On Purpose Read online

  Interestingly, 80 per cent of the people who voted wanted the money themselves, but 20 per cent said, ‘No, you keep it and do something good with the business.’ We had hundreds of thousands of people responding. So, that was really interesting, because what we were able to do with the 20 per cent of £350,000 that was not required was to create some member service tools that only those people who voted to invest can use. So, they got a reward for being altruistic with their choice.

  We ran a survey and we asked questions about what people thought about that approach, and some of the feedback we got was, ‘I trust you more now’; ‘I didn’t trust you because the service went down, but the fact that you’ve handled it like that, makes me trust you more’. So we turned what was a very bad situation into something genuinely positive. We even had some members saying, ‘Well, the fact that you care what we think about what you did just underlines why I love you as a business.’

  It continually amazes me what you can do when you actually engage with customers.

  Notes

  1 Thales S Teixeira, The rising cost of consumer attention: why you should care, and what you can do about it, Harvard Business Review, January 2014.

  2 From February 2014 to July 2014, 63 per cent of First Direct current-account customers had recommended their bank in the last year. The closest brand over the same time had 48 per cent recommend their bank. Source: Charterhouse Research Customer contact survey covering nine major banks in England and Wales, based on 16,466 contacts.

  3 Convergys 2010 Scorecard Series.

  Chapter Four

  Distinctive customer experience

  Standing out isn’t just about infectious communication. We are so bombarded with marketing messages that we often become quite cynical about them – even if they are engaging. Actions speak louder than words and nowhere is that more important than when it comes to brand purpose and customer experience. It is easy to claim that you stand for something but much harder to behave in a way that supports that claim. As Gav Thompson of O2/ Telefonica says: ‘Don’t tell me how funny you are; make me laugh.’

  It is even harder to make your customer experience come alive in such a way that customers ‘just get’ what your brand is all about. The challenge is about standing out, or differentiating your brand, in a way that is meaningful and valuable to target customers but when you do the results are dramatic.

  IBM and Ogilvy conduct an annual survey called BrandZ, which measures those brands that have strong relationships with customers.1 They found that when brands create an emotional connection to customers, as opposed to a purely functional one, cross-sell ratios increase from 16 per cent to 82 per cent and retention ratios rise from 30 per cent to 84 per cent.

  The more multi-sensory the experience, usually the more memorable it becomes. We call this ‘dramatizing the customer experience’. It means looking for moments along the customer journey where you can demonstrate what your brand really stands for in a compelling way. There are two types of activities: ‘brilliant basics’ are those things that you have to deliver consistently to satisfy customers; ‘magic moments’ are those things that you may only do occasionally or at certain hallmark touchpoints. These are the most powerful and create the ‘wow’ moments that customers tell others about. These touchpoints can be formal, as in the case of O2’s ‘Priority Moments’ when customers get invitations to see their favourite bands, such as the Rolling Stones, or their favourite sports teams, as a thank you for being loyal to the brand. Or they can be very informal, when one of your people does something that creates a mini-experience for customers that epitomizes the brand values.

  For example, there is a story that Linda Moir, who was formerly the director of customer experience for Virgin Atlantic, tells about the days before seat-back entertainment, when airlines would have a drop-down screen in the main cabin and schedule movies to follow the meal service. Virgin Atlantic decided to make the experience a proper movie experience and serve ice creams, just like at the cinema. That was a magic moment at that time because no other airline served ice cream on their aircraft due to the lack of freezers on board. Virgin solved the problem by packing the ice cream in dry ice.

  A Virgin cabin attendant by the name of Sue Rawlings took the creation of this unique, memorable customer experience one stage further. In the galley, before serving the ice creams, she would smear some ice cream around her mouth. As she walked down the cabin with the ice cream tray, she would say loudly, so that people across the cabin looked up at her: ‘People tell me these ice creams are delicious, but I’m on a diet and never touch them. Enjoy!’

  As passengers looked up, they saw the ice cream around her mouth and the smile on her face and a ripple of laughter would follow her down the aisle. Other passengers looked up to see what people were laughing at and joined in the laughter too.

  The passengers who experienced Sue Rawlings’s ‘Virgin flair’ told their friends and family and the story rippled around the world, becoming viral. People who had never flown Virgin heard about it. And when they had to book a transatlantic flight and had to choose between Virgin and their competitors, they went for Virgin because they wanted the ice-cream experience.

  How much does an ice cream cost compared with a new aircraft? How much did that viral story cost compared with a glossy advertising campaign? Consumers remember an emotional experience more than a functional one and people trust referrals from other customers more than they trust a marketing message. It was a great manifestation of Virgin Atlantic’s brand values of ‘Fun, entertainment, irreverence, innovation’ and serves to reinforce the brand positioning.

  Compare this to Singapore Airlines, for example. Wonderful airline though it is, you could not for a moment imagine a Singapore Airlines flight attendant doing anything like that because that is not what the brand stands for. Singapore Airlines is positioned as the airline that consistently provides state-of-the-art air travel; ‘the journey is the destination’ as their famous advertising slogan expresses it. It dramatizes this by investing billions of dollars to be the launch carrier for new aircraft, such as the A380, so making a very public statement about how its brand drives its choices for the customer experience. Consistency of delivery, down to the smallest detail, is key to its brand. This includes its world-famous flight attendants, particularly the female ones, immortalized over decades as the ‘Singapore Girls’. The recruitment and training of the staff are conducted with rigour and discipline to ensure that the appearance, attitude and behaviour of the ‘Singapore Girl’ are almost predictably consistent on every flight. Little is left to chance. In contrast, at Virgin Airlines or Southwest Airlines the flight attendants are encouraged to ‘improvise’ and bring their own personalities to the job. These brands tend to be lower-cost airlines and use the personal engagement of their people as a competitive advantage.

  We must stress that there is a world of difference between dramatizing the experience and providing service gimmicks. The former is absolutely aligned with the brand promise and desired experience; the latter is something designed to differentiate but without expressing what the brand really stands for.

  Image 4.1 Innocent foods’ promise is simple and memorable

  Innocent is a great example of getting this right. Innocent smoothies have become a case study in how to differentiate a commodity (fruit and yoghurt drinks) in a crowded market by creating a brand and associated tone of voice that tap into people’s emotions. Innocent’s brand promise is ‘tastes good. does good’.

  Okay, so we get the ‘tastes good’ part, but how do they dramatize ‘does good’?

  First, 10 per cent of all profits are donated to good causes. Second, they are scrupulous about sustainability in the supply chain. Third, they involve their customers in doing good together with them. Every Christmas, Innocent launches the ‘Big Knit’ where they invite customers to knit little woollen hats to decorate the bottles. The decorated
bottles are marketed at a slight premium and, for every one sold, 10 pence goes to the charity Age Concern. Last year 862,763 hats were knitted and sold. This is not only a great example of infectious communication (see this link http://www.thebigknit.co.uk), it is also an example of ‘dramatizing the experience’ because the little woollen hats decorating the bottles serve to remind consumers about the feel-good factor of the brand. ‘Buy innocent smoothies because they taste good and do good’.

  Any other beverage maker could copy Innocent and decorate their bottles in some way and, perhaps, even donate something to charity. But would it have the same impact? Probably not. In the first instance we doubt that nearly a million customers would voluntarily give their time to making it work (customers need to have an emotional connection with a brand before they will be willing to invest effort in supporting it); and second, we wonder if the end result would be seen as authentic in the same way as Innocent’s ‘Big Knit’. Remember, from the last chapter, you can’t fake it, force it or fudge it.

  Fix it or feature it

  Some other ‘F’s to think about when creating a distinctive customer experience are, ‘fix it or feature it’; this is a mantra of Greg Gianforte, founder of RightNow Technologies. It means either improve something that creates hassle or dissatisfaction for customers, or turn it into a benefit and then feature it as a selling point that becomes a hallmark for your brand.

  Guinness is a great example. You need to wait for Guinness to be poured in two stages and then wait for the foam head to form, which takes time. Usually, waiting for your pint to be poured is a pain for the customer and a chore for the barman. But if you want that rich creamy head that is so distinctive to Guinness there is no avoiding the two-step pour. It cannot be fixed, so Guinness features it as part of their proposition using the tagline, ‘Good things come to those who wait.’

  For Guinness advocates, drinking the black stout through the creamy white head is an intrinsic part of the brand experience. ‘The wait’ as Guinness marketing people call it, is part of what makes ordering Guinness in a bar or pub unique; the wait was turned from being an inconvenience into the notion that good things are worth waiting for and, therefore, Guinness must taste better than the competitors. This taps (pardon the pun) into the emerging feeling among consumers in recent years that too much of life is a rush and that moments need to be savoured.

  One of our all-time favourite ads is this Guinness one that hallmarks ‘the wait’:

  http://youtu.be/tf47teVn6ZI

  The great thing about Greg’s phrase, fix it or feature it, is that it helps you to home in on every aspect of the customer experience and make a decision about each one. This analysis of your product, service or experience in a forensic way – deconstructing the experience so you can examine the detail – is a powerful discipline for ensuring that everything about your customer experience that is in your control is examined and a decision is made about it.

  Can we fix this issue so that the customer is not even aware of it, or do we turn it into a ‘brand hallmark’ that differentiates us from competitors? IKEA’s infuriating requirement for customers to navigate their way completely around the store before finding the checkout is not only a fundamental part of their business model but also a hallmark of their brand experience. IKEA displays its products in complete room settings rather than by category, unlike most of its competitors. The customer is forced to visit each room in turn rather than go to the bed department, for example. This is a brand hallmark. It can be an irritant to some people but it is what makes IKEA, IKEA.

  There is another application of fix it or feature it. It is one that can damage your brand if you don’t deal with it in the way we are suggesting. If your product or experience contains a feature that is in serious need of fixing and you ignore it, then your competition can feature it in their own ads as a way of attacking you to win market share. EasyJet attacked Ryanair by offering better service and the opportunity to reserve seats, which forced Ryanair to follow suit.

  Traditionally, marketers communicate the obvious benefits of a product or experience, downplaying features that are harder to interpret as an advantage or that can be seen as a weakness. The fix it or feature it mantra is a powerful reminder to think about creating an experience that is memorable for all the right reasons and that becomes particularly important in a crowded or commoditized market.

  Create a multi-sensory experience

  Holidays are the time of year when many of us buy gaily wrapped gift packs of toiletries for relatives who will probably never use them. The products are often of poor quality and only cost as much as they do because two-thirds of the cost is in the packaging. But there is one brand – Lush – that boldly challenges this traditional practice and dramatizes its purpose and business model through a multi-sensory experience.

  If you are ever lucky enough to receive a Lush bath bomb as a gift we encourage you to try it. The vibrant colours, wonderful smells and fizzing effects will convert you to the world of cosmetics Lush-style. Co-founder, Mo Constantine OBE, invented the original bath bomb in 1989 and, ever since, Lush has continued its exploration into the world of bath-time innovation and successfully exported its unique customer experience across the globe. Lush currently has over 900 shops worldwide and is present in 49 countries, with manufacturing sites across the world.

  Lush was formed in 1995 and since then has spent years developing what they call ‘naked’ products that work really effectively. Why? Because these solid products don’t need preservatives or excess packaging, which is altogether kinder for the environment and allows the brand to invest 100 per cent of the cost of production in using better ingredients. As they say in their promotional materials, ‘Simple really’.

  You can find out about the Lush purpose and beliefs via the following link:

  http://www.lushusa.com/A-LUSH-Life/lush-life,en_US,pg.html?fid=a-lush-life

  The stores are just as distinctive as the products themselves. As you walk along the high street and pass a Lush store, your senses will suddenly be bombarded by the smells, colours and hand-written notices calling your attention to the products that are displayed in all their ‘naked’ glory. Think of a fruit and vegetable stall in a market and you might come close to visualizing a Lush store. Handmade, natural and fresh merchandise; butchers’ blocks of soap; a myriad of orb ‘fizzing bath ballistics’ that are presented like perfectly round apples; chilled fish counter-style cabinets displaying Bio Fresh face masks; prices by weight, greaseproof paper wrapping (if any wrapping at all) and best-before dates. But what was the stimulus for such an innovative approach?

  Creating a distinctive customer experience

  Mark Constantine OBE puts it simply: ‘I’ve always loved the way fruit and vegetables are displayed in a grocery store.’ Lush started with the metaphor of a fruit and vegetable stall and this remains at its core. It is able to afford the extra cost of using natural ingredients because of the savings from eliminating packaging. This is a fundamental principle of creating a distinctive customer experience: divert funds away from the things that customers don’t value to the things that they do. This allows you to differentiate without having to charge a higher price point. The brand is therefore able to stick with its principles and remain purpose driven in the face of pressure from competitors who are less differentiated and compete primarily on price:

  ‘Freshness is intrinsic to Lush – it’s at the heart of our philosophy. It means we can minimize the use of synthetics and it means that we can create wonderfully effective products when the ingredients are at their most potent. When Lush products reach the customer, they are literally weeks, days or even just hours old. No product in any of our shops is more than six months old. We’ve been working with fresh produce for many years and have vast experience in how to formulate products that incorporate whole fruits and vegetables. At Lush, we believe that using the whole fruit or vegetable is infinitely more benefi
cial than isolating a property and removing it from a fruit, vegetable or natural material and adding it to a cosmetic product to try to recreate its function.’

  Image 4.2 Bath bombs

  This unique approach leads Lush to squeeze the following fresh ingredients every year: 25 tonnes of organic fruit and 50 tonnes of fresh fruit and vegetables; the oil from 20 million lemons, 6 million fresh bergamot fruits and 900,000 Sicilian mandarins; 10 tonnes of fair trade and organic cocoa butter; the juice of 90,000 zest lemons and 33,000 fresh oranges; 8,000 bunches of fresh flowers; and 20 tonnes of olive oil. For an innovative manufacturer and retailer like Lush you would expect that their focus lies solely on the product. You would be wrong: according to Constantine, ‘You build a brand around people.’ We shall say more about this in Part Three of this book (Stand firm).

  The Lush approach seems to work. The Consumers’ Association – Which? – surveyed 12,504 of their members in 2014 to find out the best and worst shopping experiences in the UK. Once again, the top-rated brand was Lush with more members rating their last experience in terms of satisfaction and likelihood to recommend the brand than any other.

  Involve your customers in improving the experience

  History tells us that most new products fail. So how do you ensure success when you are changing 30 per cent of your products each year? Mark Constantine OBE of Lush says: