Five ways Verizon acts like a stalker

By · 2 Comments

I’ve been thinking about Verizon lately—how to capture what’s deeply wrong with this brand.  While listening to the radio, it hit me:  Verizon has the worldview of a stalker.

“I Will Possess Your Heart,” a 2008 Grammy-nominated hit by the alt-rock band Death Cab for Cutie is about a stalker.  This song, which brought Verizon to mind, evokes a creepy loner obsessed with his own view of How Life Should Be.  Brief verses are overshadowed by relentless repletion of the chorus (32 of the song’s 44 lines).  And there are hard edges of sound, such as Vocal.  Cutoffs.  Between.  Words.

Together these elements reinforce the image of an ominous fanatic Who Just Doesn’t Listen.  Kinda like Verizon. Here are five ways that Verizon comes across like a stalker.

1. Seeking “perfect” customers

I’m a Verizon customer, and a good one.  Between two landlines and four mobile lines with data plans, our family sends them hundreds of dollars a month.  I’ve even added services recently: long-distance on a landline.  I mean, it’s 2012—how often does that happen?

Apparently this is not enough. I don’t fit with their view of How Life Should Be.  And because I don’t fit their model of the perfect customer, they won’t leave me alone.

2. Obsessive worldview

How I wish you could see the potential
The potential of you and me

Verizon can’t wait to get into my…computer and my TV.  The really really REALLY want me to get FiOS.  And they won’t give up.  Perhaps this is because they spent $23 billion, roughly twice the GDP of Iceland, installing fiber optic cable.  The jury is still out on whether or not this was a good idea.

To them, being a $4K/year customer for phone services doesn’t slake their lust. Their world will not be complete until I fit their profile of the ideal customer over whom they have total control.  Charming, huh?

3. Relentless repetition

You reject my advances and desperate pleas
I won’t let you let me down so easily

They haunt our mailbox.  With two landlines in different names, we get the twice the fun.  Duplicate mailings nearly every week.  Envelopes that blare: “Important information about your account!” Offers of every kind.  Pounds and pounds of paper.   For years.

This personal blitz is layered, of course, on top of the mass marketing frenzy: blanketing the airwaves and shoving their flyers in our newspaper every time we turn around.

4. Extreme creepiness

There are days when outside your window
I see my reflection as I slowly pass…

They’ve come to my home, twice.  The first time, installers “were in the area” and offered to hook us up to FiOS, as a convenience.  The second time they tried to pretend we’d ordered the service—they were just there to install it.  These dirty tricks happened a couple of years ago, but they were memorable.

Does Verizon think we don’t notice?  Or remember?

5. Rigid self-interest

Verizon fails to consider that some people aren’t interested—and never will be.  Somehow, carpet bombing with various offers is supposed to do the trick.  Yes there are barriers to switching (in my case, from Comcast), not the least of which is changing e-mail addresses.  That alone that kept AOL going for years.

But it’s more than that.  We’re not interested because they’re Verizon.  Have they ever stopped to consider things from our side?  Namely:

  • They have heavy baggage?  We already know what it’s like to have to deal with them, and it isn’t pretty.
  • More services means needing more service?  Comcast shows up for a service call when they say they will.  Fancy that—something novel to try, Verizon.
  • Their offerings just aren’t very compelling?  Cable’s actually fine, thanks.
  • We know prices will go way up after their intro offers?  We’re not dumb.
  • Their offers often confirm their creepiness?  “Triple Play!” for example just reinforces the sense of menace about getting in their clutches.
  • They haven’t listened to years of silence from us.  Ever heard of a non-responder list?
  • They’re bullies.  Why would we want to give them more business?

Escaping their clutches

Last week I decided to stop the onslaught.

First to the website.  I looked everywhere, but there was no way to opt out.  No clue as to which of dozens of phone numbers to use for this, either.  Finally, I ended up in Customer Service for residential phone service, where I was instantly placed on hold, naturally.  For a good long while.  Eventually, I spoke to a human who promised to place both my husband and me on their Do Not Solicit list.  Twenty-three minutes from start to finish, but well worth it.

Beats a restraining order.

Are you a stalker?

Verizon isn’t the only company that thinks and acts like a stalker—they’re just more extreme.  But their excesses can illuminate potential issues for you, too: areas where you may unwittingly repel consumers.

When you look at your own marketing efforts, do you exhibit any of these symptoms?

  1. Defining an “ideal” customer as one who buys everything you offer?  This unrealistic view blinds you to the real value of your customers, and blurs potentially important differences among them.
  2. Fixating on new offerings?  Overvaluing the latest, greatest thing may cause you to seriously undervalue who (and what) is most loyal and profitable.
  3. Relentlessly mailing your current customers?  This is irritating and wasteful.  E-mail and telemarketing require you to offer a way to opt out.  Make it easy for customers to stop getting your mailings—they’ll know how to find you if they really want you.
  4. Crossing privacy boundaries?  You may have tantalizing data on your customers, but trespassing even once can cost you their trust forever.
  5. Failure of empathy and perspective?  Do you have access to how customers really see your products/services?  In your company, is emotional intelligence exhibited—and rewarded?  Or are parrots, politicians and the Kool-Aid-swilling faithful the ones who get ahead?

You cannot possess consumers’ hearts. If you serve people faithfully and well, treating them with respect and offering outstanding products and services, you may earn their loyalty.  If you continuously surpass their expectations while enlarging their worlds, you may delight and inspire them.  But if you act like a stalker you will send them scrambling for the exit–and into the arms of a rival who treats them well.

Meaningful marketing: Oxymoron or opportunity?

By · Add Comment

 

Well, a little of both, I think.

AdMap, the British-based publication on global marketing, invited me to write an article for their April issue on Meaningful Marketing, and I just received the PDF.

I’ve gotten a little more skeptical of “meaningful marketing” initiatives, especially as I have seen increasing commercialization of causes.  But some programs do offer genuine benefits to causes and to society as well as the sponsoring companies and brands.

All in a good cause, outlines seven ingredients for success in a cause-marketing program and analyzes Subaru’s “Share the Love” program as a case study.  The article also offers a brief overview of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and reviews two successful CSR programs, for Molson Coors Canada and Haagen Dazs.

Though I’ve written for several marketing publications, this is the first time I’ve seen my work gussied up with British spelling.  (Programmes and all that…)  I think the article turns into a pumpkin on my website in 30 days, so if you’re interested, please click soon!

Click here for article

Four hidden dangers of NPS

By · 4 Comments

Customer surveys are everywhere, and they are getting mighty tedious, aren’t they?  They’re also getting more formulaic.

These days I brace for the question I know is coming: 

How likely is it that you’d recommend us to a friend or colleague?

Can you spell NPS?

NPS defined

Net Promoter Score is a measure of customer loyalty.  Based on a 0-10 scale, it sorts people into three categories based on their response to the “would you recommend” question.  Promoters (those answering 9-10) are deemed brand enthusiasts.  Passives (7-8) are considered satisfied but not especially loyal.  Detractors (0-6) are unhappy campers who could harm your brand through negative word-of-mouth.

NPS is a simple calculation:  NPS = % Promoters  –  % Detractors

Developed by loyalty guru Fred Reichheld at Bain & Company, it was introduced in a Harvard Business Review article in 2003.  NPS has become the darling of the left-brain intelligentsia.  Touted as the Ultimate Question and The Only Number You Need to Know, it has become a virtual industry.  Simplicity is a huge part of its appeal.

Critics of NPS contend that NPS is either ineffective or not as good as other measures.  But everyone seems to think it’s harmless.

I disagree.

Why NPS is dangerous

1. It makes your brand look clueless

Asking if we would recommend something to a friend or colleague assumes that your brand or company would actually come up in conversation.  That’s a steep hurdle.

Most brands and experiences simply don’t merit conversation.  Sorry.  Even if I like your brand, I’m probably not going to talk about you.  Would I recommend Citibank after a brief chat with a call-center rep?  What are you smoking?  Asking after such a non-event makes me think you have no idea what real people’s lives are like.  Not good for your brand.

2. It may backfire

When you ask if we’d recommend a brand or company, you remind us how perfectly unexceptional our experience was.  (Most are.  Exceptional experiences are, by definition, rare.)

Associating that mundane or second-rate experience with a binary yes/no question (even if it’s spread over a 10-point scale) may reinforce our disenchantment.  Before being asked, we might have forgotten the unmemorable experience.  Now you’ve made us realize: Nah, we really wouldn’t recommend you.  Is that what you want?

3. It may cause good people harm

A wonderful front-line worker may get a lousy rating associated with his/her work.  Is that fair?  Case in point: after a lesson on my new smartphone with a Device Specialist, I was asked whether I’d recommend my wireless provider.  How relevant is that?  The specialist was great (10), but my experience with that company is complex—and decidedly mixed (5).  Hanging the whole brand on one guy’s slender shoulders is unjust.

I’ve checked: yes, these ratings are often tied to the employees (and to their managers).   How deeply unfair.  My guy and his manager are not responsible for high prices, inaccurate and impenetrable bills, or other assorted horrors and annoyances.

4. A special danger for big companies

Big companies may be most at risk when using NPS.  First, they’re most likely to use it.  They live and breathe numerical data.  (And, frankly, they’re most able to afford Bain’s pricey counsel.)

More importantly, big corporations are also most likely to:

  • Be perceived as out of touch with real people’s lives
  • Offer the blandest brands and experiences
  • Risk being seen as mindless, punitive bureaucracies

Last week I called two major credit card companies to see if my cards would work when I travel abroad (I’d heard some cards won’t because of new technologies there).  Both immediately sent me surveys using NPS.

Both call-center experiences were fine, fleeting, and unremarkable.  The reps did their job.  Would I recommend these companies to a friend or colleague?  No.  Why should I?  Because their employees answered a question?  But neither do I want to slam perfectly okay employees—especially those toiling in huge data-driven companies with little sense of warmth, flexibility, and humanity.

Fast, cheap and out of control

The impulses behind NPS (and customer surveys generally) are laudable.  Yes, companies should want to know how they’re doing.  Yes, tracking this in some simple way would be great.  And in some instances, the would-you-recommend question is entirely appropriate.  For example, when someone has performed a genuine service that you might speak of to someone else because recommendations are a vital way to find good resources.  Those situations, however, are rare relative to the volume of NPS surveys out there.  Instead, NPS is being used as a default for even the most trivial customer experiences.

Not every customer interaction warrants a survey.  Sending us one every time we interact with your brand or company is foolish and counterproductive.

And it NPS is not harmless.  You may decide the risks are worth it—and they may well be.  But please don’t assume it’s risk-free, just because it’s easy and popular.

We are busy, thoughtful people.  We do not exist to give you data.   No, I would not recommend using NPS to a friend or colleague.  Call me a Detractor.

Mitt Romney: Poster child for the left brain

By · Add Comment

One of my key goals in Right-Brain Brands is to illuminate the limits of left-brain thinking in business and marketing. Left-brain thinking, which favors analysis, linearity and logic, isn’t wrong.  It’s vital!  But it’s also incomplete.  Same with right-brain thinking.  Trouble is, left-brain approaches are usually touted as superior.

Well, here’s Mitt Romney to make my case.  Past presidential candidates have lacked the common touch or The Vision Thing.  Yet never before can I recall a presidential contender so purely left-brained as Mitt Romney.

Lopsidedness as a liability

Romney hails from the worlds of management consulting and private equity, left-brain hotbeds if ever there were.  Despite his intelligence and accomplishments, he is routinely making mistakes that are pure howlers.  Some attribute these to his patrician upbringing, a possible factor.  But there is another explanation for several of his major missteps.  Simply put, they illustrate a woeful imbalance: too much left brain, not enough right.

Left-brain blunders

Here’s a new look at some familiar slip-ups:

Linearity: In NH, Romney tried to show empathy for Americans concerned about job security when he said: “I know what it’s like to worry whether you’re gonna get fired.  There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.”

He was trying to relate to people whose experience is vastly different from his.  But he did it in a very literal, clunky way:
You = worried
Me = worried (kinda)

That’s linearity in the extreme.  Surely with a micron of imagination he could draw on conversations with unemployed workers, instead of using an ineffective personal example.

Sequential ordering: The left brain moves through time and sorts things into categories. 

Romney has famously said “I’m not concerned about the very poor.”  He was trying to say his focus is on the middle class, rather than people at either end of the spectrum.  But his mind works in such a sequential, compartmentalized fashion that you can almost see him ticking off the mental boxes:

Very poor = not a concern
Very rich = not a concern
Middle class = concern!

Romney backers would surely have welcomed a little right-brain simultaneous comprehension here, enabling him to grasp and express the major issue at hand.

Right brain, where art thou?

On the spectrum in which pure left- or right-brain thinking anchor the ends with whole-brain thinking in the middle, Romney is an outlier on the left.  Consider the following pairings:

Analysis vs. empathy: Romney characterized his 2011 income from speaking fees as “not very much.”  Analytically, he’s right: $374K in speaking income is only 1.7% of his total income of $21.6 million for the year.  Empathically, this was pure idiocy.   His speaking income alone is over 14 times the average national wage rate of $26,364.  Empathy necessarily considers the thoughts and feelings of others.  Analysis does not.

Logical/mathematical vs. holistic: As Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney supported the individual health care mandate: everyone would have to buy health insurance (including young, healthy people), because that’s the only way to make the numbers work. 

Now, the only way to make a different set of numbers work (winning Republican primaries) requires that he repudiate the “individual mandate”—a centerpiece of President Obama’s Affordable Health Care Act that has become a curse word in Republican politics.  Math and logic fuel both positions, but it’s challenging to reconcile them in the bigger picture.

What can I say but “thanks”?

How things will unfold politically in the months ahead is unclear.  What is clear, however, is the need for a blend of right- and left-brain thinking.  And for someone trying to show the limitations of a pure left-brain approach, Romney is likely to remain the gift that keeps on giving.

Is right-brain marketing…girly?

By · Add Comment

So glad you asked that.  When I say right-brain marketing deals with things like emotion, intuition, and imagination, I can understand that it sounds a little soft. Squishy. Artsy-fartsy.  Maybe even, heaven forbid, girly.  Especially when contrasted with left-brain skills like:

Logic!
Analysis!
Quantitative Rigor!

But let me ask you: Is Harley-Davidson girly?

The genius of Harley-Davidson’s marketing resides in its whole-hearted embrace of empathy.  By valuing the emotional needs of their customers and would-be customers, Harley has built an extraordinary, iconic, profitable brand.  It’s grown its business well beyond its original market while retaining its badass cachet.  (For more, read here.)  Yes, they have awesome engineering, strong dealerships and sound operations.  But empathy, a core right-brain skill, is what brings the brand to life.

How about IKEA?

IKEA is a fully whole-brained brand.  Left-brain brilliance shines through in their attention to numbers (low pricing and cost control), and operational efficiency.  But those ingredients alone a Walmart make.  IKEA is special because of all the right-brain elements:  Striking design.  Quirky playfulness (furniture that doesn’t last!).  Irresistible cheap meatball lunches.  Where would you rather shop?

I could go on.

American business undervalues right-brain skills (for a host of reasons I’ll be exploring).  When these skills show up in business schools and big companies, they are usually dismissed and/or ground out of people over time.  Oh yes, they can be accessed “when needed” in safe doses through outside expertise (ad agencies, design firms, creativity consultants).  But when  geeks like Guy Kawasaki and Zappo’s Tony Hsieh discover Enchantment and Happiness, they’re considered geniuses.

It needn’t be this way.  Right-brain skills are simply part of being human.  Truly great brands and business leaders have discovered the power of both/and.  Which business would you rather lead these days: Microsoft or Apple?  United or Southwest?  Safeway or Trader Joe’s?

To resist or dismiss right-brain thinking as girly is, dare we say, half-witted.