Tag: experience

3 words that can ruin your brand in Malaysia and Singapore

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If you are in Malaysia or Singapore and you sell stuff to customers, there is one phrase that can ruin your brand.

“No stock Lah.” Is repeated time again by poorly trained and disinterested staff.

This seemingly innocuous phrase should be banned in your organization. While we’re at it, you should also ban the obligatory disinterested shrug of the shoulders that normally comes with the phrase.

For the uninitiated, the phrase is common in retail outlets the length and breadth of Malaysia and still, despite the alleged sophistication of the city state, in many of the malls up and down Orchard Road in Singapore.

This simple yet powerful phrase, used with annoying regularity in both discount stores and swank boutiques of luxury brands negates every penny your organization has spent on sales training, reputation development, customer service, customer relationship management and other operational excellence initiatives.

It renders worthless the massive investments you have made in licenses, real estate, interior design, stock, utilities and more.

It erases the hard work you have put into press releases, press conferences and other promotional efforts.

It undoes all the good of the advertising campaigns you have run for years in an attempt to get a consumer or two to give your brand a chance.

In a heartbeat, it ruins every single, expensive effort, financial and otherwise you have put into getting the consumer into your store.

In short, this seemingly innocuous phrase can ruin your brand.

Building a 400 year old brand is a strategic initiative

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Shepherd Neame, the oldest brewer of beer in the UK was established in 1608 or 402 years ago! An amazing heritage and the brewer likes to play on this heritage with its advertising campaigns for brands such as Spitfire, Canterbury Jack and Bishops Finger.

The brewer allocated its entire 2006 advertising budget, which was about £300,000 (US$450,000) to one of those, Spitfire a real ale, and all of the budget was spent on the London Evening Standard, an afternoon/evening newspaper in London. This was considered a radical change of strategy. As well as print ads, content and sponsored supplements, the brand also sponsored the Evening Standard’s football World Cup special feature in May of that year. The strategic agency was John Ayling & Associates and the creative agency was RPM3. Promotional support such as free pint promotions were also included.

The really well executed and edgy “Bottle of Britain” campaign ran over six months and is one of my favourite campaigns. Here are some samples of the award winning creative work that was considered controversial and was investigated by the advertising watchdog Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) in the UK after complaints about the use of SS insignia. The complaints were later rejected by the ASA. You’ll need to have some knowledge of history, colloquial English as well as WWII jargon to really appreciate the ads.

Spitfire

You can find more examples of their campaigns on the Facebook page here

But Shepherd Neame understands that advertising campaigns are not enough to build and grow a strong brand. As a result, the company continues to invest in state of the art SAP technology and bottling technology, new acquisitions of high turnover pubs and refurbishments of existing properties to create airy, spacious and clean environments.

The company also invests extensively in merchandise including a bottle of Britain book, social media and charity work (Spitfire originated as a charity brew) and will link the brand to the extensive 70th anniversary celebrations of the Battle of Britain due to be held in the UK later this year. Also look out for its campaigns related to the 2010 football world cup.

All these elements ensure the brands offer experiential, emotional and economic value to both new and existing customers.

It comes as no surprise therefore that despite the recession and clouds of uncertainty, red tape and increased taxes and shocking weather in the UK, turnover was up 8.2% to £60 million in the last six months of 2009 proving that investing in brands is not just about edgy and controversial advertising campaigns, but a long term strategic imperative to continue to build on a 400 year heritage!

Retention branding in the hospitality industry

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Advertising, direct mail, marketing collateral, public relations and other acquisition efforts tend to get the bulk of a company’s branding budget. The belief being that it is easier to acquire a customer who is presumably using a competitor product than it is to hang on to a customer you’ve already acquired.

Retention branding, the efforts implemented to hold onto those customers who have been acquired at enormous cost, gets very little attention at all. Some firms don’t even know if a customer has bought before and many don’t even know when was the last time a customer bought something.

And yet a brand is not built on acquiring customers, it is built on retaining them. This is especially true in the hospitality industry. Which is why I was surprised to learn that Hilton is imposing a 25% increase on the number of reward points required to qualify for free rooms under its loyalty programme.

The global recession has hit the hospitality industry harder than many other industries. Occupancy and rack rates have tumbled. To combat this, many of Hilton’s competitors have bent over backwards to work with existing customers and are investing heavily in retention branding. Starwood Hotels recently launched a special offer for members of its loyalty programme, Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) that offers between double and quadruple points for each stay.

Starwood, which includes the Westin and Sheraton brands offers guests who stay two nights double points, those who stay three nights triple points and quadruple points for those who stay four nights.

Last year, at the height of the economic crisis, Marriott offered members of its loyalty programme a fifth night free when four nights were booked using reward points. One of the most frustrating issues for loyalty programme members are ‘blackout dates’. These are normally busy periods when the hotel can sell rooms at rack rates. Aware of the negative impact this had on loyal customers, Marriott scrapped the unpopular policy.

Last December, in the US, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) ran a tactical campaign via twitter offering loyalty card holders points for staying in its hotels. IHG also has no plans to increase reward rates.

Other hotels that have not announced specific initiatives have however ended many of the restrictions related to when points can be redeemed.

So most of the Hilton’s competitors appear to be investing in retention campaigns to hold onto their existing customers. As customers leave Hilton, as they inevitably will, the competition will be happy to acquire them and but if they continue to invest in retention campaigns, will make it very hard for Hilton to win them back.

Singapore Airlines Suites, branding blunder or recession victim?

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There have been numerous branding blunders and you can read about some of them here but rarely does Singapore Airlines feature. Singapore Airlines (SIA) consistently leads the industry in profitability and manages to ride out turbulent times better than most in its class. It has always been aggressive, acquiring aircraft and expanding its fleet quickly, in 1979 it set a record at the time, when it traded relatively new aircraft for an updated version of the B-747 for a then record of S$2.2 billion. SIA also differentiated itself early on with its adoption of the Singapore Girl as the face of the airline and service as the unique selling point.

But the world of today and the world of the 1970s are very different. The 1970s were the halcyon days of the mass economy. In the mass economy, with its mass markets and mass media, perhaps a little bit of help from the government and a large dose of nationalism. And by broadcasting the same message to large audiences who had limited sources of information, it was a lot easier for an airline to establish a brand.

More of this and more of that and better this and better that or bigger this and bigger that coupled with large advertising budgets worked well. As competition increased, consumers became more segmented and media choices fragmented, like many other industries, airlines turned to positioning as a strategy.

Positioning
Positioning consisted of creating a position in prospects minds that reflected the strengths and weaknesses of the offering as well as those of competitors. Ideally, this position was based on being first in a particular category. If someone was already first in a category, then companies attempted to redefine themselves in a new category to be first. In the airline business, this tended to be related to passenger comfort or service. The effectiveness of positioning depended on the ability of advertising to drive branding perceptions in the mind of consumers. To do this, airlines often made promises they were unable to keep (admittedly, often due to third party issues out of their control), failed to meet traveller expectations, often because dynamic competitors moved quickly and so raised the bar, which in turn led to brand disillusionment.

Positioning was ideal for the mass economy. It was also ideal for advertising agencies and marketing departments because it gave them enormous power without the responsibility of accountability. Al Ries and Jack Trout invented the concept of positioning. The preface to one book states, “Positioning has nothing to do with the product,…. (it) is what you do in the mind of the prospect.” So, essentially this means that the consumer can be made to believe, through extensive advertising and PR in the right conduits to consumers, and other vehicles, what an offering means to them.

Airbus A380
When Airbus announced it’s super plane, the Airbus A380, ever aggressive, SIA was one of the first to sign up and the first A380 delivered was delivered to Singapore Airlines on 15 October 2007. It entered service on 25 October 2007 with an inaugural flight from Singapore to Sydney. Passengers bought seats in a charity online auction paying between US$560 and US$100,000 for seats. Understandably, the new aircraft, a clever publicity stunt and an inquisitive general public, generated a lot of media coverage and by the end of February 2009, a million passengers had flown with Singapore Airlines on the A380.

Suites
But the majority of those passengers are flying economy. The problem has been getting passengers to use the suites, positioned as, “a class beyond first.” When the new A380 service was launched, in the way that has always done, SIA used global TV, print and online advertising and PR campaigns to launch the new A380.

Beautifully executed TVCs were developed for the Suites by a top advertising agency using taglines such as “your own private bedroom in the sky”. Other taglines included “an unprecedented level of privacy” in a “cabin unlike any other”, and sleeping on a “standalone bed that was not converted from a seat”. Givenchy Beddings (and pyjamas) Ferragamo toiletries and Krug or Dom Perignon were also part of the deal.

But despite a unique product, some slick marketing based on a huge investment in a one-size-fits-all message to mass markets using mass media, consumers and corporations haven’t bought into it. Why not?

Lack of research
One of the reasons could be that SIA didn’t talk to customers and prospects about what they might want from such a service, and, more importantly, how much they would be preparred to pay for it. In fact, it appears that SIA didn’t even engage with members of its Frequest Flyer Programme. SIA simply went ahead and developed the product and then, in a traditional 4 Ps (product, price, place and promotion) and positioning strategy, tried to sell it.

To make it even harder for themselves, and despite charging a premium of more than 50% over the first class fare, SIA would only reward loyal members of its Frequent Flyer Programme (FFP) Krisflyer with 10% more miles than a regular first class ticket! Moreover, any redemption of miles could only be for economy, business or first class and not for the Suites!

According to Shashank Nigam, “Several HR departments of companies, including civil service departments in Singapore, issued circulars or directives stating that “Since the Singapore Airlines Suites are a class beyond first, officers who are usually eligible for First Class travel will be ineligible for Suites”. So by now, SIA had upset its two most important customers, its own government and elite members of the frequent flyer programme!

In 2008, as the economic crisis began to take hold and suite sales nosedived, SIA maintained its pricing strategy, making it even harder for financial institutions, already under scrutiny for lack of risk management, to justify such extravagance.

Another reason for the poor response is probably related to the ground experience. Although positioned as a class beyond first, elite passengers were expected to use the same check-in facilities as passengers travelling in first class, the same lounge and essentially, the same food as first class passengers.

Premium revenues drop by 40%
By the middle of 2009, SIA was feeling the heat on a number of fronts. The economic situation gripping the world caused international premium passenger numbers to fall by 18% year on year in the first 10 months of 2009. At the same time, premium revenues dropped by up to 40% over the same period (IATA). Another challenge was from competitors such as Emirates and Qantas who don’t offer Suites but do have exceptional first class experiences including cabins on their A380s that feature a Bar and bathrooms with showers, limousine transfers at departure and arrival (not available to SIA passengers, even those using Suites).

SIA reviews incentives
SIA scrambled to recover some marketshare. The first incentive was a free night’s accommodation at the Raffles Hotel in Singapore for all passengers flying Suite class. Neat, but hardly enough to justify a 50% premium over first class. Then SIA remembered the people who have made it such a success story in the past, first class passengers and lucrative members of Krisflyer. SIA relented on the bonus miles and began offering 300% bonus miles instead of 10%. Definately a step in the right direction but perhaps too little too late as it is rumoured that a significant number of key SIA customers have defected to Emirates and Qantas. If this is true you can be sure these airlines will make it harder for these premium passengers to leave than did SIA.

So what could SIA have done better? Here are 5 things I would have done although, if they had done number one the rest would have been redundant. What else would you have done?

1) Research. Your existing customers are your best source of information. Talk to them, find out what they are looking for and match attributes to their requirements for value. If SIA had talked to its premium passengers and its own government departments, it would have realised that the market could not support the suites product.
2) Mass market branding with a focus on the 4 Ps is no longer effective. Brands today are built on relationships, access, personalisation and relevance.
3) SIA should have focussed on developing more profitable relationships, not a more profitable product. Brands evolve when companies start buying for customers instead of selling to them.
4) Branding is an organisational not a departmental responsibility. And the organisation is the responsibility of the CEO. To expect a passenger to pay a 50% premium over the price of a first class ticket and not offer a limousine service on the ground when all competitors offer it to first class passengers shows a real lack of judgement.
5) Retention is key to brand building. Companies no longer sell a product, customers buy a product. And once they’ve bought the product, companies should do everything possible to hang onto those customers.

SIA is a great brand. As I write this, I am sure SIA is working out what to do with its Suites. If SIA aims to meet customer requirements for emotional, economic and experiential value, then the airline will bounce back stronger and better for the experience and the Suites can be written off as a victim of the recession. If they don’t the suites may become yet another branding blunder.

Tips for building a retail brand

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In terms of service, Christmas shopping this year has been a roller coaster ride from the highs of the interactions in the luxury stores of Pavillion to the lows of the interactions in the wannabe Malaysian fashion store in Mid Valley.

And even though approximately 85% of the interactions have left me frustrated, I want to be positive during the festive season and so am offering free advice to those retailers in Malaysia who want to build a profitable brand.

1) Teach your staff to smile when a customer walks into your shop. It costs nothing and instantly makes the customer feel welcome.

2) If you are a clothes store, get your staff to wear your clothes. If you are not a clothes store, develop a company policy on dress and stick to it. It may also help if you are responsible for laundry, that way the clothes will get washed.

3) Make it a company policy that all customer facing staff must have a shower and brush their teeth EVERY day, before coming to work. This is especially important in restaurants.

4) Teach your staff to approach the customer and say ‘good morning/afternoon’ etc with a smile on their face.

5) Teach your staff to understand how to respond if another customer interrupts a transaction. Essentially, teach them how to say no.

6) If you are a luxury or high end store, make it a company policy not to allow staff to drink from plastic bags when customers are in the store. Actually, make it a company policy not to allow staff to drink from plastic anything, ever.

7) The same goes with food. I walked into one store as a member of the staff was eating at the counter. He was on his own so came to serve me. I walked out 9 seconds later with half his samosa on my lapel.

8) The opening line, “Can I help you?” Begs a negative response. Teach your staff to try something open ended, such as “Are you looking for shirts or trousers?”

9) Sales staff are not order takers. If a customer, despite all the attempts by your staff to prevent him from making a purchase, insists on buying something, teach your staff to show something that goes well with the purchase. You never know, you might actually sell something else.

10) Listen carefully, the statement, “NO STOCK LAH!” is being used by many staff to get the prospect out of the store so the staff member can go back to sending sms messages to his friends. Teach your staff to apologise profusely for the fact that they just sold the last piece 15 minutes ago. Teach them to then explain that they will be happy to call other branches to see if they have the relevant product/size/colour. If you don’t have other branches, then teach them to ask nicely for the prospect’s number and explain that your customer service representative will call the prospect as soon as the correct product/size/colour comes in.

11) If someone buys something they have gone from being a prospect to a customer. Remember all that money you spent on launch party/PR/mailshots/leaflets/brochures/billboards/print ads etc? Well, you did all that for this moment. It wasn’t to create awareness, it was to drive this person to your store. And now he’s bought something, what are you going to do? Well, most of you let him walk out the door! Are you nuts? You have a 5% – 15% chance of selling to a prospect and a 50% chance of selling to an existing customer. So what is the point of letting a new customer walk out the door? It’s criminal! I’m serious! Be nice to this person, flatter him, spoil him, kiss him, do whatever it takes to get his contact information because he is now a customer. He is familiar with your product, your store, your staff, despite their best efforts. Your job now is to get him back into the store, preferably tomorrow!

12) Not every white person is a tourist. And not every tourist is a white person, but that’s another story. Just because a customer looks like a tourist, doesn’t mean he is one. Moreover, if he is wearing a suit, he probably has a white collar job which means, in Asia that he is probably paid well. Even if he is visiting, he may be back or he may be lonely so ensure your staff engage him.

13) The needs of a Saudi are different to those of an Englishman. And the needs of an Englishman are different to those of a Korean. You get the point. Invest in some training that teaches your staff to be able to develop rapport with different nationalities.

14) Pay your staff a commission on sales. If you don’t where is the incentive to sell your products? Without a commission, all the staff are doing is increasing your energy bill and destroying your brand.

15) While we are on the subject of remuneration, I suggest you pay your staff more. Every sales person I spoke to complained about their salary. One was earning RM550 per month, with no commission. That is slavery. Sales staff are an investment, not a cost. They represent your brand and, with the correct training, can multiply your profits enormously. And good ones are worth paying for. And before you tell me about the lack of loyalty, please don’t bother. If you create a nice environment with good pay, your staff will stick with you.

If you implement the above into your corporate strategy (if you have one, and many of the stores I visited over the last week can’t even spell it) then I guarantee you will increase your sales and move toward a more profitable brand.

I’ve got about 100 more of these but I’ve got a plane to catch. Happy Christmas!

Automation is a tool, not a solution

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In the mass economy that started before the second world war and ran until the start of the customer economy circa mid nineties, branding was a less complicated process. Consumers had little choice or knowledge and as a result would make brand decisions based on corporate promises or claims. Consumers needs were relatively simple and once they used a brand and if they were happy with that brand, they would remain loyal to the brand.

We’ve come a long way since then and branding has become a lot more complicated. As competition increased, companies tried to compete, often by slashing prices that ruined quality or making false claims about product capabilities. Advertising led campaigns focussed on aquisition and fed up consumers fled to the competition and the process continued.

A core element of brand building today requires brands to engage with customers to ensure a thorough understanding of the customer’s requirements for value and then matching the attributes of the product to those requirements for value. Once a customer is acquired, the process of continuous engagement continues through two way communication. The ultimate goal is to retain customers in order for the company to up or cross sell to them in the future. The icing on the cake is to turn them into brand ambassadors.

Up until recently, mobile service providers in Malaysia didn’t have to worry about subscribers leaving because they were able to create a number of road blocks to ensure the process of switching providers was too complicated. Even the recent implementation of number portability still punishes consumers which is why the response has been lukewarm.

I’ve been with my mobile provider, Celcom for at least 10 years and have put up with poor service, repeated dropped calls, confusing billing, lack of interest or understanding of my needs, inflexibility and non existent customer engagement for the majority of that decade. During a recent trip to Singapore I was checking email on a regular basis and have just been hit with an astronomical bill due to my usage of the data roaming service. I am not complaining about the massive hike in my bill because the reality is I should have checked the fees before using the service. (Having said that, I have done this in the past and not received such a large bill. Furthermore, a brief warning before usage would have been helpful).

But I am complaining about the fact that, after 10 years as a customer, Celcom sends me one text message warning me that I have passed my credit limit and then cuts my line without any consideration for my payment history or my time as a customer. This is even more irksome as my October bill is not actually due till 16/11. Despite this, and no doubt wary of the reputation of Celcom, my efficient pa had, yesterday instructed our despatch to pay the bill today, 11/11, five days before it is due. The balance is from my November bill and is not due till around the same time in December.

I’m also compaining about the company’s use of automation. If I try to make a call to my provider, using my handphone I am transferred to a machine that gives me some instructions that result in me receiving a text message stating the details of my overdue amount including dates due. That’s useful information. But it doesn’t give me an opportunity to pay the overdue amount or discuss the situation to someone. So Celcom is saying to me, “Your payment is overdue, you are barred from using your phone. We know you run a business but we don’t care. We know that some of you use your phone to go online and now you can’t, tough. In fact, we don’t want to help you or have anything to do with you until you settle your outstanding bill.”

So here are some suggestions for Celcom that brands in other sectors can also benefit from:

1) All customers are not created equal. Don’t treat those with a good payment record the same way as you treat those with a bad payment record.

2) Similarly, most customers are good people. If someone is late with their payment, don’t automatically assume they are a criminal. Find out what the problem is and see how you can make it better.

4) You collect a lot of data on your customers and their usage patterns. Use that data to form a relationship with those customers in the form of better service delivery.

5) Branding today is about engagement. Take the time to engage with your customers. Communicate with your customers in person.

6) Automation is a tool, it’s not a solution.

7) Just because you have acquired a customer, doesn’t mean you own them and don’t have to do anything to keep them.

8) You are not the only company doing what you do in the country.

9) At least give your customers the impression you are grateful for their business.

10) Everything you offer can be duplicated by other service providers, except the relationship you have with your customers.

Feel free to submit any recommendations to improve the Celcom brand experience.