Since writing the last post I’ve been reflecting further on how it is that brands, and the marketing teams behind them, can become “blind” to what’s really important to the customer. Over the years I’ve seen countless examples of product design, processes and marketing communications where it is all too apparent that the customer perspective has been lost along the way.
My favourite example is from the insurance industry. I had been asked to present to a financial services conference as a favour – my role was to be the “outside observer” – to provide them with a marketer’s perspective on their industry. As luck would have it, just as I was beginning to wonder what I was going to say, it came time to renew my own house insurance. What an eye-opener. The conversation went something like this:
Me: “last year you quoted me about £400 for house insurance. How much for this year?
Hapless insurance salesman: “that would be £1200, sir”
Me: “what?? Nothing has happened this year that has led to me claiming on my insurance – why on earth would you think you can triple my premium?”
HIS: “ah, well, last year we also quoted you £1200 but you then got a competitive quote for £400 which we price-matched. Do you have a competitive quote this time around?”
Me (seeing where this is going but curious to see how badly this process is designed): “why no, I don’t, but we both know I can go and get one, so why not just give me your best quote now and save us all some time?”
HIS: “I’m sorry, I can’t do that – you need to call around our competitors and get another quote, and then call me back so I can match it”
Me: “so what you are telling me is that I have to go and get a better quote from your competitor. If I do that, what incentive have I got to ring you back at all?”
HIS: “err”
You can see where the story ends – and yes, I do now have my house insured with someone else.
My message to the financial services conference was simple. An industry insider, reading that account, is bristling to respond. “Ah”, they’ll say, “what you don’t understand is the industry economics – let me explain it to you”.
Well, no, don’t. Because whatever the industry economics, any customer process designed like the one above is just plain wrong. It might maximise short term return, but it does nothing to build loyalty or any kind of long term customer relationship. The fact that it’s difficult to break out of that industry model does not make it any less important to do so.
We are surrounded in our own businesses by examples which, though maybe less extreme, are just as frustrating to customers. I’ve been reading the great post on Jeff Ogden’s site on “the curse of knowledge” and I think that that is at the heart of it. It’s very difficult indeed to see your business the same way a customer does once you know all the inside details on how it works. The result is that it is much harder than it looks to genuinely put the customer first.
I’m going to talk more in coming posts about how to put the individual customer experience at the heart of what we do as marketers, but for the time being here’s a handy test to avoid the curse of knowledge. Whenever you catch yourself or someone in your business, explaining an odd-looking process or customer experience by saying “well, what you need to understand is...” – stop them right there – it might just be that they already understand too much.
