1. Keeping a customer is cheaper than finding new ones.
2. If you have high churn, you are viewed as selling a commodity not a brand people care for. You will need to start to compete by lowering price which is not a winning game unless you are a volume behemoth like Walmart.
3. Happy customers are more likely to become loyal customers, and loyal customers tend to become cheaper to maintain than servicing the needs of newbies that are partially willing to “try” you out.
4. History is littered with brands who became too big for their own shoes, and started to forget about who made them big in the first place. The happiest brands are those that keep their customers close, and value their experiences as they do their bottom-line.
5. What can your brand do, to make people say “I love [name of your brand here]“. Make people become irrational about their feelings about your brand. The glow that radiates from people in love is infectious. Try telling a Harley-lover that a Honda is better.
6. In the lean times, it’s your brand advocates that will stick by you. Loyalty is difficult to create, and once you have it, you must hold on it, by frequently checking every customer service point within your company (At Rouxbe, the CEO of the company reads every contact form that comes in).
7. Marketers should be part of the design process, so they understand the product that is being built and who it will satisfy. Slapping on marketing messages after the fact doesn’t work. It’s simply too late.
8. Designers should be part of the marketing process, they are trained to be stand-ins for the end-user. Tap into their knowledge to keep the design and the message unified. Apple does this best.
9. Do things differently. The best way to beat your competition is to stand out and be different. Be less annoying than your competition (maybe my bank machine can start to remember what language I speak, and not ask that question each time?), be more caring (don’t tell phone customers they will get through faster by staying on the line, offer to call them back) and more human (WestJet flight attendants crack jokes when making the same old boring “fasten your tray tables” announcements).
10. Be your own customer. Use your product before you unleash it to a market. Design things for yourself, and design the after-sales service for your family and friends. People who don’t know jack about the intricate details about your product. You owe them a good experience.
11. People talk. And in a myriad of new ways. If you run a business that has customers, you ought to be keeping an ear to the ground to listen to what people are saying about you. You should know about the various (new) ways people communicate.

And now a story:

I am on the phone with Fido (BC, where I live, has only 3 major cell phone carriers, sad). I have a nasty customer experience. The agent is unprofessional, absent and not helpful. He has asked me to repeat my mobile number 3 times now. I have been handed from one department to the next, and no one seems to be able to be able to tell me why my account balance is not being accurately displayed online. The call ends with me hanging up in frustration when they finally decide to blame my computer (Mac) even though I KNOW that there is no way that could be the problem.

My tweets during this call:

Sweet revenge.

Flash back, it used to be that when we would have a bad customer experience, we’d grumble about it to others, if the topic came up. Now, I tweet.

Generation Is uses Twitter. A Tweet refers to messages exchanged on Twitter to let people know what you are doing right now. Or what you think or feel about a particular subject. (Learn about what is Twitter and why it’s so popular and stats on it’s usage). So get searching and find out what people are saying about you on Twitter!

So be good to your customers. Bad stories are more fun to tell than good ones. Revenge is more important at times than spreading joy, and more and more,  your consumer understands the power she wields, in this hyper-connected world.

I write this month’s article in the spirit of bringing some joy to my fellow designers. A happy designer is one that has happy clients. There is no greater professional joy than to know that your work matters and is being appreciated by those who use it, and those who pay for it. While clients (those pay for the work) wait to derive happiness from the reaction of the end-user (those that will use it), the design process often precedes that usage. So the client and the designer must work together and alone, against odds, creating work together that has yet to see light of day. Someday the work will be known to, and used by, millions but for today it is tended to and developed by the two people who care most about it.

I have written articles about ethical designers, and I have bantered about how to be a good designer, but this month I write a few tips targeting clients. I think every designer should get their client to read these. And clients: ‘Tis the season to give. So go on, give your designer some love! Here are the 10 things that you can do to share some joy with your designer:

1. Don’t rush it. The first to market syndrome plagues most of the online business world. Sometimes the quality of the final product can be directly proportionate to the time spent on building the product. Ask for timelines from your designer, and work with them to meet your business needs. Consider breaking up your project into phases if necessary. Your customers will love you, not if you launch your product within a month, but if your product actually meets or even exceed their expectations.
2. Design briefs are important. Design briefs help define the problem and the desired solution. It’s important to at least identify the problem that needs to solved, the target audience and the intended impact even before the first pixel is drawn. Good pre-planning and a targeted brief just means that everyone is facing in the same/correct direction. You should be a partner in helping craft this document. It doesn’t need to be a thick document. Good design briefs are short, succinct and capture the key points that help define the project and its requirements.
3. Don’t design for the designer. Don’t ask your designer if they can move that one element 5 pixels to the left or right. Of course they can. But if they are good at their job, everything was done with intention. Good designer lay out grids and work from them, so moving elements means everything could potentially have a ripple effect. They are presenting you the best solution for the design problem you posed to them in the design brief (see #2). If you don’t trust your designer or don’t like their work, the issue may go far beyond the 5 pixel shift. There may be other things that need to shift (either how you relate with the designer or your business to another designer!)
4. Help Manage production. It is important that assets are managed with care during production. I find it humorous to see files names such as “final_final.doc”. It’s good to get used to versioning and working within a structured pipeline to provide assets to your designer because you are ultimately helping them deliver intended results on time. Trust me, more chances that the copy will be correct if you give a file named “About_copy_GD02.doc” for implementation instead of “final_final_07_FINAL.doc”.
5. Communicate. Well! It’s important to define communication protocol early on. Instant Messages and impromptu phone calls are usually not productive because they interrupt the flow of work and catch people unprepared. It is best to define when/how often status and feedback meetings would take place. I find weekly check-ins is a good thing along with the usual stream of emails as needed. Meaningful subject lines and well-formed emails help matters. It is best to not have stream-of-consciousness communication as it can make it difficult for the recipient to follow along and result in misunderstanding and wasted time seeking clarification.
6. Help define expectations. In the end, everyone wants the same thing. A successful project. Success means everyone walks away happy and looks forward to another opportunity to work together. Good pre-planning also means that success metrics are defined and so the end-result can measured against those objectives. This also removes subjective desires or at the very least identifies them. In my experience most people in this world are not bad, lazy or mean. Most misunderstandings happen when expectations are not aligned. Set expectations, develop trust and a plan and then build something good together.
7. Don’t hire in-house full-time designers. The agency model works so much better than having in-house designers. Designers who benefit from being exposed to a diversity of projects, bring fresh energy and perspective to the client work they take on. In-house designers who deal with only one product, one problem at one time, end up stuck in the politics and become colored by the subjectivity that surrounds them. Obvious exceptions are designers who work in large, kick-ass companies where the entire ethos is built around keeping design integral to the company’s mojo. These companies have built successful brands by design and work hard to keep their designers (and thus their design) fresh and innovative e.g. Apple, Google even Harley Davidson!
8. Do some small talk. While familiarity breeds contempt, a lack of humanity and connection leads to communication that is not natural and that can negatively impact project quality. It takes only a few minutes, but connecting with each other at a human level creates a more fulfilling and positive work environment. Some of my best clients are those that I can see myself socializing with. That doesn’t mean that I would socialize with the, but I get them. And that matters.
9. Care about the project. Like a tiny seedling, a project needs to be taken care of, and tended to, by the stakeholders. Neglect, apathy and negativity can severely hinder the project plan and result in ugliness all around. Only hire people you think can care about the project you want them to work on. Don’t hire people who show even the slightest indication of being flippant or bored by your project needs or its objectives. They won’t be able to sustain the energy required in later stages.
10. Respect! If you read the previous points, you know this article is not really about design at all. It is not really even about the final product. It’s about how people come together to achieve common objective. And the process for creation. How people connect, and how the process flows, depends largely on communication and mutual respect. If you have to share a common objective to solve a given problem together in the best way possible than you have to respect each other. Respect is the oil that makes this machine run smoothly. The design process can be fulfilling and rewarding in not only its outcome but in the how the end-result is made. And if there is mutual respect that process can be joyful. That is why our guiding principles are all about respect.

We wish you, our clients and everyone around the world, a joyful festive season. We expect a whole bunch of new-ness next year. See you in 2008!

Here are a few things that I believe are worth focusing upon. Whether your business serves up a service or a product. Whether your customer is the end-consumer or another business. 

Before I continue on, I am going to mainly use the words product and user. Replace product with service, if that’ what your company serves up. Replace the word user with customer, consumer, vendor, purchasing company, enterprise…whoever ends up paying your bills by buying what you sell.

I suggest we need to consider two major elements to focus on when it comes to creating successful businesses

Context and the User. This month’ article will focus on context. We will move our attention to the user in next month’ article.

Context.

How and where will it your product be important to your user?

When will it be used? Studying the context of your product’ usage can bring back some unexpected gems. Someone recognized that this was a problem: Every time someone uses a spoon to stir pasta sauce they are making, they end up making a mess when they put their spoon down. The folks over at http://www.woodspoon.com/ improved upon the existing experience.The lazy spoon, has been celebrated on the Oprah show and raved on and on by famed cook Rachael Ray.

So what do you need to learn from messy/clean sauce spoons? It’ all about context? You need to know the environment that surrounds your relationship with your customer. Some examples of why studying up on context is good:

1. Context highlights the little things

   How is your product used? Where is it used? What are the key benefits associated with your service? Software that is used in noisy environments should probably not rely on audio cues. Daycare facilities should hire people who genuinely like kids (even the Janitor). Dental receptionists should have nice teeth and bank tellers should not tell you how bad they are at math (I have actually had that happen). Consider the wide circular halo that surrounds each of the perceived benefits that your product aims to offers your users. Even the smallest omission within this circle can spell death for your business or at the very least reduce some of that magic brand glow you were aiming to spread. Provide your product’ benefits everywhere. If you offer a service that relies on speed as one of its key benefits, it is probably crucial that your website servers never fail and have high bandwidth to serve pages at blazing fast speed even though your business is not directly web related. If you provide software product that features ease of use, your office layout should feature that same attention to ergonomics.

2. The Market has answers (some you don’t want to hear)

   What makes your user’ mouth water?

   What are some of the other products your customer will probably want to use? Doing a moodboard research about what turns your user’s crank could lead to some interesting alliances. The Four Seasons hotel in Vancouver lets its preferred guests park their cars in front of the hotel, bypassing the need to use the valet, a much cherished benefit for their customer. What does the hotel get out of this? Chances are that their prominent clients drive high-end luxury cars. Having passerbys and other guests see the high-end cars parked right in front of the hotel adds to the brand promise of the otherwise aging hotel building.

   Drink in your competition’ Kool Aid and then spit it out.

   Don’t make your own website, your browser’ home page. Instead try and focus in on your competition. Where is their message clear and where are the opportunities for you to make that message clearer on your own marketing and technical material? The better you know about them, the more authority you have in your voice when you clarify why you are better.

   Help your users do their market research.

   Your customer will shop around. Don’t pretend that your competition does not exist. SurveyMonkey is lists their competitors Urls right on their pricing page and tells you why SurveyMonkey is better. Easy projects™ provides their potential customers with a form they can use to compare performance of other project management tools. The Pricing page on most product and service selling websites is a top exit page. People come to do the research and leave if they don’t find a compelling reason to stay. What are you doing to help them research and in turn make up their mind to use you over your competition?

3. Street Cred & New Marketing Channels

   What are your user’ watering holes for information?

   Stop thinking narrowly in terms of traditional methods of banners and print ads to reach out to your potential users. Find places that they still believe in. Using trusted sources where people turn to find information leads to focused marketing efforts such as tryvertising. Consider what P&G is doing with the ‘mum’ market. It is giving mothers free products so they will refer other mums to try it themselves. It makes their marketing channel authentic and believable for that target user. A marketing channel inner circle if you will. The Ya-Ya is telling the sisterhood what to buy.

   What are they saying that you aren’t telling them?

   Besides the marketing message that you put out, how does your customer find out about you? In other words, what is the word on the street about you and your product, outside of your direct marketing efforts? Check out news groups and bulletin boards. Also be ready to find out things you didn’t want to know. People can use public forums to rant or to express love, but it’ the ranters that are more vocal. We found that out when researching VFS’ street cred in newsgroups. Smart companies from Adobe to the many 2 person tech companies in Vancouver have paid employees and well-wishers (read volunteers) troll news groups and quell negative talk by stating facts and solving problems.

   Some like it hot. Some like it cold.

   How do you serve up information? What information is best served cold? If your user is busy and multi-tasking when they come across your site, for example, they might be looking for snapshot information (hot information). More detailed information such as technical specs may be best served as downloadable PDFs to be referred to later (cold information)?

   The importance of consistency and inconsistency.

   What is the user going to be feeling when they call your sales hotline? What will they feel when they call the support hotline? What are commonalities and differences required in how you serve that customer, in those two instances? I would suggest a wait period in answering either of those calls is not going to help matters. Your website should be a good place to provide both pre-sales and after-sales support. Your brand should stand for something. And that message should be reinforced, no matter why your customer is reaching out to talk to you.

Recognising that people don’t access products in a vacuum and actually finding out the true context of how your product is used, helps make them more meaningful to your user. If you fit in well into people’ lives, they will thank you for it, by telling their friends about you.

technorati tags: business, ux, branding