The 7 Telltale Signs of a Company NOT Committed to Customers

I discovered many years ago that I could determine whether a company was committed to customers pretty quickly. When I thought about how I recognized it, I found that organizations that did not commit to customers had some shared company culture cues that indicated where their focus was.

The ideas behind this discovery later became my second book, Revolutionize Your Customer Experience. I developed for the book my Native to Natural™ model, which measures how customer-centric a company culture is.

There are four types of companies arranged on a spectrum. It starts with Naïve, which are the least customer-focused companies and are unaware of it. Next come the Transactional and Enlightened stages, which are firms that now recognize the problem and are consciously working to change their behavior to have a customer-focus. Finally, there are Natural organizations, which are the most customer-focused companies that put the customer at the center of everything they do without thinking about it.

In our global Customer Experience consultancy, we use the Naïve to Natural model to help organizations realize where they are with their present Customer Experience regarding Customer Centricity. It also helps them see areas where they need to improve to get where they want to go. This exercise requires self-analysis and answering critical questions about the priority placed on Customer Experience.

Few companies, if any, would want to be known for not committing to customers. If you asked most senior management a question like, “True or False: The customer should be at the center of everything you do?”, few of them would say false. Therefore, our questions ask about day to day operations and decisions, which are where the rubber meets the road concerning customer focus.

This episode of The Intuitive Customer podcast shares the seven questions that get an organization started at determining whether they have the customer focus that they want to compete in today’s crowded and cutthroat business landscape. The answers to these questions reveal the telltale signs of a company that is or, perhaps more importantly, isn’t committed to the customer.

The Intuitive Customer podcasts help you take your Customer Experience to the next level by unlocking the “hidden” aspects of your experience and determining what really drives value for your customers.

To find out more about how your organization’s marketing can improve customer loyalty and retention, contact us at www.beyondphilosophy.com.

To subscribe to The Intuitive Customer and never miss a podcast, please click here.

What is Really Happening on Black Friday?

It’s that time of year again: Black Friday sales are next week. A US tradition, Black Friday was named for the idea that it is the day retailers finally move out of the red for the year and into the black of profits. It is also the official kickoff of the holiday shopping season.

However, what is really going on here? Why do people trample through the doors of a retailer they likely frequent three times a week most months mere hours after polishing off far too much food than is healthy for them? How to marketers compel people to stand in the dark and cold for hours to shop in their stores?

Black Friday is the way it is because of the psychological concept called Scarcity. Scarcity is a motivator like none other for customer behavior—specifically their buying behavior.

Scarcity stems from the idea that resources we think are harder to come by are more valuable. In the distant past, our ancestors did not have access to the jumbo pack of Cheetos at their friendly big-box retailer. Instead, they had to compete for food, water, and shelter with other humans. For them, overcoming Scarcity was a matter of survival.

No one could argue that buying a discounted giant flat-screen TV for pennies on the dollar one Friday morning in November is a survival instinct. However, the motivations behind our behavior have the same origins. We try harder when something is hard to get. What’s an elbow in the face of your fellow shopper when you are talking about 4k Ultra HD

Now, Black Friday is next week in the US, but it is not the only time we see this behavior or even the only country where it happens. The idea of a day of big sales that bring out the animal in us is global. Similar events occur in the UK (the January Sales), and China (Single’s Day). Even other sales in the US can create a frenzy, like Presidents’ Day sales or Labor Day “Events.”

In this episode of The Intuitive Customer, we explore the concept of Scarcity and how it affects customer behavior, both good and bad. We also talk about how marketers create the idea of scarcity in the minds of consumers, and the effect it can have on Customer Experience and their bottom line.

The Intuitive Customer podcasts help you take your Customer Experience to the next level by unlocking the “hidden” aspects of your experience and determining what really drives value for your customers.

To find out more about how your organization’s marketing can improve customer loyalty and retention, contact us at www.beyondphilosophy.com.

To subscribe to The Intuitive Customer and never miss a podcast, please click here.

Marketing Yourself

We usually talk about how you should use the principles of brand management to deliver excellent Customer Experience. However, brand management is an essential part of your job search, as well.

In other words, marketing your Customer Experience has given you everything you need to know about selling yourself. Moreover, it has taught you all you need to know about improving your experience as a person.

Tribalism: Are You In with The In-Crowd?

As humans, the need to belong is essential to us. Most of us have a deep need to feel we are part of a broader community that shares our values and interests. In other words, we need to find our tribe.

Tribes are connections between people that form communities, which can be formal or informal. Sometimes tribes are associated with where you were born and from whom, which are the formal types of tribes. However, they can also be the result of where you shop, what you drive, or which device you prefer to watch your cat videos on. The latter is the informal type—and a significant asset to your marketing strategy.

People know an expensive brand when they see one. They also can spot a discount retailer at fifteen paces.

So, why do they get it wrong so often?

They get it wrong because of a concept called Price Image.

Price Image is a concept that describes how people form impressions about whether your brand is high- or low-priced based on many non-price indicators. These ideas have a lot of influence on customer behavior. However, the Price Image is different from actual prices. Instead, Price Image is more like your reputation for prices; it would be how your customers describe your prices when you are not around. Another way to look at it is Price Image is where your price and brand intersect.

Are We Talking Ourselves Into a Recession

You hear it all the time on financial media. “Consumer Confidence is low.” It describes how people think that something terrible is going to happen to the economy, and it affects their spending behavior.

Confidence is a feeling, not a fact or a physical item. However, this emotional reaction has serious implications on the economy, as well as your bottom line.

Not only is consumer confidence an emotional concept, but it is also contagious. Sometimes having it makes other people have it, too. Other times not having it makes people lose theirs also.