Today’s post comes from Bridgz engagement strategist Andrea Krohnberg.
When a business is in sync with its customers, it can be a thing of beauty. An organization that is operating completely in line with the wants and needs of the people it is serving is almost certain to succeed.
When there’s disconnect between company and customer, however, the results can be ugly. The recent blow-up of SOPA/PIPA legislation serves as an example of the power wielded by the C2C (customer-to-customer) community. Congress proposed a bill that would have compromised the freedom and privacy of online users, stirring up a storm of criticism that included major websites being shut down in protest.
The bills were quickly withdrawn as Congress yielded to the power of the people. Had the representatives that initially sponsored and supported the bill held a better understanding of their constituents to begin with, they likely could have avoided a whole lot of negative attention.
Companies can take a lesson from the entire fiasco. Here are a few ways you can better understand customers and ensure that your business programs and initiatives will jive with them:
- Embrace your customers. Invest in your social capital by listening to your customers in order to understand their relationship with your business, their wants and needs. Doing so helps create an open, trusting relationship with them.
- Weave insights into decisions. Give your customers a seat at the decision-making table through insights learned and acted upon.
- Get key influencer buy-in. It’s great to use customer insight to guide business decisions, but don’t forget to collect feedback along the way.
The best strategy is one built around your most important asset. Involving the customer in your planning process will help you avoid heading in the wrong direction.
Filed under: Business Models
Today’s post comes from Bridgz data technician Sharon Neuenfeldt.
When I go shopping, I have some pretty strict rules that govern my choice of store, given the product selection I’m looking for.
For example, where do I go for groceries – Cub or Rainbow? The Cub store nearest me has easy access to parking, the aisles are wide and the checkout process is usually pretty fast and painless. My local Rainbow? The parking lot is a nightmare, the aisles are crowded and illogical, and the checkout process takes forever. So, no brainer, I go to Cub.
I use the same rules to decide if I go to Office Max or Office Depot, Target or Walmart, and so forth.
However, when I run out for lunch, I repeatedly go to a local restaurant where it regularly takes a 10 minute cruise to find a parking spot, the lines are long and checkout can take anywhere from two minutes to 10 minutes. Why?
Today’s post comes from Bridgz’s director of production services Denise Maher-Gall.
Car dealerships and car salesmen get a bad rap for being crooked, uncaring and even slimy. However, this last spring my husband and I had a wonderful customer experience with the purchase of our 2011 Jeep Liberty.
Today’s post comes from Bridgz’s junior copywriter Nick Nelson.
Last week, the New York Times sent out an email to about 8.6 million people urging them to reconsider their decision to cancel home delivery and offering a discounted renewal rate.
The problem: most of these folks had never received home delivery from the Times, or hadn’t canceled. Confused, receivers of the email went about contacting the newspaper for an explanation. They received one – too hastily – as the company quickly tweeted the following: “If you received an e-mail today about canceling your New York Times subscription, ignore it. It’s not from us.”
Today’s post comes from Bridgz’s director of data services Bob Gorans.
My wife and I have been looking for a new TV over the past few months and have spent considerable time researching online. After much scouring, we finally found the product we wanted on sale at a large electronics retailer. We were ready to buy.
Today’s post comes from Bridgz statistical analyst Paul Edwards.
Here’s a reminder for all of us in the marketing mob. Every time I hear one of those insurance TV commercials touting that individuals can save $411 a year on average if they switch to brand X car insurance, I want to rip my hair out. Equally annoying are those ads that state that a person can save, on average, $795 a month if they switch to a “new and improved” drug prescription plan. Now maybe I am just a stats nerd, but for an individual to make a decision based solely on the average (in any scenario), seems absurd to me. Here’s why.
Today’s post comes from Bridgz engagement strategist Andrea Krohnberg.
So you’ve just spent several weeks conducting an intense study of your customers to better understand who they are, what keeps them up at night, how your brand supports their needs, how they make their purchase decisions and so forth. Congratulations.
Today’s post comes from Bridgz creative director Michelle Van Santen.
I took my pet to the groomer last week. It was my first time visiting this particular location.
Several days later I received a card in the mail from the groomer’s office. I opened it, expecting to find some sort of upsell or promotion, but there was none of that. This was a true, traditional ‘Thank You’ card, expressing earnest gratitude for my business. How refreshing!
These days, many companies are so focused on turning new customers into money-generating tools that they skip the middle step of solidifying a relationship. Too often, I’ve soured on a brand experience because the employees had been trained to start cramming membership upgrades and offers down my throat right off the bat.
Sending ‘Thank You’ cards after doing business is a small, inexpensive step that can go a long way toward leaving a good impression and encouraging future transactions.
As with any relationship, moving a customer from first-time buyer to loyal brand advocate requires time and effort. The fact that this company held off on trying to upsell me in our initial interaction increases the chances that I’ll become a devoted customer of theirs over the long run.
Today’s post comes from Bridgz senior copywriter John Andreini.
One of the chief tenets of brand building is to make it easy for customers to engage with and experience your brand. No one would be at all surprised to hear a company CMO or CEO say, “Our brand has to be accessible, easy to relate to.” 
But what if it wasn’t? What if a brand was difficult to know? Inscrutable, yet intriguing?
This is the question that Grant McCracken, a research affiliate at MIT and the author of Chief Culture Officer, asks in his Harvard Business Review essay, Medieval Marketer.
In medieval times, it seems, people were accustomed to looking for meanings embedded in things, hidden messages. “The medieval world took for granted that the universe was filled with secret messages, placed there by God and correspondences on which the world was built,” writes McCracken. This changed dramatically in the twentieth century with the rise of modernism. The new rule was, “Keep it simple, stupid.” Everything was pared down to the essence of simplicity and practicality. Hidden meanings were seen as arcane and distracting.
