A Customer Experience Story (Part 2)

So I got the new Macbook Air - the totally decked out version. This was half a functional decision and the other half totally irrational (as with all of our purchases).

Following up on my last post, where my supposedly "fixed" macbook air decided to black out on me again after I replaced its hard drive for two hundred dollars plus, I called and left a message where I worked hard to repress my frustration.

I got a call early in the morning, before their store opened at Richmond Centre, from their business manager. I am going to mention her name here because I am going to give her props here for handling my anger so well. She told me that she had received my message, was sorry about my "loss", and understood that I needed to get my computer fixed right away. She booked me in for the first appointment time available at the genius bar and I told her I would be there.

I was down with a cold that morning so I had to groggily pull myself out of bed, get dressed, put on my glasses (which I rarely ever wear in public), and dragged myself over to Richmond Centre. 

I was like a woman on a mission beelining into the store and headed straight for the genius bar at the back. "I am here to see Christine, she booked in me in for an appointment." 

The helper with an iPad called for her via iPad (at least that's what I think happened) and she showed up, we shook hands, and I proceeded with throwing a fit. It went something like me wanting to throw my computer against the wall when it shut down on me again after I was told that it was fixed. OK, that was the only "angry" comment that I made and then having someone immediately attend to my broken computer and saying they understood my pain suddenly made me feel better. Let's face it, as customers, we all just want a little genuine lovin' from these companies.

I told Brody (who was the genius who was going to fix my computer) and Christine that I did need another new computer given that I can't go into meetings with a computer that may die on me any second. We went around and I got to take a look at the new Macbook Air models (11" and 13") and even the new Macbook Pros. Considering that I needed my computer to handle mostly web surfing, word processing and simple photo rendering tasks, the Macbook Air would be more than sufficient. Seriously, with 4GB ram and 280 GB storage I think I am good to go.

Of course they also credited me for the amount that I spent the day before trying to fix my old computer. That made me feel better because I felt that they were fair with me. That's all it takes to satisfy a customer, don't try to rip us off. A lot of you might ask why I decided to buy another Mac, and I will tell you the reasoning is threefold.

1. Functionality wise I have tried out many different laptop brands, including Fujitsu, Acer, HP, Toshiba and Mac. My Mac never got the blue screen of death and didn't have constant crashes happening. Plus, the system is just so user friendly. Even small things like searching for a file on my computer is 100 times faster. Have you tried searching for a file on a PC? WOW, it really seems like there is somebody inside the computer slowly going through the folders.
2. They have been SO good with servicing broken stuff on my Macbook Air. Last time the little piece that held my laptop screen and the keyboard together broke off a little bit and they replaced my ENTIRE SCREEN for FREE - I was not under applecare and they helped me simply out of the goodness of their heart (at least this is how it appeared to me). Even when they replaced my hard drive they reduced their labor charge down to $39 from $159. 
3. Again, totally irrational. This is what customer purchases are like. We buy things that makes us feel good. I know I bought the Macbook Air because it is the thinnest laptop in the world - which really makes me feel quite awesome. My feet will also thank me because I am not lugging around a 10-pound IBM.

I would say that Mac has redeemed itself in this customer experience story. Wouldn't you?

PeerFX Webinar Series - Successful Online Marketing for Small Businesses

Since you guys liked the first webinar we decided to share more ideas with you through our webinar series - this time it's will be on successful online marketing for small businesses.

Most people don't know where to start since there are 500 different tools they can use to measure different things such as website traffic.  Where should you put your money so that it generates the best returns for you?  What type of content should you be writing so that people actually bother reading?

That's what we're going to tell you and you will get your chance to ask questions to our online marketing and SEO specialist Damon Holowchak.  Damon has generated tens of thousands of hits for budding businesses and increased web traffic to millions of hits for growing companies in industries such as sports betting and news. 

Register for your seat today - right here!

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• PeerFX HR Article on Manitoba Chambers of Commerce (changingexchanging.blogspot.com)

2 Cent Ideas can Boost Business Performance

I've started reading the new book by Tom Peters called The Little Big Things.  In the first couple pages he mentions that little things that cost you 2 cents can be worth much more to your business.  Such as candy on the counter top of your receptionist's desk.

Yesterday I saw my own version of this.  I went for a quick lunch at a Chinese restaurant that served value lunch meals so the price point matched with the quality of the food they served.  I ordered and had to go to the restroom; I noticed one distinctive difference that was out of place for the restaurant in the restroom - they had three-ply tissue rolls in there.  THREE.  When other restaurants with the same package of benefits (price, promo, place and product) were offering their customers one-ply tissue, here they were giving us three-ply.  Seems like a very, very small thing that they could have gotten away with.  They chose to offer something slightly better and I'm sure it does not go unnoticed every time a customer goes to their restroom.

Interesting to actually see the concept at work.  Small ideas can make your business stand out and even retain or attract new customers.  Have you seen any 2 cent ideas in action? 

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• Little BIG Things - Tom Peters - Video Book Review (chrisbrogan.com)

This makes me laugh



because when you are in the early stages of a start up you really put to use all resources that you have at your disposal. Sometimes it is that friend that built the car from the bathtub.

Ever looked to your friend that does programming or design on a freelance basis to design your website for cheap? We've either done this or considered it.

When I first started out I asked my classmates to help me with designing some of our branding material, asked my brother to do some of the front-end coding and professors to help with business strategy and contacts.

Looking at this comic strip now just reminds me of those things - not that this means I'm not reaching out to the still limited but growing resources that I have worked to build for PeerFX; I think it's economical and sometimes better to reach out to my internal network first before going to the external market for help.

Here's why. I once had an idea to build an online contest website to get the word out there for PeerFX. I went to a couple companies and got a quote and one came back with a price tag of $25,000. This is for a one page flash page that's like a mini-game.

Let's just say when I saw the quote I thought they added an additional zero before the decimal place by mistake. The logic didn't work very well either - this one page mini-game apparently needed 2 project managers and 3 designers and 500 programmers (yes I am exaggerating but you get the idea...)

So that's the reason why it's more economical to look to your internal network because your friends probably won't try anything stupid like this. It can also be more efficient because you won't have a team of 10 people assigned to a one page project and 8 of them playing rocks, papers, scissors for the whole day with nothing to do.

Go Dilbert.

Deriving the Most Profits from "Free" Space

I have been spending my past week in Hong Kong, finally having enough time to spare to see my hometown. 

It has taught me plenty of things about:

• Logistics: try taking transit or taxis here, it's a whole new experience - if you don't jump out quick enough the bus might close its door on you - it has happened before, look it up in the news; 

• Economics: that they might be wrong about there being some sort of recession, since there are approximately 500 million people shopping at 11pm at night - the stores don't close here!
• Efficiency: The elevator, MTR, restaurant, or just ANY space in general can always fit more people.  I saw people literally pour out of the MTR cars and elevators.
  
• Profit Maximization: Taking a look at the MTR stations in Hong Kong, they use every available space for advertisements.  Walls beside the elevators going up, ceilings, round pillars...everywhere you look there's an ad.  This generates a lot of profit for the MTR stations, and whoever built our skytrain stations out in Vancouver should do the same.  Olympics are coming up, tons of people will be taking the skytrain so why not put ads in the stations?  I've taken the skytrain a couple times and it's quite boring standing there waiting; give me something to look at, that will make me spend more, buy stuff and help the economy (this is the Florence economy stimulus plan..haha).

I think it's because space is so precious in Asia that we make the best use of it; scarcity stirs creativity.  North America can seriously do better maximizing its use of free space.

Witty Advertising

I was just wondering what I should blog about when I saw this commercial on TV for Ally.ca.  Quite a clever set of commercials since I've seen a couple of their TV spots over the past weeks. 

It makes fun of the fine print in credit card applications and offers.  The fact that many things are "limited offers" or have many "offer restrictions" is emphasized in their ads.  Here's Ally.ca

There are many things that people are frustrated with in the financial services industry, mainly that the whole services part is missing.  There are many opportunities to improve on existing services and that's exactly what these new companies are doing - it makes me wonder how existing service providers will react?  If at all.

Exclusivity as a Marketing Tool

Making something exclusive seems to make something more desirable.

In my opinion I think a lot of marketing tactics are based on psychology - how can it not be when most of the buying decisions that we make are emotionally driven? Or the fact that marketers like to speak of segmenting by psychographics in addition to demographics?

It seems to work for some businesses though, and here are some examples:

1. Exclusive by-invite only events that are limited to X number of attendees (and the attendees have to apply to get selected to attend) - usually these fill up fast. There have been a few business conferences that are like this, like the Impact National Conference.
   
2. Online eCommerce websites that have sales for brand name designers at a discount price - membership is by referral only. I remember seeing a company that does that when I went to the Online Retailer Conference. They went from zero to close to a million accounts in less than 2 years.
3. Car manufacturers that design a model with only 10 of those cars available in the world - usually this can drive prices through the roof since the product is so limited.

So does this mean if you only produce 10 units of our product you're going to be able to sell it for a million dollars a piece. Nope. That's not the only ingredient to make your product sell; your product needs to deliver after the customer buys it.

What I mean is, your product can't suck.

Imagine lining up for 2 days to buy this exclusive, limited edition product only to find that it doesn't deliver on its proposed benefits. Or ever attend an event that had tons of buzz but didn't turn out to be as great as you had hoped?

So yes, exclusivity may work only if your product is just as awesome.

Retail Marketing in our Daily Lives

...is so fascinating.

Even my brother knew about the Jimmy Choo X H&M shoes. He even googled them and told me that people were reselling the shoes for a much price; kind of like flipping houses but now..."flipping shoes".

I'm sure all female readers of this blog post know about Sephora (and probably all the guys do too since they wait outside for their female friends). They had a weekend sale with 20% all purchases for their V.I.B s (very important beauty). The checkout line was continually at 20 people, even my mom bought something. With this 20% off, a lot of buyers actually ended up buying much more than what they would normally. Hooray for sales!

JailHouseFire Hotsauce

You can take full advantage of your situation - whatever your situation. This is exactly what the inmates at Florida's Hillsborough County Jail did, using the peppers grown on site to develop 3 flavors of hotsauce which they are marketing under the brand JailHouseFire. I love the fact that they've used their situation to help brand the product, naming the three different flavors Original, Smoke and No Escape.


Each brand tells a story, and their is definitely an interesting one that stands out from the everyday brand you see the at the supermarket. You can read the original article here.