Permission Marketing ! Does anybody know what it means
- Return On Customer - Don Peppers and Dr.Martha Rogers
- Permission Marketing - Seth Godin
In Permission Marketing Seth Godin states that because of the varying alternatives in live and decreasing time to allocate for each of the alternative activities entity's should get permission for every intervention in our lives. For example if you have only 15 -20 minutes for checking your e-mails you shouldn't have to pick meaningless advertisements from companies. In their very important piece Return On Customer, Don Peppers and Martha Rogers state that the Return of a customer is not only the return made in any transaction. The Return is the sum of all transactions that are currently made and the ones that will be made in the future. So if a company annoys any customer by trying to communicate their message too much with the aim of increasing the return of the customer in current accounts, they will probably suffer a decrease in the return curve of the customer because of the loss in future transactions due to the inconvenience they create.
So i am not sure if HSBC is aware or not, but by sending disturbing emails almost everyday is not increasing my satisfaction, contrarily they are increasing my dissatisfaction. If they would send at least bulletins that would be customized for my interests maybe i wouldn't feel that outrageous but WHY SHOULD I CARE WHAT THEY OFFER FOR CAR SERVICES ! I HAVE A COMPANY CAR.... (And a lot of things too that are not in my interest)
The fact that they didn't understand the importance of customization in this kinds of bulletins, at least considering that being a customer didn't mean that i allow them to fill my inbox with irrelevant things and as taking into consideration the importance of Permission Marketing as stated by Seth Godin, they could give at least the option as the entity's who are aware of this concept. A statement like " You are getting this email bacause of ............If you don't want to receive this emails anymore click the link below.....
A Tribute to Spencer Johnson
In the story 2 mices Sniff and Scurry and 2 little humans Hem and Haw were living in a labyrinth containing in different paths stations some of them having cheese which represented all kinds of needs for those characters. While Sniff and Scarry were only simple rats acting according to their instincts they were always smelling the cheese and realized the change earlier than Hem and Haw. So they started to search for a new cheese in a different station much earlier. The hitting point of the story is how Hem and Haw realizes the change and in which ways they respond, which indeed represent the attitude of most of us. Actually we are acting either like Hem or Haw in all parts of our lives (worklife, relations, etc.)
- The center consists of a lot of entitys with very similar business processes. The only difference is the kind of Music they play but there is no differentiation in the service they provide. The only advantage, their prices makes them attractive for their target segment students who lives in dormitories and normally can allocate a lower budget for entertainment.
- The basic business structure with a lack of efforts to differentiate services or create any innovative processes, made them act like Hem and Haw. The routine of the business created a comfort zone for the Bar's which prevented them from smelling the cheese i.e. to see the changes outside of the box. They even couldn't smell the change of the new law which was indeed declared one year ago (That suprised me the most!)
So in the news i saw a lot of Hem's shouting "That's unfair, I WANT MY CHEESE BACK !!!!)
Who Is to blame ? The Frontline ?
- The processes imposed by management
- The personal interaction that takes place between employees and customers
- lack of info about the benefits from using the device
- Meaningless bonuses which didn't gets my interest until 20 - 30 transactions
- Lack of empowerment for the front line employees, who are most aware of the customer needs because of their everyday interactions. To ignore this knowledge in designing business processes makes the company to move away from the needs of customers and decrease their satisfaction.
- Giving importance to observation of customer needs instead of giving decisions according to market researches. Ok market research data is also important but going to the field and observing the services provided and the degree of how effective this services are on customer needs is much more important. Howard Schultz explained in his book Pour Your Heart Into It: How Starbucks Built a Company One Cup at a Time that he was very determined that non-fat milk would lower the quality of their coffee's and so refused to provide such products. But while he was always aware that observing the customer preferences in the store rather than only checking data from computers, he went to a store, saw a woman in sportswear asking to the Barista for a non fat coffee and get out the store (probably to a competitor) angry with the answer we don't use non- fat milk. In the article Howard Schultz vs Howard Schultz it is stated that he still visits 25 stores a week which i think is very fascinating. It would be also obvious to the D&R management how uncomfortable processes they had like the line issue if they would observe the transactions made in different stores.
Ref :
- J.D. Power - Satisfaction
- Howard Schultz - Put Your Heart into it
- Howard Schultz vs Howard Schultz - Businessweek (Aug 17 2009)