Chapter 3: The Four Principles of Customer Relationships That Pay

Marketing Plan Podcast_WEB BANNERWhy transaction hunting doesn’t work

In Chapter 3 of The Marketing Plan Podcast we will consider the main character of the story the customer.  Looking at most business models, we can see that the customer is a target. Something to be captured. Customers are often considered transactions to be acquired, trophies to be won. This is the essence of transaction hunting, but I think that’s running the wrong way.

The goal is an emotional bond between your brand and the customer, this transcends product and service. When you establish this bond, sales happen. And while the key to sustainability and growth is sales, creating a relationship does not come from sales tactics. I believe they arrive through four, simple relationship principles.

Principle 1: Understanding

Principle 2: Empathize with Action

Principle 3: Give Unconditionally

Principle 4: Safety

itunesInterested in the new show?  Please subscribe in your feed reader or ITunes at http://MarketingPlanPodcast.com/subscribe Jay Ehret signatureThanks for listening!
Jay Ehret
Dean of Marketing Know-How
The Marketing Spot

 

Three Steps to Increase Customer Loyalty and Word of Mouth

using the customer experience formula to increase loyalty

Get to Customer Wow!

Email subscribers and feed readers, click here: The Customer Experience Formula

Topics Discussed:

  • Customer Loyalty
  • Loyalty and word-of-mouth statistics
  • The Customer Experience Formula
  • 3 steps to take your customer experience to Wow!
  • Free Tools to improve your customer experience.

Get complete show notes, and links to download the free tools here:
Use This Customer Experience Formula to Increase Loyalty and Word of Mouth
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Phenomenal Experience Design Creates Customer Stories

Your brand is part of your customers’ lives. The only question is: Are you a meaningful part of your customers’ lives? To the degree that you determines the frequency and impact of stories told about your business. Welcome to the world of phenomenology in experience design.

experience design and customer story telling

People are wired to share stories about meaningful experiences. It’s the fuel for word of mouth. But how are these stories born? Brian Clark of GMD Studios says it happens when you choose to put the audience, instead of the object, at the center of your work. Translation: Put the customer, instead of your product, at the center of your business.

I met Brian Clark at the BOLO Digital Marketing Conference last month in Scottsdale, and his presentation on Phenomenal Work really drove home the connection between storytelling, phenomenal experiences and word of mouth. In this episode of the Power to the Small Business internet show, Brian joins me to help us find those remarkable and out out-of-the ordinary things that create customer stories.

Guest: Brian Clark, CEO of GMD Studios
Host: Jay Ehret of TheMarketingSpot.com

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Show Notes – Phenomenal Experience Design

Phenomenology: The study of consciousness and the things we experience.

How to get customers to tell stories about your business:

  1. Enable your employees to become story tellers.
  2. Look at your customers and see what meaningful experiences they’re already having, and amplify them.
  3. Write stories that tell what you have in common with customers.

Takeaways:

  1. Shift the data you’re using away from the brand to the customer to make marketing decisions.
  2. Does this already exist? Listen to what people are saying in the various channels and then ask yourself: “How do I make that more meaningful?”

Selected Quotes from the Show

“It’s when our work is actually experienced by someone that it fully flushes out to what it is.”

“Our brands are there as part of someone’s life, and part of a story they’re going to tell other people.”

“We use stories as proxies for our own experience.”

“Meaningfulness has no upper end.  You can always create an experience that’s more meaningful than the one you have.”
~ Brian Clark, GMD Studios

Show Links

Audi Heist Links
Audi: Art of the H3ist
A New Kind of Car Chase (Bloomberg BusinessWeek)

Phenomenal Work on Tumblr

Download Brian’s Presentation from BOLO 2013 (Look under documents)
Phenomenal Work

Who’s Spoiling Your Customer?

Hopefully it’s you. Because you are not being judged against your competition, you are being judged against every other experience your customer receives. Your customer experience is either exceptional or bust.

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The customer experience is the number one factor of customer loyalty. While products and processes are important, the experience customers receive may be more important.

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Lior Arussy, President of Strativity Group, a customer experience consulting firm, joins host Jay Ehret to discuss how customers choose a business and why they would choose you. It takes an exceptional customer experience to win customer loyalty.

Guest: LIor Arussy, President of Strativity Group
Host:
Jay Ehret, Dean of Marketing Know-How at TheMarketingSpot.com
Length: 18 minutes


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Selected Quotes from the Show:

“The customer is coming with the best of the world experiences they’ve had, and they’re saying “Why can’t you do that?”


“We live in a world where it’s exceptional, or it’s a bust.”


“Any branding effort is attempting to create an emotional connection. All we are saying with the customer experience is: Fulfill it!”

“Uneventful is not a place to be. That’s not a differentiation. Uneventful means you didn’t harass me, (not) ‘I love you.’ Totally different type of emotion, and totally different price point you can charge.”

~ Lior Arussy – Strativity Group

Resources to Build Your Exceptional Customer Experience

Links to articles, webinars and tools:
Strativity Knowledge Center
(download reports, white papers, and tools)

The Customer Experience Map Tool – Includes free downloadable tool and tutorial

Free Customer Experience Design Webinar – Recorded and ready to watch

Magic Marketing: The Dark and the Light

Topics: Customer Experience & Marketing Plans


Podcast Episode #75 of the internet show about small business marketing


There are two types of marketing magic, let’s call them light and dark marketing magic. The light magic is the kind that benefits customers, and is created for the good of all. The dark marketing magic is the selfish kind. The kind that makes you think you’re really taking a shortcut, but you’re only prolonging the problem.

In this episode of Power to the Small Business podcast, Podcast host and small business marketing specialist, Jay Ehret addresses both kinds of marketing magic: Light marketing magic in the form of magic spots in the customer experience, Dark marketing magic in the form of magic marketing pixie dust. Take a listen and determine how your business can be more than just a bullet point by adding some magic to the experience, and how you can avoid the dark magic marketing pixie dust.

Guests:
Jay Ehret The Marketing Spot (Podcast Host)

Length: 16 minutes

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You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #75 (for personal use only)

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SHOW NOTES

Making Magic Spots in the Customer Experience

MAGIC SPOT: Unexpected memorable moment in the experience that customers feel compelled to retell to their friends and family.

  • If you’re giving people what they expect, your business is in the mediocre middle.
  • Without an memorable moments in the customer experience, your business becomes a bullet point on the agenda.
  • It’s not your job to just provide a product or a service, you have to give people something that’s unexpected.
  • Magic sparks are word-of-mouth starters

Magic Marketing Pixie Dust

  • Desperate businesses reach for the Magic Marketing Pixie Dust thinking it will provide a cure.
  • There is no one-size fits all program. If one size fits all, it fits no one in particular. (Hand-me-down marketing)
  • Your success today is not determined by what you did today or yesterday.
  • Your success 365 days from today is determined by what you are doing right now.

Show Links

Start Building a Remarkable Experience Now (podcast)
The Experience Economy (podcast)
What’s the Secret of a World-Class Customer Experience? (podcast)
The Cult of Customer Amazement (podcast)

Free Recorded Customer Experience Webinar: Creating A Remarkable Customer Experience

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Consumerology: How Customers Make Purchase Decisions

The Internet Show About Small Business Marketing

Consumerology by Philip Graves

Podcast Episode #70 Consumerology: How Customers Make Purchase Decisions


Consumers don’t make buying decisions the way we think they do. In fact, consumers don’t make decisions they way they think they do. The culprit is the subconscious mind. While customers think and rationalize with their conscious mind, at the point of purchase it’s the subconscious that often takes over to make the decision. What’s a business to do?

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, consumer behavior consultant Philip Graves joins host Jay Ehret to discuss the psychology of shopping and how consumers make purchase decisions. Graves is author of the book: Consumerology: The Market Research Myth, the Truth About Consumers, and the Psychology of Shopping. Graves and Ehret discuss the role of the conscious and subconscious mind in making purchase decisions. Take a listen and gain insights into how you can help the customer make a decision to buy from your business.

Guest: Philip Graves – Author and Consumer Behavior Consultant, Cambridge, England
Host: Jay Ehret – The Marketing Spot, Waco, Texas
Length: 27 minutes

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SELECTED QUOTES FROM PHILIP GRAVES

On how customers evaluate their purchase decisions:

“We ourselves are not always aware of the mental processes that we have been through, that have resulted in us taking a particular action….Consumers end up not being very good witnesses to their own behavior.”

On customers not making a decision:

“When people have more choice, and when they’re aware that there’s more choice, they tend to feel less good about what they’ve chosen.”

“They’ll justify that to themselves as ‘Oh, I didn’t want to buy it today, or I couldn’t really get the one I wanted.’ But the reality is that you just haven’t given them an environment in which they feel they can make a choice.”

On helping consumers make a purchase decision:

“Stop thinking about them as conscious, rational creatures, and start to understand those unconscious mechanisms that are driving a large proportion of what they do.”

On consumer research:

“When you go to ask questions, whilst it’s a well-intentioned exercise, the part of the brain that people are responding with is not the part, very often, that is making the decisions on which purchases are made.”

Links:
Philip Graves Website
Buy the Book: Consumerology
The Marketing Spot Website

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The Cult of Customer Amazement

The Internet Show About Small Business Marketing

Shep Hyken Customer Experience

Podcast Episode #65: Amazing Customer Experiences with Shep Hyken


It’s easy to say “I want my customers to be loyal.” It’s tougher to actually achieve that goal. To earn your customers’ loyalty you have to earn their confidence. Without confidence, you cannot have loyalty. Confidence is a product of consistently delivering a better-than-average experience every time you interact with the customer. It’s not about being perfect, perfection is a goal that’s not reality. However, you can realistically amaze your customers by delivering an above-average experience.

In this episode of Power to the Small Business, customer service expert Shep Hyken joins host Jay Ehret to talk customer loyalty and amazement. Hyken believes that customer expectations are so low right now, that it doesn’t take much to exceed them. He believes you can build a cult of customer amazement.

Guest: Shep Hyken – Customer Service Speaker, St. Louis
Length: 28 minutes

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You can also download the mp3 file here: Download Power to the Small Business #65 (for personal use only)


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SHOW NOTES

The Five Phases of the Customer

  1. The Cult of Uncertainty – The first time a customer does business with you, they’re not 100% sure what they’re going to get.
  2. The Cult of Alignment –Customers understand what you promise, what you deliver.
  3. The Cult of Experience – Customers experience what you promise.
  4. The Cult of Ownership – When it is experienced more than once, it become predictable and owned.
  5. The Cult of Amazement – If the predictable, owned experience is better than average.


Moment of misery:
That bad moment in the customer’s experience.

Moment of mediocrity: A moment in the customer’s experience that is average.

Moment of magic: That moment in the customer’s experience that is above average. The moment of magic is all about managing customer interactions for a positive experience, an above average experience.

SELECTED QUOTES FROM SHEP HYKEN

“The goal is, ‘what am I doing right now to make sure that customer’s going to want to come back the next time.’ And you focus on that thought, every time.”

“People think amazement has to be: ‘Blow me away. Wow! Fantastic! ’ …But the great companies…really are nothing more than better than average, all of the time.”

“In a small business, what they (the customer) has is access: access to the owner, access to the top employees. …I think access is a pretty cool thing.”

“The customer is not always right, but they are always the customer. You have to figure out a way to let them be wrong with dignity.”

SHOW LINKS

Shep Hyken’s Website: www.Hyken.com
Shep Hyken’s Book: The Cult of the Customer
Book referenced in show: Moments of Truth by Jan Carlzon

Episode 58: Using Your Instinct to Create a Remarkable Customer Experience

The Internet show about small business marketing.

Podcast Episode #58 – How to See Feel Think Do from author Shaun Smith 


It’s ironic that an entrepreneur will create a business based on a gut feeling and then eventually lose touch with that instinct over time. It’s an ingredient that is an important part of the entrepreneurial soul. It’s time to get back in touch with your instinct, because it’s key to creating a remarkable customer experience. Author Shaun Smith is co-author of the book: See Feel Think Do: The Power of Instinct in Business. In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Smith dishes the inspiration you need to follow your gut. It’s a powerful combination of sound advice and practical examples.

Guest: Shaun Smith, author and customer experience consultant, London, England
Length:
29 minutes

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Show Notes:

SELECTED QUOTES FROM SHAUN SMITH

“When I look at organizations and I look at great experiences, it’s often more to do with the DNA than the MBA. It’s often more to do with the passion, than it is with the intellect.”

“We get so caught up in the complexity of our lives. We get so caught up with doing business, that actually the very simple things that cause humans to behave in the way they do, get overlooked.”

“How often do we actually sit down and think: “What would it look like, if it were better? What would it look like if we were to just change the rules?”

“You have more to learn, and more to fear, from your comparators than you do your competitors.”

“So the doing part is actually having the courage of your conviction, of being able to turn those ideas, those observations, those insights into a process that actually creates that different kind of experience.”

Show Links:

Shaun Smith on the WebShaun Smith & Company
Shaun’s Books: See Feel Think Do and Managing the Customer Experience

Free Webinar: How to Create a Remarkable Online/Offline Customer Experience

Events:
Opimization Summit
, September 16-17, 2010 – Dallas, Texas
Brainstorming Sessions
for the Multifamily Industry, September 16-17, 2010 – Dallas, Texas

A complete archive of all past episodes can be found here: Power to the Small Business

Got a marketing question? Call the “Help Me Help You” line: 254-433-8529. I’ll answer the question in a future episode.

Subscribe to this podcast by email: Power to the Small Business by Email

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reExperiencing Starbucks

reExperiencing Starbucks
What’s he going to do? Former and current Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz rode in on his white horse last month to rescue the coffee giant. Howard plans to reanimate the company by getting back to the Starbucks experience of old, or maybe even better.

While Howard was the wizard behind the Starbucks success until 2000, these are desparate times. Starbucks stock dipped 42% last year. So we would like to help Starbucks re-capture the magic.

Becky Carroll of the Customers Rock! blog joins Jay with suggestions for Starbucks, plus tips for you and your business.

Power To The Small Business – Episode #6: reExperiencing Starbucks
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Remarkable Customer Experiences with Brand Autopsy’s John Moore

Topic: Remarkable Customer Experiences

John Moore of Brand Autopsy

Podcast Episode #3 of the internet show about small business marketing


John Moore has been recognized by Fast Company magazine as a “leading practitioner of the arts of customer service and marketing” and has served as a Standards Council Advisory Board Member with the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. John is the author of the Brand Autopsy blog and the author of TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE, a business management book.

John joins us in this episode to talk about building a remarkable small business customer experience. After you listen, please join the conversation with a comment or question in the comments section below.


Guest: John Moore – Brand Autopsy
Host: Jay Ehret – Dean of Marketing Know-How at TheMarketingSpot.com
Length:
26 minutes

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