Brands need the sweet after taste

For the past couple of weeks a member of the family has been ill. Several tests later no one was any the wiser.  Finally on the weekend we were told to have her admitted to a hospital for a couple of days so that a specialist could conduct further tests and uncover the issue.

So, Saturday morning we duly arrived at the hospital. Some tests were done and then we awaited the specialist. And waited. And waited. 6 hours from us showing up the specialist arrived. By then, as you can imagine, we were all irritated, angry, frustrated and so on.

But the doctor changed everything in an instant. He apologised, which did nothing to our mood. But his demeanour, bed side manner, the way he dealt with the patient, everything was just so wonderful. Perfect, even. He spent a good half an hour with us. Gave us his mobile number to call at any time. And left with more apologies. This time we ‘forgave’ him.

We left the hospital feeling positively happy with the experience. Forgotten was the 6 hour wait.

And that’s the point of this short note. Marketers need to ensure that their customers always have that sweet after taste.

It is this thinking that drives companies like Amazon to not question consumer complaints. Free replacement. Overnight shipping. Reversing charges. It is all driven by ensuring the consumer leave happy with the experience.

Contrast that with nearly any real world supermarket experience. It is still hell. You are pretty much guaranteed a long wait at check out. Firstly the available tills are never manned. Then the person in front will not have change, or have a product without a price, or will have forgotten something and be ‘back in a second’ and so on. Frustrates the hell out of you. I nearly always leave a store remembering the check out lines. Not a good taste.

The other one of course is airport immigration lines. You could have travelled first class but when you land you are one of the masses and you have that long irritating line to go through. a very few airports have separate counters for first and business class passengers. Now some airlines are giving passengers express clearance passes to fast track the process. Few airports care about giving passengers a pleasant experience. But airlines do. So this is their way to show that they care.

But what about non service brands? esp FMCGs where you don’t know who bought your product?

Well an unhappy customer is likely to complain.

In the good old days a few really perseverent customers would write in to the company headquarters. These letters would either be binned or sent to legal. This is true. I have worked on brands where the brand manager has shown me a drawer full of customer complaints and joking referred to it as ‘handed over’ from the previous guy.

But these are new days. More customers will take to social media and rant. And others will like/favourite/share/retweet and so on. Ignoring customers is a perilous task. Big brands like Dell have social media listening posts to track good and bad customer comments and react in real time. And when brands respond the customer feels she is listened to and leaves that transaction happy.

That is the sweet after taste that is nirvana and has customers coming back for more. That is brand loyalty.

Coming back to my hospital episode, this evening (Sunday) we called him with some Qs and he answered the phone, handled all our Qs and we’re still happy. My super market on the other hand…less said the better.

What If : Search in Retail

Brands that operate in the b2c space typically have 2 bricks and mortar retail strategies.

The first is the solus store. This is a store that they either own or franchise and only has their own products. This is typically treated as their flagship store. Most big brands have this channel. Be it Nike, Calvin Klein, Apple and even some FMCG products.

Usually this is where the entire range of products is available. Latest and greatest products are displayed here. This channel is not just for selling products but also plays a big role in brand perceptions. We all know about Apple and its manic focus on retail, and it’s impact on, both, the bottom line, as well as the brand.

Clearly having solus stores is not enough to reach out to the consumers. This channel only addresses those already predisposed to the brand. Additionally, this channel is expensive to set up and maintain, so has limited reach.

To overcome this, brands also adopt the ‘shop in shop’ approach. This typically takes the path of having their own section within a larger department store. Anyone who’s been into a store anywhere in the world would have seen this in operation. On a floor catering to, say, clothes multiple brands have their own corners where their merchandise is displayed. Again, key here is not just sales, but also brand impact.

From my experience this weekend, in addition to several over the years, this is a very inward out approach and is extremely customer unfriendly.

This is the problem.

Say you want to buy a T shirt. Say you have also decided that what you wanted was a full sleeve, white T shirt. This should make for a simple purchase process. But this is the problem. You arrive at the men’s clothing section and will find that clothes are distributed by brand. So each brand will probably have their own white full sleeved T shirt. If you don’t have a brand in mind, this makes shopping very unpleasant. You are forced to go to each section, examine their selection and compare it to what you’ve seen previously. Perhaps, there is a brand you prefer and you make a beeline to it, and find their white full sleeves are out of stock. etc.

Not a happy experience.

Now I take you across the line to the World Wide Web. Go to the world’s favorite store amazon.com and type in white full sleeve T shirt and it throws up an array of options. You can then sort by brand, material, price etc till you get just what you want.

What If this experience can be transplanted to the real world?

In most modern stores, inventory management, billing, warehouses etc are all connected with a strong billing/ERP system. Stores know exactly what is in stock.

So What If stores had Search enabled terminals where customers can key in what they are looking for. The terminal throws up same options as an on-line store would. Customers whittle down their choice and are told which brand, in which area of the store has the T shirt they are looking for. It makes shopping easier. And doesn’t interfere with any existing merchandising plans.

This also doesn’t affect customers who come in to browse. So impulse purchases will continue to occur.

In much the same way many book stores allow you to search for books and tell you if they are in stock and where they are. We still buy more books than we intend to.

Retailers can be creative with the Search options they put on the terminals. While it can have simple ‘store stock’ based searches they can also enable search by occasion (birthday suggestions), ‘what’s new’, ‘special offers’ etc to incentivise customers to explore more parts of the store.

What If the line between off and on-line shopping could be blurred, if not removed?