Linda's Marketing Leverage Blog

What a Difference an Attitude Makes

I'm literally writing this post from the cloud--onboard Delta flight 2462 from Atlanta to Newark. The free wifi is courtesy of Google, but the pleasant atmosphere on the plane is courtesy of one of the most friendliest and customer-friendly fight crews I've encountered in a long time. 

Southwest Airlines employees are invariably friendly and fun, but outside of that island of civility, it's been pretty bleak and discouraging to be a flier the last couple of years. Whether it's the thought of fighting your way through airport security or being treated like an inconvenience and bother by flight attendants, for the most part the friendly skies are few and far between.

That's why today's experience stands out. As we were boarding, the pilot came on and told us we had George Clooney and Brad Pitt at the controls. He proceeded to tell a few other jokes, but he had us all at line one. Then to top it off, he came out of the cockpit and walked up and down the length of the plane, saying hello to everyone and asking how we were doing.

This is my 4th flight on Delta in less than a week. The first three weren't terrible--one was delayed for several hours due to weather, which was not Delta's fault--but this flight stands out because of the extra attention of the crew.

Let's face it. The American public is frustrated with air travel in general, TSA security processes in particular, and the screw you attitude of most airline personnel. It cost nothing, took little effort and just 5 minutes of one pilot's time to make a world of difference--so much so that I'm sharing this with the world before we even land. In fact, what he did probably made the entire crew's job easier for the duration of the flight by defusing any tension and frustration amongst the passengers.

We've known for years that employee attitudes make or break a brand. How many times do organizations need to learn this lesson the hard way? Here's an example of what happens when you do things right.

Message to Delta: Find this pilot, reward him then clone him. If you can't find Clooney and Pitt on your employee rolls, try looking for someone named Craig. Rumor has it that's his off-stage alias.

 

The College Dorm Registry: Bed and Bath Goes Beyond

We're in the final days of preparing to send our daughter off to her freshman year at college. She's going to CU Boulder and we're in the San Francisco Bay Area, so it's not exactly around the corner. That means we have to figure out how to get all of the acoutrements of dorm life from here to Colorado. It'd be easier to buy them here, but who wants to schlep all that stuff? And with everything going on when we get to campus, do we really want to do all that shopping then (and perhaps risk some things being sold out)?

A lot of retailers have focused on the college market with back to school/college dorm special sales--Target, Staples, OfficeMax, Macy's, and more. But one store has really gotten this thing down to a science.

Bed, Bath & Beyond has created the college dorm registry. You go to your local BB&B, tell them what school you will be attending, they hand you a scanner, and you go through the store identifying those items you want to buy. These items will then be prepackaged and waiting for you at the local BB&B store closest to your college campus.

Not sure what your school will/won't be providing, or what you are/aren't allowed to have in your dorm room (no open flames, no open coils, etc.)? Never fear: BB&B has thought about that, too. They printed out a two page handout from CU with everything you needed to know to outfit a dorm room. They gave us a printout of all the items we'd selected, which will all be ready for us at the local store on the date we've chosen. They also provided a map from the campus to the store, complete with driving directions. And, we haven't even paid in advance! We'll pay for the items when we pick them up next month in Boulder.

What a great concept and probably not a lot of work, considering that BB&B has been offering registry services for bridal showers and weddings for years. The equipment and systems were in place--just a litle bit of work to coordinate with the schools and make this college kid-friendly and there they are. With just a little bit of work and creativity, BB&B has created a service that differentiates them from all the other retailers. Not only that but experienced parents tell newbees like us, "Don't forget you can do the BB&B registry service--it's great!"

Kudos to Bed and Bath for going beyond. Now if they could only find a way to get college kids to keep those dorm rooms reasonably clean...

Linda Popky joins the Million Dollar Consultant® Hall of Fame

Right on the heels of this week's San Jose/Silicon Valley Business Journal's Top Women of Influence in Silicon Valley award,  I learned on Friday that I have been inducted into Alan Weiss's Million Dollar Consultant Hall of Fame.

According to Alan, the criteria for induction include:

• Serving as an exemplar to others in the profession.
• The highest levels of integrity, ethics, and accountability.
• Revenue and profit achievement and growth.
• Contributions of intellectual capital to the profession.
• Continual, challenging, personal and professional development.
• Risk taking and resilience.

This award is shared with only the top leaders in consulting worldwide. This year's seven inductees, Suzanne Bates, Seth Kahan, Pat Lynch, Katherine Radeka, Scott Simmonds, Phil Symchych and me, join 13 other existing members of the Hall of Fame. I am the only member with a focus on strategic marketing consulting.

It really is a privilege to be  recognized by Alan Weiss, the man who has written more books on consulting than anyone in the world and who has been called "one of the most highly regarded independent consultants in America." Furthermore, it is an honor to be associated with the 19 other top professionals who share this distinction.

Thanks to my family, friends, colleagues and clients who have helped me get to this level.

Linda

From Yucky to Yummy: A great marketing tool

Stopping in to Walgreens to pick up a prescription today, I noticed something new on the counter...the Yucky Medicine wheel. This is one of those devices that you turn to find out information about each of probably 50 or more medications listed on the outside of the wheel. In this case, as you turn the wheel, it displays the Yuckiness Factor for each liquid medication in terms of taste.

The three choices in taste ratings (complete with emoticon-type icons) are:

• Yucky tasting
• More yucky
• Most yuckiest

For each medication, there is a second round of displays that indicates what additional flavorings are available to be added to the medication to make it more palatable (i.e., some are available in cherry and lemon, others in strawberry or pineapple, etc.).

Now we all know that there is no such thing as a good tasting liquid medicine--blechh! The folks @ Walgreens and the flavoring company have embraced this fact and turned it into a marketing tool. Instead of official-sounding, rational taste rankings like mild or moderately offensive, they go right to yucky and more yucky. Who can argue with that?

The goal is to convince patients and their parents to spend a few dollars extra to have a pleasant tasting flavoring added to their liquid medicine. (Medicinal flavorings are usually not covered by medical insurance, but paid for out of pocket.) What's a couple of dollars when you face the choice of feeding your child 10 days of most yuckiest medicine, three times a day?

BTW, the pharmacist told me that many adults take liquid medicines and they too try to avoid the yucky factor. So this marketing tactic works for adults as well as kids.

Great marketing, Walgreens. Makes you almost want to raise a medicine  stopper and say cheers! Well, ALMOST.

That really WAS easy!

I placed a small order online with Staples yesterday. Expected delivery in 3-5 business days. It showed up on my doorstep today, less than 24 hours from when I placed it. This was free shipping, too--not any kind of expedited extra-charge delivery.

There are a couple of key points here:

• Great customer service really does make you stand out from the pack
• Set expectations lower, then when you exceed them you look great. (If they'd told me it would be here in 24 hours, I'd have been skeptical and disappointed if they were late).

Hearing Good Things About Bose

We hear a lot of negative customer interactions, so it's always a pleasant change to hear someone talking about a great customer service interaction.

This comes from Chad Barr, President of CB Software in Shaker Heights, OH:

I love my Bose QuietComfort2 Headphones product and won’t use anything else in first class due to peer pressure.

When I first broke it about a year ago, the local store immediately exchanged it for a new headset - no questions asked. When breaking this new headset again several weeks ago, I had to send it to Bose Corporation since the local store did not have them in stock. I just received my brand new headphones from Bose, no questions asked.

Voting Process Made Easy...for real!

I have been a permanent absentee voter in California for years and years. That way I don't have to worry about where I am on election day, getting to the polls by a certain time, etc. The ballot comes in the mail, I fill it out and return it and everything is set.

Until this year. Somehow I managed to lose my absentee ballot. Actually, I think I may have thrown it out. Here I was less than a week from the election, past the deadline to mail my ballot and ensure it would be received, and dreading the thought of having to go vote in person.

Luckily I live in San Mateo County, where the county government has made these things straightforward and simple. I called the voter registration number (which I found via Google), and told the person on the other end I'd lost my ballot. She said I had 2 choices: go to my normal voting place (which I've never been to and don't know where it is) on election day, or come down to the voter registration headquarters in Redwood City anytime between now and Tuesday and vote there.

I was amazed at how simple and automated the process was at County Center in Redwood City. My first thought walking in to the assessor's office/voter registration office was how clean and neat and organized it was. Real estate related files are all neatly catalogued on cassettes, the mounds of paper that were likely present in this kind of operation previously have all disappeared, and all the service centers in the office are neatly marked. The woman @ the absentee voting station was pleasant, knowledgeable and helpful. She looked up my information on her computer, had me sign an affidavit that I had lost my ballot, then offered me the choice of using a paper ballot or one of the computerized systems they had available.
When I said I'd never used their system before, she said, well it's quite simple and I can walk you through the whole process without a problem. She then proceeded to demonstrate how the system worked (which really IS quite simple and intuitive). It took me about 5 minutes to go through the ballot, highlighting each candidate or initiative to vote for, then I was asked three times to confirm my choices (and given the opportunity to change them), before the ballot was officially cast. I got a receipt with a confirmation number corresponding to my ballot and I was done.  Total time from when I walked in the door until I walked out: less than 7 minutes.

It was actually really simple, effective and efficient. When is the last time you said those words in conjunction with local government? In fact, the most difficult part of the whole process was finding parking in downtown Redwood City.  Well, some things never change...