Should the Marketing function be leading the drive towards customer-centricity?
The accepted wisdom is that the marketing function and marketers have the best grasp of customers – their lives, their desires, their concerns….. Along with this is another piece of accepted wisdom: that the marketing function and marketers are customer-centric or they are the function/people who are the most customer-centric in the organisation. If you accept “accepted wisdom” then it is natural to say and expect the marketing function (and marketers) to take the lead, even take charge, in moving your organisation to become a customer-centric organisation.
I say don’t assume. I say don’t accept “accepted wisdom”. I say check and challenge the “accepted wisdom”. I say try on Karl Popper’s dictum that instead of looking for evidence to prove your hypothesis, and/or your taken for granted view of how the world works, look for evidence the shows your hypothesis is wrong. Here is how the concept of “falsification” (which is what I am talking about here) is described on Wikipedia:
“The classical view of the philosophy of science is that it is the goal of science to prove hypotheses like “All swans are white” or to induce them from observational data. Popper argued that this would require the inference of a general rule from a number of individual cases, which is inadmissible in deductive logic. However, if one finds one single black swan, deductive logic admits the conclusion that the statement that all swans are white is false. Falsificationism thus strives for questioning, for falsification, of hypotheses instead of proving them.”
Looking at my experience I say that it is quite possible that the existing conversations and practices around marketing and the role/function of marketer it is almost certain that the marketing function (and marketers) are “not customer-centric”. I can spout theory or I can share experience. Allow me to share experience with you.
My recent experience with Amazon
I buy regularly and often from Amazon: I buy books (physical and electronic) and electronics. This week I placed at least six orders for various items. And I am happy to be do business with Amazon because it works out well for me: it is easy to place the order from the PC, the Kindle, the iPhone; the prices are reasonable; the items are delivered promptly; and on the rare occasion there has been an issue it has been easy to sort out. If you asked me “Would you recommend Amazon?” I’d say “Yes, and I have done so many times.”
So why am I displeased, to put it mildly, with Amazon? A more accurate statement is that the emotion of disgust/contempt is present right now when I think Amazon. Why? Because of the recent email I received that offers me a “£10 promotional gift certificate”. You might be wondering why I am not grateful with receiving a £10 promotional gift certificate? Take a look at the email:
| Thank you for purchasing from Amazon.co.uk.Your recent order 203-9422174-0673902 entitles you to a promotional credit which we have added to your account. This credit can be applied to your next qualifying purchase.
Additional information on this offer can be found here. A £10 promotional gift certificate has been added to your Amazon account to spend on Amazon Fashion. To redeem this promotional gift certificate, add at least £40 worth of eligible clothing, shoes, jewellery and/or watches sold by Amazon.co.uk to your basket from the selection in the link above. Checkout and £10 will be deducted from your order total. The promotion code must be used by 09 December 2012. This offer is subject to Terms and Conditions. Thanks again for shopping with us. |
Have you noticed the issue? “The promotional gift certificate” does not show up as such in my experience. My experience is rather like the experience of my sister and her husband when they moved into their flat in a manor house. Shortly after arrival several of their neighbours knocked on their door, smiled, engaged in chit-chat and handed them a “Welcome Pack”. Upon opening the “Welcome Pack” my sister and her husband found no welcome. What they found was a list of all the things they were not allowed to do. And a list of what they were expected to do. In short, there was a mismatch between what the language of their neighbours had set them up to expect and what actually showed up. Furthermore, they felt a sense of the neighbours being “dishonest” and “manipulative”. That is exactly my experience.
What exactly is the issue? A gulf between the marketing orientation and the customer-centric orientation
I say that if Amazon’s marketing function was operating from a context of authentic customer-centricity then they could/should have done the following:
- Thanked me – which they do in their email;
- Let me know of the £10 promotional gift certificate – which they do in their email’;
- Given me the choice of how I want to use it; and
- Entice me to check out the Fashion section perhaps by making the £10 promotional gift certificate count a £20 if spent in the fashion section.
Now if Amazon had done that then I would have been delighted and grateful. That would have occurred as a gift, as generosity, as recognition that Amazon get that I spend a lot of money with them. And that would have occurred as a “Thank you for doing business with us through action/generosity and not just words”. It is also possible that with that approach I would have checked out the Fashion section and maybe bought something.
Instead, the email communication has left a sour taste in my being. Why? I am clear that Amazon wants me to spend money with them in the Fashion category. And this is their way of making me do what they want me to do. As such it occurs to me that Amazon is treating me as “an object”, a “resource” to be milked. Yes, I know that I am putting my interpretation on an email, I am making a story of it. That is what we do! Human beings swim in language and practices. And one thing is for sure: in our existing practice a “gift” does not tend to show up as a “gift” if there are strings/conditions attached.
So we come to the core point. The function of the marketing function, given the existing conversation/practices around the role/contribution of marketing, is to get customers to try out stuff and spend money on the categories that are of interest to the business at a particular point in time. Put differently, it is to shape customer demand to meet the revenue/profit demands of the business; it is to shape the customer to sing to the ‘organisational tune’. And this context/stand/mode of being and operating is the antithesis of the customer-centric orientation. I remember joining Peppers & Rogers many years ago. On the first day, the IT manager sat down with me, told me what budget I had to spend, what laptops were supported, and asked me to let him know what laptop I wanted him to purchase and set-up for me. To this remember the thought/feeling “WOW”: these guys practice what they preach! That is authentic customer-centricity in action.
And finally,
A simple thank you (with no “promotional gift”) that showed up as genuine would have left me delighted. Many years ago Amazon sent me a “cheap plastic” coffee mug that I did not care for much. The letter that came with it left me delighted. What was great about it? The UK MD of Amazon thanking me for being one of Amazon’s most valuable customers and wishing me a great Christmas. It showed up as authentic and that left me feeling great about being an Amazon customer.
If you are the CEO then my advice to you is this: if you are serious about your organisation being/becoming authentically customer-centric then think carefully and skeptically about putting the marketing function and the marketing folks either in charge of the effort or even leading it!
Very good post on a point that so many companies miss. They gave you what they wanted to give you – a discount in an area they deemed appropriate – instead of looking at your purchases and making a relevant gift.
Many companies miss the opportunities to strengthen the relationships by getting to know their customers to better understand them. Had they looked at this “Thank You Certificate” through the eyes of the customer, they would have seen that they were pigeonholing the way that the gift could be used. It was a gift with strings attached. No wonder if left a sour taste in your mouth.
So my question to you is…. with all the wonderful service and past purchases that many of us have had with Amazon, how much damage has this experience done to your overall feeling of doing business with them? That is a question I pose to my clients often…. this may be a mis-step on your part, but no matter how many wonderful experiences you’ve given them in the past, like Hollywood actors, you may just be only as good as the last one you gave them.
Hello Kristina
Many thanks for entering into a conversation with me. I’d sum it up by saying that a gift that does not show up as a gift is worse than no gift at all. I’d also say that sometimes the best gift is the heartfelt delivery of a thank you. Have you noticed how this is missing in business and organisational life? Even when there is a thank you it is not created/delivered from the heart. Just today I was watching a video where the customer loyalty team (notice “customer loyalty” not “customer service” team) sent out unsolicited “thank you” cards to customers at random. Here is the Youtube video (you have to watch to the end to see the “thank you” cards bit): http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fomHaegp-4o
Now for your question about the impact this has on me doing business with Amazon. I am clear that “Amazon” as a brand does not have the kind of “heart” that calls to me and generates emotional affinity. Put differently, it occurs to me that Amazon lacks soul. I do business with Amazon because it suits me to do business with Amazon: easy, convenient, value for money, it works…. And this is what I will continue to do. For example, I have no intention of buying anything from the Fashion category. Why? Because, I’d have to override the disgust that is there: when I think Amazon + Fashion, I think being treated as an object, an “It” in Martin Buber’s terms.
Being human I share my human machinery with you and my fellow human beings. Given that I suspect that companies like Amazon – which do not strive to build emotional relationships – will continue to do well as long as they make it easy for us to do business with them. It is companies like Zappos who are most likely to win hearts, cultivate emotional affinity, because they are in the business of “delivering happiness”.
Maz