Kayaking To Success!

I love getting real examples of businesses and leaders that actually do stuff that works… and do it well.

I’ve just come across a nice profile of Paul English of Kayak, on Inc.com. Kayak is the highly successful travel website comparison site and the article highlights the role of Paul as a leader when it comes to creating a real customer focus across his business.

In what can often be seen as the ‘faceless’ sector of web business, he seems to very much try to ‘humanise’ the business, and does it by ‘leading from the front’.

Here’s an extract from the article:

About a year ago, I bought a red telephone with a really loud ringer for the office. Whenever a customer calls the help number on our website, that phone rings. The engineers initially complained about it. They said, “That’s so friggin’ annoying!” And I’d say, “There’s a really simple solution: Answer the friggin’ phone and do whatever it takes to make that customer happy. Then hang up, unplug the phone, walk it down to the other end of the office, and plug it in down there.”

 It’s like hot potato. Except I take it seriously. When the phone rings, I literally jump over the desks just so I can get to the phone before anyone else. I love talking to customers, even angry ones. I learn a lot from them about how to make the site easier to use. When the call’s over, I’ll say, “If you have any follow-up questions, my name is Paul English; I’m the co-founder of the company.” I’ll give out my personal cell-phone number. Only one out of 20 people might actually call, but they’re blown away when I do that…….

 

The article highlights some really great examples of what I see in totally customer focused businesses:

• They’re easy to buy from and deal with
• They get ‘customers’ on the agenda…. and keep them there
• They hire for attitude, not just skill
• Leaders act as role models – they ‘walk the talk’

You can read the article here…… and after you have, ask yourself:

 ’How do we measure up against those 4 factors?’

 And then maybe work out what you need to do to ‘walk the talk’!

Are You ‘COMPLETELY’ Happy? It’s A Tough Question!

I was asked yesterday about customer feedback questions to get a feel for what they think about your service. Customer feedback is critical to maintaining and improving competitiveness. Unfortunately, I think far too many businesses don’t (or daren’t) ask the ‘tough’ questions.

I think you should avoid the ‘tick boxes’ and ’score out of 10′ questions and ask:

“Were you COMPLETELY happy with our service?” with a YES / NO answer and a follow up ‘Why / Why Not?’

Here are a few more follow up questions worth considering.  My personal view is that they should ’stretch’ customers to commit to answers, so things like:

• Was there anything / anyone that particularly ‘impressed’ you about our service?
• Was there anything / anyone that particularly ‘disappointed’ you about our service?
• If we could improve just one thing what should it be?
• Please sum up our business / service in just a few words.

The idea is to ‘provoke’ people to give an answer. For example, there is an arguement that if they don’t give an answer for the first or second questions, then things are ‘ok’, but as you know ‘ok’ is not the stuff that people tell others about. It’s not a ‘bad’ rating, but it’s not exceptional or ‘dramatically different’!

They are tough questions, but we are in ‘tough times’!

What questions do you ask?

Warming To The Idea of ‘Personalisation’

Discussing the ‘customer delight’ idea of ‘human bed warmers’ at the Kensington Holiday Inn (see previous blog), a friend who has a Range Rover (although I don’t hold that against him!) explained to me that he can pre-time his in car heating system to warm it up before he gets in! Very nice, especially in all these recent ‘wintery mornings’!

I just thought it was a great, simple example of building in ‘personalisation’ into the core offer. I don’t suppose that many people buy a big luxury car just because you can heat the seats up before you set off, but it’s one of those little things that

a) is ‘dramatically different’

b) (I suspect) relatively ‘cheap’ in the overall costs

c) helps customers ‘tailor’ the product to their needs

In the world of huge choice and ’same as’, ‘personalisation’ is a great way to ‘differentiate’ your business, your products and your services and create ‘delighted’ customers.

The 4P’s RIP?

Traditional marketing theory has for years been based on a fundamental principle known as the 4P’s. It was all something to do with Product, Place, and the Price of fish if I remember correctly.

We’re in a different world from the one when they emerged. It’s now the ‘age of abundance’, massive customer choice, overcapacity, 24/7 connectivity, multi-media, global competition, rapid change, information overload, and significantly greater market transparency – the customer now has much more control.

I honestly think that it’s time to forget those 4 P’s – In my humble opinion, the original 4 P’s are Passe, Past it, ‘kaPut’ and Pointless.

So I offer you a new set of P’s for the ‘age of customer control’, and conveniently, I’ve come up with 4 (pity this isn’t a podcast, because you’d have 4P’s in an iPod!).

Anyway, here they are:

Permission
Today’s successful marketeers recognise that it means getting ‘permission’ from prospects and customers. This means making stuff relevant and interesting, it means targeting and building relationships with people who WANT to do business with you. Forget unwanted intrusive, mass marketing to huge databases or frantically giving out and collecting as many business cards as possible at your next networking meeting to build a huge mailing list. Remember, size isn’t everything!

Participation
Today’s customers want dialogue, not diatribes. 76% of people don’t believe companies tell the truth in advertisements. Forward thinking businesses are having ‘conversations’ with their customers and prospects.

Performance
Winning businesses think in 3D – they are Dramatically and Demonstrably Different. In this world of endless choice, being the ‘same as’ gets you nowhere. Consistency in ‘Performance’ develops ‘trust’ and ‘trust’ creates a bond. This not only means improved customer retention and loyalty, it also produces greater referrals and recommendations.

Proliferation
Good news (and bad) spreads quickly. Remember, word of mouth only works if there’s something worth talking about.  Today’s successful marketeers have a strategy for maximising  ‘proliferation’ – not by overt ‘marketing hype’ but by energising their market place, becoming part of the community, by standing out from the crowd, and creating that buzz – a lot of it comes back to that ‘Demonstrable Dramatic Difference’!

If you want a bit more than this, feel free to read my latest article on the Management Issues website.

In the meantime, may P’s be with you.

Recession Over – Get The Champagne Out!!!!!

Brilliant News – It’s Celebration Time!!! We officially came out of recession today – doesn’t it feel good? It sets the pulses racing and ooooh I can just feel the confidence ousing around the country, can’t you? Yes, the official figures show the economy grew by 0.1% in the last quarter of 2009 – I’m just relaxing with my champagne as I write this!

Sorry, maybe I’m getting a bit carried away! Of course it’s good news I know, and I welcome it, but there are still tough times to come I’m sure. as things do pick up it’s the businesses that consistently strive to ‘differentiate’ themselves that will get ahead.  There’s a lot of research that shows that it’s at times like this that gaps between the best and the worst managed businesses grow. The best ‘maximise’ opportunities better than the others. It means ‘consciously’ working on their competitiveness and ‘dramatic difference’.

What are you going to do to expand that gap between your business and your competitors?

I’d get consciously working on that first before opening that champagne!

Go Fishing…. In Different Ponds!

“If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always had”.

Although that sounds like something that David Brent from The Office would say, there’s a lot of truth in it, particularly if you’re talking about improving your competitiveness.

If a key ingredient of competitiveness is innovation which, according to the definition I like is ‘the successful exploitation of new ideas’, then are you guilty of  ’always doing the same things’ particularly when it comes to spotting, generating and developing ideas?

According to CNN, some research by Harvard Business School highlighted 5 ’secrets’ of successful innovators ((I’m always nervous about ’secrets’ – by definition, if you’re reporting them, they aren’t ’secret’ any more, but anyway, here goes!).

They are, apparently:

Associating – It’s about ‘connecting’ stuff (my interpretations are in italics)

Questioning - Asking ‘why?’ ‘what if?’ ‘ how?’ etc

Observing - Watching others do stuff

Experimenting – Trying things out

Networking – Meeting others

So, now the secrets are out, what does this mean for you? Maybe you do some, or all of these things, but do you do them in the same environment all the time? My recommendation is try ‘fishing in different ponds’ – that means doing the things above in environments you’re not so familiar with. The likelihood is that you’ll not ‘get what you always have’.

So, rather than always visiting the same websites that you always do, always listening to the same podcasts you always listen to, always attending the same conferences and trade shows you always do, always visting the same network meetings you always go to, always reading the same books, magazines and trade journals you always do, why not do something different and see how other industries, countries, even ‘cultures’  ’do stuff’?

Go on, it’s relatively easy to do and you never know what you might ‘discover’?

Every now and then when I’m travelling by train, I ‘fish in a different pond’  and make a conscious effort to buy a magazine related to a sector I know absolutely nothing about and see what i can ‘learn’. If you see me reading Hairdressers Monthly next time you see me, that’s why!

So, go on, get fishing …….in different ponds!

(And while we’re at this, please do share any ‘ponds’ you think are worth fishing in!)

Stand Up And Out From The Crowd

We had friends up this weekend and we visited our local ‘tourist attraction’ (yes, we do have them up round here!), The Tropical Butterfly House, Wildlife and Falconry Centre , in Dinnington. It’s a great place  for all the family and one of their latest features is The Meerkat Mansion, where, yes, you’ve guessed it, there are some meerkats!

The meerkats themselves were very sweet, but that wasn’t the thing that made an impact on me. I was amazed as I watched them playing. EVERY SINGLE PERSON who came up near them sang or said something related to, or made reference to comparethemeerkat.com - and I mean ‘everyone’! Little kids, teenagers, adults and grandparents!!!!

Now, I know it doesn’t prove anything in terms of ’spend’, but if there was an ever an example of being ‘Dramatically and Demonstrably Different’, then meerkat Aleksandr Orlov is certainly up there. He’s got films, videos, a facebook page with 647,959 ‘fans’, he ‘tweets‘ and has a ‘real’ family history!

According to a report in the Guardian, the Comparethemarket.com website is now the 4th most popular price comparison website – way ahead of it’s ranking in the low teens in a very crowded market only a couple of years ago, so it’s certainly had an effect. Interestingly, when you do ‘lead the way’, others try to ‘follow’, but not always as successfully’. Go Compare’s response, the fat opera bloke was apparently voted as the single most irritating advert of 2009 by consumers in Marketing Magazine.

Marketing is not all about ‘hype’, but part of it is certainly about getting noticed.  Mr. Orlov has certainly ’stood up and out’ – and that’s a great start. ‘Simples!’

Happy Birthday Homer!!

The Simpsons are 20 years old this week! I think they’re a great example of 3D!

What can we learn from Homer and his family? Well, rather than hold them up as great role models, I’d like to focus on the shows themselves. In the early days, the shows completely ‘broke the pattern’  – there had literally been nothing like them. The great thing is that they’ve continually built on this over time and proactively evolved with time.  Here’s producer and writer David Mirkin on that evolution.

The shows have maintained their ‘relevance’ and reflect the changes in the ‘marketplace’ – you might even argue that they don’t just ‘reflect’ it, but actually ‘influence’ it?

The key is that they lead it through innovation, creativity and the result is that America’s longest running sitcom is a ‘benchmark’ to compare others by.

I know that not everyone likes them, but that’s another characteristic of Dramatically and Demonstably Different businesses – they create ‘raving fans’, but are not necessarily to everyone’s taste.  The challenge is to create ’sufficient’ raving fans – Bart, Lisa, Homer, Marge, Maddie (oops ‘Maggie’ – sorry!) (and of course ‘Santa’s Little Helper!) have done that brilliantly over the last 20 years.

Here’s to 20 more!

Thinking in 3D – A New Slideshare Presentation

Here’s a new Slideshare presentation for you to kick off your New Year – a few thoughts and ideas in a quick and easy ‘digestible’ format.

Do let me know what you think.

Free ebook – (Re)Thinking in 3D…..

I’ve written a new book! It’s all about Thinking in 3D – That means creating a business that’s 

‘Dramatically and Demonstrably Different‘! 

Basically, it’s a short set of ’rants’, raves and ideas aimed at engaging, stimulating and challenging you. 

If you enjoy the blog, I’d like to think that you’ll enjoy this too. The main reason being that there will be a few bits and bobs you’ve read before here on the site – see it as ‘going back to the gym’ – you still need to work those muscles!

I’ve called it:

(re)thinking in ‘3D‘….. and the best bit is it’s FREE!

 

If you like it please send it on to others….. and let me know what you think about it too please!

You can

download it here!

Hope You Have a ’Delightful’ Christmas!

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