Winning Moves: Executing the Perfect Roll Tack

March 2009 • www.visionsmc.com • 410-849-8095

Editor's Note

It's getting warm here in Annapolis which means that the sailing season is getting ready to launch. That is, if you haven't been frostbiting all winter.

For several years, I crewed for a friend in a local frostbite series. I was in my early 30's, and I hadn't been in a small boat with someone else since my teens. In dinghies, to maneuver the boat quickly across the wind, you execute a "roll tack". It's one thing to do it solo in a boat, but when you do it with someone else, it's like dancing (and I love dancing). There is an unspoken rhythm, a give and take, a leading and a following that changes places and switches back before you know what happened.

I get a charge out of having a good dance partner (thank heavens my husband can dance), or executing a perfect roll tack in a dinghy. I'm contributing to the process, but I'm also being seen for who I am. To be in synchronicity, the idiosyncrasies of my own rhythms and patterns are being accommodated as much as I accommodate my partner's. Acknowledgement, acceptance, and encouragement are all part of the process. Trust is understood.

That kind of reciprocity is what should happen in strong marketing communications programs, in good customer relationship programs. There should be a back and forth that leaves customers feeling as if they have been acknowledged and encouraged. That gives them a participatory sense of ownership in the process.

Molly Hughes Wilmer

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Feature

Executing the Perfect Roll Tack

One-way, business-oriented marketing programs are outdated. Technology has made it increasingly easy for businesses to tailor their marketing programs to their customers, and customers have gotten used to it, and have come to expect it. In the current economy, when consumers of all levels have become more discriminating than they have been in generations, strong customer-oriented programs make a well-documented difference.

Good restaurants have long been delivering customer-oriented services. The amount of choices and control a customer has in a restaurant has traditionally been hard to find in other industries. You are personally welcomed when you come in, often get a choice of tables, certainly get a choice off the menu when you have had as much or as little time as you need to make a decision, are served when you have finished your salad, and can send things back if you don't like them. There is a lot to be learned about customer service from the hospitality industry.

Good sales people also understand the need to have a reciprocal, back and forth rapport. I was recently attempting a negotiation. Every discussion was very one-sided, all about him. Needless to say, the partnership never got off the ground.

A good sales person will quickly establish a common ground, i.e. we're both parents of boys, spend a little time connecting over that, and then continue to build areas of common ground while progressing through the sales process. There is a pause between progressing through the sales process while new areas of common ground are established. Racing through the sales process without pause will quickly leave the customer on the side, and unengaged. The areas of common ground often continue to develop the personal side of the relationship, while also digging deeper into the transaction—mutual agreement over what the customer does and doesn't need or want.

Amazon and eBay fine-tuned the e-commerce experience. The ability to log-in, save items, give feedback, rank items and customize your landing page are all basic features that consumers expect in interactive websites. These tactics create "stickiness" on an e-commerce site, giving the customer more of a relationship with the brand. Even basic e-commerce sites should have stickiness features that give the customer a sense of relationship.

There is a ripe opportunity to capitalize on mistakes or bad experiences to develop a huge fan of a customer. This weekend, the Ram's Head missed out on this potential. My husband and I were watching one of our favorite bands, Eddie From Ohio. Sitting right next to, in front of, and far too close to me was a young man who was quickly downing whiskeys and was singled out by the band for disrupting the concert. Eventually I saw him playing with an open pocketknife.

At that point, my husband and I both left the table quietly and told the waiters. Only then did they finally remove the young man. No one at the Rams Head apologized to us for the inconvenience or thanked us for telling them about the knife. I'm still a big fan of EFO, but I question the Ram's Head commitment to nurturing the environment that they try to create.

Repeat and referral business is much more profitable than searching for new customers. Strong customer relationships are the key to profitable business relationships.

What Can You Do?

Review your statistics. What percent of your business is repeat and referral business? Could stronger customer relationship strategies increase this percentage?

Audit your customer relationship process. How are you developing new and nurturing existing relationships? Do customers have relationships with your brand, with people within your brand, or both?

Audit your marketing materials. Do you really put customers first? Are your materials written with WIIFM in mind? Is "About Us" the first or the last item on your web page menu?

Ask the Expert

Question
We don't have an e-commerce site and we're not in hospitality. What can we do to create an interactive experience before a prospect starts talking to a sales person?

Answer
Well, the answer is the same for e-commerce sites and for the hospitality industry as it is for everyone else. Because, before someone gets to your site or enters your restaurant door, they haven't yet talked to the sales person. There are two basic things everyone should be doing.

The first is to know who your potential customer is, and talk to them in ways that they will recognize themselves. In your marketing materials, speak to them in vocabulary that they understand—use their industry buzzwords, not your industry buzzwords. Identify their pain points and demonstrate your understanding of their situation. Then, and only then, start talking about how your solution meets their needs. In this way, your customer will be able to identify themselves as a potential customer, and feel acknowledged.

The second method is to use "web 2.0" or social media tactics to communicate with prospects and existing customers. For prospects, it provides a tangible opportunity for interaction before they talk to a sales person. For people already in the sales pipeline talking to a sales person, it provides "air cover", backing up the sales person and sometimes giving them something new to talk about and connect over. Blogs that involve reader commentary, email newsletters with Q&A or surveys, and twitter accounts all provide opportunities for customers to actually engage, or just watch others engage, warming them up before they step in.

Submit your questions to the editor: molly@visionsmc.com

Want to Know More?

Realism, coupled with humor and optimism, are great weapons for dealing with the economy. From this weekend's, "This American Life":

More people are breaking their teeth, from nightly grinding and clenching.
Vasectomies are up in the last six months
Traffic delays dropped by a third last year
Porn video sales are down 10-30%
Shark attacks are down

Listen to the podcast for tips on what not to say to someone working in a store being liquidated and more on "Scenes From a Recession."

For more information please contact Molly Hughes Wilmer at (410) 849-8095 or molly@visionsmc.com.

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