I had a copy of Norton/Symantec Aintvirus and their security software running on my HP media center PC m7680n- about three years old, running XP, but it is a “VISTA” ready computer. The subscription was about to expire. Norton warned me multiple times a day for over a month to renew, and I didn’t, just because they were bugging me so much.
(For the record, I also object strenuously to the fact that Norton and other virus protection software hold you hostage and make you pay a yearly user fee to keep your PC from blowing up- it’s like a computer tax to a private company, but I’ll save that part of this rant for another day.)
So I renewed on the last day. Downloaded Internet Security Package 2009- an upgrade from a regular renewal. It downloaded, but would not install. I then had to uninstall everything, and it still won’t install. I have to wait now to chat with someone online, number 11 in their queue for support, down from 15. This has chewed up way too much of my time, required way too many restarts and reinstalls and uninstalls to try to make this hunk of junk work properly. Oh, and you can’t use Firefox or Chrome, you can only use Explorer to use the chat feature. Joy.
I have been considering a new Mac anyway- I love my mac book pro laptop, and the fact that everything just works. All the time. But I have most of my podcasting stuff set up on the PC, and didn’t want to go through the hassle of switching stuff over if the system was still working ok.
I now have a call into my accountant to find out whether there are any tax advantages to buying a new machine this year or next. And trust me, as soon as I find out, I may be marching myself down to the Apple Store and making a purchase- because the time and frustration this thing is causing me, the loss in productivity, is killing me.
Now I am still waiting, number 6 in queue, and still no solutions for this problem.
While the cult of Mac is strong, the real power is that everything works seemlessly together, unlike the haphazard quilt of Windows, the crashes, slow downs, and frustration that eats my time and steals joy and soul in the process.
What do you think of Norton, Symantec and what I like to call the annual PC User’s tax? Worth it or not? What would you advise?
Chris Brogan had an interesting post up today about “Cafe-shaped conversations” that got me thinking. The big versus the small, the mass versus the individual touch- this is a classic dichotomy we all struggle with in our lives. Are we part of a group (safety in numbers) or are we individuals, acknowledged for what makes us special and unique? And if you are trying to sell stuff to LOTS of people, how do you deal with this fundamental seesaw of mass versus customization?
In a typical day, in a typical store, my choices seem infinite. There may be plenty of options, but sometimes, none of them fit what I need, want, or imagine in my mind. Because there are so many choices, rather than just one carton of one flavor of orange juice, you can spend ridiculous amounts of time trying to figure out the price/quality/flavor differential for everything you buy- and that’s just the grocery store.
If you walk into a clothing store, or a “junior department store” like TJ Maxx or Marshall’s, the selections and choices are many, often jarring to the senses, and leave me with more questions about what I truly want, and whether any of this is truly worth while, than an ease of making a selection and beating tracks. The mere fact that the choice and selection is so wide, makes me speculate whether or not the “perfect” something is out there, just waiting for me to fnd it- there’s an illusion created that “good enough” need not be good enough any more. Ideal and perfection may be just around the corner, after all, the selection is already so wide…
One Attempt to Scale the Conversation- Education
Taking this out of the marketplace, let’s look at education. Schools are based on delivering information on the one-to-many scale, but tends to do so in smaller “cafe-sized” classrooms. It works best when the groups are even smaller, even one to one. But to administer and deliver the information to the maximum number of people, the institution, just like a company, has a heavy administrative burden. It can deal most easily when everyone gets the same stuff, in standard format. We’ve built in exceptions for students that learn differently than the middle of the curve, through special education or gifted education. This customization of the mass information delivery model works okay, but perhaps not optimally in all cases. This causes many consumers (ie parents) to see if they can game the system to fit their individual needs, to supplement outside the system, or to opt out altogether and send their kids to private schools or even home school them.
I’d argue that these options for education are equivalent to people taking their jeans and modifying them to suit individual taste, with embroidery, paint, “bedazzling” , rolling up cuffs, creative wear, wash and rips, etc. We’re taking what the mass market does offer, and customizing it to meet individual needs- the one on one conversation where the mass market left off.
Customization versus The Right Neighborhood- Good Enough
When I started writing this piece, I thought it would be about the overwhelming nature of the selection currently offered in the mass market, and how small things, like better customer service, provides that one-on-one, cafe-class attention that makes all the difference. It’s certainly one of the things that differentiates quality in my mind and makes a difference where I decide to spend my dollars. If the people care and are engaged, that is huge to me. But that is the retail end of things.
From the company production end, I really don’t need Prego or Progresso to have an all-hands on deck customer service team, because I don’t have or need a one on one relationship with my soup or sauce provider. If I need something slightly different, I can customize the “good enough” product with items at home and make it m own, better than they ever can. They can get me in the neighborhood of good enough, and my customization will make it perfect for me.
Companies who have a significant investment in service products, like banks, utilities, retail stores- these are the people that should take social media conversations and opportunities to provide great customer service to heart. They are the people who should look for ways to better serve customer needs, rotate stock, get a better “neighborhood” of customer needs they fill every day. Customer service and relationships matter here much more than they do for strict manufacturing of items.
From a manufacturer’s point of view, they will never be able to fill every need for customization out there, and I think they should probably stop trying. Apple, for example, does well enough with a few models, and a few colors-they leave the etching and customization through cases and accessories to others, and have spawned additional support industries because of it. Cafe conversations with Apple happen through their retail store- Steve Jobs doesn’t feel compelled to hug every ipod owner, and we still love him.
I think social media is a great place to engage consumers, figure out what seems to work and what doesn’t. It’s a great way to problem solve and to generate and keep loyalty. But it won’t work equally well for everyone, so seriously consider with whom you need to be having a conversation before you try to wrestle people into one. No one wants to be the person who talks too loudly and won’t shut up in a cafe. We all want those meaningful conversations that generate new ideas and make us feel engaged and enriched by the experience, and that should be enough.
Chris Brogan had a very interesting post on Trust Agents this morning. It got me thinking about how people become trustworthy in the internet age, when relationships may be many, but have weaker bonds than say, the friendships you make in your off-line life, through work, school, church, or other daily encounters.
In a presentation this weekend at Podcamp Philly, Christopher Penn said everything is customer service, and every step along a transaction chain, in effect, is an opportunity to provide customer service. This got me thinking about how important customer service is becoming in most of my business and personal financial transactions. Why now? Why didn’t customer service weigh so heavily for me in the past? Let me talk for a brief bit about abundance.
Below is a great talk Malcolm Gladwell did at the TED conference in 2004, talking about how the abundance of consumer products we find on the shelves is largely due to the insights of one man, Howard Moskowitz. (This, and so many other TED talks are definitely worth your time, so be sure to check out others as well, hopefully after you have finished reading this post….)
** Chris Anderson wrote a book a few years ago called The Long Tail, which also discusses the almost infinite choice of things we now have online, and Seth Godin frequently discusses the difficulty of differentiating yourself from the pack out there on the tail, encouraging all of us to Be Remarkable and stick up above the rest of the sameness that’s out there now. But how do you become remarkable?
So let’s do some “sociological math” here and add up these insights. If you take the insight that customer service, or the opportunity to provide customer service is everywhere, and consider that in light of the abundance of choice we all face with every purchase, whether it’s online or in person, I came to the following conclusion:
Now, in an age of abundance, the only differentiation besides price is customer service, or the Relationship you create between your brand and your audience.
Let’s add in the foloowing as well: Ze Frank describes a brand as the “emotional aftertaste” you get from an interaction, and Chris Penn elaborates on this by comparing the difference in your likelihood to buy “Grandma’s Cookies” versus “Old People Cookies”- Grandma’s emotional aftertaste tends to be more loving and sweet, and much less generic than “old people”, unless you REALLY dislike your Grandma.
Examples of Creating a Relationship and Becoming a Trust Agent
Let’s take a quick look at some consumer experiences I’ve had to illustrate the point.
For example, Apple wins, for me, because the customer service is great, the “community” users have created from the days of the Macintosh User Groups, and whether thecompany allows social networking on their site or not, the forums still allow users to help each other out- and that’s probably good enough.
Likewise, when I go to an Apple Store or call customer support, I get actual human support. I get people who are understanding and wait, talking to me, while I download a third party plug-in for imovie so I can get my kid’s video project for school finished, and wait with me until everything is working. That keeps me delighted- that is remarkable, and that’s why the next computer we buy will also be an Apple. The price is always a differentiation in the marketplace, but the relationship tips the balance where it matters.
Similarly, Land’s End delighted me almost fifteen years ago now, when a coat of mine developed a hole in the pocket shortly after getting it. I called customer service, and they insisted on sending me a new coat, so I wouldn’t go a day without one, and could use that box to send the old one back. This was back in 1992 or 1993, but this takes any possible fear out of any email/catalog/web transaction with them. They earned my trust, and as a result, not only do I spread this story to all my friends, but I always consider their products before looking at a competitor, say, LL Bean, because of it. (And I do like LL Bean as well, for the record.)
Price isn’t the only factor in the decision matrix anymore.
Last example- FiOS is finally coming to my neighborhood, and I have had intermittent problems with Comcast. But I also have Comcast Cares, Frank Eliason, from twitter on my side- any problems, Frank makes sure I get taken care of, and has called me at home, from his home, to make sure everything is fine. I haven’t yet met Frank in person, but I feel a loyalty to him and the company because they have gone above and beyond to make sure I have what I need- and this makes me very unlikely to switch, even if I suspect FiOS might be a bit better, or maybe even a bit cheaper- it has to be more than just nominal price and quality to disrupt what I currently have, when I have Frank for customer care.
Can We Quantify This?
Every business wants to know the Return on Investment, or ROI for its customer service/community evangelists/Outreach efforts- I suggest the following equation for the math geeks out there:
Purchase = Remarkability or Necessity
We make a purchase when something is really special and catches our eye, like that cute item in the checkout aisle at the bookstore, you don’t really need, or when we have a real need to fulfill.
Remarkability = (Brand experience + Price) x Customer Service Experience
To be remarkable, the brand experience, combined with price is important, but it is enhanced considerably by the customer service experience. I may like a brand, or have heard good things about it. I may be willing to pay the price, high or low, or take a chance on a new version of a product, say, V8 fusion, if I already like V8 juice. If the prior relationship with that brand is positive, I’m more likely to give your new product a go, and less likely if the prior experience is poor or non-remarkable in any way.
But what is tipping the balance between all the brands on the shelf, virtual and physical, is becoming more and more dependent on the customer service I receive, or the customer stories you hear from others.
The Long Tail of Customer Experience
Just like I indicated above, Land’s End still gets business from me, not only because their products fill a need, but they enjoy a long tail of customer service excellence- I like them, even if I haven’t needed a lot of customer service since that incident, because they treated me well back then. Sites like Amazon.com, DealTime, Consumer Reports and more collect stories from customers about what they like and hate about products. Even Twitter and other social networks provide information to people every day on what brands seem great and which have led to less than great experiences. And this information stays in Google and on the Web for a long, long time. This means every time you have a chance to interact with a customer, any issues, especially if they aren’t addressed, may haunt you forever online. And this means, long after that particular not-so-great transaction took place, you may still lose sales to competitors based on one bad experience- consumers can now broadcast, making every mistake you make all that more costly when it comes to relationships online.
One answer would be to never make mistakes, but that’s simply not practical. The other option is to make sure you are human; that you understand that each of those customer service experiences act as a multiplier towards your positive or negative remarkability, and then you can reap the true ROI of social media investment- creating a brand aftertaste everyone wants to try.
I am a huge fan of Seth Godin, and this is a riff based on one of his recent blog posts.
If you want a successful business model:
Start with the fact that everyone has problems. They want and NEED a cure for those problems.
1. Identify a problem.
2. Develop a simple solution for the problem.
3. Price and market it correctly.
4. Rinse and repeat.
For example, Apple found a problem. The cell phones that let you look at your email on the road or cruise the net were button full, and performance mediocre. So they developed the iphone. It’s a pretty mediocre ipod, but it is an awesome phone and mobile computing device, for me. I have never been so happy with any one gadget I have ever owned. And it has the geek lust factor on top of it. It’s beautiful to look at, as well as simple to use- something people would want to show off to their friends. And like all of Apple’s products, the user interface is made so that it is intuitive and easy to use- no manual required for basic use.
But the phone was expensive, although competitively priced with other business phones. Now with the 3G phone, the phone is cheap enough and fast enough to reach a whole new segment of the marketplace. They took the same concept, tinkered with the existing problems- limited sales because of price point, people wanting faster speeds- and then gave people what they waned, as announced at the WWDC. – Lather, rinse, repeat.
This same model works for any business- you have to provide something someone needs- if you are just a luxury, a want over a need, your shelf-life will be short. If you fill a need and solve a problem better than the other guy, success is much more likely.
