Business and the ‘Experience Economy’
by Fred Roed on 15/12/06 at 8:01 am
5 comments
Yesterday I had a great meeting with my friend Marc Rogatschnig at Seattle Coffee Shop in Constantia. Over a couple of ‘talls’ we discussed what was blowing our hair back in small business at the moment. Marc is reading a book given to him by a business colleague about Experiential Marketing, and he related something to me that he found useful. It goes something like this:
Earlier last century there was the Manufacturing Economy, where most business, small and big, was involved in the creating of something from raw materials and selling it to someone else who needed it. This preceded the Industrial Revolution which spawned the big factories and the conveyor belt product-creating companies throughout the world.
Then came the Service Economy, when the need for Information became highly sought after. This led to the influx of consultants who advised on anything from accounting to leading your life right.
We are now moving into the Experience Economy, where we are swayed not by need, but by experience. The overwhelming range of choices available to customers has meant that we purchase goods and services based on a multi-sensory experience that sets something apart from its competition, and resonates in our minds.
So, how is this relevant to us? In the Ideate studio, this forces me, as leader of World Wide Creative SA, to think about how my clients’ experience our company and brand when buying a new website. For Live Alchemy, Shane and Andrew must think about the experience when a customer opens a parcel containing a new flag, kitchen utensil, or Bug Zapper.
Marc, who is consulting to a company that sells software products, gave a great example how, in their long sales presentations they plan to stop the meeting halfway (when the customer’s attention begins to wander) and whip out a range of specialty Italian coffees. This will add to the customer’s experience.
I read an excellent book recently by Martin Lindstrom, BrandSense, where he describes how companies across the world are moving past the traditional two senses (sight and sound) in marketing and start to look at brand building to the other three senses: touch, taste and smell. He describes how some of the big motor companies are patenting everything from the ‘new car smell’ to how the car door sounds when it closes.
Virgin first differentiated its trans-Atlantic flights by offering in-flight massages to its passengers. Nokia standardised its ring tone across all its handsets to build the brand through consistency of the sound experience. A customer of World Wide Creative’s has awesome sweets stacked high in a massive jar when you arrive at her office.
How do people experience your business?
What is the experience that your customers undergo when you make a sales call? What do they smell or taste when they come to your office? How does your product feel when the customer opens the packaging for the first time?
These are questions that have to be answered in the Experience Economy.
Fred Roed is the marketing guy in the Ideate crew. Fred is the CEO of web marketing company World Wide Creative and the co-founder of online learning portal Heavy Chef. Fred loves writing about people out there doing marketing right. Follow Fred on Twitter here. View more articles by Fred Roed.
Karin
Dec 15th, 2006
In answer to your question:
just went through my (fast) growing file of questionnaires our customers send back to us (4 little questions). This is how our customers experience us:
efficiency
personal service
sales + excellent choice
advice received
efficienct and speed of communication
fabulous service
We’re not in a ’service’ business, we’re a retailer
Fred
Dec 18th, 2006
That is pretty impressive, Karin. It’s always good to get great feedback from clients.
As an aside, I would like to ask what bad feedback did you get? And how did you deal with that?
Another interesting point: I recently met with a guy who was struggling to get people to his furniture retail store. His customers experience tick all the same boxes as yours do; he offers great product, great service with great advice – but his customers are not ’spreading the word’. So what does he do? I think his only route (besides a lot of money on ATL marketing) is to add to the in-store experience. He must give his customers something to tell their friends – something creative, and that differentiates him in a very crowded market segment.
Lisa
Dec 19th, 2006
This is very thought provoking stuff. I’ll mull over it over a glass of good Chardonnay!
Just spend an hour or so browsing through your portfolio of web sites! Awesome work you’ve done especially that Ferrari site! I’m really impressed!
Karin
Dec 19th, 2006
Once in a while (luckely not often) we do get ‘bad’ feedback: we even ask for it in our questionnaire “what didn’t you appreciate in our products/services”.
Last time that happened was last week (making a total of 3 ‘bad’ feedbacks this year) about not removing empty packaging material (empty adhesive tins filled with sanddust in this case). We normallt discuss waste-disposal in site with the customer because regulations and practice differ from borough to borough and even town to town; only this time we hadn’t realised in time that the customer wouldn’t be on site during all of the works.
We send him an email explaining what normally happens and appolgised for the inconvenience caused by this and also reported to him that we now have adjusted our systems/procuderes by mentioning the waste-disposal issue in our standard order confirmation.
As for your friend, does he have a website that ‘invites’ people to his shop and/or already is filled with good experiences his customers will also have in his shop? Does he keep in touch with his customers after the sale? Does he ‘remind’ them to maintain their furniture, etc, etc. Word-of-mouth of the experience doens’t happen overnight, you have to nurture it.
(Difference between him and us might be that we take the ‘experience’ to the customers house: delivery of materials and most times installation of the product).
Discover Lapeer County
Jun 5th, 2009
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