Three inches…
A dollar bill is six inches long.
In business, most brands are willing to go the six inches to justify the dollar and meet customer expectations. However the distance from the stem of the brain and the top of the heart is nine inches.
Great brands stretch and aim for the heart. They realize that from the customers’ standpoint, there’s “no such thing as meeting expectations.” The only two options are to deliver less than they’d like, or more than they’d like. The elite brands go beyond six inches and choose to do “more.”
The way to accomplish “more” is through signature added-value. It’s something I call the Goldfish Rule.
“Could We Do More?”
Last summer Bob Thompson of CustomerThink wrote about Intuit. Specifically, how one of Intuit brought to life one of their core values.
Intuit defines the reasoning behind the value of Innovate and Improve as,
“We innovate to drive growth, and continuously improve everything we do. We move with speed and agility, and embrace change. We have the courage to take risks, and grow by learning from our successes and failures.“
He cites Intuit’s innovative service for TurboTax. A bold move that offered free tax advice. In Bob’s words,
Surely Intuit would only make this available to its paying customers. Or set up some kind of premium subscription. You can’t just give this away, right? Well, yes they can, and did. The idea came from observing that customers looked to TurboTax as a source for answers on how to use the software, but not tax advice. This raised the question, according to product manager Katie Hanson, “Could we do more?” With support from an aggressive General Manager, they decided to market it as “we give tax advice” with no use of an Intuit product required.
Since the tax advice service involved hiring hundreds of agents, it was very risky. But Intuit believed it would increase customer loyalty and drive new product sales. Leaders were willing to take a (calculated) risk to add value to existing customers and potential customers. If this strategy stops working and a better approach appears, they won’t be afraid to move on.
With my too-good-to-be-true warning light flashing, I tried it out with a real tax question that’s been bugging me. After typing in my question, I got a list of possible answers from their online knowledgebase, followed by options to contact Intuit through its TurboTax community, online chat, and phone. Delightful. If you’re already a TurboTax customer, this service will keep you one for life. If not, the next time you’re in the market for tax software, you’ll be buying from Intuit.
Are you offering MORE, the little extras that drive loyalty? Jay Baer has a classic line from his latest book Youtility,
“Sell something, and you make a customer. Help someone, and you make a customer for life.“
How are you helping your customers and prospects like Intuit? Could you be doing MORE?
Today’s Lagniappe (a little something extra thrown in for good measure) – It’s OSCAR season and Ellen DeGeneres is putting Meryl Streep to task. Does everything sound MORE interesting coming from Meryl? Let’s go to the videotape:
