How often do you hear VOC

Given an opportunity, which air-conditioner would you buy: split or window?

Would you buy 'split' at the price point of the 'window' unit?

Of course, I would go for 'split' at the price point of the 'window' unit. Less noise at lesser price! 

But I've not done so yet.
Not because the split unit is not available at the price point of the window unit but because I've been on a search for a split air-conditioner of which the diffuser is small enough to fit into the opening for a window air-conditioner. I am yet to be delighted on such an offering.

Like in most houses provision for a window unit is a given. 

Same isn't the case for a split unit which actually needs a smaller hole, much smaller than one for the window unit. Is it a design-flaw or is the exclusion itself by-design?

Whatever may be the case but above paragraphs have some Voice Of Customer (VOC) hidden in there that has potential to differentiate an offering. 

1/ For a builder-developer and an architect by providing a hole for a split unit at construction stage itself. This is to avoid the wastage of breaking the wall open for split unit.

2/ For an air-conditioner manufacturer-designer by making diffuser of a split unit small enough to fit into the opening provided for a window unit. This will create an opportunity for increased sale of the split unit.

From the configurations (see figure) of a typical manufacturer, you may find that none of the diffusers of the 'split' unit fit the 'window' width that is about 660 millimeters (standard). Of course, this is not until someone makes it to fit into the window and makes the customers aware of it thereby pulling 'window' unit customers to buy 'split' unit.

There are many opportunities if marketers and designers choose to innovate by mining into VOC such as above. Differentiated offerings as above could be possible by simple frugal innovations though many real innovations themselves are possible with frugal expenses on R&D if at all.

"How often do you hear VOC?"
Jokingly many reply: "Hardly any! Because she (customer) doesn't speak!"

Although this is fit to be a whatsapp reply, part of it is certainly true.

Customers are difficult to get to speak. Hardly any tell you what they want.
Fewer know what they need although they want to design their own life.
So somehow both the above types get rid of you by filling in the blanks in customer satisfaction survey forms in order to comply to your request. Analysis of such 'tick-marks' on the forms adds a little value if at all. 

If at all any of them do (speak), hardly 4-out-of-100 that are not satisfied with the offering, do so to complain reluctantly.
Rest leave without telling the supplier and join hands with the competitor.

Knowing this well some excellent companies capture VOC proactively.

Komatsu for instance fitted GPS-enabled software (KOMTRAX) in their equipment so that their engineers can capture and 'visualize' customer problems, needs, etc. in real-time as also they can value-add to their operations by updating them on their equipment utilization, etc.

Toyota for instance, fitted micro-phones in their new car models during test marketing so that they could capture 'feelings and expressions' of their customers that could be built into the product before commercially releasing them as competition to their own current models.

So do you have guts to cannibalize your own products before your competitors do?

Can't you make your customer speak, capture it, and build it into your offering faster than your competitor just as the Komatsus and Toyotas did?

Why not? 

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1)
Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2)
Functional-Aesthetics
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
How To Make A Difference
Nauseous Communication Gaps
Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily
Does recognition really matter
Customer or Custo-Mer ?
Experienced A Delightful Payment !
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul
Do you keep curing your brand ?
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality!
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers
Do You Force Customers To Quit
Should one care for value ?
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
Do You Ask Right Questions ?
Talk In Order To Listen! 

Who Comes First: Consumer Or Customer ?

Other day in one of my sessions, the marketing staff complained about (false) sale of some products. The goods sold by the company a couple of years ago were still lying in near-unpacked condition at buyer's end. The new staff at their client company appeared non-cooperative when the seller approached to effect a new sale.

The objective of the training workshop was to improve sales revenue. The case under study turned out to be one of a wrong-sale.

Why were the goods lying in near-unpacked condition for so long?

Because the user didn't find it fit-for-use.

Why?
Because the order was finalized by purchase manager without adequate involvement of the end-user.

What had happened was the seller knew the purchase manager who happened to have 'influence' on closing the deal. So he used his relationship to materialise the order.

In the process the real user got ignored.

Not only does ego of the user gets hurt due to such indifference but also some opportunities get lost.

Opportunity to understand real needs: the voices of grassroot level customers.
Opportunity to design-in such voices in order to make the offering robust.
Opportunity to outdo competition through customized offering.
Opportunity to enhance relationship.
Opportunity to create 'word-of-mouth' publicity advocates reinforced through delightful experience of the offering.

All this loss at the cost of loss of future business.

Buyer's management might succeed in forcing the end-user to use bought goods particularly if it's a costly capital equipment. But such forceful 'selling' calls for some long-term Costs-Of-Poor-Quality (COPQ): Costs due to reluctance to use. Costs of wrong use. Costs due to inadequate serving of purpose. Costs of sour relationships among people within and without.

All this waste because of overselling or inadequate selling.

What's the learning?

Understand the difference between Consumer and Customer! End-user of the pen or pencil, the child for instance, is the consumer. Buyer, the parents, are the customer.

Consider the voice of consumer regarding functional use (her needs) first while designing an offering.

Do consider the voice of customer as well in order to design-in peripheral aspects of the offering as well as nuts and bolts of the corresponding buying process: the wants.

Sometimes however the role of consumer as well of the customer may be played by the same personality.

In any case, she might take presence of both the needs and wants for granted as a 'must'. But the seller/marketeer can't afford to because the absence of both surely won't be taken for granted individually nor jointly by both the consumer as well as the customer.

Also read a few relevant blogposts hereunder:

Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-1)
Aesthetics Spills-Over Function, Want Spills-Over Need (Part-2)
Functional-Aesthetics
WOW Work-Culture: By Telling or Selling
How To Make A Difference
Nauseous Communication Gaps
Judge If It's Paralysis-By-Analysis
Suggestions On-Sale, None-To-Buy
Taken-For-Granted ? You Deserve It !!
Strategise To Achieve Targets Daily
Does recognition really matter
Customer or Custo-Mer ? 
Experienced A Delightful Payment !
An Experience of Heart-and-Soul
Do you keep curing your brand ? 
A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality! 
Listen to iceberg of VOC to acquire customers
Do You Force Customers To Quit
Should one care for value ? 
Treat Root-causes, Not Symptoms !
Do You Ask Right Questions ? 
Talk In Order To Listen! 

A customer gets what s/he deserves: Shoddy Quality!

A Customer Complaint made to a reputed taxi service in Mumbai was: 

1/ The taxi booked was not found until few minutes after the appointed time. So the driver was called (by customer) to find out his 'whereabouts'.

Taxi was found to be parked away on road. The driver refused to go to customer's colony when requested. He threatened to go away if the customer did not go where the taxi was parked.

2/ Nor had he informed his arrival although he said that he had. In fact, customer called him up a few minutes after 'no-show'. Attached screen-shot of the customer's cell shows 'outgoing' to driver's number but not incoming from his number.

3/ On telephone as well as in person, when the driver was asked 'why he did not come inside the colony' he arrogantly replied: "Our Taxi-Service-Provider gives too much importance to Customer. (In his vernacular language: "Ye Taxi-Service-waleney Customer ko aisa, implying 'chadhake', banaya hai''...and so on).

Supplier's response after over a week of registering the complaint was:

"Please accept my sincere apologies for the inconvenience caused to you."

Where does the above real-life practice fit into business principles?

How should, a service provider wanting to stay and flourish in business, look at a typical customer complaint?

The above transaction is a typical case-study of INDIFFERENCE that should be avoided at all the touch-points with all stakeholders especially with customers by both the front-liners as well as the rear-end officers. (Reference 'world of Kaizen' book).

What is a customer's rightful 'expect'ation after a typical complaint (that hardly 4% of the dissatisfied customers choose to make):

1/ First of all the first-aid so that s/he gets quick relief. (In addition, apology is anyway expected but it's of no use without the First-aid.)

2/ Right to know specific details of what exact action was taken to prevent the situation from occurring in future.

How does a typical supplier respond. What INDIFFERENCE do most suppliers engage into:

1/ First of all they deny the complaint then they defend.

2/ They express dry apology without taking preventive action. Such an apology is like rubbing the wound. (The taxi service in above case fell in this category.)

3/ They don't keep customer informed about specific details of what exact action (if at all) was taken to prevent the situation.

4/ They expect customers to forget service-errors s/he had faced during the year in lieu of a yearly-gift-packet and/or sweets. While the gift 'dry-of-emotions' reinforces their vow to quit, most customers shamelessly accept it in exchange of an unexpressed abuse (to the supplier).

Funnily, a typical supplier doesn't mind recruiting a well-paid customer-care officer who is well-trained in handling an errate customer, and further training him in writing flowery letters so that 'issues' are taken 'care' of.

Result:  Customer continues the service provider only until s/he finds another option so that s/he can QUIT. Meanwhile, s/he plays the role of a devil-publicity-officer 'bad-mouth'ing the supplier's services among not less than a dozen prospective customers.

As someone says, it takes 10 times more money and efforts to acquire a new customer.

Isn't it wiser instead to invest this money in training associates on what the customer 'expects' rather than spending wastefully on reactively 'managing' the effects of indifference.

Should a customer bother about such 'small' issues?:

If s/he wants a change in such careless attitude, then yes!

S/he must play her small-bit-a-role though. Else, s/he should not blame suppliers for shoddy quality of service. S/he must help to get service-error out of the system which otherwise anyway will keep popping up above the carpet exactly when unwanted.

If and when it eventually does pop-up then the corresponding customer got what s/he deserved. Also s/he makes herself deserving to what s/he will get in future.

Do you keep curing your brand?

I requested telephone company to shift one of my landlines to my old house. It took one week for them to respond.

On 'the' day of shifting, I told their lineman about the instrument being defective: "Sometimes outgoing calls couldn't be made". As usual the reply was "instruments in short-supply". Having heard similar replies in past, I had installed a cordless anyway.

"I would appreciate if you please try (to test) a few from your go-down  You might get a good one in the dump there if I am lucky": without any expectations very politely I made a request to the govt employee.

Next day I was 'awestruck'. I saw the lineman in front of me with the instrument without any followup.

When did you last have a WOW experience like that?

For me it was 'one of it's kind delight' experienced over a past few months.

In a high-mistrust society, where "I will meet you at 9'O-clock" promise might mean 9 a.m. or 9 p.m. or whatever the '9' means to the parties concerned, there are more chances of you getting 'awfully struck' than 'awestruck with a WOW'.

Although spiritual person in you may look for a positive awe even in an awful experience, in practical business sense what does one expect: A product to perform to it's specifications just as one would expect a person to perform his duty and fulfill his promise.

In real life, past experience about a product or a person does stay in mind making one knowledgeable about what/who does or do not fulfill a promise consistently and reliably.

To me such an 'experience' full of intangible feelings and associations created along-with it's delivered-tangibles is the 'brand experience'. And corresponding 'expectations' created in the mind of customer that linger longer is the 'brand image'.

Conventionally, a brand is recognized by a bundle of it's tangibles and intangibles delivered consistently over a period of time. The American Marketing Association defines brand as a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers ... A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller.

Companies do spend a lot of money and efforts on 'building a brand' but most of it on building it 'externally'. They spend a fortune on choosing 'right' name for the brand , an 'attractive' logo, 'look and feel' of the offering itself and that of the POS (point-of-sale) outfits.

Above all, apart from 'being' on multimedia and on eye-catching hoardings, etc., 'the brand ambassador as well as CEO' spends precious time on promoting it. Companies also ensure appointment of a consultant, a dedicated team, a marketing plan and budget for it.

Coming back to my experience in the telephone case, 'brand image of the person' who delivered telephone service appeared to be good at least on that particular day. Brand image of the telephone/service/company however was in general far below-standard. May be so because a system was not in place to make such 'good' experience repeatable in their day-to-day operations. In fact, the damage is so severe that it's beyond cure although it is still above water with gas-supply from 'motherly' government.

In short, with the help of marketing-efforts a brand may get born in the mind-space of a current and/or prospective customer. But in order that it 'lives (there) happily ever after', operations discipline plays a major role in maintaining it without which 'external marketing' to augment it's 'look and feel' stays superficial. Without improved-operations-combined-with-hearty-smile at each of it's touch-points in the process of delivery internal as well as external, it is like being indifferent to deliver customer's real needs, expectations on quality and differentiated experience.

I had not tried an augmented food-dish until the counter-boy at a fast-food-joint educated me on it the other day with a genuine smile. It was 'available' on the menu-card all these days. But it was not well-communicated. So it did not result into business due to ineffective communication. The dish did not go beyond staying on the shelf just as it did not go beyond at-most staying in the peripheral vision of the customer.

Marketing may move an offer to customer's mind-shelf but operations must move it off-the-shelf. Indifference by anyone in the chain thus is a sure way to 'kill a brand' each moment a customer is in 'touch' with it's unsatisfactory experience.

If you go by a finding that "every dissatisfied customer 'bad-mouths' a brand to at least ten prospective buyers", you will know for yourself whose speed will be higher; that of  the CEO promoting/building the brand or that of the dissatisfied customer destroying it.

Satisfying customer's eye-balls may bring him to water once but not often and surely not force him to drink it. Brand is not about 'showing' to his eye senses a couple of times & 'leaving' it at that. Brand is about 'leaving a lovely and lively experience pleasing customer's senses' and 'living it each-day-each-time throughout it's lifetime' at 'each of it's touch-points' right from the moment a prospective customer conceives a need and begins researching for purchase and then finally disposing it off post-it's-use.

I still remember the first Indian 3-D movie: Chotta-Chetan, for the snake that I felt 'touching' my feet forcing me to fearfully coil in the seat. Hundreds of other people in the theater wearing an embarrassed smile with special 3-D spectacles on them 'experienced' the same. Not only production and marketing of the film was excellent, but also the operations that perhaps blew an air-draft under the seat that created a lasting 'touch' effect. Anyway, the success was evident in terms of huge box office collection of around Rs 60 crore during 1984-85 and 50 crore on it's re-release (1998). The film that won President's Gold Medal created a no-disposal 'recall'.

Brand is about a customer feeling it, smelling-eating-drinking it, talking about it, dreaming it, and in-short breathing it with a lasting 'recall' as an advocate in front of other prospective customers.

Successful brand building is perhaps more about doing creative 'internal marketing' so that 'internal customers' as suppliers 'live it': smell-eat-drink it, feel it, talk about it, dream it. In fact, they even 'breath it' in terms of putting their 'heart and soul' while 'caring to make' the corresponding offering 'lovely and lively' for the external customers to truly experience it like done by the 3-D movie.

Branding is about 'Living' it, not 'Show'ing & 'Leaving' it at that!