Customer experience - Rhythm

I don't know about you, but I love to dance. I love rhythm like a horse loves sugar cubes. If rhythm came in the form of sugar cubes I'd be popping rhythm-cubes like a horse if it had opposable thumbs (and a few fingers). 

It's no secret that humans are big into rhythm - not just musical rhythm, but the rhythm of life. The sun rises and falls - we wake and sleep. The seasons come and go. In London you'll often hear people say "Summer's finally here!" as if they've been waiting for it. They've been waiting because summer is amazing. It's the natural rhythm of the world.

So why have a business with no rhythm? 

Why go against nature - against what humans know?

In the UK people look to the future in summer knowing that winter is coming. They enjoy what time they have of summer, taking in as much sun as possible. Then when autumn comes, their resolve is even stronger to take in as much of the suns rays as possible, to get the most use out of their t-shirts and shorts. Then winter hits and people are dreaming of the summer again.

Ned Stark from
A Game of Thrones*

This is the mentality I'd want my customers to have when thinking about my business - although leaving winter out probably! To be thinking, "Wow! This is great! When can I have more?!"

You can see examples of seasonal marketing in lots of places, but once you've noticed, you see it lacking almost everywhere. The greatest example of this seasonal marketing is the pub quiz.

Every week on one day a pub has a quiz. People come for so many different reasons - some for the prize, others for an excuse to have a night out, to socialise, to meet people, to do something together. People think less of the price of the drinks because their perceived value is in the night itself, the great time they'll have. People are also feeling good so they'll think less of spending money too.

On a normal night in a pub, what is there except the drinks at the bar? Maybe a pool table? The point is that the reason to go to the pub on a night where there is no event boils down to need, not want. "I need a drink."  But on the night of the event, "I want to have fun!" People are far more willing to weigh up their needs compared to their wants. Someone might need a drink but not want to spend a lot of money, resulting in a drink bought from the cheapest retailer. 

Let's look at another example but still in catering. Ed's Diner, my favourite milk shake place in London, also has seasonal marketing. Monday night is cheap shake night. I know I can go whenever I want and get a milk shake, but if I'm near an Ed's on a Monday I'll definitely head down for one. Of course, there is an incentive in the pricing too - there's a little bit off the top - but I now know that Mondays = Ed's Diner shakes. If I'm out in London on Monday's, I will always recommend heading to Ed's for one of their milkshakes to my friends. 

They could have just sent me an e-voucher but I wouldn't wake up once every week and think "Shall I have an Ed's milkshake?" In actuality I'd be more aware of the finite nature of the voucher and maybe be afraid to even use it! Whilst vouchers are good for generating business and attracting new customers, they do nothing for repeat business, unless they're tailored to do that of course.

Using seasonal marketing in this way taps into the natural rhythm that all of your customers will have built into them. Tapping into that rhythm is a great way to keep a really good service offering seated in your customers minds.

So what could a shop offer? What could a taxi company offer? What extra value can you give to a customer one night a week, or often enough for them to remember it - so much so that they drop other plans to use your service?

A cleaning company - reduced cleaning rates 1 week a month or 1 day a week? A restaurant - open tables / network corner? There are so many possibilities available to you which could see the creation of a small club of valuable customers forming or see your companies name ploughing through the social media networks as being a great place to go if you find yourself in Croydon on a Thursday night, for example.

Harnessing that will furnish your business with so much value and customers will see it.

Now, please excuse me, I'm off to have a
milkshake now (literally).

* Ned Stark from A Game of Thrones' family moto is "Winter is coming." Well worth a read of the books if you have the time!

Croydon Dinner Club a mouth-watering success

It's been a long time since my last post, which is not through a lack of trying or will, I assure you. My last post was effectively on a sky pie - this crazy idea that people will just leave their houses and give up their evenings to come and eat somewhere with a load of people they don't know..

Yes, that's the glass half full version I realise and what better way to fill up that glass than by reporting what's going on?! It's really very exciting.


The first thing I had to do was take all that I'd learned from my previous networking events, take the best of those and leave the worst - so I had to create a twitter account. Knowing the guy who organises events is great if you get stuck or lost because you can just tweet or text them. But if you don't know them; maybe don't even know who they are if you've heard about the event through a 3rd party, it can be very difficult to find the information you need about the networking event. 


So to Twitter - providing a central point for news and updates which people can follow and interact with.

Croydon Dinner Club's first tweet

After my blog post it all got very busy. Lots of hits and a ground swelling of interest from some of my closer twitter friends (people I'd met through twitter at various times). The reaction was positive and exciting to say the least. 

Profiteroles made by the Gods - sampled at
Croydon Dinner Club.

A few re-tweets later and a follow count in the 20's and we had a very healthy total of 13 people turn up to the first night at an Indian restaurant. 


The month trickled on and I started seeking out people mentioning Croydon in their tweets and adding them or just chatting to them. The follow count gradually grew.

We then had the 2nd club which attracted 18 people and the 3rd which attracted the same number. People who'd only joined in the 2nd stayed on and came back to the 3rd.

Next week sees the 4th Croydon Dinner Club. Now with 170 followers and counting, made up of real Croydon local's and a few food based local businesses, the "club" is really heading somewhere. We will be heading to Galicia's Tapas bar in South Croydon. The gradual increase in interest is really great and a very encouraging sign for Croydon. People see others talking about Croydon Dinner Club, click on the profile and join up. The more people love it, the more people talk about it, the more people hear about it.

I'm looking forward to talking to the local press about the club in the next week so hopefully that will double the number of Croydon people aware of the dinners. With the introduction of the new Croydon Radio I'll be looking to get on there as well to speak about Croydons restaurants and the fabulous range of food we have on offer in Croydon.

Here's to the future!

Croydon Dinner Club blog
Croydon Dinner Club twitter

Croydon Dinner Club experiment

The result of typing "dip hand
experiment" into Google image search.

As some of you who follow my personal account on Twitter may know, I have recently decided to dip my hand and try out a little social experiment.

For the past few months I've been to a few social gatherings and networking organised through Twitter. The idea being that people of a similar interest meet other people of a similar interest over a breakfast, dinner, lunch, that sort of thing. The whole thing sounds frightfully "blind-date-ish" but actually it's pretty good!

We've reached a point in society which has been ever growing, where everyone is afraid of their neighbours, where the news has convinced us that everyone will eat our unborn children and/or put a bomb under our bed. Meeting people in a new environment with a very loose connection was surprisingly good!

Now, I've been to business networking events before and I'm very happy in them, coming away often with a buzz of "anything is possible!!" But when that safety net of "we are here for business" is taken away and it's just getting to meet people, that's where it gets interesting.

Inspired by the good work of Jonny Rose in his mission to make neighbouring Purley a more socially engaged town, I have taken part of the mantel up for Croydon by introducing the Croydon Dinner Club.

The idea of this and from what was done in Purley, is to get people engaged with social media and in Croydon to come out and meet others face to face over a plate of good food. With Croydon being all over the news recently, but still with seemingly large divides in many social areas, it seemed like this needed to happen.

So the first one is planned for the 27th March. If you're interested to see how this develops, you can check out the twitter feed for the event: @CroydonDC and follow how it progresses through that.

If you're thinking about setting up a dinner club in your town or City, feel free to get in contact - I will gladly help out!

Customer Experience: Connected

You know, the problem with not being a professional blogger is that, when business comes your way, you kind of follow it in a mesmerized, moth to a flame sort of way... except that usually you end up better than the moth in that analogy.

In my last post I briefly spoke about the outcome of a lucky tweet, or at least, what seemed to be a lucky tweet. In fact, it wasn't luck, it was an honest response to an interesting challenge. It was also a brilliantly informed move.

Peter Shankman is a very well known guy at the moment. Here's a short bio about him, taken from Business Insider:

Peter Shankman is the founder of HARO and is generally regarded as one of the top marketing consultants and speakers working today. His clients include Saudi Aramco, NASA, The U.S. Government, Haworth, Disney, Foley-Hoag LLP, American Express and countless others.

By responding to Mr Shankman's tweet in the way Morton's Steakhouse did, they gave great customer service to a well followed, high profile guy. Now, I'm not about giving celebrities or famous people extra stuff, but what is partly key to this is that he is high profile for the right reasons.

He's not high profile because he kicks a ball in a goal or can string some notes together. He's not famous because he owned some tech company in the 90's which went big. How he's earnt his "fame" (of course I'm using fame loosely here) is unimportant but what he is famous for is. What's he famous for? Marketing. Under marketing comes customer service. Shankman knows the value of marketing and knows the value of good customer service, so in repayment for the quality customer service he received he repaid them in value with a little blog post.

But, let's step back a bit further here. This isn't a post about Shankman, this is about remaining connected. Morton's Steakhouse exemplify this. Having an open channel for customers to connect to the business in a quick, almost throw away way is what has made the difference here. Without Twitter, this never would have happened - it was a total throw away comment. But also, without the business taking Twitter and engagement seriously, it may have never happened either.

What makes Twitter a beautiful resource for a business is the ease of connectivity. Whereas before you'd have to find the website of the business, locate the contact page, find an e-mail or a number, decide which is more appropriate, spend more time deciding what you're going to say... now a customer just has to take out their phone and, in what feels like a throw away few words, tweet the company. (Forgive me for saying this, but...) BAM, that company instantly has feedback from a customer. Honest, without much thought feedback. You're getting that customers thought then and there. Whether it's good or bad it's feedback, which is vitally important.

The happiest winking Twitter bird
I could find, especially for you, Reader

So, the customer loves it, but it requires a lot from the business. It requires you to be plugged in 24/7 to be able to respond to the requests, questions, feedback.

Social Media does not sleep. People are social all the time. If you're a 8.30-6 weekday business and suddenly an article appears about your business on a news website at the weekend and you're not online to capitalise from it, you've missed out. Likewise if a customer wants an answer to a question which is time dependent, you've also missed out. This is why many businesses outsource their Social Media, as it's cheaper than paying a member of staff around the clock, 7 days a week. Of course, having in-house Social Media Marketing is great, something outsourcing can't ever fully reach, but not all businesses are in that luxurious position.

Remaining connected to your clients through Social Media is so vital but is still so undervalued because people still just don't understand it. This is a smaller dot-com all over again. The businesses which have got a large and growing online following will certainly be doing far better than those who don't. Why? Because people care about that business with the quirky or informative twitter feed, who engages with them every now and then...

It's the equivalent of the local shop keeper who knows your name. Sure there may be shops closer, but because of that relationship you've built up, no matter how shallow, you'll go that little bit further. Twitter is doing exactly the same for businesses.

Stay connected.

Customer Experience - A joke tweet, turned awesome.

It's been a while since my last post. The reasons for which are numerous and positive, but I do apologise to my regular readers. One particularly exciting reason is because of a sudden rush of interest in a business I co-Direct with my dear friend Charlotte Henry, called Social Form - a social media marketing company for SMB's (small to medium sized businesses).

I thought a post about a twitter-meets-business story would be incredibly fitting as social media is such a great convergence point between customer experience and engagement - and it ties in nicely with what I'm busying my evenings and weekends with.

Mr Shankman with Alex
of Mortons Steak House

So whilst I prepare for the next post, I thought I'd whet your appetite with an inspirational story about steak. But not just about steak... "Colossal Shrimp, a side of potatoes, one of Morton’s famous round things of bread, two napkins, and silverware."

I am now hungry. So I'm going to go off and have something to eat, which may not be quite as nice as steak, but still nice, as you would expect.

Whilst I'm preparing my food and writing my next post, entitled Connected, check out this post by Peter Shankman and his story of a joke tweet turned awesome.

Customer experience - Through the screen | Video

Double Fine Adventure is the new pin-up for all aspiring game developers.

If you've not heard, the story goes that Double Fine studios posted a video pitch on KickStarter.com - "A new way to fund & follow Creativity". In practise, a crowd sourcing website, where you pitch an idea and request that "the crowd" fund the project.

They pitched for $400k and reached that figure in just under 8 hours of posting the pitch. At the time of posting this article, just a day and a half of the pitch being online, they've now raised $1,247,221. Sure, the guy who's doing the pitch has a huge following, as does another member of staff at the company - but still, it's pretty impressive!

Since I started this post 10 minutes ago they've received another $7k... Another $2k in 5 minutes... "How?" you ask: by performing to the customer.

Click here to take a look at their pitch 

The beautiful thing about this pitch is the video. In fact, it's the main element to this pitch as it's the first thing you see. It's funny, it's personable, it's self aware - as in, they know they're making a video, they're not pretending that they've rocked up in your living room and are striking up a conversation on your couch. It's great to watch. I've shared it with my friends and now I want to give my money. The goal of the video is surpassed by quite some way!

So let's look into why this method has been successful, as ever, from the customer's experience.

First of all, it's well edited and shot. The sound quality is great (where a majority of self-made ad's fall down). This adds to the trust-factor of the pitch and the perceived legitimacy of their company. These guys have clearly put money into this production so it looks like something you might see on TV, a medium which people trust. If this was filmed on a camcorder, shakey with terrible sound then the professional and trusted veneer would not exist. Not all businesses will have the funding to be able to make something like this - they might think - but put out some feelers and you could easily string together a film student, sound recordist, a semi-pro photographer who'd relish the opportunity to get some credited work out there. If you can, they should be compensated - you'll get custom from this video, fair is fair.

Video is a disastrously underused method of getting a pitch across. It's also used quite disastrously some times. I'm talking here about the struggling entrepreneurs, the small shops, the sole traders. There are some very lucky examples of small companies and individuals making terrible adverts and them going viral (see Flee Market - Montgomery, Chuck Testa).

True

Unfortunately, not every terrible video goes viral and it can serve to discredit and over-shadow your business. That's why it's important to think, get a creative person or people on board and spend as much time as is needed to get that video polished - that is critical. Do not rush it out because you've got a deadline in mind, or for any reason. Once it's on the internet, it's there forever, as this internet meme attests to (above left).

Recording a video and posting it on-line gets your business into the comfort zone of the audience, too. Be careful not to abuse it. You should consider your video being watched as the equivolent of the customer inviting you into their home. You wouldn't walk into their home and start rambling on about your deals and offers, trying to get their money... I hope.. It will also be there forever, so steer clear of anything which may date the video - "This January we've got a mega sale on..." You can plan to make more videos to supplant that one and that gets around that problem, but ideally, they should be timeless.

So, what to do? That depends on your customer reach strategy and your business type. A law firm may not need their customers to relate to them on a lifestyle level, but a Cafe might. A gym may want to tap into the energy and aspiration of their potential and current customers, whereas a car-cleaning firm may not as much.

A video gives your customers an insight into the way your brands mind works. If your video is poorly edited, clearly shot "on the cheap" sounding like voice in a tin can, then you'll need to revisit it and certainly don't post it! If your video is the visual and audible representation of your brand to the dot, professional, well made, then congratulations, you've done it!

Customer Experience - Performing for your customers

The customer story is a tool I use more frequently these days when trying to analyse how a business performs. This is a method of my own devising which provides business owners with a clear guide in how to look at the intricacies of their business + customer relationships. This post looks at one aspect of the story - 2. The Middle.

I said "how a business performs" and it should be seen as just that. Every time a customer comes in to the business premises, sees the business from a far, or every time the business comes to them, it should be seen as a performance. Why? Because, for whatever reason and whatever way, your business has to stand out. Plain, ordinary, kicking it's heels in the corner doesn't stand out, but extraordinary, thought provoking, exciting and different does.

If you ever get a chance to visit Amsterdam, I would thoroughly recommend it, as there are shops there which exemplify my point so well. Let me give you one example...

One particular night we walked the strip of town and spotted in the distance a distinctly "chain" looking restaurant, called "Burger Bar". Burger restaurants still being poisoned in my mind by McDonalds and other fast-food "restaurants", we weren't going to even consider eating there. But as we walked past, looking inside we were totally taken in.

"Burger Bar" Amsterdam, 2011

The most striking feature of this place was the up lit wall lined with cuts of wood at different lengths. It was a wall of art! There were large hard-wood tables with benches to match which looked like they had a history of their own. Small metal chairs for the smaller tables. Huge blackboards over the kitchen area displayed hand-drawn wording and pictures, with stories about where the beef had come from and fun facts - no prices. There was a giant blackboard (out of shot on the left of the picture) where customers had written little messages about Burger Bar or just anything they wanted. One message I remember distinctly was a UK mobile number with a message "Call me if you ever get to London."

The staff were lively, literally jumping around sometimes, whistling and singing along to songs played in the shop. They laughed a lot too!

With a little creativity and a low cost, this small franchise business made my night on holiday and I honestly can't wait to go back there again. The food was delicious as well and service was with a smile always. If I'm honest, of all the places we ate, this burger bar gave us the richest experience which is on par with and better than some gigs I've been to. Just sitting in the place soaking up the atmosphere was a pleasure. We bought some more snacks after the meal too because it was just so nice.

What a performance!

The great thing about this place was that, for very little cash, they made the place look extraordinary. No expensive lighting, no expensive furniture, in fact nothing fancy at all. Everything is simple but used to great effect to enrich the experience.

When a customer walks into an establishment, they should be thinking "This place has got something. I want to be here." If you give people a reason to like an element of your shop or business, a physical one, a tangible one, they are far more likely feel a shared sense of identity and will not hesitate to contribute, financially and through publicity, to your business. Encourage a sense of community too like "Burger Bar" did with a blackboard. Psychologically the blackboard is great too. It's like leaving out Lego or Play-Doh. People want to have a go. People want to interact with your business.

So how does your business perform for your customers?

Customer Experience - The customer experience story

My last post was called "Amalgamate" and through writing my thoughts out for my next few blog posts I realised that I should really make far big a deal about one particular element of that post.

That element is the customer experience story:

Think of your business as a story. Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end with a good amount of back story to settle the reader in. Some might even have an epilogue. Let's not forget as well that the most important perspective to view this in is that of your customer. So how does this apply to your business?

1. The beginning - The customer hears about your business, sees your advert, walks past your shop, clicks on your website.
2. The middle - They're in your shop/business/place of work. They're browsing, experiencing, seeing if the shop fits.
3. The end - They decide whether to buy or not
4. The epilogue - Ongoing service and support post sale

The customer experience story is a brilliant tool which can help business owners analyse their business from the viewpoint of the customer. It's often difficult to step back from life in a business or shop and look at it's intricacies - mainly because those who have the power to implement changes usually keep their eyes fixed on the overall picture.

The story is all about breaking down the individual units of the way your business interacts with the public using a very simple and approachable method. Everyone likes a good story, right?

I will be referring back to this article in the various posts to come and applying context to the points for areas such as Visual, Presence, After-care and many other posts in my Customer Experience series.

Customer Experience - Epilogue follow-up

As a follow up to my last post, I thought I'd share this with you. Tiger bread has now officially been renamed Giraffe bread after Lilly's letter.

This is a great example of a large, no, massive company engaging with one voice. Admittedly, Lilly's call to arms got a lot of backing from the public through social media which is definitely what encouraged the renaming, but still, it all started with one letter from a 3 and a half year old girl in London.

I was sad to read that Mr Chris King had left the company but through this show of care and attention I'm sure he will excel at primary school teaching.

You can read the full BBC article here.

Customer Experience - An example of Epilogue

Today I'm bringing you this brilliant piece of customer service which fits nicely into my analogy of the journey of customer service being like a story. This part is the epilogue. 

You may have seen this circling the internet.

"I think renaming tiger bread giraffe bread is a brilliant idea.."
Left - Lily's letter, Right - Chris King, Customer Manager at Sainsburys' reply

3 and a half year old Lily Robinson took issue with Sainsbury's naming of the Tiger Bread as it simply does not look like a tiger - more like a giraffe.

With the help of her parents she sent a letter to the branch of Sainsbury's in Holborn, London to register her thoughts. I'm sure the reply she got shocked her parents and maybe even her!

Through the post came a reply from Chris King (aged 27 and three quarters), Customer Manager at the store with a clearly well thought out and engaging reply with a sly £3 gift card attached to it.

Mr King needs a promotion, or a pay raise! He has done so many things right here:

• Fully engaged with the customer by
• using language they used
• referring specifically to the original letter
• empathised with the customer
• stating his age, with the fraction, in his sign off - just like Lily did
• Replied in good time to the original letter
• Sought to bring back the customer with a small gift

Attaching the £3 gift card is a great way to encourage the family back and, aside from the brilliant and engaging letter, is a great way to keep the families business and all of the people they tells business for a very long time. All of this under the clear banner of Sainsbury's. "What brilliant, thoughtful staff they employ - I can trust them."

The internet businesses have bitten a massive chunk out of shops on the highstreet, but with engagement like this, shops can really turn their fortunes around. This is personal. It's private. It's a human being interacting with another human being. It's not a customer enquiry form with a reply 2 days later from a generic "serviceteam@bigfacelesscompany.org".

I've taken a lot from Mr King's example here. Good job, mate!

Customer Experience - Amalgamate

Amalgamation of the customer experience is a vital part of businesses in the 21st Century. This is everything from buying right through to after-sales support and is a big part of my consultation process.

a·mal·ga·mate/əˈmalgəˌmāt/

Verb:

Combine or unite to form one organization or structure: "he amalgamated his company with another".

I'm really big on amalgamation in business right now. Despite the ".com" boom there are still companies out there with websites which bare no resemblance to their business. More pertinently now, there are businesses out there with either an atrocious social presence which also bares no resemblance to their website or business, or even no presence at all.

There are businesses with fantastic e-mail based customer service but terrible telephone, or even face to face customer service. Their customer service strategy is not amalgamated. As a consequence of this, customers will begin to understand that one particular element of the company are bad. Then 2 things happen:

1. The customer gives up with that line of communication.
2. The money you've put into supplying the customer with these avenues of communication gets wasted because the customer simply doesn't want to deal via that method.

Taking a wider view of amalgamation outside of just the customer service space, we have business amalgamation. Chains of shops are generally successful because the customer knows what to expect when they're in there. Go to a Starbucks in London and you'll find the same experience in New York or Paris. Customers look for that reassurance between businesses - that the quality they expect wont change between premises.

These shops are successful partly because they build customer experience into their strategy.

So how do we do that? Think of your business as a story. Every story has a beginning, a middle and an end with a good amount of back story to settle the reader in. Some might even have an epilogue. Let's not forget as well that the most important perspective to view this in is that of your customer. So how does this apply to your business?

1. The beginning - The customer hears about your business, sees your advert, walks past your shop, clicks on your website.
2. The middle - They're in your shop/business/place of work. They're browsing, experiencing, seeing if the shop fits.
3. The end - They decide whether to buy or not
4. The epilogue - Ongoing service and support post sale

Every step of the story should be enforcing one thing, not X number of things. That "one thing" should be decided by you. Is it trust? Is it safety? Is it "awesome"? Is it "the future"? Once you've made your decision you need to look at every step of the customer journey and, perhaps with a friend who's removed from the business in as many ways as possible, then run some ideas by them. 

If you decide that you want your thing to be Cleanliness then you need to look at each stage of the customer journey. What are the sensations surrounding cleanliness? Are those sensations echoed in your advertising, shop frontage, social media pages, web pages, establishment? How would you describe cleanliness? Are those adjectives defined in your customer journey? 

Don't forget, as is the title of the series, this is all about an experience. Encourage your customers to think on your wave length by stage managing your business. Uniforms are a way of amalgamation, but why stop there? Why even go there in the first place? Would uniforms be a way to get across your thing? Uniforms represent efficiency, consistency, pride, commitment as well as being a great reminder to your customers that they're dealing with your brand, not a gaggle of employees. Be careful though. A uniform removes the individuality of the wearer. Your whole company and brand will get sucked into their bad customer service - so make sure they are well trained and share your company mantra.

Some brands thrive on the individuality of their businesses premises. A great example of this would be entertainment venues. But they are amalgamated under a different banner - Uniqueness. Each night club may look unique and may attract entirely different customers but underneath their goal will be to build the customers trust that the brand will deliver quality entertainment. Amalgamation doesn't mean stripping your business of individuality. 

At every stage where your company deals with the public there should be consistency with the utmost care. Every time you speak, the company speaks. Make sure that when the company speaks it's always in one voice.

Customer Experience - Sound

I'm going to cover this post in 2 sections: Music and Sound.


1. Music

Most businesses think they've got their sound down; that the music they play in their shops, gyms, restaurants, taxis, hold buttons is simply good music.

Good is what you think the music is. Your opinion of the quality of the music, in this situation, isn't the most important thing here. What is - Does the music represent your business? Does it encourage the atmosphere you want? What mood does the music invoke?

Where businesses fall down is deciding on the music based on what they think their customers will want to listen to, guessing their personal taste. There are 2 reasons for this:

1. The owners are not likely to include genres he/she dislike in the list of options. There are many reasons for this way of thinking, but if one is making the conscious decision not to play "classical" music, for example, because of a personal dislike for the genre then that decision has purely been made for the business owner, not the customer. Let's not forget, hopefully you'll be concentrating on running your business, not what music happens to be on in the background, right?
2. It seems so brutally, frustratingly obvious, but not all customers enjoy being stereotyped. One particular annoyance of mine is walking into a shop which, for the entire duration of my stay, blasts out rap. I'm sure others think exactly the same about other genres too, specifically the more "fringe" genres. So if you're going to play music, make sure there's a wide variety or at least some variation as you may be turning away customers who don't "fit the mould".

What I'd ask business owners to do is think purely about the psychological state the music they play puts their customers into. Should they be feeling happy, reflective, relaxed... aggressive, pumped up?

Play music with swearing and you set a precedent that swearing openly is OK. Whether or not you agree with swearing is irrelevant. You're setting that precedent that it is. Your customers will be placed in a psychological state which makes them think, as swearing is acceptable here, I can swear. Then your worry should be who at - your staff, other customers? This effectively creates a very steep slope into escalation which no one wants.

To give you a quick example of selecting music to induce a mood, in my time on this earth I've known club owners and DJ's in London and, of all the music these difference places put on, they all had a similar idea for the bigger nights - cheesy music. Why? Because it's fun, happy, feel good so there's less of a chance that there'll be trouble.


2. Sound

Moving away from music, another almost untouched on part of sound in a shop is sound. Just sound. Ambient sound. The video above made me chuckle and exemplifies my point exactly. I'll explain why in a moment.

Ambient sound is so important. It's a constant reminder that something is going on around you, that you're part of something. The same restaurant can feel depressing and lifeless in silence but when it's busy it feels like the place to be. This is partly visual and partly sound. I'd suggest that sound, however, is equally as important as it's a constant reminder that you are somewhere that other people want to be. Your being there is affirmed, other people being there confirms that it's a good place to be.

I sometimes find myself in clothes shops which are quieter than a graveyard. This problem is made worse because the clothes suck up the sound. I often don't go back to those places. Shopping is supposed to be fun and exciting, right?! I'm enriching my life with these new objects right?! Then the shop should make me feel like it's the place to buy enriching things.

So let's look at that music shop in the video. Consider what the customer wants - probably an opportunity to hear an electric guitar and amplifier in as ideal a place as possible. This shop is not that ideal place. There is so much other noise going on in that shop that it would be impossible to make a solid decision on whether the amp or guitar sounds great. This means less sales and more time wasters.


Conclusion


(I felt compelled to mark the conclusion because of the length of the post)

Your focus is to put things in your business which enrich your customers experience of being in your shop/restaurant/gym/taxi/gallery etc. Focusing on what you want to hear is the worst place to start. Consider what your customers will need to reassure them that your place is the place they want to be. Maybe it's through loud dance music from a live DJ. Maybe it's piping through ambient noise from a train station. Maybe it's talk radio. Maybe it's an interesting lecture. Maybe it's adverts, reviews, discussions about the products you sell from your customers or professionals.

It can be anything. Play with it. Get creative. People respond to creativity. I would definitely remember a clothing shop I walked into which sounded like a busy train station and I would definitely tell my friends about it...

TripAdvisor - the customer has the power

Now, this isn't an advert for TripAdvisor (TA).. If you click on the image it will take you to the BBC News website where they've filmed a short piece demonstrating the effectiveness and power of TA.

Interviewing 2 Hotel owners on opposing sides, followed by an interview with the CEO of TA, Steve Kaufer, the feeling a business owner should be left with is a mixture of fear, awe and excitement.

• Fear - for the fact that one damning review could have an immediate damaging effect on your business
• Awe - at the power and reach these websites have. The influence they hold.
• Excitement - to know that this is free marketing, free advertising, free community making...

Ending with an insightful interview, a very interesting statistic from the TA website struck me - "The average review is extremely positive", with Mr Kaufer explaining the average is 4 out of 5 stars. The tendency in conversation is always to assume that people only ever write reviews when they've had a negative experience and that seems to be the case on some websites - let's not forget that writing a review is very different to telling the owner. Telling the owner usually means the customer wants something in return - compensation for a bad meal, a discount for positive feedback perhaps...But looking at TA specifically, the ethos it has is to make sure that the "travellers get their expectations met." 

With that frame of mind, the idea that your customer is helping other people, just like them, make sure they make the right decision - not based solely on whether it was good or bad, but on the experience as a whole.

There is no doubt that the resource is fantastic for the customer, but for the business it presents a problem - management.

A couple who own a B&B in Hastings, Medieval Lodge, were interviewed, complaining that their business had been ruined by a single review... I don't think this is the case... The average person will look at a sea of reviews for a product or service, weigh up the cons people talk about against the pros others mention. If there's more pro, then go for it. By that fairly normal measurement, this place should be doing quite well. But then I found it...

janet999hastings, Owner at Medieval Lodge Bed & Breakfast, responded to this review

22 November 2010

provide you can then put on a review on all our GENUINE customers will be very shocked at seeing this review because it is widely known what a hight service we actually provide from the minute a customer walks through the door to departure we make sure they want for nothing,some have even offered us more money stating we simply dont charge enough.if you look at the GENUINE reviews underneath some have stayed sept,oct and november which is after this person have stayed we work hard for our reviews so when some one trys to damage your reputation you worked so hard for by putting on a melicious review it makes us sad to think there are people out there that simply have nothing better to do.you see in the review it states the room was cluttered,we would like to know what with because the only thing that is in the rooms is ...

Oh... dear... It goes on too... From the owner of the establishment comes a terribly written, accusatory rant about how the persons opinion, their customers opinion, is wrong and how they're not genuine. TA has methods of reporting false reviews, but the review this is a reply to certainly doesn't read false and is still there. This is not the only occasion this happens, but I'll leave you to scroll through them if you want.

The true colours of the establishment are shown... "If you don't like it, you're wrong and we will drive you into the ground until you submit.." - that should be their moto.

They've got half the idea, but are just doing it wrong.

Keeping a hand in the trusted review sites is a must. Responding to bad reviews is essential to show that you actually care about people, their happiness and your business. Bear in mind that every reply from you is a public act. You're not replying to an individual, you're replying to everyone who reads that review. You're trying to allay future customers fears that this isn't a common occurrence, or that if it is you're grateful for their feedback which you will correct immediately. Do not write a reply at 3am just so you can sleep easier that night. Write a reply, post it in a day or two.

1 bad review doesn't kill a business. 1 bad reply from the business owner does.

Customer Experience - Smell

This marks the start of my "Customer experience" series, exploring the ways customers experience your business.

Smell is an overwhelmingly overlooked part of the customer experience in shops and business, yet it is one of our senses which, among other things, indicates to us when something is safe, nice, to be trusted or tells us to stay away, don't eat/drink..

This story starts with a wander down Oxford Street, London, searching for shoes in the January sale melee...

I was made powerfully aware of the importance of enticement not just by sight, but by smell. I don't know about you, but I've always been subconsciously aware of the smell in H&M (a clothing retailer) on the high street. Every time I walk past it, without even looking, I know I'm outside or in the vicinity of H&M.

The smell of that shop, whilst not disgusting or vile, is specific, odd and therefore memorable. So when I walked past there this January I thought "Oh it's H&M, their jeans are good value and well coloured*.." I don't particularly like the smell of it actually but it is very strongly linked in my mind with that particular shop. The only shop in the world I remember for its smell... That is extraordinarily powerful.

It takes from the idea of the sweet shop when you were a kid, if you ever went to them. That distinct heady chocolatey smell combined with the sugar and sour smell of those gelatinous sweets. Then knowing that soon all of these treats, or at least some, will be mine.. or yours.. but hopefully mine.

Take that a step further. The thrill of buying, clothes which I like and like on me, combined with that smell positively reinforces my association with that smell and because that smell is the shop to me I have a rounded sensual positive association with the shop.

It's really quite beautiful. So why are other shops not doing this? Or are they...? That is the beauty of this experience enriching device. The power of an association may not be as clear as the H&M example, but here are some others:

• A home interior shop with a delicious and relaxing scent - I feel relaxed in my own home. This shop represents the way I feel at home. These objects will continue to strengthen my relaxtion
• A doctors surgery with a lemony scent - Lemon has strong ties with cleanliness and wellness
• A clothing shop with a night club/restauranty/meadowy smell - dependent on your target market inducing smell-memories may transport your audience to a mental place where they are already wearing your clothes
• Supermarkets - The great frontier... 

To work with a super market to trial this theory would be brilliant. Veg and meat sections smelling earthy, fruit and salad smelling fruity, fish smelling of the sea, bakery smelling wholly of freshly baked bread, frozen smelling of an icey sea breeze, booze section smelling of a sophisticated fragrance... How much better an experience would that be?!

So consider your business - your shop fronts, shop interior, meeting rooms, offices... Piping music is a done thing, but smell - not nearly done enough!

As a caveat to this post, smell is quite a high risk when you get to particularly fragrant areas. Old lady clothes shops are renowned for this... So what ever you do, trial out the smell first!

*As my twitter followers and friends will attest to, I do like a nice brightly shaded jean...