Please Don’t Make Me Think

Keeping Promotions Simple

Laura Iles - Senior Consultant, Integrated Insight

My favorite grocery store runs a weekly ad, Thursday through Wednesday. It took me a little while to remember that the ad doesn't run with the calendar week, but I grew accustomed to it quickly enough. The challenge is, the store also gives out coupons in the flier. Coupons that run through Sunday.

Interestingly enough, it’s often the same coupons from week to week, but they are only available half the time. If I want to take advantage of the sales pricing and the coupon, I now have a 4 day window each week to do my shopping. 

I never remember in time. I can’t tell you how many coupons I've thrown away, sadly unused.

A friend who used to work as a cashier at the store rolled his eyes when he saw the most recent coupon. “Oh yes, and come Monday, half the customers will come in and try to use that coupon, since it’s a weekly flier. Explaining why we would put out coupons with different dates than the fliers they are in was always a treat.” 

I thought about that for a minute, relieved that I wasn't the only one who had made that mistake. “Why would the store do that?” I wondered. “They’re just making it harder on everyone.” 

For every customer who tries to use an expired coupon, the manager either has to honor an out-of-date offer (in which case, why limit it at all?) or risk upsetting the client. That’s a losing situation for someone, no matter how it is resolved. And it slows down the checkout process, frustrating other waiting customers. But still the out of sync promotions keep coming, week after week. 

Certain offers need to be fenced, and consumers understand that. But, why is the store running the promotion in the first place? Perhaps it’s driving incrementality, keeping the store front-of-mind, or rewarding longstanding customers. No matter the end goal, if the offer is confusing enough that half the customers consistently misunderstand, is it really driving behavior the way it was intended to? 

So please don’t make me think. We’re all on information overload, and for many of us, we just aren't interested in expending additional mental resources on a company’s promotions. The design team can emblazon “4 DAYS ONLY” in capital letters and bold typeface at the top of the coupon, but when it’s buried in a visually busy flier, it’s still easy to overlook. Online, in print, on TV – we've all learned to tune out the clutter. 

If it isn't necessary, don’t complicate the promotion. Run the coupon for the full week, but don’t run it every single week. Or put out a special insert, separate from the weekly flier. I’ll happily try a new product or buy extras of something if you give me a coupon – but not if I have to rearrange my schedule for it.

This store is not a discount store and, like most of the regulars, I am not an avid coupon clipper. I pay a little more for the service, the selection and the convenience. When promotions are out of sync with each other, it muddies the waters for the customer, which in turn makes work more difficult for the front-line employees. No one wins in that scenario. Whenever possible, keep it simple.

Common Courtesy Counts in the Customer Experience

By Candy Parks - Director, Integrated Insight

As children, some of the first words we learn are ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ - the common courtesies. Another important one is ‘you’re welcome’ - one we seem to forget as we grow up. In years of doing customer satisfaction research, I’m always amazed at how wowed consumers are by courteous behavior from businesses with which they interact. It’s often this common courtesy that sets one grocery store, bank, or hotel apart from another. As consumers, they are taught to HOPE for courteous behavior, but not to EXPECT it. So when a business delivers, it sets them apart. And voila, a consumer advocate is born. Consider how people talk about Publix, Nordstrom, Disney, Ritz Carlton, American Express, and Chase banks.

I’ve learned there are few acceptable replacements for the common courtesies, especially ‘you’re welcome.’ Ritz Carlton and Chick-Fil-A use ‘It’s my pleasure’ and that’s a winner. It conveys that they were happy to be of service. What customer doesn’t appreciate that?

In contrast, here are some that I think should be stricken from the customer-facing vocabulary. When a customer says ‘thank you,’ it is not appropriate to say:

• ‘No problem.’ I just gave you $500 and I say ‘thank you’ for the service/attention/product/etc. And you say, ‘no problem.’ Really? Of course it’s not a problem for you. You just got $500 of my money!
• ‘Sure thing.’ Well, yes, I guess I was a sure thing, but you’re not making me feel very good about it.
• ‘Yeah,’ ‘Yep,’ ‘Uh huh’ or any other variation of ‘yes.’ I didn’t just ask you a question!
• And the absolute worst response to ‘thank you’ is NO RESPONSE AT ALL. A head nod is not a substitution for actual words. Surely you can trouble yourself to say ‘you’re welcome’ or ‘thank YOU, I hope to see you again.’

If you want to create a customer experience that is outstanding in your field, create a culture of courtesy. Make it a basic expectation of how you deal with each other in the workplace (because you are modeling the behavior), and how you deal with your customers. Train for it, monitor it, and hold people accountable for the behavior. It will cost you nothing in capital, but could net you loyalty and increased revenue. I drive past two other grocery stores to get to my Publix – and I pay more for my groceries – because I like the atmosphere and the way I’m treated. I don’t think I’m alone.

Why Pizza Should be Square

By Kirsten Snyder - Director, Integrated Insight

The announcement of Sbarro’s bankruptcy filing this week got me thinking about Pizza. And although Sbarro’s problems are much bigger than just the price of their pizza, I wonder if traditional pizza chains couldn’t benefit from abandoning their traditional round pies.

Have you ever ordered a pizza and asked how many pieces are in a medium vs. a large?  Chances are that you have been told 8 in one and 10 in other.  However, in the world of round pizza not all slices are created equal. So, how much pizza do you really get?

Pizza companies try to answer this question by using the diameter or with large and overlapping ranges of the number of people it feeds. Both of these methods still leave much interpretation to the customers.

Think back to your high school geometry class. When you calculate the area of a 12” circle versus a 14” circle, although there is only a 2” difference in diameter the difference in area is about a third.

So, the more difficult it is to understand the difference in size, the more difficult it is to see the value in the buy up structure. This makes it challenging for pizza companies to ideally stratify pricing by the size of the pie.

For example, at my local Domino’s a small 10” cheese pizza is $5.99, a medium 12” is $7.99 and a large 14” is $9.99.

As customers contemplate what size pizza they actually need, the buy up structure easily draws them into the largest pie without a second thought.  But it might not be optimal for the customer or for the pizza company.

That leads me to my point:  square pizzas are better. I will admit that square pizzas create the undesirable middle pieces with no crust. And in Naples, Italy the mention of square pizza would probably cause a riot, but financially it gives companies more pricing leverage through a clearer buy up structure. It is easier to communicate that a small square pizza gives you nine 3-inch pieces while a large pizza gives you 25 3-inch pieces – more than double that of a small pizza. So, now pizza companies can optimize their pricing structure, allowing them to take more pricing, while still providing the strong value proposition on the largest size pizzas.

Consumer products and overwhelming choice

How much is too much?

By Joni Newkirk - CEO, Integrated Insight

I see it frequently:  The blank stare at a shelf in the grocery store or the menu board at a fast food restaurant.  I know it well as I often find myself in the same situation, looking for a certain item and finding everything but.  It doesn’t seem to stem from too many brands, but rather, the ever increasing number of choices for almost identical products within a brand.   Sometimes, it seems the simpler the product, the more complicated the choice, like ordering a Starbucks coffee.

Take for example, Triscuits.  I love the original Triscuit, but more than once I’ve walked out of the store empty handed.  The original was either sold out or shoved so far away that it became difficult and time consuming to find.  Today, you can buy Triscuits in at least 15 flavors, not including Thin Crisps.  This photo, posted by Ted Parsnips at www.tedparsnips.com, sums up the resulting display that consumers are faced with every day.

  

Drive-thru menus arguably provide an elevated level of frustration for the consumer.   Even younger generations who have been raised in the world of overwhelming choice can find it less than inviting as evident from this post by my 22 year old son:

“Taco Bell’s drive thru menu is really big and intimidating and I just can’t handle it sometimes.  You’ve got someone behind you in line, the lady in the box waiting on my order, and I’m trying to sort through what seems like thousands of grandes, chalupas, locos, cantinas and whatever the hell a gordita is to find what I want.  It’s like the first world problem of our generation.”

Which led me to wonder how often companies study “non-purchasers” versus mining the transactional data among those who did purchase.  Do they really know why consumers behave as they do?  Does my neighborhood grocery store know how often I didn’t buy a product because I lacked the patience to spend more time searching?  Does a fast food restaurant realize how many customers balked because the line was moving too slow as others studied a menu of overwhelming choice?   Does an online merchant know how often their carts are abandoned because consumers run out of time studying the long lists of almost identical items?  A recent article in QSR confirms drive-thru transactions are indeed becoming longer, but is the increased choice really paying off?  According to a now infamous study on the purchase of jam, when faced with significantly more choice, consumers were far less likely to make a purchase.

“Congratulations! You’ve created a taco grand burrito.”  

Working toward more streamlined and simplified selling may help manage the choice. For those that know what they want – “I’ll have the Beefy Crunch Burrito with Flamin' Hot Fritos, please” - have at it. Perhaps mobile apps to pre-order will alleviate some of the pain, but others may be better served by throwing them a “build your own” lifeline, much like the Cantina Bell menu attempts to do for a limited portion of the overall Taco Bell offering. 

We all want it our way, so the trend toward more choice is likely to continue. Just don’t make us think too hard. 

“What’s in it for me?”

Writing Compelling Website Copy

By Sue O’Shea - Director, Integrated Insight

Often times my “go-to” resource for all things website is Smashing Magazine, the online magazine for professional website designers and developers. In their article “A Quick Course on Effective Website Copywriting,” the author, Peep Laja, reminds copywriters that “the goal of Web copy (and ideally your website in general) is to get people to do something—to sign up, make a purchase, or something similar.”

Approaching copy from the “What’s in it for me?” viewpoint – the benefit visitors will receive by taking action - helps keep copy focused on the end goal. Visitors come for information and solutions to their problems. Don’t make it hard for them to find by using unnecessary lines of descriptive or flowery copy to describe your product or service. Another land mine, especially for organizations offering professional services, can be going on too long about your company, its history, and the many awards its won – all your readers really care about is how you can help them. Retail sites are discovering that giving consumers a reason to come to their sites other than to shop can create sales. By adding copy and content that offers advice on using a product, the best styles for your body type, or answers to common problems will enhance your shoppers experience and increase the odds of purchasing and returning again and again.

Another practice I try to employ is the avoidance of industry jargon and “insider terms.” It can confuse readers and make them work too hard to understand what you’re trying to communicate. I suggest asking a co-worker to act as the “jargon police” to keep the copy as lingo free as possible. Keep it simple, straight forward, and specific.

Your Home Page is your first impression. Therefore it is important it include your company’s value proposition – the primary reason a customer should buy from you.  Smashing Magazine indicates that there is no one right way to go about it, but suggests you start with the following formula and work from there:

• Headline: What is the end-benefit you’re offering, in one short sentence. The Attention grabber.
• Sub-headline or a two-to-three sentence paragraph: A specific explanation of what you do/offer, for whom, and why is it useful.
• Bullet points: List the key benefits or features, but focus mostly on the benefits.

The product page is where you sell the value of your product and where the user takes action (adds to cart, signs up, makes a purchase, etc.). This is the place to drive home the benefits of your product and how your product or service will solve the issue at hand. There is always the question of how much information is too much, but an IDC (International Data Corporation) study showed that 50% of the uncompleted purchases were due to lack of information. Include as much of the product information as practical, and be sure to have a strong call to action. Studies have shown website visitors want to be led through the process, therefore the call to action must be clear and compelling. The article “Five Copywriting Errors That Can Ruin A Company’sWebsite” offers these examples:

•  “Order now to save 15%,”
• “Get your artist’s rendering within 24 hours,”
• “Learn the 5 secrets to permanent weight loss.”

Call to action is further strengthened with testimonials (it worked!), credibility statements (it’s reliable!), high value (it’s worth having!) and urgency (it’s now or never!). It is recommended that your site have a primary and secondary call to action such as a down loadable white paper or case study. A potential client may not be ready to order, but they may be willing to learn more. Today’s white paper could be tomorrow’s conversion.

The above is only a short primer on compelling website copy. The two articles I referenced provide additional outlines and tips to help along the way. To quote Smashing Magazine’s contributor Peep Laja, “The best Web copy is not the one that uses sophisticated persuasion and mind manipulation techniques. The best copy provides full information about the product, its benefits, and makes it clear whether it’s the right one for the user.”

Customer Service and Stereotyping

By Bennett Parks -  Research Associate, Integrated Insight

I recently had a disappointing, albeit somewhat expected experience at a jewelry store.  I bought a charm bracelet online for my girlfriend for Christmas, and not a cheap one.  (Hello Pandora!)  We needed to exchange the bracelet for a slightly longer one.  Being 21 years old and walking into a jewelry store, I feared the experience I would probably have.  We walked inside and were basically ignored by the saleswoman behind the counter.  About 10 seconds later, a gentleman in his mid-40’s walked in and she instantly looked up and began interacting with him.  Disappointing?  Yes.  Expected? Sadly, yes. 

We waited for a good five minutes before another saleswoman came over to help us. She was extremely friendly and kind, but was also closer to our age than the first saleswoman.  I overheard the gentleman that came in after us being helped.  He didn’t purchase anything beforehand, nor did he purchase anything during his brief stint in the store.  Granted, we didn’t purchase anything while we were in the store, but I did make a fairly large purchase online.  My point is, just because someone young walks in to a nicer store or restaurant doesn’t automatically mean they are going to misbehave, or be cheap, or waste the time of the staff.  I understand why many salespeople have this attitude about young people, because many in my generation do behave like the stereotype.  But that doesn’t excuse the stereotyping behavior of service personnel.

It’s this lack of customer service and respect for all customers driving many to online shopping.  Why bother going to a store when you have the convenience of shopping from your computer where the search bar offers more customer service than the staff in a physical store?!  Being a former valet manager at Disney, I know good customer service and I expect it anywhere I might spend money.  I used to train my valet staff to treat every guest with the best customer service possible, partly because it was Disney but also because it’s the golden rule “treat others the way you want to be treated” and experience shows it makes great business sense.  It is well documented that companies with strong customer service capabilities and competencies for delivering customer experience excellence are outperforming their competition.  According to Lee Resource Institute, about ninety percent of unhappy customers will choose to not do business with you again and unhappy customers are twice as likely to tell others about their experience as compared to a happy customer.  Further, attracting a new customer costs five times as much as keeping an existing one. (Peppers and Rodgers 2009 Guest Customer experience monitor)  A staff that is considerate and respectful is more likely to have kind and respectful customers.  You get what you give. 

Granted I’m young, but I think it’s just good business sense to treat each person who walks in your store like you would want to be treated.  Young adults are very quick to jump on social media and share about their good or bad experience.  Don’t judge a book by its cover.  Don’t judge a customer by their age.  

Taking the Sting Out of Surge Pricing

An Uber Experience

By Kirsten Snyder - Director, Integrated Insight

With two kids under the age of two, I don’t really get out much.  However, when my husband and I were invited to the Delta GRAMMY party featuring Lorde, I immediately began to prepare for the evening.  Since the party required us to drive up to Hollywood from Long Beach during rush hour, we decided to Uber it.  For those of you not familiar with Uber, it’s an app-based car service with offerings that range from affordable everyday cars to high-end luxury cars.

When we told people that we took Uber to the party, it immediately sparked conversation about their controversial pricing model – as they call it surge pricing.  It is not a new concept – just a new term for demand based pricing.  If you Google “Uber surge pricing,” you will get a number of articles arguing both for and against the practice.  Supporters say it is common, and they compare it to airline pricing, while critics argue it is strictly price gouging. 

Uber’s CEO, Travis Kalanick, argues that the objective of surge pricing is to provide more supply -- higher fares incent drivers to get or stay on the road -- rather than to strictly maximize revenue.  In general, I don’t disagree with the pricing philosophy, and believe the Uber model provides customers with a more efficient and reliable service, which is often lacking in the traditional taxi industry.  The problem I have with Uber’s model is it doesn’t allow you to plan your trip based on pricing.  Although airfare changes often, once you book your ticket it doesn’t change, so if you want to fly on the Sunday after Thanksgiving you know that it will cost 50% more than the next Tuesday.  If you are planning to use Uber round trip, it could cost you $50 on the way there and $150 on the way home, but you won’t know the return price until you request the car.  Even if you wanted to request it in advance, you can’t.    Kalanick’s response to the critics is if you don’t like the price, then take a taxi.  But how do you know if you like the price until you actually know the price?

There are a couple relatively simple ways for Uber to offer surge pricing while developing goodwill with their customers.  The simplest solution would be for Uber to offer a round trip pricing guarantee, where you prepay for your return trip as long as it happens within the same day or night.  By getting customers to pay for a return trip in advance, Uber can also see how much demand to expect later that day which could help better align their supply and pricing.

Uber has created a unique business model that provides a great service.  As they continue to grow, creating pricing strategies that encourage use and positive word of mouth will likely improve performance even more.