Customer Experience and Green (Part 2)

If you listen long enough to pontificators – whether you hear them on radio, see them on television or read their postulations in magazines – at some point you will hear one or more of them boldly proclaim how they “never” buy into stats.  Some go so far as to state they avoid research and statistically based information like the plague.  They cite a variety of reasons for this position: that stats take the fun out of what they are pontificating about, that stats are not derived in a manner that reflects real life, that the element of “gut instinct” is THE common denominator for success rather than information-based decisions, and on and on.

It’s ironic as you continue to read, listen or watch these people, how, usually within the same show or article, you can find them quoting some market research study or another.  They do this because the findings from the study they chose to quote support their view and opinion on the subject upon which they are pontificating.  Hmmmm, whatever happened to that notorious, boldly proclaimed stance so strongly opposed to any sort of information resource as lending guidance to their opinion? 

I guess we’re just to realize that if they quote a study that supports their opinion, it’s their opinion that lends credence to the study, not the other way around?  They say it; therefore the study findings are true?  Quite a leap of faith when you think of the logic they want you to follow isn’t it?

Inc. magazine was absolutely notorious for this in their early days of publication.  In fact, if there had been a visual icon for a business man’s “gut” opinion, Inc. would have been the centerfold of that publication.  You would be hard pressed to find a more vocal and venomous voice spouting anti-information based market research obscenities than Inc.  For Inc, it was a purposeful cry of “All hail gut instinct!!!”

At the time Inc. was originally published, the internet was non-existent and “traditional” market research was only operating and impacting a few sporadic industry circles and leading companies.  Yes, there were some general successes, but the “customer-based” information industry was just beginning to feel the empowerment of unleashing our tools caused by the amazing shrinking microprocessor chip. 

We had just exited the world of running simple multivariate analysis (we’re talking basic Chi Square and ANOVA tests) on a single study, and not seeing outcome results until the next day or two, if we were lucky.   Our analytical resources were computers with less than a megabyte of RAM that took up office real estate the size of your grandmother’s ice box.

I found it very interesting to read Inc. at that time.  Why?  It seemed such a demonstrative voice against my entire profession.  Here’s why.  They invariably had to resort to using research findings to support the viewpoints of at least half of every article in each volume!  Here was the bastion publication for the entrepreneurial spirit, wanting desperately to hold up “gut instinct” as the end-all-be-all for success criterion, and even its contributors had to resort to some form of information-based decision-making eventually.  Today, after weathering the rise of the internet, Inc is far less swift to cut off information-based decision-making compared to earlier years.  And rightly so.

Let’s take this perspective to its extreme today.  Imagine you are the president or executive vice president of a medium sized company.  You pick up a magazine and every article is telling you what to do to increase marketing effectiveness, increase sales levels, increase product innovation success rates, or optimize closure rates on your website.  As you read, you realize the only evidence supporting the majority of examples they cite for why you should follow their suggestions is . . . .  1) their lone opinion, or 2) one other company tried the process or implemented the approach they are telling you about and was successful! 

There you have it – trust their recipe for success!  They decided it or it worked for one other company at a particular point in time in its lifecycle!

Unhindered by facts, case study or consumer-based information of any kind, how seriously would you take the opinions of such a publication? 

When you read it from the perspective presented above, any person who has – 1) held the responsibility of determining how to get enough revenue through the door to pay employees on a regular basis or 2) reported to a Board of Directors why a specific strategic or tactical path was taken – would feel a little silly saying they would continue to read such a magazine on an ongoing basis as a source of insight for their business decisions.  Sadly, though, many of today’s celebrity-based business autobiographies are a modern morph of the theme perpetuated by Inc.

To sum up the majority of business idioms in the flood of newly pressed pages swamping both virtual and real bookshelves, the modern day cry is much the same as it was for Inc. magazine.  “I was successful in this position because of the great choices I made trusting my gut instinct.  It is all about the gut baby!  I am a business star and you can be too, you don’t need anyone else, you don’t need any consumer information just trust your gut!”  It’s phrased much more politically correct of course.  But whenever you hear such phrases as: ‘market research is too slow,” “it doesn’t relate to reality,” or any of the other 48 ways to mitigate the need for customer-based information, you are getting close to someone wanting you to suspend reason and blindly accept what they say based on a couple of examples or lone opinion.

Why am I spending this time elaborating on an irony of human nature among business leaders?  Because the exact same approach is occurring in decisions relating to companies’ strategic and tactical efforts in green!

As I mentioned in my previous blog, companies are basing decisions to “go green” on the idea that the Board of Directors feels good about gaining a six month (at most) lead over other competitors in terms of being able to tout going green as part of their brand.  Let me ask you, who was the first to enter the retail market with “everyday low prices?”  Newsflash, it was not Wal-Mart. 

You could go through just about every relative slogan or market position in any industry and the current market leaders were, in most cases, barely a blip on the radar screen when others were forging ahead thinking they were establishing an industry leading market position by being “first-to-market” in a particular position.  Green is just one more such market position in the case of the vast majority of companies.

Is it wrong to jump on the green bandwagon?  Of course not.  But just like doing customer experience right is more important than making sure you pick the best CRM software, doing green right is more than calling what you have been doing for years green.

In a recent study we conducted of extremely similar design options for a consumer packaged product, we determined that the offer stressing “green” as a market position was hindered by the green focus.  Is this important?  If you are comfortable selling approximately 10% fewer sku’s than what the market for a product will bear, then fine, go right ahead.  Don’t use innovation, make a better product, offer a real solution both corporately or to the customer, or understand what your customers are really thinking about the topic.  Just slap “biodegradable” on the label and color it green.

A simple understanding of the target market’s segmentation against our Eco-Brand Monitor™ would have easily deduced the negative impact of thoroughly positioning on only green.  More importantly, it would have directed the company in how to position the product and design in such a way as to accomplish both market position and a more meaningful product.

Sadly, the consumer is watching the term “green” slapped on everything from checking accounts to light bulbs.  So much so that they are already becoming jaded.  They have a term for it, green-washing.  Green-washing describes very well the idea of hurriedly slapping a name on an old concept so it fits with the fad of the year.  This never worked in the past for quality when TQM was the fad, it does not work today for customer satisfaction now that that has reached the faddish tipping point, and it will never work for green moving forward.

Our research shows significant consumer acceptance levels for truly innovative leadership product or service offerings.  Anywhere from 44 to 55 percent of the broad market population is very likely to SWITCH brands should a simple yet innovative and meaningful product position be offered to them.  Let me repeat that – 44 to 55 percent will SWITCH brands.   Think getting it right matters?  Think getting it right through understanding and integrating the green position into your overall customer experience can create real market impact? 

Understanding your customer experience market position, knowing what is important for the large “green-inclined” segments within the market you serve, knowing you are producing a meaningful answer to their concerns and also producing a better product at the same time – this is the optimum path to doing green right.  Do I even need to fill in the gaps as to where and how customer experience success® fits here?  If you have read me at all, no I should not.

There is no need for you to feel alone if your company is not achieving this level or moniker of customer success in green.  As of yet, NO company or product we have tested (and we have tested many) currently can lay claim to doing this right and capturing a leadership position.

So, back to the point I spent many paragraphs making at the start of this post, if you are following what everyone else is doing because of one success story you may have heard or because a “green consultant” told you too – you are already avidly reading the wrong magazine and buying a line that will never get your company where I’m sure it wants to be! 

Next time, the steps needed to do it right.  Hint, they’ll seem vaguely familiar.