Page 42 - Marketing the Basics 2nd

34 Marketing: the Basics
The challenge that marketers are facing who are not the Takashimaya or Four Seasons or Saks Fifth Avenues of the world is: how do we integrate a great experience at a more sensible price point? Most simply cannot afford the almost over-the-top service, though wonderful if you can afford it, of a personal shopper at a top-of-the-line department store.
It is early days, however, and some first or second efforts are suggesting it can be done. We have been doing some work with a high-tech giant in the US where as part of a two-day marketing seminar we do group work to figure out how to make the experi- ence of buying a personal computer a superior one. This is a fairly mundane purchase, much of it done via phone, web and/or in a store. Yet the participants are able to come up with some quite innovative ways of enhancing the customer experience. Recently Canada’s largest telephone company, Bell Canada, appointed a Vice President of Customer Experience, and Air Canada similarly recently appointed a Vice President of In-flight Customer Experience, both fairly mundane, common, everyday purchases for many. Yet these large firms made key executive appointments to focus on the fact of their entry into the experience economy. On a more mundane level yet, we can think of our local neighbourhood supermarket, which is more expensive than a large box store for serious family food shopping. Yet, the pleasantness of the staff, the butcher remembering our favourite cut of beef, the harried talk with the fishmonger about farmed versus wild salmon, the chances of running into a neighbour and having a nice chat – in other words, the fun of shopping – the experience, keeps us coming back.
Strategic scents have also proven to be a successful tactic to enhance the customers’ experience. It has been reported that appropriate smells can increase the shopper’s dwelling time by as much as 40 per cent in a retail environment and increase sales from 20 to 90 per cent. It’s not only bakeries and restaurants that are capitalizing on this tactic. Companies such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Bloomingdales and Hallmark have been identified as using these unique ‘store sprays’ to boost customer satisfaction and experience.
Our question to you is simple, what is your business doing to ensure that your customer’s current experience is a superior one to buying from you in the past or buying from your competition?