Biznology

Your products or services are purchased because they meet a need for your customer, not because you have a fancy brand or a clever marketing campaign. That need may be for pain relief or to cook a meal or to fit in with peers, but it is still the customer’s need that drives a purchase and the customer’s experiences are what set the stage for that need to be fulfilled. If you’re not managing that experience actively, what kind of situation will your customer be in? Read the remainder of this entry »

Image by markhillary via Flickr

Celebrating at a funeral is in bad taste, so I’m sure the folks at B&N had to think carefully about to address the contacts they got from a recent acquisition of Borders customer data. Too friendly and cheerful would come across as celebration; too mournful and sympathetic would appear inauthentic or worse.  Barnes and Noble recently acquired the customer list from Borders in the sale of assets last week at bankruptcy court. There was some concern from thoughtful persons about this, as though such a list acquisition was equivalent to inheriting your best friend’s Little Black Book and proceeding to work your way through the conquests listed. I don’t think it is a creepy ploy though– if the customers are approached respectfully, it seems like common sense that people who used to buy books at a bookstore might be interested in buying books from another bookstore. Read the remainder of this entry »

Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr

“No matter what happens, I just want to say thank you for introducing me.” said the the email, and just like that, I was jarred out of my analytcal headspace in the midst of editing a tech document . How often does one hear an authentic piece of gratitude nowadays? I decided to pass on the goodwill by writing a belated email myself, saying my thanks and paying it on forward. I also wondered how well most people hear a simple thank you from those they work with. What about your customers? Do they hear thanks from you? Read the remainder of this entry »

Image via Wikipedia

Time was that when a customer came into your store, the purchase decision was made there. That’s true no longer. You could count on the majority of your customers making decisions about your stock based on a small variety of factors in the past. Foremost among those would be the context of the product—displaying Crisco amongst baking goods drives a different decision making process in the shopper’s mind than does displaying it as a rash treatment or for tar removal. The product itself also served to communicate its features and merits—if the box said “new and improved” the shopper believed that it was. It seems like it was common sense, but common sense is about to become “commoner.” Read the remainder of this entry »

Image via CrunchBase

Early in November, I saw that American Express was starting a holiday for the Saturday following Thanksgiving—a very gutsy move. I haven’t seen the birth of a holiday since Sweetest Day was promoted in the 1980s. I was curious to see what it took to make a holiday work—and to see what would work. Right now, I get the day after Thanksgiving off of work, but I haven’t always. And anything that promotes the holiday status of that day after Thanksgiving is a great thing in my book. Read the remainder of this entry »