Customer Experience

One of the mistakes marketers make is thinking of marketing only as a specific activity related to things like lead generation, public relations, cross-selling, and the like. As a marketer, you need to remember that every interaction with your organization is part of the marketing process. Creating marketing programs that move you toward defined goals is essential, but you need to go stick your nose into other parts of your organization.

What happens when a customer calls the support center? What does a potential customer experience when they walk into a retail location? What does the process of interacting with your organization feel like? These things are as important as your programs and your product and your pricing. If your colleagues in sales, support, billing, and other functional areas don't think you're a bit of a pest (though hopefully a helpful, contributing pest) you're probably missing some opportunities - or problems.

I recently had one of those customer experiences that's so good that it reminded me of how marketing should pervade an entire company. I've been a customer of AT&T Wireless for years now (and have written here about some of the negative experiences I've had). Their product - the actual mobile phone service - has always been very good. Unfortunately everything else about them made me want to run to another provider.

They were recently purchased by Cingular Wireless, making Cingular the largest mobile provider in the US. Cingular is already doing some things right. Their new post-acquisition advertising campaign is very good. They've gotten all this done in time for the holiday gift giving season. Everything about Cingular suggested to me that they are tremendously better tuned in to their customers than AT&T Wireless ever was.

As the acquisition rolled out, I got just enough information from Cingular about what was going on to make me comfortable, but no sales pitches. That was perfect. By reading bill inserts and looking at the AT&T web site, I understood that nothing was going to change about my mobile service, and no one was trying to get me to spend more money. Perfect.

I also knew that I could switch to a Cingular phone and plan. As it happened, my phone was dying (as Motorola phones tend to far sooner than they should) and I had looked at the Cingular web site and discovered their plans were much better.

So, one afternoon I wandered into a local Cingular retail store and asked about changing over.

This is where I expected things to fall apart. Many companies like Cingular and AT&T Wireless spend a lot of money of ads and PR but then fail to train or equip their front line retail sales force properly. I waited for the inevitable confusion, but what the rep in the store said was, "Do you know which phone you'd like?"

Well, I did. "Great," he said. So we sat down and started the process.

In the course of 30 minutes, every question I had was answered. I knew what plan I wanted. The rep went through optional services without any big sales pitch, and I signed up for a few of them. He explained the key features of the phone and pointed out the manual, where I could get more details. I asked if I could keep the old phone, since I had a lot of numbers stored on its SIM card. "Oh," he said, "I can just transfer them to the new phone for you." Which he did.

The packet of information was more than the usual long service agreement that you get from a mobile provider. It actually included a sheet with pictures of what my first two bills would look like, showing one-time charges, partial month charges, and illustrating what a regular monthly bill would look like. Best of all, these weren't just sample bills - they were my bill, with actual dollar amounts that matched my service. And when the first bill came, it looked exactly like the sample they'd created at the store. There was a rebate on the phone I'd chosen, so they provided me with a second receipt to mail in, made sure I understood what part of the box with UPC codes I needed to include, suggested a wait a while to do it in case I wanted to return the phone, and gave me the rebate form with all of the annoying details (model numbers, serial numbers) already filled in.

The process was pleasant and efficient - so much so that I wound up buying things I hadn't meant to, like a Bluetooth headset and a cradle device that forwards calls to my land line when I'm home without using any of my mobile minutes.

Cingular got it right in every way. Before they acquired AT&T Wireless, I'd been thinking of switching to T-Mobile. I walked out of the Cingular store with exactly the phone I wanted, completely happy with the experience, and very pleased to be a Cingular customer.

Note that none of the things that they did are that unusual or require great investments in technology. Obviously, someone at Cingular sat and thought about what a customer should experience when they get service, created a process around that, and then trained the retail staff in how it should work and provided all needed supporting material.

Is that marketing? You bet it is. Not only did they sell me more than I had planned to buy that day, I left feeling totally happy with my choice.

That's how you increase your per-customer revenue. That's how you keep customers longer, lowering your average per-customer acquisition cost. That is marketing.