It is how brands make consumers feel that is really important

I love this quote:

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will not forget how you made them feel." Maya Angelou

For me, brand organisations should care most about how consumers feel about their brand. To do that the have to do something special. It takes planning and alignment of the whole organisation around all consumer touchpoints.

It not just about glossy TV ads. It not just about having a clever social media activity. It not just about a slick service department. It is about all these touchpoints working together and making consumers feel really good about every interaction with the brand.

Brands need to deliver experiences that WOW. 

Check out Zappos, who do this really well. Alternatively check out this presentation.

Real-time marketing paths the way to delight consumers

There is an excellent article in Adpulp: How To Win Big in 2012: Create Exceptional Brand Experiences For Your Clients’ Customers.


The article talks about 'real-time marketing' and how companies have to recognize that change as the new normal.


I totally agree.


The artticle tells a fabulous story about how Porterhouse Steakhouse made real-time one-to-one marketing possible by listening on Twitter. They basically saw a tweet from a fan jokingly asking for a Porterhouse after a hard days travelling (he had just landed at an airport 23 miles away). They responded by sending out a  tuxedo-clad waiter to meet him with his requested steak.


As the article says, this is textbook case of 'surprise and delight'.


I love it.


This type of brand behaviour is at the heart of what I mean when I say that to win brands need to surprise / delight / WOW their consumer.


We live in a time where there is huge opportunity to listen (to consumer's social conversations) and respond. 


Brand organisations that get this and start to deliver brand experiences like the Porterhouse story will win, because it will drive advocacy and usually loyalty.

Richard Branson knows the power of a wow brand experience

When Richard Branson talks about delighting customers, building loyalty and advocacy it is worth paying attention.

There is no doubt he is a brilliant operator. He knows how to turn a negative situation into a positive brand story. [check-out my PR master stroke post]

In a recent article Reuters.com post Branson talks about the importance of a 'chain reaction of team that is consistent from beginning to end'

I totally agree.

If a brand organisation wants to WOW consumers it needs to create a culture that enthuses employees to solve customer service issues and, importantly, empower them to take action without having to follow a rule book or refer up a chain of command. He says:

No company can train its front-end people to handle every situation, but you can strive to create an environment in which they feel at ease "doing as they would be done by."

The Reuters article is definitely worth a read. The two stories he tells would have almost certainly resulted in delighted customers.

Brand experiences like them drive loyalty and advocacy. A sure way to drive sustainable profitability.

Spanair converts passengers into fans

I love this.

• A Spanair lands in Las Palmas at around midnight when everyone else is celebrating.
• The airline wanted to do something special for their 190 passengers.
• The answer...a gift rapped present for each on the luggage carousel.

Did they need to do this...of course not.

Is it a good idea...definitely.

It is exactly the type of brand experience that I love.

On face value it is an expensive activity. However, it is clearly designed to delight consumers with the aim of driving loyalty and advocacy. Moreover, when you take into account that this story will get talked through social media it will more than likely make good commercial sense.

Good one.

If you work for a brand organisation then think about how you can WOW consumers in a way that only your brand can do. That is a great way to build a competitive and sales.

Here are some other examples.

• Wheat Thins
• SW Airlines
• Hotel
• Zappos

Brands organisations must resist pressures from the demands of short-sighted share-holders

This is a great article by Customer Think about Tony Heish’s (CEO Zappos) decision to sell to Amazon.

It cuts to the heart of what this blog is all about.

Heish faced a dilemma that all CEOs face:

Either; bow to short-term share holder financial pressure...
Or; maintain Zappo’s commitment (and investment) to delivering brand experiences that delight consumers.

Zappo’s has a great reputation. [See my previous posting about their commitment to a culture and values that focused on WOWing consumers’ through service.]

To protect Zappo’s hard earned reputation Heish sold to Amazon [Another great brand experience organisation.]

It was really smart move.

The article quotes Heish’s rationale:

“...Some board members had always viewed our company culture as a pet project — “Tony’s social experiments,” they called it. I disagreed. I believe that getting the culture right is the most important thing a company can do. But the board took the conventional view — namely, that a business should focus on profitability first and then use the profits to do nice things for its employees.

... (I thought) better service would translate into lots of repeat customers, which would mean low marketing expenses, long-term profits, and fast growth.”

I totally agree.

It is simple. Delight your consumer and they will reward you with long-term loyalty, advocacy and more sells.

Zappo’s net sales were up almost 50 percent in first quarter of 2010...evidence that Heish got it right.

If you work at a brand organisation it would be really good idea to look at how you are delivering brand experiences across the path to advocacy and see how you can replicate Zappo’s success.

It is possible for high street stores to win against on-line stores

This cheeky UK poster campaign Dixons highlights a major challenge brand stores face in this new internet age.

Consumers shop in a number of different ways. These are two:

They can shop in a store with a nice environment, a wide selection of goods, and that has sales staff who are courteous and know what they are talking about.

They can buy on-line.

Okay, a lot of consumers do both (the insight that lead to this campaign).

Some stores invest significant time and resource in ensuring they deliver brand experiences that deliver and delight consumers. While other stores don’t ; they have rude and ill informed staff that don’t give a damn.

Which do you think will survive and thrive this new age?

John Lewis Partnership focus on delivering brand experiences that WOW. Take a look at their customer care and business results to see how it pays-off.

If you manage a brand store that does not deliver a brand experience that WOWs consumers you are likely to fail as online stores take ever more share from the high street.

My recommendation is to leverage one of the main competitive advantages physical stores have... the ability to interact with consumers on an emotional level using the human touch. It is a powerful tool. Use it.

Focus on building memorable brand experiences to drive business success

Seth makes a great point in a recent article.

He asks a simple question about what brand organisations should focus on:

“Should their product or service be very good, meet spec and be beyond reproach

or...

... should it be a remarkable, memorable, over the top, a tell-your-friends event?”

You guessed it...brands must aim for the latter. (You can’t compromise by trying to do both.)

He goes on to say what I say all the time:

“..invest in staff and training and services that would be so connected to each other and the guests, so willing to engage and to change people that it might become the sort of transcendent experience that people talk about for months.”

It is simple. Focus on WOWing consumers so they buy again and tell their friends.

If you can build advocacy you will be successful.

John Lewis tops customer service rankings

I have raved about John Lewis before.

It is no surprise to me to see that they have just come top of the UK Customer Service Index.

These are the top 10 brand organisations:

1. John Lewis
2. Waitrose
3. Marks & Spencer (food)
4. Toby Carvery
5. Marks & Spencer
6. Virgin Holidays
7. RAC
8. First Direct
9. Marriott
10. virgin Atlantic

They are all great brands, but why does John Lewis win?

That is easy....because good customer service is a core part of its corporate culture.

They really walk the talk.

It is a great store, with great staff, who are empowered to deliver consumers with brand experiences that delight, and sometimes even WOW.

That's how they get people to shop there again and even tell their friends about it.

What else can I say?

Do you need Superman to build a winning brand experience?

I think Seth Rocks, which is why I read and reference his blog a fair bit.

He recently talked about a book that pointed out that comics work because the readers’ imagination fills the gaps in-between the frames.

He then suggests that marketing works in exactly the same way.

He is absolutely right. (Of course.)

He says:

“Marketing is what happens in between the overt acts of the marketer. Yes you made a package and yes you designed a uniform and yes you ran an ad... but the consumer's take on what you did is driven by what happened out of the corner of her eye, in the dead spaces, in the moments when you let your guard down.”

That is why it is vital to ensure you are delivering a consistent brand experience at every stage of the consumers’ path to advocacy.

To do that every part of the brand organisation has to be involved.

Get it wrong (via poor customer service, a rubbish web-site, etc) and you’ll turn-off consumers...they stop buying and tell their mates about how crap your brand is.

Get it right...and ideally WOW them...and they may buy again and recommend you to their mates.

It may require some superhuman time and effort to build winning brand experiences but it is worth it.

I suggest you get the right people in a room....think about the brand experiences consumers are currently having (use the path to advocacy framework)...and make them better.

This is a proven way to build your business.

'Delivering Happiness' provides another key to success

Zappos - Tony Robbins - Business Mastery - 01-16-10

View more presentations from zappos.

Zappos is an awesome company.

I have posted before about how Tony Hsieh (CEO) leads a brand organisation that, in my view, is a 'black belt' in delivering winning Brand Experiences; fuelled by their commitment to 'WOWing every customer.'

The above was presented by Hsieh at a recent Tony Robbins - Business Mastery.

Powerful stuff.

It is definitely worth a read. It has so much great stuff in it. Two key points for me:

• Zappos absolute focus on vision, culture and customer service.
• How this focus drives word of mouth and repeat customers (check-out the compelling reveue numbers on page 7).

Look-out for his book 'Delivering Happiness' being published in June 2010. It will almost certainly become a must-read for anyone serious about building a brand organisation that recognises the importance of delivering consumer Brand Experiences that WOW consumers and drive advocacy.

Why don't more airlines WOW their passengers?

I talk about airlines quite a lot.

Airlines should be masters of delivering brand experiences that delight consumers.

I regular fly BA and they are pretty good.

I have moaned about Ryan Air.

I have enthused about SW airlines.

I want to enthuse about SW again because, although I have never travelled with them, I read a lot of positive stories about them.

And no wonder....a quick look at their mission statement says it all:

"The mission of Southwest Airlines is dedication to the highest quality of Customer Service delivered with a sense of warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and Company Spirit."

They obviously walk the talk.

This video is a great example of how employees look for ways to WOW the consumer... so they have a great brand experience...probably choose SW again...and may be even tell their friends/advocate SW airlines.

Other airlines - particularly low cost airlines - should take note

Circuit City cost cutting madness

I was disappointed to read in Retail Customer Experience about the demise of Circuit City in US last year.

I was also surprised.

I first come across Circuit City in the book Good to Great "Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't" [I’m based in UK so never visited one of their stores]. In the book Circuit City are hailed as a successful organisation because they followed a number of 'success principles' identified by Jim Collins (an American ‘business guru’).

So, what was the reason for their demise?

They neglected the in-store brand experience.

In the Customer Experience article there is a quote from Jason Goldberg, VP marketing for MTI, who was on the team that designed the in-store experience for Circuit City in the 1990s:

“They made the dramatic step of cutting their most expensive salaries and in the process, eliminated what remained of their most loyal high quality sales staff,"

..."They were left with a store that required great sales staff, and no experienced sales staff to support it."

In an age when brand experience is a key differentiator Circuit City’s decision was crazy.

If you don’t deliver a great brand experience when consumers are buying then they will either not buy or not come again. On the other hand, if you deliver an experience that WOWs then they are much more likely to buy, buy again and may be even tell their friends. The power of word-of-mouth/advocacy is well understood.

Staff are the clearly the main drivers of a good in-store experience so cutting best staff is always likely to create a problem.

This is an important lesson for any retailer considering cutting staff cost in these difficult times.

Brand experience is a strategy, not a slogan

I’ve borrowed (and slightly changed) this quote from an article in a new Peppers and Rodgers on-line journal

It is a great article; take a look [Customer Strategist]

It supports a number of points I've made before...

Delivering great brand experience will grow the bottom-line:

“.. several recent studies confirm the link between customer experience and bottom-line performance”

Emotion contact is more effective than rational communication. It’s about what you do and how you treat consumers, not what you say, that is more influential:

“Customers feel first and think second—and interactions with a company strongly influence their heart and produce a longer lasting impact than communications directed toward their heads.”

Training and culture are key:

“Many companies lack the employee training and automated processes necessary to create the insight, interaction, improvement, and orientation necessary for a successful customer experience program.”

“Simply revising structure and technology doesn't suffice; company culture has to be changed for improvement."

If you want to build a competitive advantage consider seriously how you can work with others in your organisation, maybe using the PDD framework, to find ways to deliver compelling and relevant brand experiences that will genuinely WOW consumers.

Zappos win by focusing on WOWing consumers

I have come across several blogs that talk enthusiastically about the recent SXSW conference and particularly the contribution made by the key note speaker Tony Hsieh – the CEO of Zappos.

During the conference Hsieh talked about Zappos and their 10 core values.

At the top of his list: to deliver WOW through service.

There is an excellent posting on Harvard Business Publishing explaining some of the reasons why Zappos is so successful. Part of the success is that they have got the economics and operations right - offering of a vast selection of goods, free delivery and returns.

However, what makes a real difference is their focus on WOW through service. They have mastered the art of telephone service. Their employees are smart and entertaining. They have no scripts, no call time limits and no robotic behaviour.

Zappos understands that it is not just about promising products that deliver – although this is key – but also about delighting consumers; by finding ways to surprise, to be magical and connect with them on an emotional level.

I love this.

It’s exactly what all brand organisations should be focusing on. Too many spend all their effort on the Promise to consumers via advertising. Most get the Delivery right but few Delight consumers.

Brand success comes through delivering great brand experiences that delight and drive advocacy. Zappos really get that - their turn-over has grown from $70m to almost $1billion in 5 years.

Most brand organisations could learn from them.