Great Expectations - Are Managed

Because of the snow, there has been a great deal of media coverage devoted to service performance in the last few days:

• Airports
• Eurostar
• Postal Services
• On-line Shopping
• Rail Services
• Road Transport

All of these areas have been affected by the recent poor weather. BA and BAA have come in for a fair amount of criticism - particularly in terms of their communication (or otherwise) with people stranded at a major airport.

One firm made me think about these issues in marketing terms. I ordered several items from Amazon last week - and was assured that delivery would take place in time for Christmas. When I re-visited the site on Monday (nearly 5 working days before Christmas) - the message was clear. It will not arrive in time for Christmas.

Amazon took responsibility for managing my expectations. And (as far as I know) - over-delivered - the parcels shipped to my home have all arrived in plenty of time - all apart from one that is not a gift.

Our local Pizza firm, in the next village is another great example of good expectation management. They always tell me that delivery will take place "Within the hour" - and most of the time manage a 34-45 minute delivery time. The main point is - they set expectations and then over-deliver on them - a bit. And that makes me loyal.

So, how do you communicate with your customers? Do you manage expectations properly? Are you guilty of letting people find things out the hard way?

The Perils of Hype

In the early part of the 20th Century, a new technology was struggling to become established. A plethora of new manufacturers, some operating on a shoestring, were clamouring for public attention. Overall adoption of the new technology was modest. This modest adoption rate arose because, whilst the target market was often convinced of the merits, the whole product was not fully developed to the point where it became a practical proposition for people of modest means. Vehicles were often expensive, servicing was troublesome, fuel availability was patchy. And the early cars frightened the horses.

The new technology was the Motor Car. There were lots of examples of extravagant claims and marketing hype for motor cars in the first 20-25 years of the 20th Century. However, many manufacturers adopted a more robust approach to publicity. Their process was:

• Find a challenge (usually a sporting event)
• Complete the challenge
• Promote the results

It still took an enormous change in the mechanical aptitude of the average consumer (soldiers returning from WW1 able to drive and to conduct basic maintenance procedures) before the masses became mobile.

The 21st Century approach to the marketing of new technologies seems to be:

• Find a band-waggon
• Create tenuous connections from my product to that band-waggon
• Confuse the market by claiming membership of a hype trend

Net Result
Target customers become confused, and analysts get frustrated. Products which were previously being promoted as the best possible exponent of the previous band-waggon are mysteriously upgraded (sometimes with minimal changes) to become fully hyped members of the new hype trend.

Marketing Caution

• Make sure that your marketing messages are based on substance
• Use style to embellish if you must - but never at the expense of hiding elderly substance under a cloud of hype
• Avoid being suckered into joining the next hype trend with last year's products
• Listen to customers and analysts to be sure that you are not over-communicating the hype solely because that is what your competitors are doing

Viral Brand Damage Limitation

Businesses and organisations who care about their brands take a number of steps to develop their brands and their reputation. They usually spend a lot of time, money and energy on design, registrations and promotion. Many go on to survey their audience to ensure that their brands are recognised and are associated with the intended image.

In this world of social media, just as it is feasible for ingenious brand owners to promote their brand using the power of the internet and the social media, so it is now entirely feasible for your reputation to be damaged by the same social media. This why Tweets about certain brands will solicit a fast reaction and a correction. A recent set of Tweets on Asda’s on-line store shows that they not only monitor Twitter for their brand, but take pro-active steps to contact people and to ensure satisfaction. NHS-Direct also monitor Twitter for negative comments and make an attempt to fix things – although a simple Twitter reply with a link to a generic comment web-page is not in the same league as Asda’s recent reaction. Similarly, other brand owners seem to be totally oblivious to the power of the web, including forums and Twitter.

If you type “Land-Rover Discovery 3” into Google and then go to the second site in the natural listings (www.disco3.co.uk/forum/) you will find a forum which, on 4th January 2010, included 1077 posts on faults and fixes for the Discovery 3 model and 398 posts in the same category on the recently launched Discovery 4 model. It may be that not all of these represent manufacturing faults, but would you buy an expensive car after reading this lot?

My point is simple. It is now a lot more important for brand-owners to be sensitive to customer opinions. They may conduct surveys; they may take the feedback from those surveys seriously. But, how many brand owners actively seek out dissatisfied customers? These are the dissatisfied customers who find it so easy to publish faults and foibles to the global internet audience.
People usually vote with their feet – and change to an alternative brand if they are unhappy. Unfortunately, some of our purchases fall in to the “too expensive to dump it and move on” category – especially in a recession. So we are forced to stick with brands we are unhappy with and to tell the world – damaging brands in the process.

Suggestions

• Make it your business to actively seek out unhappy customer comments in the social media world. Speak to your customers.
• Show them you care.
• Put things right – over and above the warranty if required.
  - Do this before they build a huge following who are just waiting for the next public notice of some issue or problem.
• Consider developing KPI’s on your brands appearances in social media with positive, neutral and negative comments.
• For something more structured - take a look at a post on Creating Customer Delight
• Or, read: Richard C. Whiteley, The Customer Driven Company, Perseus Books, ISBN 0-201-60813-8

Cheaper Marketing Costs More

Talking to a marketing agency I know this morning was an education in cost wasting. My contact had just spent a whole lot of client time - much of which he cannot invoice - sorting out a file sent to him by a client. His plea "bring back professional marketers, they save me time and my clients money".
The leaders of many organisations try to save money in their marketing by not employing a marketing professional. They then ask a well meaning, enthusiastic, member of the team - with no marketing experience - to manage external agencies. The result is an unclear brief which constantly changes while the creative agency works hard to try to deliver value. The information is often passed to the agency in a format - in Publisher for example - which is very time consuming for an agency to extract into their professional systems. The final outcome often costs a lot more than was necessary.

The Solution
If you cannot write a clear brief and format information with clarity - so that your agency can deliver effectively for you, then use a part-time professional marketer to manage your marketing. The extra expense will be saved time and time again when your sub-contract providers are able to work to your real requirements and to deliver work that reinforces your brand and meets your objectives. Simples!