Experience makes a brand

Let’s face it in most industries the differentiator is not the quality of the product anymore. Most quality is “good enough”.

Take Nespresso, we (mostly the Alpha-male I live with) drink a lot of Nespresso coffee – much more than when we made percolated coffee.  And yes it is easy – you just make the one cup you need and it is very quick. But if you, like Alpha-male, drinks 5 cups in the space of 20 min you could probably get away with percolated coffee.

The point is that it is not better coffee, and there are other less expensive brands of (one –cup-at –a –time) coffees. In our house we like it because it “feels” good.

If I go to the Nespresso shop it feels good – the shop is luxurious  a life-style shop, the décor, the way you have a “membership”, the packing of the beautiful colored capsules in very nice looking boxes and the paper bags of small boutique quality. I know it is wrong on many levels:

• The, very tiny, eco-warrior in me hates that packaging wise there is a box for every 10 capsules when everybody buys 100 -300 capsules.
• The fact that even though they have tried to “sex” it up the recycling is pants.
• The fact the shop is on 4 levels of prime real-estate location – and through my capsules I am paying for that.

Despite my observant self knows all of this it still feels nice…..

If I am honest, I do not really enjoy spending my Saturdays waiting in my life-style shop – with the frequency we need the coffee, so I mostly order on-line. The webpage is easy to use – the delivery is quick and on the very few occasions I have had to contact Nespresso they have been super helpful (both verbal in their call center, but also in email). That makes me happy!

It is the entire experience that makes a brand: The shop – the website – the call center- the packaging – the delivery. At any of these points of contact you can meet my expectations, delight or disappoint me, at any point! And if your service faults I will go to an alternative (other differentiator – but the quality is still “good enough”).

All companies should keep this in mind; make sure that not only at the point of contact, but everybody in the company should know the value of the offering. Think of the cleaner at NASA who when asked did NOT answer “I am a cleaner” instead saw his job as “part of a team, that will send a man to the moon”.

For social media make a plan for what you want to achieve with the use of social media. If you have a FB page or Twitter account give some serious thoughts to what you want the customers to experience – have a plan with measurable goals and have “toll-gate” reviews to measure your progress but also to ensure you are going down the right path.

It is vital you have the right people who write on behalf of the brand (and the policies to back them up), you do not want to make a “Kenneth Cole” and alienate your “fans”. Ensure you monitor the “noise” about your brand and evaluate the impact. Every brand will be talked about – You need and want to be able to influence the talk about yours!

We are hiring!

 It might come as a surprise to some people, but as a hiring manager when I have read your application and decided to invite you to an interview, I actually want you to be successful. First of all because I want to fill the need in my team, but I also want to go back to do what I do best and not have to spend time interviewing people (and I guess  I also want to be happy to have picked the right candidates in the pile of applications on my desk).  Which means that already before you have said a word I am hoping you are a keeper.  So it is certainly a surprise to me that so many candidates are completely missing the point of “presenting” yourself at an interview. Here are some of my favorite dislikes and these are not even mentioning the answers some candidates’ give (I guess there is an entire blog post in that):

·         Dress code. Gone are apparently the days where you sported your “Sunday best” for an interview. Granted you should dress for the job you want – but I still believe at an interview you dress up at least a little. I see people for the second or third interview (they are told I am the “big fish”-  in a small pond I give you that... but still), so I do not understand why they show up in dirty jeans with an out of shape t-shirt and hoodie, if this is the “Sunday best” what will they wear on a normal day? This is not another Gen Y ‘isme - I am interviewing people in their 40’es as well.  Of course there can be good reasons (albeit not many). Once a candidate came in wearing jeans and shirt, the first thing he said was: “ I apologies for my dressing today, but as I am doing this interview in my lunch-break it would look really suspicious at my current job if I come in dressing up more” I completely  “forgave” him because

o   he acknowledged that a more formal dressing would be appropriate.

o   he explained and apologized.

·         Handshake: Be firm- don’t crush my hand but the limp/wet shake frankly gives me the creeps.

·         Be interested: One candidate showed no interest whatsoever in the job or the company – only when he realized our compensation package is better than the one he is used to did he show a glimmer of interest. If you are not interested in the job itself why should I hire you? Read our jobdescription, note our key- word, use them to show how you will be a perfect fit for our needs.

·         Agency forwarded. A fair amount of the candidates we have are presented by agencies. If I hire these candidates it cost me more (a fee to the agency) but it does give me the opportunity to give somebody I am not sure of a chance to prove herself. And I understand that if you are in employment and not looking around you would probably not have seen our opening unless the agency called you. However if you are current unemployed and actively looking I do not understand why you did not apply directly to our Monster or Stepstone adds. It does not show me a real interest in getting a job.

·         Do not be late. We have interviewed more than 20 candidates the last two weeks – a staggering four of those have been late.

o   One came 40 min late with no explanation

o   Two could not find their way  and came 20 and 30 min late

o   One took the bus a stop too much and did not want to walk back – because it had started to rain.  

My point is, if you want a job make sure you are on time – better even  be early and prepared to wait (for me it means that if I have the opportunity I will start the interview earlier and then move on to my “real” job – but it also shows me you are well prepared and eager). Also how difficult can it be to check a map if you go to an interview – even if you are on the bus look out the window check street names and numbers. For the guy who got lost and did not want to walk in the rain …. Really need I say more?

Inefficiency costing sales??

I have just returned from a 24 hour trip to Dublin. DAA Dublin Airport has opened a new terminal recently – and for the first time I went through it today. I was really looking forward, the old terminal is a bit dated – and I do love the new airports for their airy feel (like terminal 5 in Heathrow or Copenhagen airport). But man was I disappointed, not that the terminal is ugly or dark – It did look nice - there were many things I would have liked to explore had I just had the time. But the way you are treated there makes it not only impossible to relax and enjoy the surroundings but also so stretched for time that if you do want to explore you miss your flight.

The terminal is over 3 floors on the ground floor you check in, on the first floor you arrive and on the third floor you have access to the departure gates. As I arrived from the other terminal I arrived on the first floor which meant first going down to check-in then going up to the 3^rd floor to go through security, already this is ridiculous – too many people to go up multiple floors and only two escalators and 6 elevators, but I made it. Now through security  - and here is the same issue as in terminal 1 you have to snail your way through a long queue, the people are not very friendly and as you reach “the other side” where you think you can go through the scanners only to be met by even more queues. These queues are “organized” by four employees – and it really begs the question “why not organize the queues from the beginning (as in Brussels airport) then you do not have to have four people standing and shouting at people?” but maybe it is a kind of scheme to keep more people in employment?

So finally I made it to the scanners. I travel a lot – so I am pretty good at knowing what to have inside the bag and what to leave on show. But in Dublin Airport it is always just that little bit more complicated. Obviously I am not the only one in this situation so most people need to put their things through twice. This of course adding to the ever expanding queues. And the people working there (probably mentally exhausted from the endless queues and comments from tired travelers) are quite unfriendly – I mean they say the right things you can just hear that they do not mean it, which do not add anything positive to the experience.

 So this morning despite me travelling with only one piece of hand-luggage and having my stuff ready it took me 50 minutes just to pass security and by then my plane was on the final call. So I could only look longingly at the restos and shops as I ran to catch my plane which was so far out the pier it made Brussels airport look compact.

I feel sorry for the retailers – they must miss out on lots of sales because security is so inefficient.



Dress Code in Office

In our office we do not have a dress code as such, for health and safety we ask the team not to wear Flip-flops and thongs, but nothing else –generally we do business casual pretty well. But now as spring and summer is ahead and we have had a few days of unusual warm weather, it gets tricky.

 I must admit that it gets warm here – we have lots of windows, big open office with many people and lots of PC’s, and to top an Airco system that has seen better days. So when the women here starts to wear shorter dresses and bare legs it is understandable, but what about the guys? Some are wearing Bermudas or ¾ lengths trousers – I completely understand – but I do not like it.  

In my opinion when you are working in an office your clothes should not take any attention away from the work you do. So if you would feel perfectly at home by the pool or in a club you are not dressed right for the occasion. I have no problem with jeans and t-shirts- but there are things you should avoid. Ex I once saw a woman not wearing a bra but a T-shirt stating “Eat Me”, that might be fun at a party but in the office certainly not.

What do you do in your company? Where do you draw the line? Or should we just get over ourselves and not pay attention to what other people wear?

Change Management

I am about to start a big move in my team set-up;  one of our remote teams will be moving “back” to the “mother-ship”. We only had them working remotely for 2 years – but have realized this is not the best option. The reasons are many folded but leverage of knowledge and expertise are the top ones. The remote team is doing a great job – working really well and hard, so it has definitely nothing to do with the staff – but everything with the set-up.

To successfully execute this move, planning will be key, so I am in the zone of “Change Management”, leveraging on the experiences I made in the past.

What is the key to successful change management?

·         Communication

·         Communication

·         Communication

 The change team needs to be completely aligned in their communication; as Professor Philip Stiles of Cambridge University puts it: “an elevator speech – preferably practice so you can all say the same thing almost “word for word””.

 You need to be open and honest (keeping anything back will only result in lost credibility). Make sure you are available to the people who are affected (both direct and in-direct). Although I keep a very open door policy in the office – it can be daunting to go to your “boss’s boss”. I make a point of drinking coffee in the coffee corner more frequently when changes are happening and take my lunch so it is “covering” two lunch shifts – doing everything I can to make myself available for those “I just bumped into you” informal chats.

Service Level has to be delivered at all contact points.

A couple of days ago, I had the pleasure of what can only be described as a marathon shopping-expedition in IKEA with my friend Donnell who is setting up new home.

Donnell came prepared with a list of thing she needed, first stop “sofas” we found the sofa – next we went to the lady at the “help point”, as we approached she was leaving and only by almost running up to her did we manage to get her attention.  The conversation was as follows:
“Excuse me we have a huge amount of furniture to buy today, we need to have it delivered – does that mean we collect it all, pay it and hand it over?”
“Yes on each piece of furniture you can see where in our self service hall you can find it”
“thank you”.

This we did through sofas (three), entertainment system storage unit (two), Office tables, shelving unit, and kitchen tables and chairs. Then at dining room furniture we hit a snag (we had to contact another help-point for the table). This is what happens now:
“Hi there, we need a dining table with this particular name, in black”
 “what size?”
“Umm not sure but we have the item number here” handing over the list Donnell had made from home.
“Ok here we go I found it – I can see you have all the item numbers written down – I can create a full list of where to find them for you.”
 And she did – fabulous we did not have to write a thing down, the list was neat and ordered so we could start in one end of the hall and fill up numerous trolleys on the way to the check- out.  

Reaching the check-out with 5 trolleys were not easy but we managed and the girl was super helpful (not at all faced by the enormous amount of furniture we had managed to stack precariously on top of each other) even when we hit a bit of an issue with the credit card (an American card to be used in Belgium for the first time) she was all smiles and
“Do not worry, I will help the next customer. Please call your bank and let me know when you are ready to pay”
Donnell calls the bank and everything gets sorted, we pay, and now for arranging the delivery.

So we have just paid (loads of customers are still paying) and go the customer help desk, only to be told “we are closed”. 
 Needless to say we were not amused!!! Another conversation goes
“But I have five trolleys full of stuff we need delivered”
“go outside there are taxi service they can deliver for you”
“no that will not do, we need you to do it for us”
“but we are closed – ok let me see…fuck”.
One of his colleagues then decides to step in and save us by arranging the delivery next week.

In the end Donnell got it as she wanted in less than an hour had she collected, paid and arranged delivery. But while I was thoroughly impressed with the list-lady and the check-out girl Donnell was very upset about the last guy’s attitude. So it just go to show that it is so important that the service levels you want your company to portray, needs to be known and followed by every single employee. I who look for good service and notice it remember the list lady and check-out girl. Donnell who does not work in the customer care industry she only remember the guy who said “fuck” to her.