Caring for digital touch-points?

Touch-points are defined as contact points that customers happen to get in touch during a transaction with an organization. It could be a sales transaction, placing a complaint, inquiring about a product, asking about warranty services, or any other transaction that an actual or potential customer may go through in dealing with an organization. In non-digital era when internet was not widely available, touch points were cared for through professional reps over phone, trained receptionists at the entrance, face-to-face customer services, and/or professionally arranged retail services that would take care of ensuring customer satisfaction. Since positive customer experience is heavily dependent on the quality of touch-point activities, a detail touch-point analysis and design have been essential for organizations to succeed in a competitive world.

In digital era with wide availability of internet, identifying and designing touch-points have become formidable tasks as ever. Even though the basics of touch-point analysis still stays the same, the proliferation of digital options has widened the horizon of touch-points in such a way that companies need to pay critical attention to this horizon for future success.

Technically, digital touch-points could be company web site(s), email communication, display advertising, paid search, customer complain handling via web, and/or social media handling for addressing customer issues etc. It is extremely important to maintain consistency and quality of experience for customers through these touch-points. Can Customers get the information they want through my website? Is the query-form loaded in the website capable enough to handle customer comments? How long does it take to open and address a complaint submitted through complaint handling page? Is my website updated and well-designed to give users the desired experience? Well, in many cases, companies can handle this part of digital touch-points very well. Then, the big question arises, what is the use of writing about it in this blog? Here comes the answer.

While taking care of digital touch-points, companies often forget the fact that digital touch-points are not self-sufficient by themselves. These touch-points are not an “island” to land on, rather a “bridge” to get to an island. Is my website capable of accepting one thousand complaints per day? Yes. Wonderful. We have a great digital capability. Now, does my back office have the infrastructure and human resource support to handle that many complaints per day? No. Oops. Is your server capable to handle two thousand emails per day? Yes, we have big servers. Great. Do you have enough trained people to answer that many emails? Well, we can answer in 15 working days! How pitiful.

Therefore, digital touch-points must be aligned with the physical infrastructure and human resources. “Delivery” of service would ultimately create positive experience in customers’ minds. Digital touch-points just help in achieving this end. Without this synchronization, installing a high capacity digital touch-point structure would be useless.

Is it time for brand makeover?

Brand makeover can be seen as a re-branding effort. Well, it includes the whole gamut of changes starting from minor packaging modification to major re-branding like projecting a new image or introducing a new product feature. Are such changes really necessary? Is this makeover necessary for well-performing brands to?

The core answer to the need for brand makeover lies in the nature of human minds. Human minds are dynamic. It changes over time. So are the dimensions of expectation that revolve around a brand. In order to match with this trend of changing consumers’ expectations, tastes and preferences, a brand must project an ‘up-to-date’ image to its audience’s minds. It should not project a ‘grown-old-and-obsolete’ image to its customers, just to yield its way to newcomer brands that may carry a newer look.

These makeover efforts have created a breeding ground for battles among brands. Recent trend shows that, this makeover cycle time has significantly been reduced, particularly in fast moving consumer products. Take the example of Lux soap in Bangladesh. It is almost in every six months or less that we see new packaging with new features that Unilever is bringing into the market. Its commercials follow suit, obviously.

It seems that, tougher the competition is, shorter is this cycle of makeover. It is not only the weak brands that need to follow a makeover, rather strong brands also pursue this tactic to stay current and relevant in the market.

Next time, before reacting to makeovers of competing brands, think about how your brand can do the makeover first that others will be eager to match the market craze you might have created.

Branding during recession?

The global recession does not seem to have lost its grip yet. Traditionally, brands work in a paradigm where price is not a competing factor in the scenario. “People pay for quality, so they would pay for a good brand since quality products have an emotional attachment with customers”– this is what the ultimate branding output would look like.

However, looking at some intervening developments during recession, this ultimate notion of non-price based competition is at stake. Look at the growth of WalMart, Tesco, along with Chinese cheaper brands that are gradually taking over the sales of renowned brands in the market. Particularly amid tough competition from Chinese mobile phone brands, Nokia has announced a cheaper version of multifunctional mobile phone at a price tag of 16 euros only. Samsung and LG followed this “both low price and good brand” strategy for quite sometime. When renowned brands start competing based on price, it means something is seriously wrong in the market. Could those be just fighter brands? I think it is about a shifting trend in the branding paradigm that we did not think of before. Simply put, it is about falling income of target customers for which they are not able to spend for a high priced brand. Yet, falling income does not mean that the need associated with those brands are gone. Rather, customers would be switching to those versions of brands that serve their purposes at an affordable cost.

This practice of companies to comply with customers’ budget and launch cheaper but functional brands has created a long term impact on customers. When consumers find that these cheaper brands are good enough for their purposes, their expectation goes up as compared to actual performance of brands. Some brand strategists argue that this trend is transient. It will go away once economies are out of recession. Well, I beg to differ. Some unknown brands have already got their firm grounds in the market taking recession as an opportunity. They could have used pirated technology, but assembled them with quality to exceed the price-performance expectation of customers.

Thus, when recession is over, these brands may continue to dominate in the market with their positioning of being a “value brand” and getting a permanent mark in customers’ minds. It would probably take a long time for erstwhile upper-class brands to get back their market shares even after the tough times are over.

Is Samsung the next Apple?

Apple has been a legendary name in computer and mobile gadgets so far. It created unprecedented market craze and turned consumer choices upside down with the introduction of iphone and ipad tablets. It seems, could be coincidentally, that it is falling behind the growth curve, specifically in smartphone segment, in line with the death of its legendary founder. Even though Apple is still holding its leading position in tablet segment, it is quiet alarming how aggressively Samsung has got its market share and the top position in smartphone segment.

The unique and early movers’ advantage goes to Samsung Galaxy series. Just when the tablets were getting grounds, Samsung introduced a revolutionary category of smartphone beating iphone in terms of functionality, brand promise and image. Doesn’t the brand name “Galaxy” itself denotes galactic possibilities of doing things on this gadget? While Steve Jobs and Bill Gates both predicted that PCs would be dead, could they wonder whether the multifunctional pocket-sized smartphone or the handheld tablet would kill it? First quarter report of 2012 reveals that, Samsung Galaxies have been sold more than Apple iphones, resulting in a record US$ 5.15 billions in profit for Samsung. Where are Nokia, HTC, and Motorola? Well, they would follow the leader and try to excel in foreseeable future. Well, Nokia’s Lumia series has already got some bad publicity due to software bugs. Anyway, one great advantage for Samsung is that it produces its own microprocessors for smartphone category. This vertical integration to technology has given Samsung an upper-hand in the industry. Interestingly enough, Nokia, HTC, Motorola, and Apple also use Samsung microprocessors for their smartphones, with Apple being the largest buyer of Samsung components, particularly microprocessor (the heart) for its smartphones. Samsung and Apple constitute about 90% of market share, with Samsung currently having the lead. The rest belongs to Nokia, HTC, and Motorola. No wonder that S&P recently downgraded Nokia’s stock rating to “junk”!

Now it is time to watch out what Apple would bring out in its next version of iphone. With the kind of publicity and brand image that Galaxy had already made, Apple would be facing tough road ahead in its smartphone segment.

Leaders vs. Managers

We already know the difference. Leaders lead, managers manage! Do we really understand the difference unless we see and experience for ourselves?

In this age of multi-tasking corporate environment, leaders are expected to have managerial qualities while we expect some key leadership abilities in managers. This is quite a demanding situation. It might be as unrealistic as to expect two different genetic compositions to be present in the same cell! Well, exceptions are there.

While we can go on and on to explain the two different compositions of leaders and managers, let me present a metaphor that I found really compelling. Remember playing with balloons in our childhood? We used to have two types of it: one filled-in with just regular air, you could throw it to other kids and play with it. It will just gravitate to the ground unless we punch it up and keep it floated in the air. Yea, lots of fun, it worked right for us. The other kind was gas balloon. It was filled-in with Hydrogen or light gas that would cause the balloon to go up unless you tie it and put it in your hand. That was even funnier and smarter way of playing with balloons. Sometimes we let them loose and watch them hit the ceiling. They would make us look upward all the time. No matter what the height is of your room, they would always hit the ceiling, making us jump high to catch them up. Sometimes, we used to tie up the regular balloons with gas balloons. Imagine which one would lead what to the ceiling.

Now you know which one is the leader, and which one is the manager.

The value of standardizing soft skills

You might have a skill to repair cars or motorbikes. You might be good at fixing household appliances. You might be a good doctor. You might even be a good instructor. These are all your hard skills.

On the other side of the human coin, people will simultaneously count on your attitude while you are repairing a car. People will be counting on your on-time skill to finish an appliance repair job. Patients might be watching how you behave with them besides diagnosing and prescribing for them. Your pupils will be observing how caring you are while helping them to learn. These are your soft skills.

Standardization means a set of accepted specification that must be met to ensure quality. All employees must report at 9 a.m. in the morning, this is a standardized practice. All floors must be cleaned using vacuum cleaner on or before 8:30 a.m., this is a standardized requirement. However, it is difficult to standardize soft skills. It would be difficult to expect that doctors will smile and behave well with patients these days. It would be difficult to expect that the car mechanic would not produce fake reports and make some money. It is difficult to expect that the household mechanic would keep his commitment to finish a job on time. Since soft skills vary across people, this is difficult to standardize through a uniform set of code of conduct.

However, if you understand the “value” to customers created by these soft skills, you would love to practice and standardize these soft skills inside you. It is difficult, but not impossible. After all, smart people are good at achieving difficult things. Are we smart enough to standardize our soft skills?

Collateral damage of 3Cs

You might be interested to refresh your memory on 3C by clicking here.

Let us get back to 3C: click, connect and convenience. Alright, why 3Cs are important today? Because we are time strapped today more than we were yesterday. We need information that is relevant, and we want it to be fast, accurate, and convenient. That is ultimately making us concentrate more on our own interests than on those of others we could care for. We can achieve more in shorter time, and then the rest of the time is spent on achieving even more! Thus, we should not mind even if this process is making us more selfish today than we were yesterday.

As a consequence of this “convenience” culture, the evolution of a new breed of language is noteworthy. While it would be great to train our eyes to correct misspelling in a sentence, we have rather willingly encouraged that misspelling culture in SMS and chats since this is even more convenient to allow to do so. The culture of being careless(?) while sipping in a glass of soda (no nutrition), while fulfilling the need to do whatever I want, is how we can visualize the scenario. Never worry of forgetting the correct spelling because pressing F7 on keyboard will take care of it.

Gradually, we are getting into this “convenience” culture in this digital age so much that, sometimes it seems quiet contrary to understand who is exploiting whom. For example, the overwhelming use of these applications forces me to think whether we are using those applications, or those corporations are using us through applications! No wonder Facebook is fetching over US$ 3.5 billions of its revenue from advertising, primarily targeted to its users by various corporations. No wonder why Pinterest has been the latest sensation in the web. Corporations have been successful in captivating human mind in this convenience culture, which I term as a new digital slavery. Slavery was physical in the past, which is illegal and inhuman today. Well, there could be a new slavery today in the form of captivating your soul, which is more precious than your physical captivation! Through this process, I can make profit from you more than when you were a physical slave.

Business convenience of this digital age is huge, yet the collateral damage is even greater. Think about it.

3Cs to Unclog Your Communication

Keep reading if you are in a position where you have to communicate a lot everyday. Your success depends on how good you are in communication, isn’t it?

Now think about the communication culture that we have been used to these days. Gone are the days when hand-written letters were one of the personal communication tools. Gone are the days when you type a series of letters so that you can roll those in a tedious fax machine. Click, Connect, Convenience – 3Cs are the rules of communication today. While somebody could have read your emotion in a typed sentence, we have found an efficient way to shorten that through “Emoticons”. While someone could have read your thoughts in 124 characters in tweets, we rather found an efficient way to express more than that, called “URL-shortener”. While it would be great to call somebody and convey a piece of information, we have devised a much cheaper and convenient option called SMS.

Getting back to 3Cs, “Clicking” does not necessarily mean clicking your mouse, rather this is more of creating “Attention”. Am I clicking your mind enough so that I can have your ears? Why should someone listen to you in the first place unless you can create attention? Why should I bother about what you have to say? I have so many things to listen out there, really.

“Connection” will be the second phase after clicking. Once you have achieved my attention, I will see whether the message is “relevant” to me, otherwise I cannot “connect” to your mind.

Finally, I will consider whether the follow-up action requested in the message is convenient to me. Otherwise, I will not act the way you wanted me to act. Over and above all, all these should happen in a process that is convenient to me. It may happen through a mobile phone that can reach me anywhere I like, or through an email that I can read at the comfort of my home, or through some other applications on my desktop or i-phone. If you can practice 3C in simple steps, you will probably unleash the huge potential of communication that you already have.

How me-too Brands can Survive and Thrive: Part II

You might be interested to refresh on Part I before reading this part.

We viewed commodity as nobody and me-too brands as somebody in a previously posted write-up. In many cases, the other secret of me-too brand’s survival lies in moving itself first from “somebody” to “better than just somebody” and later to “someone special”.

The first one requires minor changes in its product line and/or ultimate positioning. It does not require the whole gamut of re-branding. Perhaps one unique feature in its product line might keep its customers coming back. For restaurant chains like me-too followers of KFC, introduction of special dessert may make it “better than just somebody”. For Fan brands like followers of GFC or National, availability of variety in colors may make it a “better than just somebody” (provided no compromise with quality).

However, these steps to make “somebody” a “better than just somebody” would be copied by other me-too brands quickly and compete the advantage away. This is a struggle for continuous innovation to keep a me-too brand’s drowning head high in the stormy sea of branding. It turns out that, me-too brands are born and destined to live like a struggling brand because of its own presumed behavior at the very onset. A me-too brand can still live a better life if other me-too brands are managed poorly and eventually shift the residual market in favor of the well-managed one.

Hence, to attain a sustainable return on marketing investment, branding is the ultimate solution for me-too brands to follow in the long run. The closed-box thinking of me-too brands must be broken to re-brand itself. If I cannot compete with KFC, then why put a close- sounding name and tell people that I am trying hard to be like that but I am not the one whom you are thinking? Re-branding is expensive and risky thing to implement, with all the possibilities of misfire and failure. However, applying a right combination of tools and techniques of re-branding is still a better option than living the rest of a brand’s life in the dungeon of second grade followers!

How “me-too” Brands can Survive and Thrive: Part I

Me-too brands refer to follower brands that primarily copy a market leader or a dominant brand in its category. Inherently, the me-too brands do not command the same level of acceptance and respect as a brand like the industry leader does. Yet, in many instances, me-too brands not only survive, but also thrive in the battlefield of marketing. What is the secret of this survival and growth? A closer look at successful me-too brands reveals two secrets (in my humble opinion). We will talk about the first one today.

A strong brand necessarily refers to the one that has the best mind-share among its customers. This is achieved through years of articulated product characteristics that yield value to consumers. It also includes years of consistent emotional attachment commanded by the brand, years of compatible pricing strategies accepted by consumers, efficient distribution, and well-crafted promotion. In contrast, a me-too brand just attempts to copy what category leader is trying to do, without excelling in core branding proposition though. Yet, most of them will be able to scoop out a share of industry sales-pie by identifying and exploiting the execution loopholes of the category leader at the field level, resulting in their survival through “selling”, but not necessarily through branding. For example, me-too brands following KFC would either “place” themselves pretty close to KFC, alluring price-sensitive buyers of similar food items; or place themselves in such an area where no KFC exists nearby. In the first case, they are exploiting the price dimension, in the second case, they are exploiting the distribution dimension. In other instances, they would go for guerrilla marketing by harassing the industry leader through occasional sweepstakes and promotion, thereby alluring switchers and bonus seekers. One of the prominent strategies of me-too brands lie in here: they would hardly compete/excel on Product dimension with the leader, rather they would compete for increasing sales through other 3Ps of marketing mix. It is not because they cannot get closer to the physical nature of the product of the leader, but because of their almost unrecoverable inability to match the emotional attachment of consumers to the leader brand.

Here we end part I of the strategy discourse. Can you guess the second strategy?