Mr. MacKenzie

Sales & Marketing

Service is the New Marketing

By Josiah MacKenzie, Founder, Gradigio Group

A recent Econsultancy study revealed 86% of online consumers distrust advertising messages. Decades of hype, hyperbole, and unfulfilled expectations mean that people are now turning to others they can trust for advice: friends, family, and consumers like them online. In contrast to only 14% of consumers trusting corporate messaging, 90% will trust personal recommendations. A separate survey from eMarketer showed consumer reviews are trusted twelve times more than a manufacturer’s product description, and a study on the influence of online reviews in the summer of 2010 revealed that 92% of US internet users read product reviews in the buying process. For hotel executives, the impact is very tangible. World Travel Market’s 2010 Industry Report reported 35% of travelers change their choice of hotel after browsing social media.

“The days of controlling the message are absolutely over. At best you’ll be invited in to co-create and participate with consumers.”
– Wendy Clark, SVP of Marketing Communications, Coca-Cola

If online reviews and personal recommendations are the trusted source of information today, how can we encourage more of these? Recommendations are the result of personal experiences, and personal experiences will always trump marketing claims. It’s one thing for a company to make a promise in advertising, and quite another to deliver on the promise. Unfulfilled promises increase the likelihood of negative word of mouth, but consistently fulfilling a brand promise builds goodwill and loyalty. In either case, consumers will be going online to share their experience with the world.

As this happens, the importance of Service increases dramatically. Service has the opportunity to become the new marketing. By delivering extraordinary Service worth remarking about, companies stand out from competitors, encourage positive word of mouth, and deliver the most memorable sort of branding.

If you look at the traditional goals of marketing – customer acquisition, loyalty building and repeat purchases – it becomes clear all of these are based on the consumer’s perceptions of a brand and their memories of prior experiences with that brand. If I have to choose between trusting my experience with a company or trusting their advertising, chances are good I will trust my own experience. Because of this, delivering great Service is the best way to win loyalty. Surprise and delight are triggers of positive word of mouth. It would be good for us to follow the advice that Napoleon Hill once wrote:

"Tell the world what you plan to do, but first show it."

But for Service to become a form of marketing, it must go beyond answering customer complaints as they come in. Companies using the Service-as-marketing concept employ a mix of real time accessibility, customization, personalization, and feedback-driven product design and improvement. These companies create a culture of engaged employees at all levels of the organization, and depend on the involvement of customers and other constituents for experience design, product support, and brand evangelism.

The Savvy Social Buyer

Consumers today are increasingly informed, selective, and ready to broadcast their thoughts and actions as they happen. As technology makes increasing numbers of people connected 24/7, richer “digital data trails” are being left all over the web as always-connected consumers go about their day. And this leads to more and more people sharing opinions of the brands they encounter as part of their daily lives. Messages about a restaurant’s lunch menu, their commute from the office, or their latest workout in the gym all get posted online.

Sharing information about brands happens both intentionally and unintentionally on the social web. An example of intentional information sharing might be a written online review a guest publishes about a hotel, while unintentional sharing could be the location information attached to a Twitter update. When a company unexpectedly delights the Savvy Social Buyer, these people are not hesitant to praise the company – messages that are seen by their entire social network. And when this delight is sustained over time, trust builds, turning the Social Savvy Buyer into a consumer advocate.

Consumer advocates are one of the most valuable assets a brand can have. They can help provide insights for innovation, evangelize the brand to others, and even provide tech support to other customers. Because of this, emerging companies today make online community management one of their top priorities.

The Aware Company

Companies experiencing rapid growth today are very aware of the Social Savvy Buyer, and have built their customer acquisition and retention plans around Service. For them, Service is not a cost center; it’s a way of creating new revenue.

The Aware Company begins with listening to the conversations happening on the social web, monitoring the digital data trails left by the always-connected consumer. They listen for mentions of their brand or product names, and then expand the scope to monitor topics related to their industry. They use semantic analysis to discover the sentiment behind all the online chatter, which helps them identify important trends they can act on. Companies like Dell and Kodak have formalized this process by appointing “Chief Listening Officers” to sift through all the online data and decide how to use it to improve operations.

The Aware Company makes themselves available everywhere, all the time. Because the Social Savvy Buyer is always connected, operating 24/7 is usually a requirement for delivering Service worth talking about. More often than not, the best opportunities for delivering extraordinary Service come outside standard business hours.

The Aware Company goes beyond simply listening and acts on the feedback they gather. Quick, decisive resolution of problems is the most important part of Service. Unless issues are resolved quickly and completely, all the talk about Service and experience is a waste of time.

Growing Together

The Aware Company of today intentionally cultivates strong relationships with two key groups of constituents – employees and customers – to design, build, and deliver these extraordinary Service experiences.

• Employees as partners

The Aware Company understands that their staff plays the central role in delivering Service. The experience most customers will have with a company comes from the interactions they have with front-line staff. Because of this, founders of Aware Companies, such as New York restaurateur Danny Meyer, say their priorities are “Employees, then Customers, then Investors.” For them, putting priorities in this order ultimately ensures all stakeholders are satisfied.

• Customers as innovation partners

The Aware Company turns to the Social Savvy Customer as they make strategic decisions for product development. Customer-driven innovation happens through listening first to brand sentiment in the market. What sort of opinions are being published on the social web? What opportunities do you see? How could you design your product for competitive advantage?

Beyond listening, they proceed to actively solicit product improvement ideas from their customer communities. Often, a formalized customer advisory board is built to help make important decisions. The aim is to gather input from end users, and use their advice for continual improvement.

• Customers as evangelists

Aware Companies that deliver impressive Service develop a small army of loyal customer advocates. These people are helpful for getting the word out, and ultimately, this is how the service-as-marketing approach can generate more profits for your company.

The way for hotels to succeed with today’s always-on customer is putting the guest at the center of your business universe, and making her spoken and unspoken desires the catalyst for optimizing operations and competitive advantage.

Josiah MacKenzie is the founding owner and marketing brain of the Gradigio Group, a San Francisco-based collection of media properties catering to the hospitality industry around the globe. He also has roles in other ventures, with business interests in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia. Mr. Mackenzie has published over 100 articles, and has appeared in the Washington Post, MSNBC.com, and Entrepreneur magazine. His new book, The Savvy Hotelier's Guide to Hotel Marketing Ideas, reveals over 1,000 of the most profitable marketing tactics used by hotels. Mr. MacKenzie can be contacted at 415-671-6235 or josiah@gradigio.com Extended Bio...

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