Tuesday November 22, 2005

CMO Magazine: Experience Preferred

CMO has a useful blurb on what IBM, Deluxe, Fuse Networks and Hilton Hotels are doing to prodvide a better experience for their customers. What I'm digging in this piece is that they're reiterating the notion that it doesn't take much to provide a value-add moment, one that differentiates you from your competitors and also brings home the bacon.

[Sidebar: 10 Ways to Create and Manage Experiences]

Hilton looks inward

In Hilton's case, the firm found that despite its brand mantra of "be my guest," none of the visitors to its corporate HQ felt very welcome:

"We're in the hospitality business, but there was no sense of hospitality at all," says Phil Cordell, senior vice president of brand management for Hilton's Hampton Inns. The corporate offices, he says, "are buildings that could have been for a computer company or an insurance company."

Working with consultancy FRCH, Hilton redesigned its welcome lobby to create an experience that told the brand story. The project took less than five months, from idea to execution. A key step was to hire a full-time greeter (a reassigned security guard) who welcomes guests in the waiting area and verifies their appointment. Instead of numbered tags, guests now have a quick photo taken and are given a personalized name tag. In the case of especially important guests, the greeter is informed ahead of time and prepared with a photo so that he recognizes the visitors upon arrival and can greet them accordingly.

OK, nice idea, but...hospitality's really a slam dunk, isn't it? After all, a bad experience in the hospitality biz is sort of a transparent no-brainer...poor experience clearly equates to poor revenues. Which is why we need to commend Deluxe -- that's right, the checks people -- for creating their own revenue opportunities based on "experience." Here's the story:

Deluxe gives good phone

Deluxe recently discovered that people have a stronger affinity for personalized checks that most of its managers had been aware of. So Deluxe capitalized on that opportunity. They trained their call center to create a "retail experience" on the phone for willing bank customers...

They recruited existing clients—some of the country's largest banks—to join the program. Now, instead of bank managers distributing plain checks and check catalogs to customers, the managers direct customers to Deluxe's call center to reorder checks. Deluxe has trained its call center employees to create "an upbeat, permission-based environment on the phone," says Feltz. "People were trained to respond to individual interests. We call it 'comfortable indulgence.'"

The results were impressive: Initial studies showed that 72 percent of bank customers who purchased checks through the call center said the experience reflected positively on the bank's brand. Moreover, participating banks' margins for checks experienced an average lift of 40 percent to 50 percent. "We found that if we can create more consciousness around the experience, it has ROI," says Feltz.

But the brand remodeling didn't end there. The pilot was such a hit that Deluxe invited executive bankers out to its Phoenix call center for training in enhancing the client experience. The call center has since evolved into a showcase of Deluxe's experiential expertise, providing up to 60 bank tours a year.

The icing on the cake: Deluxe's marketing department, which executed the changes developed by Feltz and the executive team, has reallocated 1.5 percent of company revenue out of its ad budget to support the shift. "Our marketing group has gone from a staff function of product management to one of the leaders of our strategy development," says Feltz. "It's put them in the forefront."

Marketing as strategic weapon

How about them apples: new revenue opportunities through the...marketing group? Talk about a liberated culture. Makes me almost want to start writing checks again, but I happily killed that habit years ago.

(Which makes me wonder what Deluxe's plans are, given a presumably declining check-writing population. For another day, good friends of the Internets!)

( Nov 22 2005, 03:00:17 PM PST ) Permalink Comments [0]