34 Heritage - Failed Customer Service

This is a cautionary tale of what poor customer service can lead to. 

I first bought a pair of 34 Heritage jeans from a men's clothing boutique in Portland, ME. The jeans were dressy and fit well. I loved them. They became my favorite jeans brand. Since then, I have purchased a couple more pair of jeans from the same men's clothing store via telephone orders. After that, I began purchasing them directly from 34 Heritage. Recently, I purchased two different pair of navy dress jeans. When they arrived, one pair was correct but the other pair was a washed out light blue casual pair of jeans, something that I would not wear. I immediately wrote 34 Heritage to make them aware of their shipping error. We exchanged email messages for about a week but ultimately, they would not exchange the jeans because I had cut the tags off the jeans, something in retrospect I would have been wise not to have done. I understand that 34 Heritage might have a process that guards against potentially fraudulent exchanges, however it was clear that the customer service representative thought I was lying throughout the customer service process. That was apparent in her written responses, which were curt, unfriendly and even sarcastic.  

It didn't bother me as much that they would not exchange the pants shipped in error for the ones I ordered, but rather that they would not own up to their mistake, but instead accuse me of lying.

I can understand that not every company lives by the philosophy "the customer is always right." But not to accommodate me in any way and to be curt with me in writing when I was only trying to report a shipping error is inexcusable. I would have been a lifetime customer, but my patronage of their brand has now ended. If they had accepted the return they would have seen that the light blue jeans had never been worn and they would not have been out any money at all (well, except for shipping and restocking, but that would have been a result of their error). And, most importantly, they would have kept me as a satisfied customer.

The lifetime value of any satisfied customer can add up to a significant amount. And, in my case, because I have a substantial online presence and audience, this story could have a multiplier effect on lost revenues for them. It is a shame that 34 Heritage did not handle this differently. But these types of customer service experiences happen all too often with so many different brands. One failed touch point can have more of a negative effect than one might imagine. I personally believe that every brand's operating philosophy should be "the customer is always right." And customers and potential customers should always be treated with great respect. This helps build a strong brand franchise. Ultimately, the emotional connection to brands results from the quality of interaction at each point of customer contact with those brands. And when errors are made, quick and satisfying recoveries are essential. 

Other blog posts on customer service:

• Customer Service and Brand Perceptions
• The Moment of Truth for Brands
• Creating the Total Brand Experience - Starbucks
• Emotionally Connecting with Your Customers
• Customer Service Comes of Age at Insurance Companies
• Fast Food and the Customer Experience

Trade Show Marketing

 

Often, trade shows are one of the most effective ways for B2B brands to build brand awareness and market and sell their products and services. Quite often, trade shows are associated with a trade publication or professional association. Creating strong alliances with these publications and organizations can help you in trade show marketing. 

If you are a startup and have few financial resources to participate in a trade show, often just attending, networking, passing out your business cards and gathering contact information from potential customers is the least expensive option for connecting with and beginning conversations with potential customers. If you have enough financial resources, you should consider paying for a booth on the trade show floor. At a minimum, you will need a table and table skirt, a retractable trade show banner, simple fact sheets/brochures and business cards. These can be quite inexpensive, however you can pay for much more elaborate display components. 

The most important thing to do at a trade show is to have conversations with potential customers and collect their business cards. Now days, as a trade show exhibitor, you will either receive a list of trade show attendees and their contact information or you can scan that off of their trade show IDs. If you still need to collect their information, you can do that by collecting their business cards or entering their information on a laptop computer. You can also set up the laptop computer so that they can enter their own information. Often, an incentive for collecting contact information can be helpful. Incentives can range from food/snacks, photos with celebrities (expensive), branded promotional giveaway items or free product trials. Make sure you have thought through the best way to collect all relevant customer information at the show well before the show.

If you cannot afford a booth (or even if you can), another strategy is to sponsor a happy hour at a nearby bar, restaurant or hotel the evening before the trade show begins. You would invite potential customers to that happy hour. You could offer one drink for free, or depending on your budget, have an open bar. Make sure as many sales people from your company attend as possible so that they can "work the crowd." It is usually cheaper to hold the happy hour at a venue other than the trade show hotel or hotels as their charges will almost always be higher. 

If your company has significant marketing resources, it could hold the happy hour on a boat, on which the attendees are a captive audience for a couple of hours. Twilight or evening cruises tend to attract a larger number of people. 

Having a speaking spot at the trade show or conference can be very helpful. However, those spots almost always require an extra payment. It is best to have one of your very satisfied customers speak on your company's behalf. And it is always better if the talk is about a topic of general interest, such as a new industry development, how to best use AI in the industry or some similar topic. But the talk should also convey your company's unique value proposition.

Some conventions and trade shows offer cyber cafes for the convenience of the attendees. You company can sponsor the cyber cafe. 

Another strategy, if you really want to "own" the trade show is for your company to offer the organization producing the trade show a parallel users conference produced by your company with a number of workshops led by industry experts, thought leaders, consultants and influencers. Usually, these people will jump at a chance to have an audience with people at the trade show. 

To promote your company during the show, you can purchase outdoor advertising space during the period of the show near the hotels and convention center at which the trade show is being held and along the highways from the airport to the hotels and convention center. 

You can also purchase advertising on hotel room television sets at the trade show hotels and you can pay to have branded door hangers placed on hotel room doors. 

You trade show presence should achieve one or more of these goals: (1) build brand awareness, (2) identify potential customers, (3) begin to create a relationship with potential customers, (4) collect potential customer contact information and (5) sell products at the show. 

If your primary goal is to sell products at the show itself, you should offer a special trade show price discount to motivate immediate purchase. 

Before the show, you should identify your top prospects so that you can schedule meetings with them ahead of time, send them special invitations to your happy hour or booth or at least make sure you connect with them at the show. If they are your most important prospects, you might also invite them to dinner at an upscale restaurant before or after the show.

Whether you are a startup with few funds or a large corporation with a huge marketing budget, attending carefully selected trade shows and conferences should be a part of your marketing plans, especially if you are a B2B company. It has been my experience that having a significant presence at a large national show is better than participating in numerous local shows. I would concentrate my marketing funds on the large national show rather than diluting them across dozens of local shows.

As salespeople, you know that if you have made a potential customer contact at the show that you suggest a next step or call to action with each prospect that you meet.

A final thing about contacts made at trade shows is that they can be entered into your company's CRM system and tracked throughout the sales funnel process to determine trade show ROI, something that chief marketing officers are always interested in as they justify their marketing spend to CEO and CFOs.  It will also help determine which shows are most and least productive, leading to reallocation of marketing dollars across shows. 

I wish you great success with your trade show marketing.

Vehicle Wrapping and Road Signs

Vehicle wrapping results in constant advertising as the vehicle drives around town, on the highways and throughout the country. Wrap company-owned vehicles or pay to wrap busses. The wrap can include compelling visuals, the company's unique value proposition, URLs, telephone numbers and QR codes. You can wrap the sides and back of the vehicle and even the roof of the vehicle for views from the sky. All of these can increase brand awareness and product sales. 

Likewise, you can work with the federal, state or local highway departments to post road signs along busy roads and highways to increase brand awareness. Consider how often a commuter will be exposed to your brand as he or she passes it twice a day every workday.

These are just two of the innovative ways to keep your brand alive via roads and highways. I left out the more common way, via outdoor advertising, as most companies have likely considered this type of advertising as a part of their marketing mix.

I wish you added marketing success as you consider vehicle wrapping and road signs as a way to constantly make people aware of and remind them of your brand.

Blog Posts for Startups and Business Founders

Here are some blog posts that may be of interest to startups and business founders.

• What it takes to be a successful entrepreneur
• Startup Insights
• New Product Development - Corporations versus Startups
• 26 of the Most Common Startup Challenges
• A Common Sense Approach to Marketing for Startups
• Branding & Pitch Decks
• How Can Start-Up Brands Beat Well-Known Brands?
• Startups and Unique Value Propositions

In addition to these blog posts, BrandingStrategySource.com has more than 700 other blog posts covering every area of brand management and marketing. You may find some of those posts useful as well. 

What it takes to be a successful entrepreneur

As you may know, in addition to my brand management and marketing consulting practice, I have also been a coach to dozens of startups over the past five years. In working with business founders, I have determined that these are the most important contributors to success:

• A great idea that adds value to a specific set of customers
• A passion for transforming that idea into a successful business
• Ample "customer discovery" to validate the viability of your idea
• A belief that you can accomplish anything
• A high tolerance for calculated risk - that does not mean that you are motivated by risk or seek it out, only that you are willing to work with risk in smart ways
• The ability to repeatedly overcome adversity - resilience and perseverance (the ability to repeatedly "pivot")
• Learning from failure
• Adaptability
• A strong work ethic
• Decisiveness and a penchant for action
• Ability to thrive in an unstructured environment - there are no directions, there are no hard and fast rules
• Some level of smarts - you do not need to be a genius
• Emotional intelligence
• Salesmanship - the ability to tell a compelling story about your new product or service
• A willingness to network with others - you will fail if you try to go it alone
• No fear of asking for help
• Along with this, an ability to seek out and gather the needed resources to succeed
• Knowing when to switch from an emphasis on product/service development to an emphasis on business development, sales and marketing - this does not mean halting work on product/service development
• Establishing a continuous loop of customer feedback and product/service enhancements
• It is an added benefit if you have some financial management skills, the most important of which is cash flow management
• It is also an added benefit, but not necessary for success (you can hire this expertise), to be a savvy marketer, understanding the target customer so well that you can think through the best messages and marketing strategies for them
• Most successful entrepreneurs also have an ability to delay gratification - many are willing to work tirelessly with little or no pay for a period of time with the vision of one day cashing out for millions of dollars (or at least managing a very successful business well into the future)

The most important of all of these skills is a "can do" entrepreneurial mindset. As an investor in startups, I always focus on the entrepreneur and his or her mindset/skills over the idea. I would rather back an outstanding entrepreneur with a mediocre idea than a person with questionable entrepreneurial tendencies and an outstanding idea.

Having said all of this, these are some of the common problems that entrepreneurs encounter:

• Not offering the right “value proposition,” that is, something people really want
• Not doing enough “customer discovery,” that is, understanding customer needs and desires
• Founder is too focused on product development vs. business development, especially when it is time to switch primary focus from the former to the latter
• Lots of uncertainty and risk and need to change course or “pivot”
• Access to funding/$
• Hiring the right employees and not being afraid of firing those who don’t work out
• “Scaling”/growing the business - investment in inventories (and marketing efforts) before sales occur is a particularly common problem in cash flow management
• Knowing when you need to hire a professional CEO who can take the company to the next level – knowing when the leadership role has exceeded your talents and abilities.

The good news is that entrepreneurship adds value to the world in these ways. It is often enough motivation for an entrepreneur to "push through" when the times get rough.

• Introduces new products and services
• Creates jobs and economic growth
• Empowers entrepreneurs to pursue their passions
• Creates wealth for the entrepreneur and his or her investors and employees
• Can address social issues
• Can advance technology, which can be used in other ways

If you have thought about becoming an entrepreneur, I hope this blog post has helped you think though what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur.
 

My Thoughts on Marketing After 40 Years of Working with Over 250 Brands

I have had a long career as a marketer. I have worked with Fortune 100 companies, pre-seed startups and everything in between across almost every product and service category, B2B and B2C. This is what I have learned over the years.

• Marketing always starts with customer insight gathered through qualitative and quantitative customer research.
• This implies that you have identified the optimal customer market segment for your product or service.
• Your product or service must meet an important customer need.
• Ideally, your product or service is superior to or different from existing products or services.
• A product or service that connects with people emotionally or experientially will fare much better than those that do not.
• If your product or service signals something positive about its intended customer, all the better. This is referred to "brand as a badge" or a "self-expressive brand."
• Related to this, if your brand shares important values with its intended customers, all the better.
• The decades old advertising formula of problem/solution still works very well.
• People tend to manage against these two scarce commodities - time and money. If your brand can save people time or money, it has an edge up on competitive brands.
• An exception to saving customers time, is to create a purchase experience that is so entertaining, interesting or engaging that they lose all track of time. Then the purchase experience itself becomes a part of the brand's unique value proposition.
• A brand that is available 24/7 and that ships quickly if ordered online has an advantage in the marketplace.
• Related to this, a brand that accepts every payment method - cash, personal checks, all credit cards, Venmo, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, etc. has a distinct advantage.
• Make shopping quick and easy. Don't ask for the same information more than once. If the customer has bought with you before, allow for autofilling the customer's information.
• Follow up with customers who have started but not completed the online purchase process. Most online store platforms include this feature. 
• Brands must tell a story. It could be a story about the product or service solving a specific problem or it could be a brand origin story.
• Awareness is the cornerstone of any strong brand. If there is no awareness, the brand might as well not exist at all. The first thing a marketer must do for any brand is build awareness. 
• Widespread distribution leads to greater awareness and greater accessibility, two key components in building customer brand insistence, loyalty and advocacy. The one exception to this is a luxury brand whose demand is based on limited access at only the most exclusive establishments. 
• Humor often increases the effectiveness of marketing communications, but only for brands for which humor is appropriate. 
• Every brand should now have some (or many) digital components. These include a website, Facebook page, social media presence, email marketing automation, SEO, blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, etc.
• Ideally, you are able to own the URL that is your brand's name followed by ".com."
• Proactive publicity, especially what might be labeled outrageous "publicity stunts," can provide some of the best media coverage at a very low cost. 
• Carefully crafted taglines can immediately communicate what the brand stands for and why people should be interested in the brand. The taglines should be short, pithy, memorable and carefully crafted to communicate the brand's primary "unique value proposition."
• Trade shows and trade magazines are often the best ways to introduce and market new and existing B2B brands. There are many ways to maximize the impact of participating in a trade show. Unfortunately, that is a topic for another blog post. 
• Whenever you can, collect a person's name and email address for future communication. This is especially true for trade show interactions with customers and potential customers. 
• Each brand should develop and carefully manage its brand's identity system. This typically includes a name, logo or symbol, type fonts, colors and a tagline. But it can also include a scent, sound, or even a texture. 
• Product development is a never ending task. One must always keep ahead of the competition. Product enhancements should be the result of ongoing customer discovery and feedback. 
• The same goes for marketing strategies, tactics and campaigns. They need to evolve based on effectiveness feedback including A/B testing on different campaign concepts, subject lines, marketing copy and images. 
• Going back to my first bullet, anyone who does not start with customer discovery and insight is not a real marketer - period!

I hope this helps in reminding you about what is important in developing good marketing. 

Marketing Always Starts with the Customer

Over the past twenty-seven years I have helped more than 250 organizations with their marketing efforts, from Fortune 10 companies to pre-seed startups in almost every product and service category. Over those years, I have discovered one critical error that some organizations make. They start with the product or service, not with the customer and his or her needs.

Whether it is a variation on an existing product in the marketplace or an entirely new product or even a new product in a new category, one must always identify the target customer and usually also the most promising market segment within the broader customer group. Then, one must conduct customer research to better understand the customer's functional, emotional, experiential and self-expressive needs and desires as they relate to the intended new product or service. This includes understanding what product/service functions and features or brand positioning can create a unique enough value proposition so that some customers will choose the intended product or service over current offerings in the category. Further, the marketer needs to discover how much value the new function, feature or brand positioning adds to the product or service in question.  Is the enhancement compelling enough to cause product or brand switching? Is it compelling enough to charge a price that will result in an acceptable profit?

While most organizations do this required upfront research, some rely on enhancements identified by product designers or engineers. And this is often informed by personal preferences or intuition. Sometimes a person's intuition can be spot-on, but at other times, the market segment that would appreciate the new product or product enhancement is just not big enough. At other times, it is valued but not enough to result in product or brand switching or not enough to cover the additional cost associated with the new product or product enhancement. 

Further, assuming the new product or product enhancement is sufficiently valued by the target customers, then one must determine the pricing, distribution, communication and other marketing strategies that will give the new product or product enhancement the best chance of success. This too requires market research.

In summary, marketing must always start with the customer. Companies that start with the product are quite likely to underperform those that start with the customer. Having said that, some of the more successful companies can ideate product functions and features that the customer could not imagine or articulate. Smart phone features are a good example of that. However, even Apple and Samsung conduct rigorous customer research, even if just to confirm customer acceptance and adoption of those new functions and features and certainly to test and optimize user interfaces.

A boss of mine at Hallmark (sales VP) used to say this to all of his direct reports: "You only have a job and are receiving a paycheck because of our customers. Without them, Hallmark would not exist. Never forget that."