Skip to main content

customer experience, user experience

Good Experience Blog: "What if a company stopped advertising altogether and focused exclusively, with undivided laser-focus attention, on the customer experience? Would the CEO be insane? If it was a public company, would Wall Street riot, and would the board ask for the CEO's resignation?

In a word, no. I know this because there is a major, established company that is pursuing a strategy very close to that. Its TV advertising budget is zero.

BusinessWeek recently interviewed Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos (Aug. 2, 2004). The interview included this exchange:

    BusinessWeek: How important is advertising to building the brand?

    Jeff Bezos: We don't do any television advertising, and we take
    all of the money that we would put into television advertising,
    and instead put it into things like free SuperSaver shipping
    [free shipping on most orders over $25], lower product prices,
    category expansion, and invention of new features. We take those
    funds that might otherwise be used to shout about our service,
    and put those funds instead into improving the service. That's
    the philosophy we've taken from the beginning. If you do build a
    great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of
    mouth is very powerful.

    BW: It's fascinating that the increase in the value of your brand
    has happened at the same time when you're not advertising in mass
    media at all. Do you anticipate ever needing to use broad-scale
    advertising again?

    Bezos: No. Never say never, but I don't anticipate that. I like
    the strategy we're on.

I like the strategy Amazon is on, too. Not to suggest it's even close to a perfect customer experience - there are many challenges on Amazon.com, not the least of which is the increased clutter on its product pages recently. But Amazon is much, much better than most, any way you measure it - revenues, profitability, stock price, brand equity. And their stated strategy - straight from the mouth of the CEO - is close to the ideal corporate focus on the customer experience.

Amazon's example offers a challenge for other companies: focus first on the customer experience. It's not even necessary to pull the entire ad budget. Just create a strategy, and a budget, to focus on the customer at *least* as much as you invest in ads."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Cam media safe to fly with

Technocrat.net : "Recent tests found no evidence of X-ray scanner damage to digital camera media cards or to the images they hold. The tests of scanner models currently in use in the U.S. transportation industry were jointly conducted by the International Imaging Industry Association (I3A), the leading global association for the imaging industry; SanDisk Corporation, a manufacturer of digital media cards; and the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA). These findings mean that digital cameras and their image storage media can travel safely in either checked or carry-on bags, which will be reassuring to holiday travelers. And though they were not explicitly tested, it is likely that images on camera-phones will be safe in either situation as well. More care is needed for cameras with film, however, as the X-ray scanners for both checked and carry-on luggage can fog both developed and undeveloped film."
Post a Comment
Read more

Artist turns animals into everyday objects

Ananova - A Chilean artist is making a name for herself with an exhibition in which stuffed animals are transformed into household objects. Artworks on display include a chick turned into a lamp, and 'sheep bag' - a lamb carcass fitted with handles. Artist Caterina Purdy says her exhibition at the Experimental Arts Centre in Santiago is intended to be humorous but also makes a serious point. She told Las Ultimas Noticias online: 'It is possible to see my work as something scary, but I find it beautiful. 'There is also irony and humour in my objects as well as a criticism of the way animals are treated by society.'"
Post a Comment
Read more
BW Online | March 1, 2004 | Software : "As Stephen and Deepa emerge this summer from graduate school -- one in Pittsburgh, the other in Bombay -- they'll find that their decisions of a half-decade ago placed their dreams on a collision course. The Internet links that were being pieced together at the turn of the century now provide broadband connections between multinational companies and brainy programmers the world over. For Deepa and tens of thousands of other Indian students, the globalization of technology offers the promise of power and riches in a blossoming local tech industry. But for Stephen and his classmates in the U.S., the sudden need to compete with workers across the world ushers in an era of uncertainty. Will good jobs be waiting for them when they graduate? 'I might have been better served getting an MBA,' Stephen says."
Post a Comment
Read more