Category: sales

Retention is key. Low cost carriers must learn from the mistakes of legacy carriers

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The legendary Peter Drucker said it best: “The purpose of business is not to make a sale but to make and keep a customer”. This is what branding is about. It’s not about aquisition, it’s about retention. And the airline industry, and in particular, Low Cost Carriers (LCCs) need to realise this soon otherwise they will find it tough to build brands that can compete, long term with the mighty legacy carriers with their frequent flyer programmes, multiple classes, business lounges, inflight entertainment and gourmet food (well some of them).

Most of the LCCs have a price based offering. Being small, they are nimble and more efficient than their lumbering competitors. These young, brash and determined airlines, often helmed by charismatic individuals with little industry experience have ripped up the industry manuals and replaced them with revolutionary business models that charge consumers for peanuts, coffee, noodles, seats, luggage and most recently in the case of Air Asia, a ‘convenience fee’.

According to an official response from the airline to an indignant passenger, this ‘convenience fee’ is “meant to recover costs in implementing, upgrading and maintaining our online payment systems. It is also to enhance security features for credit card payments to give guests a comfortable and safe booking environment.”

You’d be forgiven for thinking that this response, available here in full on malaysiakini.com came from one of those stuffy legacy carriers mentioned earlier. You’d be forgiven too for scoffing at the line, “give guests a comfortable booking environment”. How does charging me more make me more comfortable? You’d also be forgiven for thinking that perhaps the online payment system wasn’t good in the first place and wondering what the implications of that might be.

In the past most airlines, including Air Asia, would have absorbed these costs. I quote again, “However, now that AirAsia is experiencing a rapidly growing number of online transactions, these costs have significantly increased.”

The official response to the complaint goes on to say, “This convenience fee is charged on a per way per guest basis because the costs of these systems are driven by the value of the transaction rather than by the number of transactions. As costs vary per country, the convenience fee also varies.”

The whole process has been dealt with in a manner more suited to one of the aging behemoths than such a young, aggressive and savvy carrier. To me it says that because you, the customer have helped us grow so fast, we’d like to reward you by charging you to use our online booking service. Even though it is automated and therefore doesn’t require the ongoing investment in real estate and talent that a booking office requires, we’re going to make you, the customer pay for it.

The danger here is that Air Asia is making a common legacy carrier, or perhaps I can call it legacy branding, mistake. It is treating passengers as if they are insignificant seat fillers and it is assuming that all passengers are the same, don’t have options and will put up with being treated badly. Irrespective of whether it is the first or fifty first time the passenger is using the airline.

Surely, if a passenger is a long time user of the airline, there will be significant personal data available (and Air Asia offers customers the opportunity to submit a lot of personal, travel and other information) and multiple transactions with that customer mean that the liklihood of fraud is low, should that passenger be treated, and charged, the same as a new customer? And anyway, the burden of fraud is with the Credit Card company and not the carrier, which is why it is the Credit Card company that sometimes calls after you use the card to make a booking.

Unfortunately, because the prevaling attitude in most agencies (and companies) is that acquisition is key, the typical response is yes. And it would seem, based on this episode, that Air Asia agrees with this attitude.

However, FusionBrand has long argued that retention is key to brand building. Although LCC’s have thrown some traditional branding theories out the window with their price driven strategies, you cannot build a long term profitable brand, on acquisition alone. Indeed, a low price strategy that aims to ‘buy’ loyalty can often encourage only disloyalty. That’s because a price driven customer is always looking for a cheaper alternative. And, in the LCC space, will often find it.

This is substantiated in a survey carried out by Sabre Airline Solutions, which found that 86% of airlines believe that customer loyalty and retention will have the most positive impact on their business in 2010.

So my advice to Air Asia and other LCCs is that if you want to become a brand, you must start treating customers with more respect, understand that a low price alone will not build relationships, think carefully about how you communicate with your passengers and remember that the purpose of business is not to make a sale but to make and keep a customer.

In a social media world, are Billboards a necessity or expensive exercise in vanity?

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We all accept that the way consumers source and absorb data has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. Instead of listening to brands and what they have to say about themselves, consumers now listen to other consumers and buy brands based on data sourced from those other consumers.

The way consumers partition their worlds is also changing and nowadays, consumers segment themselves into communities. For companies, this should be seen as an exciting development because it gives them the opportunity to communicate directly with consumers in pre identified commuities using content that resonates with those communities in a more personalised and dynamic manner and using tools that are widely available and relatively inexpensive.

But when we meet with prospects, they only seem to be interested in traditional tools such as print ads, TV commercials and billboards. And they soon lapse back into semi indifference as we suggest the future is not about these expensive, outdated tools that are increasingly closed out by consumers.

All prospects seem to want is reach, awareness and creativity to build a brand. The high profile, mass economy tools and creative stuff that looks good, reaches the most consumers, irrespective of whether or not the product or service is relevant to those consumers and wins agencies awards.

Even if it means spending millions of Ringgit on immeasurable campaigns that are lost in the fog of messages consumers are bombarded with every day. Even if it means they cannot measure the effectiveness of the campaign with real, actionable data that they can use to save money and improve the effectiveness of future campaigns. Even if the messages within the campaign make claims the company simply cannot live up to, they still prefer this route to less expensive, targeted messages with relevant content to specific communities based on the requirements for value of that community.

It’s as if they are reassured that they are getting value for money because they can see the print ads, the billboards, the TV Commercials and therefore, so can lots of other people. Sure, billboards can be an inexpensive medium to pass on a message to a large audience. Indeed one company BPS states in their marketing collateral, …”Perhaps it’s because they (billboards) reach more people for cheaper prices than any other type of media.” But is reaching more people for cheaper prices a sound strategy for a social media world? From this we deduce that if lots of people see the product or service on TV or on a billboard, then many of them will seek out the product or remember it and buy it when they encounter it in the ‘flesh’. This may have been acceptable in a more sedate world, with limited competition etc. But we all know that in today’s marketplace, this approach is no longer effective.

Is this an Asian thing? Or is it universal? Here in Malaysia, one mass economy tool that is really popular is the billboard. Billboards, and in particular getting a company on one, is fast becoming a national obsession. One prospect recently interupted our strategic proposal and asked us to find a number of billboards at strategic locations across the capital to raise awareness of the company (The company is almost 100 years old).

The belief is that if enough consumers see the product on a billboard, preferably a really big billboard alongside a really busy highway, then the success of the brand is all but guaranteed. This obsession is growing fast. Currently, out of home accounts for only 2% of ad spend in Malaysia, but it is growing at over 35% per annum and is now worth in excess of RM100,000,000 (US$30million).

But I fail to understand the logic in this. Because think about your behaviour when you are driving. Unless you spend your days splitting molecules or working on a vaccine for AIDS, driving is probably the most complicated daily activity you will do. Not only is it a complicated activity that requires great skill, but according to research, it is a skill that consists of more than 1500 ”sub skills”.

When we’re driving, there is no opportunity to relax (This is where a wry grin appears on the faces of Malaysians). Throughout the journey, we are navigating badly signposted and unforgiving roads and terrain that changes on an almost daily basis. We’re constantly scanning the environment (well some of us are) for cars that don’t signal, pedestrians who take their time crossing the road, despite the obvious implications of being hit by a ton of steel at 50km, motor bikes driving the wrong way and debris from a recent lorry puncture. Plus, we’re constantly seeking information that can help us.

At the same time, we’re trying to maintain our position on the road. We’re also constantly checking our speed and mirrors (well some of us are), making decisions (apparently, about twenty per mile), evaluating risk and reward, looking at instruments and, despite the obvious futility, trying to anticipate the actions of the white wira with a black door and five girls in the back.

Whilst doing all this, many of us, and you know who you are, are sending an sms, talking on the phone, sipping from a water bottle or thinking about ___________________(insert name of premier league team). Others are trying to stop yet another fight between irritable kids or starting one with a spouse.

Research from the USA carried out a survey on one stretch of road in Maryland and, “found that a piece of information was presented every two feet, which at 30 miles per hour, the study reasoned, meant the driver was exposed to 1,320 “items of information”, or roughly 440 words, per minute. This is akin to reading three paragraphs like this one while also looking at lots of pretty pictures, not to mention doing all the other things mentioned above – and then repeating the cycle, every minute you drive.” (source Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What it Says About Us) by Tom Vanderbilt). With all that going on, do billboards engage consumers effectively?

And billboards are not cheap. In Kuala Lumpur, the most expensive billboard in the country is on the federal highway, costs RM900,000 a year and reaches 252,000 cars daily. Less high profile billboards cost are around RM250,000 – RM500,000 per annum, depending on traffic. But branding requires so much more than reach today. Whilst reaching hundreds of thousands of consumers and creating awareness, especially for a new product may be an important step in the branding process of some products and services, it isn’t a goal, for any product of service.

Now I’m not suggesting for one minute that billboards are a waste of money. However, I am suggesting that you should get independent advice on whether or not it is the right tool for your brand. I’ve seen a number of billboards for B2B companies, one recently was selling shock absorbers. The major investment in that billboard and the production costs, would have been better spent on sales and marketing material to engage the automotive manufacturers and repair shops that purchase shock absorbers.

You also need to be careful how you chose the location. Just because 500,000 cars pass the billboard, doesn’t mean it is a good location. Equally important is the content of the billboard. Writing an essay will defeat the object of the billboard.

Some other questions you need to ask yourself include:

What role do billboards have to play in our brand strategy?
How can we measure the effectiveness of the campaign?
If we can’t measure it, should we do it?
What happens once we take the billboard down? How do we maintain momentum?
How can we leverage the impact of the billboard?
How can we make the billboard stand out?

It may be that a billboard will become a neccessary part of your brand strategy. But it is worth asking yourselves these questions first. Otherwise, your billboard will waste a lot of money that few companies can afford.

If having asked yourself these questions, you still believe billboards are part of your communications campaign, try to make them original. 3 dimensional billboards will definately get attention and so will digital boards. It amazes me when I see a photo of a watch on a billboard. We recently had a huge watch billboard outside our office. It was there for at least a month. No one in the office had ever heard of the brand so we decided to investigate it further to see what other communications were part of the campaign.

We couldn’t find anything so we can only assume that billboard was the extent of the communications campaign. As I write this, two months later, I have asked if anyone remembers the name. Nobody does. That’s probably RM200,000 wasted.

However, if that billboard had been digital and the watch actually worked, then we would probably remember the brand. Of course this doesn’t necessarily mean we would buy the product, but at least awareness levels would have increased.

This article has some great ideas for 3D billboards. A simple search of the Internet will uncover plenty more.

The organization is the brand

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This is a classic example of how a brand that spends millions on external branding, needs to also look at internal branding.

BMW has a number of dealers in Malaysia however, as far as I can determine, there are only 2 main dealers in the Klang Valley. We bought a BMW 3 series new from one of the 2 main dealers in Kuala Lumpur about seven years ago.

The dealer also has an impressive work shop and so we serviced it at the same dealer for the first six years. There is also a bodyshop and as my wife is the main user of the car, we’ve visited the body shop more often than most car owners. We own three cars but only one BMW so I consider us an ideal customer as there is obviously plenty of opportunity to cross and up sell us.

Indeed we’re intending to sell the 3 series and buy a new car in the next 3 months. However before we do so, the car require needs some attention.

Although we get plenty of generic direct mail and the occasional and predictable after service call asking if we are happy from the original dealer, the original sales person moved on a long time ago and we haven’t got a call from anyone else on the sales floor. Even when the car was 5 years old, an ideal time to sell and buy a new car, we didn’t get a call inviting us in for a test drive.

The original dealer hasn’t tried to build a relationship with us and therefore we don’t have any loyalty to them. So we sent the car to the original dealers main competition in the Klang Valley and asked them to look at the car and quote for the repairs.

Now in my business, if a client who has been with my competition for 7 years, were to knock on my door and offer me the chance of getting his business I would be all over him like the proverbial white on rice! Customers are the source of profits. Without them, brands would not exist. Existing customers are the most reliable source of future revenue. The thought of taking one of those nice profitable customers away from the opposition is, I have to say, a pleasant thought.

After all, we’re in the midst of a global recession that has seen marketing and other costs slashed. Passenger car sales are predicted to be down over 15% this year. In this environment, new customer acquisition is a massive drain on dwindling resources and any prospect is valuable, especially one that walks in the door and has “I’m a genuine prospect’ written all over him.

But no, instead of looking at us as an opportunity. An opportunity to acquire a new customer from the competition, we were viewed as another expense and the mechanic told us that they would carry out the inspection but would charge in the region of RM250 (US60)!

As you can imagine, this riled me. Sure I’m going to compare the quote with a quote from somewhere else but so what. That is a cost of doing business. But surely it is important to look past the issue at hand and the opportunity for future business?

With the right internal brand that includes standard processes for new prospects that are essentially a number of simple questions that lay the foundations for rapport. A dealer, who in this case represents the BMW brand, will be well positioned to acquire a new customer for a minor investment of RM250.

In this instance, I have a negative impression of the dealer and BMW that will require a lot of work and a much greater investment, to undo.

Developing a sales culture is key to brand building – part 2

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Too many companies manage sales as a series of “events”, not as an integrated sales effort that forms part of a corporate brand strategy. And yet, if you are a sales driven organization, the sales force is often the first touch point a prospect has with the company. Mess this key moment up and the significant investment made in preparing the organization for the moment and getting the prospect to this stage is wasted.

Despite this, some executives even turn their noses up at the mention of sales systems or dismiss the concept of a sales force being an integral part of the organisation. When good sales people leave, they often don’t replace them till there is a specific need. If the quality talent is not in the market when that need arises, they end up with poor quality sales people. Unable to sell products, this leads to the inevitable fallback – discount – and prices get cut day after day. This discount culture may spike sales in the short term and may work in a developing market. But in the long term, it hurts profitability, and is a fast track to a brand graveyard.

Over the last twenty years or so, sales development was not an organizational priority. This was generally due to demand in most sectors that outstripped supply. But over the next 10 years, as Malaysia prepares herself for the giant leap into the ranks of developed nations, with an economy based on service and not price, the ability to sell products and/or services, both domestically and globally, in competition with foreign companies and their slick and well trained sales force’ with be critical to the success of this transition.

If we get it wrong, not only will we fail to develop global brands, we’ll be unable to compete locally and internationally.

Developing a sales culture is key to brand building – part 1

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In any economy, for most companies, one core effort of building a profitable brand is to develop an effective sales culture within the organization. And at the heart of this culture is a well trained sales force and clearly defined sales systems.

These systems help generate higher close rates. They also help the well trained sales force develop stronger customer relationships that lead to better returns on marketing investments through repeat purchases and the development of brand ambassadors.

Developing a sales culture requires investments in recruitment and training, lead management systems, sales processes and improved compensation for sales people. As Malaysian firms, GLC’s and other institutions struggle to find talent, systems and strategies that will allow them to compete and stay profitable, integrating a sales system into daily business practice is becoming mission critical. But few firms seem to grasp the importance of creating a great sales organization, and few Malaysian firms have become effective at sales.

Recently, we carried out a sales skills and sales process analysis for a public listed company in the property sector. We noted that the sales manager began his career at the company as a sales executive 16 years previously and was promoted simply because he outlasted everyone else in the sales department.

He didn’t know how to manage sales people. He didn’t know anything about territory or lead management and was inept when it came to motivating disillusioned sales people. He didn’t even know how to sell because all he had ever done was take orders. Yet he was responsible for recruitment and developing the training program for new recruits as well as ongoing sales training!

Another issue we identified at the same company but this also applies to many other corporations from many sectors, not just the property sector is what we call the ‘warm body syndrome’.

Because the property sector works around projects, if a project finishes and people leave, then quite often they are not replaced. The idea is of course to save money. But if the next project comes on stream when all the quality sales staff have already been employed elsewhere, the organisation can only recruit from the bottom of the barrel. The company then ends up with low quality sales people who are quite often ‘trained’ by the sales manager who is a sales manager in name only.

So the company ends up recruiting the wrong people who are then trained the wrong way. Companies got away with it in the past because as Malaysia evolved, there was limited competition and demand outstripped supply.

But the Malaysian economy is moving into unknown waters. Competition, from both local and international organizations is at an all time high.

What is required to succeed in these unchartered waters, is a great sales organization with the people, systems, processes, training and incentives to build sales and develop long term relationships with customers.

The results will be a profitable brand, able to compete locally and on the global playing field.

Part 2 of this story will follow next week.

Is it time to put positioning to bed?

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40 years ago this year, Jack Trout published his first article on positioning. But the term didn’t really become advertising jargon until his articles entitled “The Positioning Era”, were published in Advertising Age in the early 1970’s.

There are numerous definitions of what positioning is today but to ensure we’re all on the same page, I propose this version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positioning_%28marketing%29

But in today’s marketplace, positioning has multiple problems:

1) Positioning is immeasurable: You can’t say “our positioning has improved our sales by 5 % or as a result of our positioning strategy, our brand is 12% better than competitions. Furthermore, it is impossible to measure the ROI or benchmark positioning.

2) Positioning is only suitable for mass markets. Yet branding today is about segmentation and communicating and engaging with those segments via relevant channels and with messages that resonate specifically with those segments or niche markets. Does this mean that a company should develop different positioning for different niches?

3) Positioning is suitable for mass markets with limited competition and limited consumer access to media and information. Today, consumers can get any information they want on anything from anywhere.

4) The wikipedia definition is a top-down, company knows best, hierarchical marketing approach. Yet we live in a C2C environment in which consumers define brands.

5) Positioning is one-way. The company knows best and you must listen to us. We tell you how our products are positioned. But today, if you are not entering into 2 way conversations with consumers you are about to join the brand graveyard.

6) Positioning was developed for the US mass market of the 1970’s. But we’re in a globalized world now, with much more competition and more knowledgeable consumers.

7) Positioning is competition, not customer driven. The basic premise of positioning is that you want to be number 1 or number 2 in a category in a prospect’s mind. If you can’t be number 1 or number 2 in an existing category because of competition, you make your own category. In today’s congested marketplace, the investments required to develop a new category are enormous. Furthermore, besides the difficulty and expense of creating your own category, you are also letting your marketing be driven by the competition rather than consumer demands for value.

8) Positioning is dated. With limited competition (by today’s standards) in most categories, positioning was a compelling theory. The problem is that the world has changed a little since 1969. Yet agencies continue to recommend positioning as the foundation for any brand strategy.

9) Positioning uses mass market channels such as TV and billboards to reach as many consumers as possible using repetition to create interest. Yet ask yourself, what do you do when the commercials come on? Surf? Put the kettle on? Go to the bathroom? Text a friend? Surf the web? Basically, do anything but watch the commercial. Same with billboards. How many billboards can you remember from your morning commute?

10) Positioning requires massive, and I mean massive budgets that few companies have. If you do have a massive budget and you do execute your campaign across multiple channels for say six months, what happens if it doesn’t work?

So my question is, what are agencies doing recommending a theory that was developed before the PC was invented? I welcome your comments.