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About
Notes and views on CRM, open business models, and what the Web means for customer relationships. [more]
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Speaking at:
IIR's Mobile CRM, Bupadest, Dec 2008
Telecoms CRM, CEM and User Experience 2008
Linkblog
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links for 2007-04-08
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I am more on the realistic side of things, and I’d settle for the possible if the alternative was obscurity, but something tells me that without Stallman, the Open Source movement would have made far more concessions to reality that would’ve been healthy.
Quote of the day
“[O]ne thing I’m sure of, geeks need marketing. Especially in a world where everybody swears blind that a great programmer’s work is 10 to 1000 times better than an average programmer’s, and some people even have the research to back it up - but the only way for a great programmer to make 10 to 1000 times more money than an average programmer is for that great programmer to start their own company and become a great businessperson as well (or instead)” - Giles Bowkett
Yes, and even if you don’t want to run your own company, it still makes sense to be a good businessperson - in the sense that you understand the business you are in. And I’ve seen geeks reading Kotler more than I’ve seen MBA’s learning C++, so perhaps there’s an advantage to be explored here.
links for 2007-04-07
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I disagree to the extent that desktop isn’t as irrelevant as the Web 2.0 crowd would like us to believe, but the basic premise - there are new predators casting a “shadow over the software world”, namely Google - is correct. Microsoft has become another b
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I like the passion of this thing, even though I’ve never used a Mac.
Customer Experiences: the old/new differentiator
FOLLOWING UP on my yesterday’s post, what level of customer service is optimal given the business model a company employs?
McDonald’s is abount a unified experience and a guaranteed sameness. Which is why they won’t greet me by name even if I put a goddamn name sticker on my shirt.
Upscale hotels are about personalized, luxurious experience. They’ll make sure you feel like their most valued customer all the time.
The common wisdom was, the more money you have, the more personalized a service you’re able to require.
But does that still ring true?
The internet has spoiled us: every website we bother registering with greets us, goes out of its way to serve just what we enjoy most, and - mostly - for free (you just have to suffer the adverts). And we spend a lot of time online, don’t we. So it’s only natural that we transfer our expectations, so richly fulfilled online, to the real world.
And what happens is, the real world is lacking that agility, that eagerness to please, that the online businesses strive for.
It will always be about the money (to satisfy the obvious objection) but just as we are now able to enjoy the style and personalization once reserved for the super-rich (as illustrated in The Substance of Style), we’re expecting to be treated as The Most Valued Customer, all the time. And who among you really cares about what figure dropped out of that Excel sheet that the marketing “gurus” employed by your bank, telco, supermarket got as your “Customer ROI”? Not me, definitely!
We are creatures driven by experiences, and - happily - the super-competitive markets are enabling us to demand them. So whatever your business model, I say providing a personalized and human customer experience is your Job #1 for days to come.
(inspired by The Most Important Rule by Seth Godin)
The Worst Customer Experience, Ever
McDonald’s is a relic. No, this isn’t going to be one of those posts; I have no philosophical objections to a hamburger. What I am saying is: in an era of increasing personalization of customer relationships, a joint where they treat you like they just met you even when you’ve been picking your morning latte there for 3 months now is, well, an anachronism.
And it’s not just about McDonald’s, mind you. Unfortunately, Central Europe doesn’t enjoy healthy competition among fast-food chains - but that’s beside the point.
Paul Greenberg has recently detailed his torturous experience with DirecTV’s “service” departments (quotes fully justified). I haven’t had a similar encounter yet; what drives me insane, though, isn’t rudeness or incompetence - it’s the zombie-like dullness of everyday interactions that could have been just a bit pleasant, just a bit warmer, if either side managed a slight smile, or bothered to care at all.
And no, it’s not one of these “let’s just all get along” posts, either: even a pretense of interest, a calculated attempt at making the customer feel good so that he spends more, is better than the cold “you want it as a menu?” line they’ve been taught since I never order the menu. True, it’s the business model of Fast Food: the same experience for everybody everywhere; so forget McDonald’s and apply the story to whatever business interactions you’ve had recently: your cable company, bank, whatever. And tell me you don’t want them to know you.
I knew you wouldn’t.
Not The End of DRM Just Yet
Just a quick note to the EMI/iTunes deal: let’s say you’re still reading books, right, and all of a sudden they come with a license saying you are only allowed to read them at home and not on the bus, and there are undercover detectives roaming the streets and scanning the buses and boy, if they ever catch you with a book in your lap while you’re on your way to work, you’ve got yourself a lawsuit!
And while some people complain, the masses just go with it ’cause, well, you can’t really say no to authorities, can you?
And after a while, those still in rebellion get their voices heard more and more, and gradually a wave of dissent gets noticed by the media and, eventually, by the masses. Then, because more and more people are copying books in their basement and giving them away to their friends, the publishers get together and put out a press release: you can buy our books for 25% more and you can read them anywhere you want! How about that!!!
What do you say to that, eh?
DRM isn’t dead yet. It won’t be until the publishers say, oops, it was a mistake, the overzealous accountants did it! Of course you can do whatever you damn please with the stuff you bought!
PS Yes, this being the real world, etc., I should unclench my teeth and say it’s better than nothing and perhaps something even better will eventually happen. Personally, though, I see more life in services such as Amiestreet that I wrote about: places where musicians and fans get together without too many men in dark suits breathing the same air.
Technorati Tags: drm, emi, itunes, piracy
Clueless
HA! Again and again, I fall prey to April Fool’s jokes. Today, it was the Gmail Paper service that got off Slashdot, thought it over, hey that’s kinda cool, and didn’t realize what’s going on until I read about it on TechCrunch. Either I read too quickly… or, as I just realized, my permanent age is 6, maybe 7, and I just can’t resist believing. I may pretend I am 30 but apparently I’ll never get there.
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