Voices: the CMB Blog

Recently, the US Supreme Court heard an argument from frequent flyer Binyomin Ginsberg, whose membership in Northwest’s WorldPerks program was revoked, after he complained too often. While the practical and legal questions of enforcing contracts under the specialized application of airline deregulation are interesting, the question for us today is: does loyalty run both ways?  Any customer-facing employee of a loyalty program can probably name a handful of customers who regularly call to complain—about the service, the rewards, the benefits. They, like the people at Northwest/Delta, may feel that some of these customers contact them for the sole purpose of obtaining compensation. Should their frustration with these members lead them to take their points away, or cut them off entirely? 

Let’s look at the case of Binyomin Ginsberg:   

• He was a very frequent flier – 75+ times/year with top Platinum Elite status.  At $350/flight his annual value to NWA is nearly $30k.

• In 8 months, he complained 24 times about late and lost luggage and long delays. He didn’t complain to the flight attendants, gate personnel or pilots but instead to top managers in the corporate office of the frequent flier program. "I did exactly what they asked you to do," Ginsberg said in an interview with NPR. "If you have a negative experience, they want you to give them feedback."  And so he did — a lot.

• Ginsberg says he never asked for anything when logging his complaints; the airline reports he repeatedly asked for compensation, and that they tried to soothe the unhappy flier.  In 2007, Ginsberg was awarded nearly $2k in travel vouchers, 78k bonus miles and $491 for a lost bag. 

• And then he got the call telling him he was no longer a member of the program, that his miles had been confiscated and he’d been black-listed and would never be able to join the program again. 

• He was told he complained too much about the service and the airline has ‘total discretion’ in such matters. 

The case will be decided in the spring. In the meantime, here are some questions for you to ponder as you consider how loyal you are to your loyal customers: 

Do you solicit feedback from your members on their experience with your product/service? 

If you do, are you:

• Making improvements based on the feedback

• Communicating the improvement you’ve made

• Responding in a timely fashion to individuals who ask to be contacted

• Sharing results and verbatim customers comments with senior managers 

Take the case of AeroMexico, whose customer feedback surveys revealed the two biggest pain points impacting loyalty were on-time performance and delay management—hardly atypical for an airline, but the survey also revealed customers felt the airline’s staff lacked empathy in communicating delays. To fix this problem, the airline’s customer experience team recruited key executives to personally call customers who have experienced delays—the executives are coached to resolve issues and listen to the customer. And according to AeroMexico’s VP of Customer Experience, Eduardo Piquant, the innovative program has been a success: “We always start with an apology for the delay and then ask for feedback about what we can do better. In the beginning, people don’t believe it is the CEO or CFO or other senior executive calling. But when they realize this is a true company-wide project, the results are remarkable. And what we’ve found is simple: Customers just want to be heard.”  The airline estimates this approach has resulted in a win back of more than 3000 customers. 

Do you have a clear policy in place for compensating members for a bad experience?

For many companies, continuously improving quality standards and keeping customers satisfied are the key goals to maintaining a competitive position in the marketplace. But these intangible goals often can be difficult to achieve in practice and occasionally – for reasons within and outside your control – customers will have a bad experience.  And in the world of Trip Advisor and Facebook, these bad experiences and your corporate reactions to those experiences will be widely shared and will influence the decisions of other prospective guests. 

Assuming the corporate decision on compensation has been made and is appropriate, the actions associated with dealing with disappointed members (whether you compensate them or not) are the same:  

• Express gratefulness for their business

• Listen to complaints with empathy

• Clearly and consistently present the information on compensation policy

• Track the behavior of guests “post-interaction”– do they continue to spend (as they did prior to the problem)?  Or has the problem (and your recovery efforts) caused them to take their business elsewhere?

A compensation policy doesn’t get much clearer than Hampton Inn hotel’s 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. While the idea of a “No questions asked 100% guarantee” might sound outlandish, the policy has been a success since it was implemented nearly 25 years ago.  Years ago, Phil Cordell, the senior VP of Brand Management at the hotel chain described the success of the program: “...Compared to the more than $6 million in free rooms we’ve given away over the past decade due to invoking the Guarantee, we have been able to track more than $41 million in repeat business, a nearly seven-fold return. But more than just dollars and cents, we’ve converted unhappy guests into satisfied customers across the country, loyal to the Hampton Inn brand.”

Are you doing all you can to take care of your highest value customers?

One of the primary benefits of a loyalty program is the ability to track each customer’s spend so you can identify your most valuable customers. Calculating the percent of corporate revenue obtained from each membership tier puts their value in perspective. While every customer is important, from a revenue perspective, some customers are clearly more important.

If your loyalty program has tiers:

• Ensure your compensation policy recognizes and reflects the unique value associated with your top tier guests. Create an elite group of customer service reps to deal with your top tier guests and their challenges. 

• Conduct research to determine the share of wallet you get from members, and how much they spend with competitors. Ask questions to examine which competitors they use–for which occasions and why–to set strategies to concentrate their spend, and further build their value with your firm. 

• Closely examine the behavior of your top tier members to see if it’s time to develop a super-elite level. You may find a sizable group of customers who max out on your program, and then move their business to your competitor. 

Caesars Entertainments’ Total Rewards program, the largest casino rewards program in the world, has 4 distinct tiers. The value of a member at each tier is carefully calculated, and rewards and service aligned with value, this insight leads to smoother operations, better front-line service, and differentiated pricing. Joshua Kanter, Senior Vice President, Revenue Acceleration and Total Rewards, reports: “We have a ‘differentiated service model’ that’s keyed off of Total Rewards tiers. We strive to provide a great experience to every guest, including our entry-level Gold members but we also have special hotel check-in areas, shorter lines and exclusive lounges for our Diamond and Seven Stars members. And our VIP-focused organization engages with our most high-value customers individually. When a guest presents their card, every member of our front-line staff responds immediately with the level of service appropriate to the tier.”

So, can I imagine a customer who was so much trouble that he or she needed to be kicked out of their loyalty program? Sure, but the crimes committed would have to be much more egregious than too many complaints. Your loyal customers have made a commitment to you, they’ve shared their information with you, they’ve chosen you when it might have been easier to go with a competitor, and many have advocated for you with their colleagues, friends and family: doesn’t that deserve some loyalty in return?

Judy is VP of CMB's Travel & Entertainment practice and loves collaborating with her clients. She's the mom of two college students and the wife of an oyster farmer. Follow Judy on Twitter at @Judy_LC

One of the most enjoyable things about managing the Voices of CMB Blog is the wide range of perspectives on market research (and more), from the CMB team. Their expertise, insight, and creativity make editing this blog a real pleasure. But before we embark on 2014, here are a few of our favorites from the past year:

• Nick Pangallo's good advice for whether you're tackling those New Year's resolutions or your next New Product Development engagement. Nick explains what diet techniques like Weight Watchers' PointsPlus® and research techniques like Maximum Difference Scaling have in common: Want to Lose Weight? Try a Tradeoff Exercise!
  
  

• Our Director of Qualitative Research, Anne Hooper, shares her proven methods for routing out those not so honest online focus group participants:How to Catch a Catfish: Secrets of a Qualitative Researcher
  
  

• Companies are wasting a lot of time and money on Segmentation studies that aren't usable. CMB's Chief Methodologist, Richard Schreuer, explains why, and what to do about it:The Segmentation Research Crisis
  
  

• Developing new and innovative products isn't easy (or cheap). Athena Rodriguez shares the 10 best practices in New Product Development research that help our clients make product development decisions with confidence: Taking Product Development to Infinity and Beyond
  
  
  
• It was quite a year for loyalty, with several high-profile companies jettisoning their programs. VP of CMB's Travel and Hospitality practice, Judy Melanson, on why some brands are saying "good-bye": Do You Need a Loyalty Program to Drive Customer Loyalty?

What topics do you want us to cover in 2014? Tell us in the comments, and see you next year!

Megan is CMB's Senior Product Marketing Manager, her New Year's resolutions include banning the word "utilize" from the blog when "use" will do, and skiing more.

Last year, when Gizmodo released a copy of Apple’s Genius Bar training manual, there was much talk that the company was educating Geniuses to engage in a type of psychological manipulation. Why were so many people distressed by these sales and marketing techniques? Using these techniques to “frame” the customer experience is hardly a new concept. Maybe it was because Apple’s product and service offerings are so strong and so beloved, some people forgot that the Apple Store is just that, a store, where things are bought and sold. 

This led me to wonder about how such training approaches have changed over the years –after all we’re so much more highly evolved nowadays, right? Ha! Enter the 1950 Packard Service Management Training Manual. Obvious cultural tags of the times aside (“That’s a swell idea.”), there’s almost nothing Apple purportedly tells Geniuses to do that Packard didn’t tell its employees 60+ years ago!

Take this line: “Although the merchandise and services we have to offer consists of: parts, accessories, lubrication and service labor, they are not the items the owner is buying. The owner wants to buy results. So, let’s sell him results such as: economy, safety, performance, comfort, convenience, and pride of ownership.”

Translated to a modern day perspective with a swap of only a few words:  “Although the merchandise and services we have to offer consist of: [smartphones, MP3 players], accessories, and service, they are not the items the owner is buying. The owner wants to buy results. So, let’s sell [her] results such as: performance, convenience, and pride of ownership.” This could be Apple, or many other consumer-oriented service companies.

A hilarious 1950-style exchange…

This brings me full circle to 2013 and Amazon’s Vine reviewer program—a program which provides an elite group of customers products to review, and often to keep.  The program has drawn a bit of attention lately, including a recent NPR piece. Some commenters are ambivalent, and a good number take a strong position that this is manipulative or biased (even if they sometimes sound envious), and a few defend it. In 1950, Packard reps were told to focus on their town doctors, and the logic holds up—doctors needed their cars to make house calls, they were highly respected community members and, guess what, they were the ones with money to buy new Packards! Was this strategic or manipulative? Or did it just feed off of basic human nature, for better or worse?

Speaking of worse, one thing that has changed across the decades is that individual sales and marketers aren’t allowed to take responsibility for, or acknowledge mistakes directly. As a Packard rep in 1950 you were encouraged to take responsibility for errors, omissions, or other flaws by directly addressing them with the customer. Nowadays legal compliance departments appear to have outlawed use of any terms that imply responsibility. 

So what’s a marketer to do? How to be honest while simultaneously “framing” your product/service strategically? Well, it helps to start with a solid offering (yes, I am a fan of Apple). If your product doesn’t meet the basic promises, don’t expect to build success on that with brilliant service—it won’t ring true. Measure the connection of what you promise and what customers perceive so that you can focus on what matters.

We help clients do this every day with customer studies—call them voice of the customer, customer experience, customer satisfaction, even call them customer journey mapping or NPS. Our focus is on providing the insights from customers that will answer business questions like:  What motivates customers to advocate our brand/product and how can we drive more of it? Or, Where are customers getting “stuck” in their “journey” with us and how do we remove barriers to repeat purchase?

But sadly, none of this work is of much use other than for a self-satisfied pat on the back if employees are telling customers to give a high score, instead of just earning it and allowing the process to work to get the real feedback for change. I cringe when staff say things like, “You will be getting a survey and we must get all 10s or I will (fill in the blank: be fired, lose a bonus, etc.).” They are seriously undermining the premise that this research is being done to learn what to improve and make better customer experiences. And even if I loved the service, I will then often not want to complete the survey.

To that end, kudos to Jiffy Lube, for whom I recently took a post-service satisfaction study where they explicitly asked if their rep had told me to give a good score. Probably as a research geek I noticed this in a way that the average person would not. Nevertheless, it was refreshing! It allowed me to give true customer feedback and feel confident the company really wanted to know what I thought, not just check a box, so they could make it better for the next person.  Satisfying as a customer and as a researcher.

Last week’s Chief Strategy Officer Summit in NYC (#CSONY) was an electric example of brand strategy in action. If you didn’t get a chance to attend this year I highly recommend making the trip in 2014. In the meantime, I want to share some of the big questions we marketers and strategists need to ask ourselves and our organizations this coming year...and beyond:

• Are you continuously focusing and refreshing your brand?  If your customer can’t rattle off what your brand is about, chances are your messaging isn’t streamlined enough. Jennifer Dorian, Chief Strategy Officer for Turner Entertainment Networks, passionately described the big decisions they make as they 1) keep their brand properties crystal clear and 2) continue to evolve their brands. Dorian argues that brands need an “essence;” some of Turner’s brand essences: TNT=Drama, TBS=Funny, TCM=Classic Movies. TNT, anchored by Law & Order, embodies drama with programming that focuses on the line between good and evil, passion, and the willingness to take a risk—they’re the stories that make life interesting. TNT is continuously developing original compelling programming that makes drama come alive for viewers (their new show Mob City is a great example). The outcome of their efforts, to focus and clarify their brands? 25 consecutive periods of growth. What are you doing to keep your brand focused and fresh?

• Which target audiences will you “double down” on? OK, you’re a successful brand with a devout following and yet you know you need to make calculated big bets to claim your unique positioning. South Street Strategy’s Mark Carr was on hand to talk about thinking deeply about your target audience, and your brand’s playbook for actively engaging them. South Street Strategy and CMB, helped the Tauck travel company go from business decisions to successful new product launch with a focused innovation approach. Hypotheses abounded for how to grow and refresh the nine decade old company—intergenerational travel, kid focused, teen trips? CMB and South Street partnered with Tauck to explore people’s life goals for relaxation and for travel. The tram then used a quantitative approach to prioritize areas with greatest appeal. They unearthed the “engaged traveler”—those interested in cultural immersion, moderately active, and seeking adventure. Based on this, Tauck launched and optimized the Culturious brand, a highly successful set of tours geared to active Baby Boomers. You can learn more about our approach here.

• Are you engaged deeply and passionately enough? Let’s be honest with ourselves, that 30 year old degree from a pedigreed school is looking pretty stale. Digital natives (yup, kids) are supplementing their education with experiences and experiments that are really immersive, both in and out of school. Tanya Van Court, Discovery Communications’ SVP of Partner Marketing, spoke about how the number one non-fiction media company in the world’s Discovery Education brand is re-purposing its content for the classroom.  Discovery is inspiring curiosity and critical thinking with exceptional content delivered in classroom length snippets. When I was a kid we took a bus to the next town to visit the library and scour microfiche for an article from the decade before. Now, these digital natives are actually interacting with materials from the bottom of the ocean to the furthest reaches of our galaxy, all before breakfast, and often just for fun. They interact with content differently, they expect access to current and relevant info and they crave personalized experiences. As Discovery Education disrupts the business of textbooks, watch out world, these digital natives are going to be out in the workforce soon and they combine a lot of passion and outrageous curiosity. Is it time to examine your company and your personal brand through their lens?

• Is your brand under Caesar’s control or is it spawning fleets of scientists?  Intuit’s Bennett Blank shared his view that “designing for delight” is everyone’s job.  We all need to have deep customer empathy to uncover unsolved customer problems and to think flexibly so we can build durable competitive advantage for our companies. Intuit’s goal is to improve their customers’ financial lives so profoundly that customers can’t imagine going back to the old way they did things. Of course, the makers of TurboTax, Quicken and Mint.com know a lot about making exceptional products and continuously innovating.  Blank contrasts two types of leaders—the” Caesar” and the “Scientist.”  The Caesar’s goal is to win (and not to lose), and to be right. The scientist however, bases her ideas on evidence, has a “do it now” style, and a willingness to be enlightened through trial and error, experimentation, and data. Scientists get results that can be characterized as “discoveries,” while the Caesar sits around worrying that he might get stabbed.  Intuit is frequently and rapidly experimenting so it can deliver “more better ideas” into the earlier part of the innovation funnel that can actually delight the customer. 

• What’s “long-term” mean for your brand? Quite possibly the conference planners most intriguing decision (or lucky collision?) was pairing Rebecca Keiser, Strategy Administrator for NASA, with Gary Liu, Global Ad/Product Strategy for Spotify. Gary talked about how Spotify’s strategy needs to expand to address the “further future,” and when he talks about the further future for Spotify he’s talking about 6 months away.  NASA, on the other hand, is thinking about the year 2030. Spotify uses word like “throwing together” and NASA word choice like “forging.” It was a great reminder to think about what long-term means for your brand and the decisions you need to make.

So, what questions will you ask yourself, your team, and your organization, as you look to 2014 and beyond?

Julie is an Account Executive at CMB, she's definitely a "Scientist" not a "Caesar;" you can follow her on Twitter @Julie1research.

It was a recent Saturday afternoon, and I had a laundry list of errands to complete. My last stop was the liquor store where I immediately found myself stalled in the vodka aisle. My list simply read “vodka,” but the vodka market is saturated with diverse options, so which one should I choose? Just a few of the attributes where options vary widely include: reputation (“Hello, Grey Goose”), quality (“Hello again, Grey Goose”), name (“Good evening, Little Black Dress”), packaging (“Hey, Crystal Head”), flavor (“Hi, Van Gogh PB&J”), and price (“Sup, Aristocrat?”). Pinnacle Vodka alone boasts 30 different flavors in their Cocktail Catalog.

Having all these choices is great, right?  I thought so too at first, but then I spent five minutes pacing that same 20 foot stretch, and then ten minutes (my palms sweaty), and, oh please don’t let me have just spent 15 minutes in the vodka aisle. The diagnosis was clear; I was exhibiting all the symptoms of the choice overload blues.

Choice overload occurs when the addition of more choices becomes overwhelming and actually starts to have adverse effects (authors Scheibehenne, Greifeneder, and Todd provide a robust description in their 2010 meta-analysis “Can There Ever Be Too Many Options? A Meta-Analytic Review of Choice Overload”).In my case, I was having trouble committing to a choice, which resulted in a longer-than-expected errand. Scheibehenne et al. also describe other effects like a decrease in satisfaction with the final choice and an increased likelihood in not making any choice at all.

Is there a cure?

Recent research by Townsend and Khan suggests that a verbal depiction of information—text— can decrease choice overload when there are a large number of choices because verbal information requires more deliberate processing. Perhaps, with an inventory list of vodka SKUs, I would have more quickly eliminated Naked Jay Vodka’s Big Dill Pickle flavor.

Of course, the impact of choice overload goes well beyond the vodka aisle; think about choosing investments, a tablet for your child, or a loyalty program. It’s especially relevant for those of us who design questionnaires to be rigorous and yield insights, without drowning our respondents. One of the best known researchers of choice overload, Dr. Sheena Iyengar, offers these 4Cs  to consider when you’re charged with designing and presenting options:

1. Cut: very simply, if possible, consider reducing the number of options

2. Concretize:  help people understand the consequences between the choices they make in a vivid way—make the benefits real to your prospective customer

3. Categorize: categories help people tell choices apart, and the categories need to make sense to the customer, not just to you, the provider

4. Condition for complexity: Ask the questions with the fewest choices first and the questions with most choices last

So what happened next on my liquor store errand? Lucky for the vodka market, I don’t like to leave anything unchecked on my errand list. I ended up with a bottle of Van Gogh Vodka Dutch Caramel.

Kyle is a recent transplant to Boston and to CMB. He enjoys long runs along the Charles, the freedom of choice, and vodka cocktails.

Do you know a Segmentation guru, a tech whiz, or a strategic selling machine? We’re looking for collaborative, engaged professionals to join our growing team. Check out our newest Career Opportunities!