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Two phrases for customer experience in a recession
"If you can't get people to pay for what they love, we're all out of business."
I came across this quote recently in an IHT piece on the decline of the print newsmagazine. The speaker above was Newsweek's chief, Tom Ascheim, declaring the stand they're taking in a major redesign.
Either customers love it and pay for it, or they're out of business. That's a good metric for what almost anyone is building in today's economy. In fact, I'd suggest that the first requirement is the most important, the central challenge in what we all work on. To state it simply:
Will customers love the experience you create for them?
To understand what's at stake, let's play "compared to what?" by focusing on key words.
1. Will customers - not journalists, bloggers, other CEOs - but will customers love the experience? They're the people who ultimately pay the bills, after all.
2. Will customers love the experience, not just like it? "That was OK" or "that was pretty good" isn't going to convince anyone to pay, in a down economy. They need to love it.
3. Will customers love the experience, not the promise of it? With customers watching every dollar, there's no room for misleading ads or over-hyped marketing. The experience itself - the genuine article - has to be as good, or better, than what customers expect - or else they won't love it, won't pay for it, and won't tell anyone else to buy it.
These little phrases are extra-powerful in today's economy. So take them to the watercooler. Print them out in the largest font size you can and make wallpaper. (And send me photos.)
• If you can't get people to pay for what they love, we're all out of business.
• Will customers love the experience you create for them?
This is a question companies ask themselves just not often enough. Even though it's a critical one to ask during these times, a company should do this independent of the state of the economy. Because research shows that customers even in good economic times only recommend a company and/or extend their business with it if they are delighted about their product/service. Customers who are just ok with it tend to do less business with the company.
The original quote is an example of vocabulary mis-use/abuse. A person doesn't 'LOVE' a magazine.
Love is the feeling for close relatives, life-partners and persons for whom we WOULD sacrifice greatly, maybe even our lives.
A magazine or iPhone is 'liked', maybe 'really, really liked'... Not 'Loved' No one (sane) should be ready to die to protect a magazine or an iPod.
Mark, Bravo for passing this on.
Too many companies presume, wrongly, that customer satisfaction is all that's needed to remain in business. The truth is that it's customer loyalty drives repeat business and referrals. And, yes, people can "love" a brand, a product, a service or whatever. In the context of Tom Ascheim's quote he's not talking about romantic or passionate love, he's talking about high esteem, of devotion and enthusiasm and of warm attachment and regard.