Category: Customer Loyalty

What Other Problems Do Your Customers Have?

In the wine department of the Hollywood West Fred Meyer store is a device that looks kind of like a clothes hamper full of slowly circulating ice water. A sign on the device says,

“Free Chilling Service — 25 Times Faster Than a Refrigerator”

You just put the bottle in the water and come back in a little while. 3 minutes for “cool”, 5 minutes for “cold”, 7 minutes for “ice cold”.

Somebody at Fred Meyer realized that for some of their shoppers, a good wine selection solves one problem — what to serve at the party — but leaves another potential issue — the guests are arriving in less than an hour and the white wine’s warm.

By offering to solve this second problem at no extra charge, Fred Meyer’s positioned itself as the first option for this segment of customers.

We’re all in the problem-solving business.

  • People with transportation problems go to car dealers.
  • Homeowners who need to find a buyer hire a real estate agent.
  • People who believe they look old or unattractive go to a clinic for botox or lipodissolve.

In many cases your customers are consciously aware of the primary problem they need to solve, but may need to address other issues as well.

Sometimes these issues are a barrier to doing business. The Red Cross, recognizing that many people feel they’re too busy to give blood in December, recently announced a program called “You Give, We Wrap.” Donors bring their holiday gifts to the center, and Red Cross volunteers will wrap the packages while the donors are giving blood.

Sometimes these secondary problems can even be an opportunity for extra profit. When you buy a gift from Amazon.com, they’re happy to wrap it — for an additional $3.99 per package.

Whether you’re trying to generate extra revenue or just position yourself as the first choice for your clients, it makes sense to ask — what other problems can I solve?

_________________________________________________________________________

Like what you’re reading? Download my free white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How To Fix Them.

Does Relentless Advertising Work?

One answer to this question comes from a study conducted by the Stanford University School of Medicine and Packard Children’s Hospital. According to AdAge.com (thanks to Rick Lewis for alerting me to this), kids 3 to 5 years old were fed two sets of identical foods — some in McDonald’s wrappers and some wrapped in plain paper.

They overwhelmingly preferred the stuff when it came with a Mickey-D’s logo.

Each child was given chicken nuggets, a hamburger and french fries from McDonald’s, and baby carrots and milk from the grocery store… With one exception, significantly more children said the McDonald’s-labeled product tasted better.”

McDonald’s spends an enormous amount of money to advertise to children, and apparently they have purchased brand loyalty beginning at a very early age. If you’ve ever driven past a McDonald’s at lunchtime with a car full of kids, you’ve seen brand loyalty translate into sales.

McDonald’s has enough money to be seen and heard just about everywhere; the rest of us have to be more selective in choosing market segments and media opportunities we can afford to dominate. But even without a huge marketing budget, you can still follow the basic principles that have kept McDonald’s at the top of their category:

1. Have a consistent theme and spokesperson — the Golden Arches logo has been there forever, and Ronald McDonald has been a significant part of the marketing effort for decades.

2. Establish a long-term plan, and stick with it. The most successful markets map out a year at a time, and they don’t cancel their ads after a bad weekend.

3. Make an offer. A small portion of McDonald’s advertising is for image, but most of it gives the target consumer a specific benefit — a coupon, a new product, a movie tie-in — for doing business with them today.

It takes careful planning, patience, and money to establish a dominant position in your market. And attention spans are shorter than they’ve ever been. But the basic techniques for gaining the consumer’s attention, interest, desire, and action haven’t changed.

Like what you’re reading? Subscribe here!

New Ways to Look at Old Products

One of the tough things about being around for a while is that you become generic. In the consumer’s mind, Kleenex means tissue, but tissue is tissue. So the challenge is to somehow create a new use for, or way of looking at, an old product.

In the past few weeks, media attention has shined on three interesting innovations:

1. Kleenex recently recently released Kleenex Anti-Viral , which, the manufacturer claims, will kill germs in the tissue.

2. Wizmark has taken the trusty old urinal cake and turned it into an advertising medium. The State of New Mexico is placing them in bars in an effort to reduce drunk driving. But the folks at the company want to sell advertising. If the radio/internet thing doesn’t work out for me, this could be my next sales job. Thanks to John Carlton for tipping me off to this.

3. Auto insurance is auto insurance, right? You pay your premium, and when you wreck the car they write you a check. So the companies have to fight it out in a marketplace that too often views them as generic. American Family has come up with a new service for their policy-holders: they have partnered with Drivecam to offer video cameras mounted in the car. The product is aimed at teenage drivers — or more accurately, at their parents. The logic is that behavior changes when the subjects know they’re being observed. So if a teenager knows that sudden accelleration or braking will trigger the camera, he or she will be less likely to drive unsafely. It’s only offered in a few states right now.

I’ve been a Farmers customer for years. Their service has been good, and I’m too lazy to shop premiums. But my older son totalled his car, and my younger son will be driving in a couple of years. If Drivecam comes to Oregon, and American Family is the only company that offers it, would I drag myself off the couch to switch?

You betcha.

It’s not generic anymore.

Like what you’re reading? Want to read more? Subscribe here!

The Best Apology

Things sometimes go wrong in business, in spite of our best efforts. And as Seth Godin points out, there are all sorts of ways to apologize, some better than others.

Here’s one that really got it done. I walked into the Lloyd Center Men’s Wearhouse here in Portland on the last day of the winter sale. They didn’t have the shirts I wanted in my size, so Tammy, the store manager, ordered them for me at the sale price. They were to be delivered from another store, but when I came back in on the appointed day, they hadn’t yet arrived.

How did Tammy handle it? She asked for my phone number, and promised to deliver them to me if I couldn’t make it back. Tonight, after the mall closed, she came by my house and dropped them off. The right shirts, hand-delivered to my house by the manager. No extra charge.

Next time you need clothes in Portland, make time to visit Men’s Wearhouse in Portland. Ask for Tammy.