Tuesday 7 April 2009

WOW marketing: The difference cultural values can make.

Fancy hitting $1 billion in gross merchandise sales despite what’s going on in the economy? Or how about debuting at #23 on the FORTUNE Magazine’s ‘100 Best Companies To Work For’ list? If either of these sound interesting to you, then ask yourself what are your company’s core cultural values?

Is your first thought about where you might find them? In the employee handbook perhaps? Afraid not.

Zappos have achieved great success in their 10 year existence, not only financially but also by creating a company that is much loved by their customers – all 10 million of them that is! So loved are they, that on any given day circa 75% of their orders are from repeat customers. Impressive to say the least but at the heart of this success are their core cultural values – that they clearly apply:

- deliver WOW through service
- embrace and drive change
- create fun and a little weirdness
- be adventurous, creative, and open-minded
- pursue growth and learning
- build open and honest relationships with communication
- build a positive team and family spirit
- do more with less
- be passionate and determined
- be humble

At this time of economic turmoil are you and your organisations focusing in on what will drive both short term and long term relationships with your customers?

If you’re still looking for that list of cultural values then one would presume not….

Customer Testimonials_1239097941029





Source: Latest edition of Contagious

A new take on bricks & clicks

Over the past few years there has been a lot of talk about the death of the high street as a result of the web. It's always been my view that the web will not gobble up the high street or retail park but that the two mediums provide an array of opportunities both for retailers and for us, the customer.

The great thing is that the rise of internet shopping and general advances in technology have shifted the power base and this creates an interesting challenge for retailers to present us with more interesting, exciting, engaging and rewarding environments in which to experience their brands. I have always been particularly interested with how retailers respond to this opportunity within their physical environments.

It's good to see that many retailers now see having a web presence as a hygiene factor, though I am still surprised as to how bland and un-engaging some of these sites are, at least they are aware that the internets not going away. We have seen the more forward thinking brands turn their physical retail experiences into more than simply a shop and probably the best example of this is the Apple store. It's not a shop, it's a showroom, a destination, a place for engaging, playing, and experiencing what it means to be Apple. Apparently Microsoft are thinking of doing the same thing - I wait with baited breath to see how that turns out….

But what has peaked my interest is the news that The Hut - currently an internet only venture is in discussion with shopping centers about the possibility of going all bricks & mortar - but with no staff. The Chief Exec Mathew Moulding has said that shops "would be the size of a juice bar, no doors, and there would just be touch screens and a Chip and PIN reader". He added "It would help brand development. The high street brings a lot of traffic online instantly.”

Well Mr Moulding I salute you - it's great to see web natives looking to the physical as a means of engaging with their customers and I'm also excited to see how the shopping centres, developers and landlords will respond to these sort of discussions. Given all the work we have been doing with MS Surface and Windows 7 we have talked at length with retailers about how these technologies can be used in retail environments to facilitate collaboration and provide richer, more innovative ways of looking at product information, but very few have been thinking about taking a staff-less approach. That's not to say that a staff-less approach is the right thing for all - of course not but it will certainly be interesting to see how this pans out…
 
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