to use, with the information you sought hard to find? Perhaps you think the business owners must not care anymore, or they don’t have the budget to fix things up. Even worse for the business, you might not think anything, but simply keep driving or surfing the web.

If it’s been awhile since you invested in your business’s appearance, customers could be thinking the same about you. After a few years, a business owner’s familiarity with her surroundings can cause her to overlook the slow decay of time.  Take a fresh look at the impression you are making on customers when they see your business for the first time.

You only have one chance at a first impression, goes the adage. And your first impression with customers is crucial- what they notice first sets the tone for how or if they will do business with you.

Your business’s exterior needs to be welcoming, easy to understand and clearly explain who you are. Your exterior could be a brick-and-mortar store, a website or even your sales team. Here are some examples to get you thinking.

Good Exteriors for Marketing

The Pink Box is a boutique in my neighborhood that shows a great exterior appearance, with a fresh sign and interesting window display. It’s easy to know when they are open and what you can buy from them.

My favorite part of The Pink Box’s exterior is this cheerful open sign. On chilly or hot days when the store must keep the door closed, this sign serves as a beacon to everyone on the square.

There’s a lovely inn in Carmel, CA that looks just as lovely when you first drive up. The Candle Light Inn looks inviting, and it’s easy for newcomers to know where to park when they arrive.

Not to overload on the pink, but the Olde Pink House Restaurant in Savannah, GA does a great job of communicating their stately yet fun vibe with their exterior.

The menu board on the front steps also helps customers know what kind of food to expect.

Camp Washington Chili hasn’t been around since 1771 like the Olde Pink House, but they have been in the same location since 1940. They’ve really kept their exterior fresh and updated, which contributes to their continued success. And with that sign, you certainly know what they sell!

Not-so-good Exteriors for Marketing

Often, seeing bad examples is just as useful as seeing good ones. Here are some unfortunate businesses that really could stand to improve their exterior appearance.

The BonBonerie is one of the best and most creative bakeries in Cincinnati, OH. For a new customer, it’s very difficult to find the entrance, because it is facing the parking lot, not the main street. This kind of confusion could cause a customer to drive away instead of stopping in.

This exterior inspires more questions than appetites. Did Laurie and Debi have a fight? Is this supposed to be a joke? What exactly is the name of this restaurant, anyway?

Casbah is a great Moroccan restaurant in Savannah, GA, with an inspired decor, great staff and delicious food. But you could never tell from the outside. If your sign is old and faded, and your canopy is dingy and worn, many new customers will pass you by.

To see some examples of websites and logos, read my articles, “Web Design Essentials for Small Business” and “Small Business Logo Design.”

There’s good news. Even if your business looks more like the bad than good examples, you can start making things better today. Your website might need a redesign, or your building a complete remodel, but there are small steps you can take to incrementally improve your appearance. Need some ideas? Send me an email or call me at 513.833.4203.

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Posted in Branding, Customer Experience, Customers, Design Theory, Small Business | 1 Comment »

Mixed Marketing Messages

Friday, May 13th, 2011

When you send mixed marketing messages, your customers become confused, suspicious or even angry. Take, for instance, the dissonant image below. The dry cleaner says they love customers but damaged the suit they cleaned.

I believe the dangling button more than I believe the the dry cleaner’s promotion message telling me, “We Love Our Customers.” If they really loved me, they would be careful not to damage my family’s clothing- and they wouldn’t have been three days late delivering it. And it’s insulting to be told one thing and experience another. Were they hoping I wouldn’t notice?

Your customers evaluate you on every experience they have with your business or products. Having nice marketing messages simply isn’t enough to keep customers’ loyalty- you must earn it with every experience.

What mixed marketing messages might you be sending to your customers?

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Posted in Branding, Customer Experience, Marketing Theory | No Comments »

Why isn’t my marketing working?

Friday, March 25th, 2011

A Facebook follower recently asked, “What can I do when an advertising or marketing campaign isn’t working?” There are several reasons a marketing campaign might fail. Here are several common ones:

  • You aren’t marketing to the right customers. The first step of any successful marketing campaign is to accurately identify the people who will buy your product or service. For instance, a private elementary school may teach children, but it shouldn’t advertise to children. Parents are the decision-makers.
  • Place – You aren’t marketing to customers where they go for information about your product or service. Think like a customer. Where do they go to learn about your product or to buy it? No one is going to buy life insurance from a mall kiosk, no matter how many thousands of people walk past each day. Even if 50% of the passersby are in the market for life insurance, you just don’t buy it at the mall.
  • Timing – You aren’t marketing to customers at the right time. This could be the time of day, day of the week or season of the year. Imagine a florist marketing Valentine’s bouquets in March. It would be ridiculous – no one wants to buy them after Valentine’s Day.
  • Message – Your marketing message isn’t meaningful to your customers. Many marketers make the mistake of developing messages that appeal to their company instead of to the customer. Your message should address what is important to your customer. Why do customers want to buy from you?

Your next question might be, “How do I know which reason to address?” To learn the reason your marketing isn’t working, look at the results of your marketing efforts, such as calls, clicks or impressions. If you don’t have any results at all, you probably have a problem of marketing in the wrong place. If you are getting some results, but not closing sales, you might be marketing to the wrong customers.

To determine if your timing or message is off, you need to think like a customer – when are they looking? what messages are meaningful to them? If you can, ask some existing customers what they think. Most of the time, customers are glad to share their opinions to help you out. Ask them how and when they heard about you and what they like about your products or services. Use this information to craft messages that would appeal to them and potential customers like them.

It can certainly be tricky to determine why your marketing isn’t working and how to fix it. I find these problems very interesting and would be glad to talk to you about your marketing. Just call or email me: Amanda Cullen, 513.833.4203, amanda@zooinajungle.com

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Posted in Advertising, Branding, Customer Experience, Customers, Marketing Theory | No Comments »

Marketing Podcast: Customer Service Tips

Friday, March 11th, 2011

The hardest part of delivering good customer service is when you need to give bad news to your customer. But this marketing podcast provides four tips for delivering great customer service when you have to tell a customer, “No.” As you will hear in the podcast, businesses can even use a bad situation to create a more loyal customer.

Listen or download below:

Customer Service Tips: How to tell a customer no

Download the Customer Service Tips MP3 file here. (6.1 MB)

This segment first aired during “Getting Down to Business” on Alaska’s Fox News Talk 1020.

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Posted in Customer Experience, Marketing Podcasts | No Comments »

Sales Promotion FAIL

Friday, March 4th, 2011

Sales promotions are a popular part of the marketing mix. Sales promotions can be a great way to build awareness about your brand, reward loyal customers or just eliminate excess stock.

Except this one. It is a sales promotion fail.

I saw this 5% off book at an otherwise amazing independent bookstore in Columbus, OH. If customers don’t want to read Soul Pancake for $19.99, do you think they would be motivated if the price were $18.99? It would be more than a dollar’s worth of hassle just getting that stubborn sticker off the cover. This paltry sales promotion seems calculated to make customers laugh, not buy the book.

When planning sales promotions, make sure the offer is meaningful to the customer. Consider the customer’s context – in a world where Amazon sells a book for 41% off publisher’s list price, offering a 5% discount simply highlights that this bookstore’s prices are higher. This bookstore should not compete on price – they will lose every time. They need to give customers something that Amazon can’t – an experience, a feeling or a relationship.

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Posted in Customer Experience, Marketing Theory, Selling | No Comments »

Good Customer Service: How to Tell a Customer “No”

Friday, February 4th, 2011

Good customer service is easy when things are going smoothly, and you can say, “Yes!” to your customers’ requests. But when you have to tell a customer, “No,” it takes more thought and effort to deliver good customer service. Recently, I got to experience amazing customer service and found it a “teachable moment” for all businesses.

For many years, I have subscribed to the Wall Street Journal‘s “Best of the Web Today” emails, but in the last few months they changed the emails to excerpts, requiring subscribers to visit a web page to read the whole digest. Upset about the change, I sent a curt email, writing:

I really don’t like how you no longer include the full article in the email. I subscribe by email because I want to read the whole thing in my email inbox.

James Taranto, the editor for Best of the Web Today, emailed me back:

I’m afraid this was a business decision. There was hardly any demand for ads in the BOTWT email, so we decided to direct readers to the website. However, you can still get the full text–but without formatting and links–if you switch your subscription to the text format. Cheers, James

Four Elements of Good Customer Service

This email response took me aback. It was perfect, even though he was effectively telling me, “No.” Here’s why:

  1. The response came from someone I respect. James Taranto, the editor, wrote this email. Someone with decision-making power thought my complaint important enough to respond to himself.
  2. The explanation was honest. I can’t argue that the Wall Street Journal needs to make a profit. Taranto respected me enough to just tell me the truth.
  3. The email was personalized. Clearly, this email was not a form letter. It was written in direct response to my complaint.
  4. Taranto presented a remedy and specified its drawbacks. To get the full text,  I can subscribe to the plain text version of the mailing. But thanks to his explanation, I won’t be surprised when there aren’t any links in it. Taranto prevented a further customer service problem by telling me the drawbacks up front.

If you incorporate these four elements into your customer service interactions, you will not only satisfy customers, but you will make them more loyal and raving fans of your products and company as well. How’s that for turning a negative into a positive? Take my example. Instead of remaining angry with the Wall Street Journal, I wrote a glowing article about their great customer service.

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Posted in Customer Experience, Customers, Marketing Theory | No Comments »

Getting Customers to Call: Small Business Marketing Matters

Thursday, January 27th, 2011

Getting customers to call is a primary step in many small businesses’ sales processes. Telling them, “Call for information,” “Call Now!” or “Call to order!” are not enough. You need to give customers a reason to call you.

Offering a coupon or a free quote isn’t that reason. Those incentives may offer motivation to buy, but you need to provide a motivation to call. Whether you are selling all-inclusive vacations or car insurance, if you have high success rates on the phone, your best bet of making a sale is getting a customer to call you.

How do you motivate customers to call you?

Customers must perceive some benefit to calling. This benefit could be monetary, entertainment or satisfying curiosity. Here are some ideas for how to motivate customers to call:

  • Offer a gift card or other “free gift” to the first hundred callers.
  • Ask a compelling question to which they can only learn the answer if they call.
  • Make the call fun by promoting a trivia game for callers. Ensure the trivia is relevant to your customer base, such as asking local sports questions.
  • Make the need to call more urgent. Have a deadline for receiving a special offer, or let customers know when you plan on raising your prices.
  • Spread the word. Use your other forms of marketing and advertising to sell the benefits of calling- not necessarily the benefits of buying.

Malcolm Gladwell provides a great example of the last tip in The Tipping Point. He tells of a cheesy ad campaign for the Columbia Record Club that was successful beyond anyone’s dreams, because it made a game out of the most profitable action customers could take. TV ads encouraged customers to find the “gold box” in their TV Guides to win a free record of their choice. Customers felt like they were solving a puzzle, but really, Gladwell writes, “It created a connection between the Columbia message viewers saw on television and the message they read in a magazine.” And this message was a call to action, showing remarkable results: “Every magazine on the schedule made a profit, an unprecedented turnaround.”

(You’ve read The Tipping Point, right? If not, go buy it!)

Today’s article about getting customers to call is fairly general, but every business is unique. Call me at 513.833.4203 with the questions you have about getting your customers to call your business. I’d be glad to brainstorm some ideas with you. It will be fun… and free!

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Posted in Customer Experience, Customers, Marketing Theory, Selling | 2 Comments »

Customer Service: Trust Your Employees

Friday, December 17th, 2010

Customer service interactions are a big part of marketing for most companies. Customer service employees are often the face or voice of a company when customers have problems, whether it be to accept a return, resolve a billing issue or answer questions. Before a customer service interaction, customers may be frustrated or confused, leading to a lack of patience.

Many of the biggest problems in customer service occur when a company’s process or policy doesn’t apply to the situation a customer is experiencing, furthering their impatience, frustration and confusion. Being told, “I’m not allowed to do that.” or “This is company policy.” doesn’t resolve a customer’s problem, and all too often customer service employees are put in the position of angering customers.

For instance, last week FedEx delivered a package of mine to the wrong address, so I needed to pick it up at their warehouse. Their process states that anyone picking up a package must show government-issued ID with the same address as the ship-to address on the package. However, the whole reason I was at the warehouse was because the ship-to address was the wrong address. This policy clearly didn’t account for my situation, creating a bad customer service experience.

What can companies do to prevent policies from getting in the way of good customer service? They can trust their employees to make the right decision and allow them to bend policies for unusual situations.

Many managers out there may be gasping in horror, exclaiming, “We have the policies to prevent people from doing stupid things!” We only need to look to Nordstrom, one of the most successful retailers, for a counter-example.

For many years, the Nordstrom Employee Handbook was simply a single, 5″x8″ grey postcard reading:

Welcome to Nordstrom

We’re glad to have you with our Company. Our number one goal is to provide outstanding customer service. Set both your personal and professional goals high. We have great confidence in your ability to achieve them.

Nordstrom Rules: Rule #1: Use best judgment in all situations. There will be no additional rules.

Please feel free to ask your department manager, store manager, or division general manager any question at any time.

Len Brzozowski, of the Xavier Leadership Center, wrote a very interesting piece on customer service culture and Nordstrom. He states, “Nordstrom boasts the highest sales per square foot performance in the retail industry – by almost double.” And they do it by trusting their employees.

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Posted in Customer Experience, Employees | No Comments »

Give Thanks to Your Customers

Friday, November 26th, 2010

How often do you “give thanks” to your customers? I don’t mean sending them a coupon or throwing them a scanty “Thank you!” as they walk out the door. I mean being truly thankful to your customers.

They could spend money with your competitors, yet they choose you. Without customers, you and your employees wouldn’t be able to make a living. Even be thankful for the customers who complain. Without them, you would never improve, and many silent customers would simply stop buying.

I can’t tell you how to give thanks to your customers because I don’t know them. Giving thanks is a personal, individualized practice, and you need to do it based on what you know about your customers.

So on the day after Thanksgiving, after you’ve given thanks to God, family and country, spare some time to be thankful for your customers.

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Posted in Customer Experience, Philosophy, Relationships | No Comments »

Small Business Podcast: Everything is Marketing

Friday, November 19th, 2010

On David Weatherholt’s radio program “Getting Down to Business,” I explored further the concept that marketing is everything. Every interaction customer have with your business affects your brand. But what does “brand” mean?

A synonym for “brand” is “reputation.” It’s as simple as that. Everything you do, whether it be a traditional marketing interaction or not, affects your reputation. To your customers, marketing is everything you do.

Listen or download below for more examples and insight:

Everything is Marketing

Download the everything is marketing MP3 file here. (5.63 MB)

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Posted in Branding, Customer Experience, Marketing Podcasts | No Comments »

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