Seth Godin wrote in his blog about the reason why riding a unicycle is difficult. Not one, including me, likes to fail. It’s too hard, actually. It also requires mental preparation and focus. He advocates creating non-unicycle moments for your customers related to the products and services you offer.
It sounds so simple. But how often do we sell these to our customers without any sense of the customers’ perceptions? Is it too hard to grasp? The moment your product or service fails – just once – you are dead in the water.
It could also go the other direction, and be too good to be true! How do you create the balance between unicycle and non-unicycle products and services for your customer?
Categories: Business in general · Customer Service · Marketing
There’s always one in the crowd. Some people will complain just to complain. Some customers whine and will not let up until you cry uncle. Others will wallow quietly in their misery on something your company did, how your products failed, or how their expectations weren’t met.
For example, in a customer complaint letter to a company that produces feminine products, she was horrified when she say on her maxi-pad was printed on the adhesive backing: “Have a Happy Period.”
She ends her letter with:
Sir, please inform your Accounting Department that, effective immediately, there will be an $8 drop in monthly profits, for I have chosen to take my maxi-pad business elsewhere. And though I will certainly miss your Flex-Wings, I will not for one minute miss your brand of condescending bull ****. And that’s a promise I will keep. Always.
I applaud her for her charm, her wit, and her journalism. I wonder what the company did in reaction to this, particularly since it was PC Magazine’s 2007 editors’ choice for best web mail-award-winning letter.
I think I have dealt with customers that continually strive for that award…
Categories: Branding · Business in general · Customer Service · Marketing
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat in a business lobby waiting for my appointment, only to get to listen to the receptionist complaining to her co-worker in the lobby about someone or something, and answering calls with a different personality in between the conversation. I have walked out of those buildings thinking, “glad I don’t work there!” Sound familiar?
What about customers? What do they experience? How do they feel when they walk away, hang up the phone, or log off? Are they treated as a guest, or a pest?
I connect experience-related customer service to Disney. I think Disney, I think fun. Disney Institute, a unit of Walt Disney World Company, just announced it is teaching classes at the nation’s lowest-ranked service airport, Miami International, to terminal employees on the foundations of Walt Disney: giving customers a good experience. Fun at Miami International Airport? Hm. That’s one to think about.
But my favorite example is Build-A-Bear. Maxine Clark has defined the retail shopping experience, just as Tiger Woods has defined golf. She combined shopping with entertainment. So, what do you call that? “Shoppertainment?” Could Starbucks be defined as “Shoppertainment?” I buy a latte, a CD, then sit and listen to music, and contemplate life while I log on and blog. I feel as if I have escaped for a short while. Escape-ism + experience = shoppertainment.
What’s your Shoppertainment?
Categories: Customer Service · Experience
