It’s August 9, 2007. Do you remember where you were 12 years ago today? Better yet, do you remember specific events, or specific conversations you had that day? Probably not. But I do.
At the time, I used to take my bicycle to work and ride during lunch. I had just come back from a ride, and was walking back to my desk when a colleague (Bob Ostwald) said “I have some bad news for you.”
I remember my reply: “We didn’t get the Aetna project?” He gave one of those nervous chuckles and said “well, that too, but that wasn’t what I was going to say.” His expression turned more serious, and he said “Jerry Garcia died.”
In the 18 years that preceded that day, I had been to countless number of Grateful Dead concerts. Twelve years on, I remember that interaction as clear as if it had happened yesterday. It was one of those indelible moments.
A recent Harvard Business Review article asserts that each generation has its collective indelible moments — things like Neil Armstrong walking on the moon and 9/11. For my parents’ generation it was the day JFK was shot.
I bring all of this up for two reasons:
- I’m always looking for an excuse to mention the Grateful Dead here.
- Marketers need to recognize — and try to create — the defining moments in their customers’ relationships.
Example: A reporter for a trade magazine told me about how she and her partner were trying to adopt a child. They got a call from the agency, telling them a child from China. But they needed a short-term loan to be able to make the trip. According to this woman, her bank “bent over backwards” to process and approve the loan and get them the money within 48 hours. In her words, because of that, she would “never leave them.”
That was her indelible moment. From that point on, the relationship changed. Small mistakes on the part of the bank were easily dismissed. Marketing efforts exhorting her to consolidate accounts or do more business with the bank were unneeded — she had already decided to do all that.
Few banks do a good job of recognizing (let alone creating) these moments. CRM applications are so focused on recording the facts of interactions that they fail to capture the emotional elements.
Marketers can talk all they want about the superiority of their products and services, and claim that social computing approaches like user reviews improve online conversion rates. But the most powerful driver of customer loyalty and purchase behavior is experience.
And when a particular experience rises above the line to become an indelible moment, marketers need to recognize it and change the way they communicate with (I almost used the words “market to”) that customer.
And try like hell to institutionalize it, and recreate it for other customers.
Technorati Tags: Marketing, Banking, Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia
Couldn’t agree with you more on creating these moments. People remember two things: when you fail to reach expectations, and when you far exceed them. People never remember simply meeting expectations. But lots of customer service folks think that simply meeting expectations is what is required of them.
Right on Ron. Recently a new member broke down and lost it in our lobby because they were new to our area and did not have proper ID to join our CU and get a loan. The persons first payheck was not for another 4 weeks or so. They said they couldn’t afford to even do the necessary paperwork with the DMV to get that done. One of our employees took this situation and turned it upside down. They took the new member to an office to console them, took a loan application anyway regardless of ID requirements, then even went with them to the DMV to help get the ID problem fixed. Even when the loan was declined this employee made a few calls to local food banks and churches and was able to obtain groceries for this person. There may have even been something worked out for clothing for their kids. The employee went totally over and beyond the call of duty. I love to see it when people are motivated to do the right thing.
When I went in for my initial interview to work at a credit union I didn’t know what on earth it was and I even used the word “b*nk” twice during the interview process. Some CU managers would’ve said “see you later” but this one educated me right there on the spot about what the CU was. It is a place where members feel accepted because they’re part of something bigger than themselves. It’s a place where they are treated like friends and family. If your sister was boo-hooing you would ask her what’s wrong and try to help right? Meeting peoples needs financially and all the other stuff CU people talk about is great but what really counts is making their day, every day, and being there when they need you.
Dan, great story — thanks for sharing it.
Here’s what’s so hard for us marketers to learn. When something like that happens, we need to celebrate it and reward it — internally, not externally. If you put it in your advertising, it’s effect is diminished.
Employees should feel that although they’ve got 5 other things to do, that the boss will understand (no, be happy) that something didn’t get done because this customer was taken care of like that.
This is why I believe that a lot of marketing’s job should be focused on the internal processes that produce these experiences, and not just on external communications.
Absolutely.
This is great stuff … I would only add, or suggest, that we don’t create those moments … we need to recognise them.
In all these examples, Garcia, adoption, DMV, the situation was externally created. While each of those customers have had issues and banking interactions before, those ones are the ones that need to be drawn out as, to use your word, indelible. And yes, CRM today, just lists things, and the adoption situation would carry similar weight to phoning in for an investment quote.
Almost aflame still you don’t feel the heat
Takes all you got just to stay on the beat
You say it’s a living, we all gotta eat
but you’re here alone there’s no one to compete
If mercy’s in business I wish it for you
More than just ashes when your dreams come true
Robert Hunter had it right. We get so immersed in our need to “get things done”, the indelible moments burn up and we miss the advocacy opportunity.
This is so right on…and Paul was so right when he mentioned the “advocacy opportunity”…practicing REAL advocacy!
Colin: You’re right that these are usually (if not always) externally created events. What I’m suggesting is that firms be able to recognize and re-create the response.