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A thought on selling good experience
May 18, 2005
One of the great things about customer experience work is that it doesn't require a great salesperson - at least, not in the traditional sense. I have years of experience selling our consulting services, but I still sometimes get my words tripped up, or forget a turn of phrase.
Good experience, I like to remind myself at times like those, sells itself. Whether it's a consulting project, where results count; or in a totally different context - like at a Caribbean resort, where service counts; or anything in between - it's the experience that ultimately determines whether the business thrives or not.
Fred Reichheld recently wrote a piece in the Harvard Business Review called "The One Number You Need to Grow," focused on the "net promoter" metric. The idea is simple: the more customers you have that would be willing to recommend your service or product to their friends, the better your organization will do in the long run. I can tell you from the field that this idea is taking hold in executive ranks across global business, and it's worth knowing about. (Worth finding a copy of the article, too, if you can get it.)
Good experience sells itself. Note that "net promoter" says nothing - absolutely nothing - about how well your service is marketed via TV ads, promotional giveaways, or other traditional channels. It's the customers themselves who do the selling - and only then based on the actual experience they had. The best TV ad in history, plus a bad customer experience, equals a bad referral and a poor "net promoter" metric.
This is not to recommend pulling all advertising budgets, and it's not predicting the end of advertising. Those traditional channels will be with us for the long-term; it's the budget for customer experience that I think should, and inevitably will, see a change for the better.
So it's worth acknowledging the vast power that a good experience can have on the business, independent of the effects of traditional salesmanship. I know it's worked well for us at Creative Good.
What is involved in a region or municipality selling itself through experience?
There are countless cities in the US trying to rebrand themselves as they see their core industries migrate overseas and established technologies change.
For example:
* Houston is trying to sell itslef as a center for emerging technologies beyond petroleum (and Enron!);
* Milwaukee is attempting to escape its rep as "Beer, Brats and Laverne & Shirley;
* Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Buffalo and Detroit are investing in riverwalks and casinos to shake the Rust Belt Blues.
What are the key experiences they should focus on improving?
It's great to see this article get some more press. I've been a fan of Reichheld's philosophy for some time and even convinced a local company to make this one of their three key measures of success.
Here's a link to the downloadable article on Amazon.com: http://tinyurl.com/aeo9f
Peter -
Building on the "net promoter" idea, one way to look at it is this: if you visited this city, what's the likelihood that you'd recommend that a friend visit as well?
(Or if the effort is about getting people to move there long-term, ask them if they'd refer friends to come live in the city.)
Just one way to consider it..