I fell in love with Blair McHaney this week. His description about how he uses daily customer surveys at his fitness clubs to make operational changes in real time won him a gold star in my book. But what really knocked my socks off is that he identified the biggest Moment of Truth for customers in the fitness business—cancelling your membership—as the one that needed to be vastly improved.
One of the ways I tell that the jobless rate in an area has increased is by looking at the Staples parking lot. People without jobs often set up or improve their home offices—either to help them look for jobs and/or to build their own small business. It makes you feel better. It puts you in control of your destiny. And there are lots of helpful, upbeat Staples associates who will lend a helping hand.
We've been fans of a lot of things that Staples has done right. Its stores are well-marked and easy to navigate. Its main web site is also easy to use and has some "firsts" for office supply stores, like customers' ratings and reviews. (Who would have thought that these mattered for office supplies? But they do!) And Staples’ world-class re-invention of rebates — EasyRebates — was one of the case studies in Outside Innovation.
But we've discovered one area in which Staples (and many other businesses) could do a much better job. It's an investment that would pay off big time in customer loyalty as measured by actual repeat business. Staples needs to make it easier for its customers to "manage their stuff." In particular, Staples should make it easy for people to categorize their purchases by project or client. They should let you track the purchases of multiple people on a single, linked account. Staples should make it much easier to get a picture of everything you've spent in a given time period, and to sort and organize it. They should make it easier to repurchase something from a previous order. And they should make it easier to replenish things you purchase frequently. These all seem like missed opportunities for Staples (and for any company catering to business customers).
For more insight about what Staples does well and not and where you might improve the experience for your business customers, read Ronni Marshak’s Customer Experience Audit.
What’s the Future for Build-A-Bear?
This week, I took a new look at Build-A-Bear Workshop, the retailer that specializes in letting kids create their own stuffed animals. I’ve been a big fan since I discovered Build-A-Bear and wrote about it in BRANDchild. But I was discomfited to discover that this mid-size retailer’s stock has been in a downward slide for a number of months, despite a stronger Q1 performance in 2010. Build-A-Bear makes an interesting case study. It’s also a great brand that could use your help and insights! What’s your prescription for Build-A-Bear? How could this amazing brand continue to grow, increase its sales and profits and attract more young customers? Please give us your ideas. We’ll pass them along to Build-A-Bear’s execs and reward the best ideas with a Build-A-Bear gift certificate!
Can an Early Innovator in Personalized Retail Experience Recapture Its Momentum?
1. Ensure that the model is designed to address or mitigate customers’ moments of truth.
2. Ensure that you address those moments of truth with innovative approaches that take full advantage of available technology.
3. Hone an efficient execution engine that: a) lets you make money while you’re meeting customers’ moments of truth, and b) builds barriers to entry through experience, scale, and distance traveled on the learning curve.
Back in 2003, we described Netflix as a good example of a company that built its very successful business by addressing moments of truth in the “I want to watch a movie at my convenience” scenario. Netflix’s innovation was to eliminate the guilt and inconvenience associated with returning rental movies and the affront of being charged late fees. The new Netflix customer scenario was a big hit: Pay a monthly fee. Rent as many movies as you want each month. Return them when you’re done with them and get a new one in the mail within 2 days. No pain. No fuss. No bother. And a great database of movies to choose from.
Now that digital downloads are easy, NetFlix still continues to thrive, having built customer loyalty by addressing the rental movie convenience issue and by embracing digital downloads aggressively. Although I have lots of other choices for digital downloads (on demand from my cable supplier, Amazon, etc.), I still think of Netflix first when I want to watch a movie or a television re-run.