It seems words like “hope”, “change”, “renewal” help us to detach our actions from their inevitable consequences, at least in our own minds. At the turn of the New Year  we habitually make ourselves (and others) insincere promises to change, to start working out, to start learning languages or skills, to lose or gain weight, etc. We also like to make predictions nobody takes very seriously or calls us on.

Here is an example predicting the Death of Marketing

Gone are the days when marketers could carefully craft messaging and then broadcast that message in a few channels to huge portions of their audiences.  Oh, you can still spend money that way if you want to but in our transparent world, no marketing budget can possibly overcome the actual experience consumers have (and share with friends, followers and Google) with the product, service, or organization.  It no longer matters what you say;  in 2010, your brand will be more defined by what you do and who you are!

I wish Augie Ray, the author of this prediction and a new Forrester analyst, was right, but we both know that he is not. I am hoping that we will see consumers re-gain their power of choice and intelligent, rational selection and I believe that it has already started happening as reported by many observers. Here is an example from the Gerson Lehman Group quoting a McKinsey report:

“Two-thirds of the touch points during the active-evaluation phase involve consumer-driven activities such as Internet reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family” .

I just don’t believe that “it” will happen in 2010, primarily because the fundamental change is not an event, it is a process. A process that takes time and a lot of education as too many consumers have willfully relegated their power of choice and are more comfortable to see themselves as victims. Here is an example of a discussion “Does your Company’s Reputation Really Matter?” that illustrates my point:

Perhaps things will change if capitalism develops into a more socially equable system, or a new form of leadership evolves for the 21st century. In the meantime, what do you think? Is reputation still something to be valued and maintained? Does it really count for anything? And how do we ensure that our voices — customers, citizens, taxpayers — are heard amid the deafening noise of spin?

It is interesting to see a victim-hood mentality spilling over from Harvard Business Review by a “Leadership Coach”. I suppose if you don’t believe you have the power – you do not have it.

All the moaning, blaming everything in sight and somehow hoping for a better outcome, meanwhile continuing our patronage of those who don’t deserve it, is not going to bring any change for the better.

I rather do without many things I deem to be necessary – many are not. I stopped buying products that do not deserve high regard from customers who experienced them. I’d rather be without or pay more for quality if it is available. I have enough headaches, thank you very much. I stopped flying anywhere I can drive within a reasonable time, and I do a lot of my long distance meetings using technologies ranging from Skype to Cisco.

For the same reason you cannot change your weight without changing your diet, you cannot get the quality you deserve without demanding it — consistently. Change before you have to.

I used to have a sign in my office that said – “Happiness is expectation management” that could be interpreted as “It’s hard to be disappointed if you don’t expect much”. Apparently this wisdom does not resonate with a lot of consumers:

A recent Brandweek article titled “Retail Customer Service Stinks” reported that the service received by shoppers in over 1000 retail interactions in the study rated 48.2 out of a possible 100 points – a flunking grade. The study, conducted by the research firm The Salt and Pepper Group, examined retail interactions in 73 stores over a four-month period.

This quote, and the others to follow, came from an excellent article by @RetailProphet appropriately called  How Consumers Killed Customer Service. In this article, the writer puts responsibility for deteriorating Customer Service on the shoulders of Consumers with our focus on low price.

We demanded the lowest airfare wherever we flew. We went to the buy-one-get-one sales. We made Walmart what it is today. We camped out for Black Friday. We built the dollar store channel. The bottom line is that we voted with our wallets and customer service lost. We killed customer service.

I’m glad this is finally articulated as I’ve felt this way for a long time. It is rare to see an advertising campaign that is focused on quality of experience, and the only differentiator seems to be the price. These unbalanced optimization attempts inevitably trigger a “law of unintended consequences”. Results range from retail stores, that both feel and smell like dumps, to rising costs of waste disposal caused by purchases of low quality products, that do not last and are priced too low to fix. Apparently most of us do not value the extra time, effort and energy wasted to deal with inferior products and services, to balance the economics of our decisions.

Examples of better balanced services (Apple Store, Nordstrom, etc) point to the fact that market segmentation works as intended and some of us, who expect more than just the lowest  price, can still find better experiences.

For most of us it’s become a matter of making trades and concessions based on the type of product, the brand, or the store we choose to shop at. Just as we don’t expect the lowest price for a laptop at the Apple Store, we can’t in good conscience demand brilliant service at Sears, whose stores have become a virtual sea of sale banners. And if in fact we really can’t live with that trade-off, then I’m afraid we’ll need to rethink our definition of value as consumers and as a society.

I have encountered some mixed emotions among some Market Research and Customer Experience Management practitioners about the usefulness of Customers Reviews as a source of real business intelligence, as opposed to their use as marketing gimmicks. I do not fancy myself as a true professional in these fields as I lack true hands-on, hard core operational experience; however, I doubt these mixed emotions and remain determined to develop technology that “listens” to the stories of customers to “learn” and measure how a product experience meets customer’s expectations.  I ran across this post today from ClearAction that clarifies some of these doubts:

What’s the difference between the way customers volunteer feedback versus the way they’re requested to give feedback? One revolves around outcomes in the customer’s world, whereas the other revolves around customer satisfaction enablers in the company’s world. True customer-centricity requires primary focus and decision motivations be centered on the customer’s world, rather than the company’s.

It is easy to imagine that politics, real or perceived loyalties and conflicts of interest can easily skew the results of customer satisfaction research. However biases, mistakes and algorithmic-imperfections can also result in low quality output. The method is less important than the intent.

customers “hire” a product or service to get something done for them. When we understand the circumstances motivating the customer to hire a product or service, then we gain insight into the customer’s jobs-to-be-done. A great way to identify customers’ desired outcomes throughout the customer experience is to scan customer-generated inputs on your brand category. Good sources of customer-generated inputs include contact center and sales call logs and social media.

Ethnography, or observation research, is also instrumental in understanding outcomes in the customer’s world. What value does your organization place on these customer outcomes sources relative to your formal research that is typically organized from a customer satisfaction enabler viewpoint? Why not consider revising formal research to focus on customer outcomes rather than enablers?By really understanding customers’ jobs-to-be done, constraints, work-arounds, hassles, and other elements of their world, new insights emerge for superior alignment with customers. Adopt the customers’ jargon — don’t make them adopt yours. Cater to the customers’ world — don’t make them cater to yours. Your jargon and world are customer satisfaction enablers, or a means-to-an-end toward customers’ desired outcomes. The outcomes are the direct link to re-purchase behavior and propensity to recommend a brand. In the end, it’s only the outcomes that matter.

The important point is that no single source of data, or method by which such data is acquired, produces viable knowledge. At this point I need to channel Chance, “The Gardener” from “Being There” by relying on my sailing experience – you cannot navigate by less than 3 points of reference; that is why the word “triangulation” was introduced. Our technological approach does not change this any more than the invention of GPS.