If I were CXO (part 1)

This is the first in an experimental series of entries. I am going to pick 10 different companies and explain what I would do if I were hired as the CXO (Chief Experience Officer). I don't know if I'll continue just yet, but I'm willing to give it a shot to see how it works out.

First off, my favorite company to hate, and a frequent bash victim of this blog - Blockbuster.

Discarding the fact that I would more than likely turn down an offer by a company that is doomed to be out of business before 2020 and is squarely opposite in orientation to my principles, this is what I would do...

1. Start with why - Refocus the company from making short-term revenue to one of providing truly great in-home entertainment experiences
2. Apologize with a megaphone - Blockbuster recently reinstated the dumb tax and is once again collecting late fees. This action speaks to the fact that Blockbuster exists to make money first and foremost and does not exist to be of preeminent value to people seeking home entertainment. I would immediately and publicly apologize for this misstep, remove the late fee policy and explain how it is antithetical to Blockbusters fundamental reason for being.
3. Make amends - Just like a past entry in this blog points out, apologies without genuine gestures that show contrition are platitudes and ultimately contemptuous. I would refund each and every late fee collected since the reinstatement in the form of store credit.
4. Catch-up - Partner with a hardware retailer (Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, or possibly Tivo) to get downloadable movies off of computers and onto the television.
5. Fix the in-store experience:
   • The lines are too long and picking a movie from the shelves is too time consuming. Put kiosks in the store for help selecting movies and checking out.
   • Stop yelling "Welcome to Blockbuster" as customers walk in.
   • Upgrade the POS and peripherals (scanner, printer and signature pad) along with the couponing process that barely work, waste paper and power and serve to commoditize the offering.
   • Unify all the CRM systems to enable promotions to be applied and tracked without the use of paper
   • Enable "return to any store"
6. Fix the multi-channel experience - starting with quantitative and qualitative user research search for opportunities to ultimately improve customers in-home entertainment lives and execute on those that align with the overall brand proposition.
7. Expand the reach - Put vending kiosks or mini-stores into airports and other locations where impulse meets opportunity. It is critical to integrate these with the overall CRM system and "return to any store" policy in order to drive the sense that Blockbuster exists to serve it's customers in the way that will most fit into their busy lives.

Rating:

My "If I were CXO" experiment - Like it. I Think I'll do it again.

Current customer experience at Blockbuster - Garbage

"No, no, no, Lisa. If adults don't like their jobs, they don't go on strike. They just go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American Way." - Homer Simpson

The Long OW!

Brandon Schauer, one of my past Sapient co-workers, now works at Adaptive Path and is relatively well known in UX circles for his thought leadership. One of my favorites is The Long Wow. In brief, "the long wow is a means to achieving long-term customer loyalty through systematically impressing your customers again and again."

Well, true to my nature, I feel compelled to point out the flip side, which I call the long OW. In brief, the long OW is a means to achieving long-term customer hatred through systematically disappointing your customers again and again.

Where long wow companies like Apple and Nike continually look for ways to express to customers how much they appreciate them through phenomenally well designed, user-centric products and services. Long OW companies like Blockbuster, the cable companies and phone companies seemingly look for ways to contemptuously exploit their customers through products and no-service processes that are equally well designed, except that the products and no-services are dollar-centric.

I understand the mindset and organizational culture that drive the long OW companies to make decisions like these. Like many American cultural aspects they are all focused on $ tomorrow. What they fail to see is the long term lasting hatred consumers have for them and the taint these business practices have on their brands that can't be washed away.

Blockbuster is the perfect case study for this. I know, I know... I pick on Blockbuster quite often... But THIS IS EXACTLY THE POINT! Neither I, nor other consumers have forgotten the YEARS of gouging we suffered from the late-fee nazis in Blockbuster management. Even when Blockbuster's Click & Mortar offering is VASTLY superior to every online only offering - people still choose netflix. The people who still patronize Blockbuster do it only begrudgingly and silently hope for the day when a online & meat-space combo retailer will offer something better so that they can stick it to the man REAL GOOD!

Cell phone companies and the Cable companies have paved the way for this type of business model for decades! The Cable companies were first. Having regional monopolies, the combination of easy money and little competition has created crappy behemoths of companies who really could not give a rat's ass about how much consumers hate them. Maybe instead of focusing on churn, they should focus on the root cause - the legacy of contempt they have shown for their customers.

How can the leaders of these companies not get it? Consumers generally feel that all the options suck it's up to them to choose the one that least sucks for them and their lifestyle.

My recommendation for these purveyors of contempt is to either:

1) Go for a "truth and reconciliation" approach in which you actually try to make legitimate amends with people who despise your organization. If you decide to do this one, you have to do more than say "sorry", you have to show you mean it. See my past blog entry on this topic for more information.

-OR-

2) Prepare for an upstart with a clean reputation to come and eat your lunch.

Rating Time:

Long Wow companies - Like them.

Long OW companies - Garbage.

Tell em' Large Marge Sent Ya!

Oh cruel Starbucks! Why do you mock me so?

I read an article in INC magazine online today about Starbucks, authored by one of my favorite bloggers Joel Spolsky and was inspired to write an entry wherein I do my usual thing; offering free advice to those who did not ask for it and certainly won't take it.

Many people already know what is wrong with Starbucks, what I am going to do is identify 3 ways to fix it.

1) Well Designed Kiosk Systems - I've been harping on this one forever! Some people say that Kiosks would impact the illusory atmosphere of a little coffee house escape that Starbucks has so carefully crafted, and I'm not sure that they are wrong. What I sure of however, is that the daunting rush hour lines crush that illusion in a way no well-designed kiosk could ever deign to. Picture walking into a Starbucks (even during rush-hour) and passing a little fob (which knows who you are, what your favorite drink is and your preferred form of payment - including credit card, just like amazon) over the kiosk. The kiosk presents your typical order (which is transmitted to the barista), along with an upsell pitch (offering a free biscotti if you buy a travel mug) in a way that does not require you to take ANY extra steps at all (much like a banner ad on a web site) if you chose not to touch it (of course the kiosks are touch screens) and also presents you with any other recent orders you have made (like when you came in with your insanely hot girlfriend and ordered her favorite drink too). You touch your choice, the order is submitted to the barista, your card is charged, you read the paper until a barista calls out: "Herman! Your grande non-fat ice latte is ready!". At which point you enjoy your drink.

Get it?

1. Walk in
2. Flash an RFID embedded fob
3. One touch for a typical order
4. Read the paper / check email on your phone / chat up your girlfriend
5. Drink your expensive coffee beverage

You can't tell me that is not a remarkable experience.... well you could, but I would think you were lying, joking or not too bright.

2) iBucks iPhone App - Picture an app on your iphone that knew all the starbucks locations, your calendar and your location too(if you allowed it to). You could:

1. tell it to have your favorite drink ready in 5 min for when you walk in (of course the charge is handled in the same way as it is described above)
2. have it offer you text-alerts 20 -30 min before certain meetings with discounts on your favorite drinks
3. invite your other iBucks enabled pals to join you

3) Solve the actual problem at the root - Create a position and hire a "Chief Experience Officer" whose job it was to continually infuse and reinvigorate every location, every system and every employee with the essence of the Starbucks brand promise - A truly great coffee drinking experience.

Oh yeah, almost forgot... If Starbucks already has a CXO. Fire him/her and hire a new one who will actually do their job well.

Starbucks rush-hour experience - Garbage

False Niceness = Real Rudenss

"Hello! Welcome to Blockbuster!" "Welcome to MOES!" "Thank you for calling Bank of America. Your call is important to us." Please spare me your meaningless platitudes.

We've all heard them. What do they all have in common? A complete lack of sincerity or authenticity. Does the minimum-wage earning person checking DVD's in at Blockbuster sound anything like someone you know who is happy to see you? No? Why not? Because while they might not be unhappy to see you, they are probably more likely apathetic. So if the people are apathetic and we know it is a given that the IVR (irritating voice response) machine is by definition apathetic, then why do they say the things they don't mean? Simple. Because they are forced to by the man.

Some people who are in charge of these brands just don't get it. Sincerity sells. Maybe not as much as sex, but it still sells. Employees at Nordstrom are genuinely happy to serve you and it shows (maybe I'll write a post about why I like Nordstrom). That's part of the reason people actually enjoy shopping there. So what is going through the mind of the marketing and branding executives who make these decisions? In order to figure this out, I have laid out the possible options 1) They think customers will actually fall for the false platitude. i.e., they think the masses are egregiously stupid. 2) They think customers will notice the insincerity and they really don't care how the customers feel when faced with it. 3) They think customers will not even notice the greeting at all and will go on their merry way (more on this later). 4) Some combination of the above.

I loathe all of these possibilities with 1 and 2 leading the pack by a wide margin. Now each of these also has something else in common - they are all actually rude - why? Because they are both insincere and obtrusive in nature.

Back to option 3, where customers don't notice the "greeting". The ironic thing here is that customers who don't notice (or those who choose not to respond) could actually be perceived as the ones who are being rude here because they did not respond to a greeting.

You may notice that I have not called out the famous Wal-Mart greeters. This is not an omission. Wal-Mart greeters get a bad name from all the meaningless (i.e. - devoid of any meaning) fake welcomes we receive every day. Wal-Mart greeters, on the other hand, actually are sincere! They are usually senior citizens who are happy to be there and are happy to interact with people. This is not rude. This is genuine friendliness, which I like. The rest... garbage.

BAD Retailer!!

There are many types of bad retail experiences. And today I'll talk about the ones with a poor mental model.

For those people not in the design community a mental model is an imaginative construct a person makes in their head to try to understand how something works - e.g., many e-commerce websites give us a mental model of a "shopping cart" to illustrate how one component of the shopping process works.

Many people in the design community use the concept of mental models to ensure that what they are designing, be it a product or a interactive experience, is comprehensible by the intended audience. Well, maybe it is time that executives of certain physical retail establishments tried to use this concept in regards to the physical shopping experience in their stores.

Why do I say this - as usual, because I am gosh darn angry! What mega-moron came up with the concept that a store should try to change the way humans think and behave to fit into a non-intuitive logistical model.

I don't remember if Circuit City or Service Merchandise came first with the whole "get a ticket, pay, and walk out of the store to a loading area" model. But I hate them both equally for the setting a horrible trend that other stores have followed.

First off, the whole concept is flawed - The process is designed around a concept where a store is trying to save the cost of holding inventory and using a warehouse like layout "in the back" to minimize the space needed while still maintaining an aesthetic store environment. NEWS FLASH - PEOPLE WHO SHOP AT LOW OR MODERATELY PRICED STORES ARE MORE CONCERNED WITH PRICE AND CONVENIENCE THAN HAVING A LINOLEUM FLOOR! Just ask any successful big-box retailer like Home Depot, Lowes, Best Buy, Sam's Club, etc. - Not that these companies don't have their issues, but that's a blog for another day. My point here is open up the back room you dolts! You can have your savings on the footprint required for inventory and have even more savings by removing your "tastefully decorated" store.

Secondly, who goes to a store with the idea of buying a ticket which represents a piece of merchandise? Nobody does. Enough said.

Lastly, every time I go to one of these establishments there is always some problem at the loading area. I wish I could avoid this whole part of the process and pick what I want from a shelf, put it on a cart, pay for it and GET OUT OF YOUR STORE WITHOUT TALKING TO ANOTHER SOUL!!! I don't come to Brandsmart to make friends, I come because I want to buy something at a reasonable price as quickly and pain free as possible.

Threadless - Immersive, Expressive & Transparent

I Love Threadless!

www.threadless.com that is. If you haven't seen it, go check it out. It fits the model of long term staying power in web 2.0 land. And what is that model?

Immersive - You can get lost on threadless for hours looking at and commenting on all the designs, blogs, photos, etc.

Expressive - Threadless allows members of it's devoted community to express themselves in all sorts of ways. Designers can upload their designs, have them voted on, commented on and produced (if enough people vote for them). Consumers can grade designs, comment or suggest improvements, create blogs, or even get into the act themselves by submitting slogans for "Type Tees". You can also get credit for uploading photos of yourself in threadless shirts.

Transparent - working with or purchasing on threadless is a seamless process that is hassle free.

When online businesses come into existence that bring immersive, expressive and transparent experiences to consumers, success is sure to follow.