phil gillman: June 2008 Archives
There's been a bit of an uptick in chatter lately around Customer Service and Product Value:
It seems that there are two options for them in a case like this:
Unfortunately, I don't think Delta can afford to do the second one under their current structure, as they failed to factor that level of investment into their restructuring plans. But, by failing to make that investment, they have sabotaged their chance to "premiumize" their product and retain the likes of Jaffe as customers. Given that their current product price structure relies upon the Jaffe's of the world to stay in business, this continued policy will likely lead to their eventual demise.
My conclusion from all of this is that fair value and restitution means nothing unless it is representative of the brand, company and product as a whole. Simultaneously, the offered restitution in the case of a grievance can fail to restore a consumer's brand faith even if the restitution is over-compensatory. If the product and/or brand experience continues to fall below the promised standards, the brand faith will evaporate. And in the "Age of Conversation" evaporation of brand faith leads to vocal brand opponents, and a negative conversation.
Joseph Jaffe has been tweeting & posting about his experience (miserable) with Delta—aka Delta SkelterIt was Jon's set of tweets and related blog entry that got me thinking about how the value of the product as perceived by the customer is related intricately to the end-to-end brand/product/customer experience. The worse the experience, the lower the value of the product. In some ways, this almost justifies the way that Delta treated Jaffe -- they were merely confirming that their product no longer has any value, even though they may pretend that portions of the product do by charging thru the nose for them.
Jon Burg recently wrote about Defining Fair Restitution as it relates to unhappy customers and companies.
Sharon Jaffe @sharonjaffe recently tweeted:Had 3 positive customer service experiences this week and am blown away. The problem is now I'm worried about next time, CONSISTENCY is key.
It seems that there are two options for them in a case like this:
- they can do what they did and confirm that throughout their organization there is little value given to the brand and product
- they can provide extensive restitution and recompense to Jaffe, and do several things to ensure that such an event is less likely to occur again (public apologies, employee training, and new formal policies.)
Unfortunately, I don't think Delta can afford to do the second one under their current structure, as they failed to factor that level of investment into their restructuring plans. But, by failing to make that investment, they have sabotaged their chance to "premiumize" their product and retain the likes of Jaffe as customers. Given that their current product price structure relies upon the Jaffe's of the world to stay in business, this continued policy will likely lead to their eventual demise.
My conclusion from all of this is that fair value and restitution means nothing unless it is representative of the brand, company and product as a whole. Simultaneously, the offered restitution in the case of a grievance can fail to restore a consumer's brand faith even if the restitution is over-compensatory. If the product and/or brand experience continues to fall below the promised standards, the brand faith will evaporate. And in the "Age of Conversation" evaporation of brand faith leads to vocal brand opponents, and a negative conversation.
After seeing a recent group on Facebook looking to develop a community funding movement for Twitter: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=21624136569 I was inspired to create a similar group calling for the Open Sourcing of the Twitter platform (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18865061654). The idea being that Twitter will become stabler much faster if the base platform is open sourced rather than built with a limited paid group (no matter how much money is raised.)
What does Twitter stand to gain? A stable platform, continued dominance in the space, and the ability to focus on $$ making aspects much faster -- for example corporate implementation and closed networks.
This is a similar concept to a recent open source distributed microblogging platform movement that Joe Cascio (@joec0914) has been leading the charge on. Again, the idea is that a community supported and built open source project focussed on the platform level would be more adaptable and scaleable.
It would be great to see either of these projects take off, because the twitter concept is great, and because I'd love to see twitter succeed and don't think that they need a proprietary base platform to do so.
What does Twitter stand to gain? A stable platform, continued dominance in the space, and the ability to focus on $$ making aspects much faster -- for example corporate implementation and closed networks.
This is a similar concept to a recent open source distributed microblogging platform movement that Joe Cascio (@joec0914) has been leading the charge on. Again, the idea is that a community supported and built open source project focussed on the platform level would be more adaptable and scaleable.
It would be great to see either of these projects take off, because the twitter concept is great, and because I'd love to see twitter succeed and don't think that they need a proprietary base platform to do so.
This one's been languishing, so I'm just going to post it in phases.
I've had it with the obsession in the advertising and marketing world with the "Integrated Big Idea". This barely worked when all that agencies produced was TV and/or Radio and a bit of Print. It is completely irrelevant in the land of fragmented media, prosumers and multiplatform browsing. The idea that a single idea will work in all platforms for all consumers not only demeans the user/consumer's intelligence but assumes that the agency is capable of omniscience.
Any decent idea idea may be great for one platform. It may even be great for several -- an idea based around entertaining the potential consumer can work in TV, online, long form, etc... but it will likely require a diverse group of creative people for creation -- I've met very very very few writers that are good at multiple lengths of storytelling. Most of the ones out there are very busy.
Why does the industry insist on forcing ideas to cover multiple platforms? To paraphrase Benjamin Palmer's quote in an Adweek article "you have a different brand when talking to your grandma than when with your girlfriend, why shouldn't a company?" Different people consume different media and have different expectations from their consumption, so why do agencies insist on trying to come up with ideas that cover many types of media? Oh yeah, because we've made a big deal out of the idea of "Integrated".
Let's get over it. Integrated should be about opening lines of communication across all platforms, and being consistent with your offering in those platforms. I would expect a company to talk to me differently than they talk to a 15 year old or a 50 year old. BUT I would expect them to be true to the consistency of their offering and the discussion there of. Don't tell me one thing and someone else something contradictory, because we'll find out and likely both be pissed off. But if you produce a piece of entertainment that doesn't appeal to me, that doesn't mean it will necessarily turn me off, I'll just ignore it. So don't try and make the idea that works for the 15 year old work for me, invite more creatives and come up with something else. Then do them both.
I've had it with the obsession in the advertising and marketing world with the "Integrated Big Idea". This barely worked when all that agencies produced was TV and/or Radio and a bit of Print. It is completely irrelevant in the land of fragmented media, prosumers and multiplatform browsing. The idea that a single idea will work in all platforms for all consumers not only demeans the user/consumer's intelligence but assumes that the agency is capable of omniscience.
Any decent idea idea may be great for one platform. It may even be great for several -- an idea based around entertaining the potential consumer can work in TV, online, long form, etc... but it will likely require a diverse group of creative people for creation -- I've met very very very few writers that are good at multiple lengths of storytelling. Most of the ones out there are very busy.
Why does the industry insist on forcing ideas to cover multiple platforms? To paraphrase Benjamin Palmer's quote in an Adweek article "you have a different brand when talking to your grandma than when with your girlfriend, why shouldn't a company?" Different people consume different media and have different expectations from their consumption, so why do agencies insist on trying to come up with ideas that cover many types of media? Oh yeah, because we've made a big deal out of the idea of "Integrated".
Let's get over it. Integrated should be about opening lines of communication across all platforms, and being consistent with your offering in those platforms. I would expect a company to talk to me differently than they talk to a 15 year old or a 50 year old. BUT I would expect them to be true to the consistency of their offering and the discussion there of. Don't tell me one thing and someone else something contradictory, because we'll find out and likely both be pissed off. But if you produce a piece of entertainment that doesn't appeal to me, that doesn't mean it will necessarily turn me off, I'll just ignore it. So don't try and make the idea that works for the 15 year old work for me, invite more creatives and come up with something else. Then do them both.
