Art Rants: The Insane and Confusing Battle for the Pipe Into Your Home

July 25, 2009 By 2 Comments

All across America, legions of streetwalkers (not that kind!) have been dispatched to your home to help you deal with the serious issue of your television service. Or is that your Internet service? Or your phones? Or your wireless phones? Or your toaster?

Before you know it, you’ll be pulling out stacks of old bills from your cable/internet/land-line/cell phone providers and nodding your head as the nice streetwalker from BIGCO highlights how very nicely how dumb it would be to stay with what you have, when you could go with the latest INTERGALACTIC service guaranteed to make all of your problems go away and leave you with just one bill.

You’ll likely not say “yes” to the first streetwalker, but once the seed has been planted, you won’t be able to resist digging into the mystery of whether standardizing on one company might just be one less thing to worry about.

If you’re like me, you’ll pick up the phone and call OTHERBIGCO and give them heck for clearly skunking you these past several years. Your nice Rep will apologize and then proceed to launch into a pitch for her UNIVERSAL-PLEX service. She’ll politely scoff at the claims of BIGCO and point out that her technology is so far superior that there is no comparison.

If the Rep does a good job, as mine did, you’ll find yourself investing more time in planning out your new home cable/tv/hdtv/dvr/cell/landline/voice/toaster integrated system and starting to warm to the idea. You’ll probably want time to think it over and to check and make certain that your toaster has the right interface card.

A few more calls later, you’ve discovered the fine print. One company has a two-year contract, one has a one-year contract and the other has no contract. Installation fees range from a hundred-gazillion dollars…..to almost free. Upgrading to other services…or adding toasters or TVs to the network will require replumbing your house or more than likely, adding a new cell tower in your backyard, but they are all different.

Oh, and don’t forget to ask about what happens after the promotional period ends. I’m not certain, but I think in one case, I have to retire the national debt of a third-world country and pay for the children of my rep to go to college at the end of the six-month promotion period.

You realize after 20 hours of work that you’ve become involved in some form of new, maniacal game brought to you by people that have created rules that don’ benefit anyone but them. It’s your job to figure out the catches and traps and gotcha’s! I’m not certain that you as the consumer can win this game, but you can definitely lose. I think the object is to lose the smallest amount possible for the shortest possible commitment time.

The Bottom-Line:

Hey cable/wireless/internet/cellphone companies, your packages stink, your rules are vague and confusing and your marketing sucks.  Oh, and your tactics stink.

Did I mention that the arrogance of suggesting that I pay you to install your new technology in my home so that I can pay you more than I used to for a committed period of time is….well…it’s just plain arrogant.

It’s all about you…and nothing about the customer. We’ve figured out that our lives are now dependent upon you for thousands of dollars per year in fees…and we know that it is your goal to do nothing more than create more ways to suck more out of us, tie us up and leave us confused.

I think I’ll pass and stick with what I have. It’s cheaper and I can tell you to pound salt and turn it all off tomorrow if I decide to go off the grid. Ahh, the feeling of power.

OK, I think I’ll go read a book now. Right after I respond to the tweet from my toaster.

Filed Under: Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Hey Tech Marketers, How About Helping Your Customers Solve Problems

March 31, 2009 By 1 Comment

“Nobody Cares About Your Products (Except You),” is one of the core rules that author and marketing thought-leader David Meerman Scott espouses in his latest book, World Wide Rave, and throughout his other works and blogs. 

The most zealous anti-smokers that I know are former smokers.   The fact that in hindsight, I can see that I was guilty of being a bit too proud of the features and functions of my own products as a technology marketer makes me just a bit maniacal about David’s product rule as a user and consumer of tech products today. Unfortunately, it seems like there are still quite a few technology marketers out there that did not get the memo.

My Mini-Technology Odyssey:

For the past few weeks, I’ve been in search of a solution that will allow me to better serve my customers and grow my business.  My opportunity is to extend my service offerings by providing e-learning services/courses to subscribers to specific audiences.  Based on the feedback that I’ve received in teaching or supplementing my MBA programs with on-line offerings and given the time and cost challenges that so many professionals are facing, I’m convinced that it is time to expand into subscription-based e-learning. 

What I thought would be a simple search has turned into a quest worthy of Homer. While it is quite possible that I’m seeking fulfillment for a problem that has not yet been solved—a service that will allow independents and small firms to offer e-learning via a hosted platform with e-commerce and participant management functions, I don’t think this is the issue. There are plenty of firms that purport to offer all, most of or parts of this solution.  I think. 

Here are the Marketing Lessons I’ve Discovered Thus Far:

-Value-chain and systems thinking are foreign topics.  There are a myriad of pieces and parts providers that might sell more pieces and parts if they were able to connect people like me with other providers and partners in the value chain. 

Instead of focusing on where their offering fits, these firms view the world through the eyes of their products, not the needs of their customers.  Remember the old saying that no one buys a drill, they are buying the hole?  It’s true. 

In one memorable discussion with a rep for a flash authoring tool, he seemed taken aback that I might ask about platforms or other service providers where I could use the output of his company’s offerings.  A review of their web site left you thinking that this very substantial organization viewed themselves as the center of the e-learning universe, yet in reality they are just one component provider.  Marketing myopia, anyone?

-Feature lists do not equal answers to business problems.  Most of the service providers that sound like they might just solve my problem forced me to wade through long lists of discrete, acronym filled feature lists and jargon, only to leave me wondering whether they truly have what I need.  What do you do?  Who do you serve?  How are your offerings solving problems?  None of those questions are tackled head-on. 

-Once you get a live human on the phone, you want to throw him/her back.  Not once have I encountered a rep on the phone that is capable of indicating whether their offerings meet my needs.  They either are clueless or they are so obviously incented to sell what they have, that they engage in something that reeks of used car sales tactics. 

-Speaking of used car sales: What will it take for you to drive this product home today?  I love the vendors that require you to walk on hot coals to gain access to pricing.  Most often, they require a demo before sharing pricing with you.  Sorry, but life is too short.  I don’t care about YOUR SELLING PROCESS!  I want a solution to my business challenge. 

Tough Love for Marketers:

1.  Revisit your website and ask your customers and targeted buyers to tell you whether your messaging and presentation are helping them understand how you might solve their problems.  Build content to match your buyers and ensure that it speaks to solutions, not features.

2.  Develop a systems-thinking mentality if you are selling pieces and parts.  More than likely, no one needs your piece and part in isolation.  The better you can relate and link your offerings to other good offerings in the value-chain, the more your prospective buyers will be comfortable in purchasing your offerings. 

3. Stop with the offensive, insulting and invasive selling tactics and pricing shell games!  You are just pissing us off.

4. Educate your reps.  Teach them how to ask questions and help clients solve problems. 

The Bottom-line for Now:

Enough with the myopic thinking and feature-focused, jargon-filled gobbledygook that passes for marketing messaging.  Help someone solve a problem and you will sell more.  Guaranteed.  

Filed Under: Marketing, Product Management Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Rave Against Miserable Customer Service, Lousy Leaders and Protectionist Policies

January 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

One of my favorite, provocative business thinkers, Gary Hamel, says what we’ve all been thinking about in his Wall Street Journal blog post, “Too Many Industries Suffering from Detroititis.”

While the term “Detroititis” is not yet in common use, it isn’t hard to intuit the meaning.  A mix of myopic thinking, short-term management approaches and a damn the consumer mentality, all jump to my mind.

Hamel appropriately skewers the U.S. airline industry for suffering from a chronic case of this newly named malady. He also chastises the U.S. government for propping up this industry with a “blatantly protectionist policy” that bars foreign ownership of U.S. air carriers.

Note from Art: this protectionist policy and the adverse implications for consumers and for society speak to the heart of my post: If Ayn Rand Could See Us Now.

The U.S. airlines are easy and deserving targets.  It is nearly impossible to find any customer satisfaction, much less enjoyment flying with these broken-down flying bus companies.  (Apologies to any bus companies that I’ve insulted.)

More often than not, you deal with ridiculous lines, grumpy attendants and flight personnel that visibly hate their jobs.  Most of the customer service practices recently put into place are shortsighted and designed with the carrier in mind, not the customer.

In the vernacular of one of my favorite recent books, Tuned-In, the carriers truly do create remarkable customer experiences.  Unfortunately, they missed the memo on making these experiences positive ones.

The contrast between the customer experience on a U.S. Air Carrier and an overseas carrier is stark.  Fly Singapore Airlines or JAL and you’ll spend most of your trip in shock over how nice the experience can be.  Something will feel very different and out of place.  The poor treatment is gone, replaced by great service provided by people that seem to enjoy creating nice experiences for customers.

Other than the cathartic exercise of criticizing the U.S. carriers (of which I have over 1 million miles on), there are a few reminders for all of us in our businesses as we work to immunize our thinking against the deadly disease of “Detroititis.”

  • Keep the government out of the business of artificially protecting under performing industries and companies.  Hamel is right.  If Singapore Airlines wants to compete for routes in the U.S., they should have that option.
  • Evaluate what your customers truly think about their experience with your firm and DO SOMETHING to improve the experience.  The airlines employ legions of marketing people to fly around the globe and evaluating customer experiences…but nothing seems to come out from this effort other than dumb policies and new fees.
  • Fight for the customer like you livelihood depends upon it.  It does.
  • As a leader, work unceasingly to instill a sense of pride and commitment to customers in your workplace. If your business is a high-contact customer business, every person that touches a customer must strive to create a positive experience.  Working a ticket counter at terminal B at O’Hare may involve dealing with thousands of people per day who are stressed and frustrated.  Take away a little of their stress and frustration, treat them like humans and show them that you care!  Send thousands of people home everyday with an improved experience, and maybe your business will improve.  Go figure.
  • No one ever wants to talk to someone that they cannot understand and that they cannot hear on the telephone.  Stop subjecting us to these horrendous phone experiences.  If you are in charge of this area of your customer experience, what the blank are you thinking?

The Bottom-Line for Now:

The people that I don’t get are the managers and leaders responsible for managing and leading the customer service representatives in organizations that clearly have lousy customer service.  Fire yourself, please.

The customer experience at Gate C14 starts at the top of the organization. The same goes for your firm. Unfortunately, we can all learn a lot about what not to do from the auto companies and air carriers in the U.S.

Now quit reading and find something that you can do to improve the experience for your customers!

Filed Under: Leadership, Performance, Surviving Lousy Leaders Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,