There is a new TV show that has caught my attention called Undercover
Boss. Here is the plot of every show. An
executive from some large corporation decides that he or she is going to spend
some time outside of the corporate offices pretending to be an ordinary worker
in the business. Most of the time, acting as a new employee, they are shocked
by the hard work and dedication of their employees and find that they are
totally out of touch with the grass roots of their organization. They find out
they have been sheltered from reality by middle managers who have told them
only what they want to hear. In the end, they bring all the worker bees into
the executive offices, apologize for not treating them better, and give them
some gift (a promotion, a big raise, a college education, etc.) The show always
ends with the executive doing a public confessional in front of a room full of
employees and declaring that things will change. It is a really good show if
someone cries at this point (executive, employees or both.)
I am being a bit cynical in my synopsis, but there is
something to be learned by connecting with the grass roots of your
organization. Beyond your employees, however, I would suggest you connect with
your customers. In marketing, if you don’t have an idea of what your customer
is thinking, you are bound to make mistakes.
Years ago, before he ran for the presidency, businessman
Ross Perot was on the board at GM. You remember Ross Perot: little man, big
ears and huge opinions. In those days, he was no less boisterous. He had a run
in with Roger Smith, GM’s CEO. Among other things, Perot claimed that Smith and
the whole of GM management had lost touch with their customer base. Perot stated
bluntly that management should stop being driven from meeting to meeting in
chauffered limousines and start driving their own products. How could they
possibly understand what the market was feeling if they never stepped foot in
the marketplace? Perot spent his weekends buying cars at GM dealerships. He
remained anonymous to the car salesmen he encountered. He acted like a typical
car shopper and he learned a lot about what the consumer thought about GM cars
by simply putting himself in their shoes.*
When we boil marketing down to the essentials, we are simply
trying to match the needs of the customer with the products and services you
are selling. If we can make these two to line up, you have a sale. Too often,
marketing decisions made in the boardroom without the input of your customers
leaves you vulnerable to losing sales to a more market-savvy competitor. There
is a lot of customer service woven into marketing. You may have a great
product, but the delivery of that product is not up to snuff with your
customers’ expectations. Do you think they will toss your poor delivery to the
side and think, "hey, it’s a great product, so I will put up with their lousy
delivery” or will they just focus on the lousy delivery? Think of it this way,
when was the last time you went into a business and they missed your
expectations? Did you go back?
I recently went into a nice restaurant with my family. We
were drawn there because we had received a flier advertising a crab special and
my son loves seafood. The hostess seated us right away. She gave us menus and
told us about the specials for the night. A+ for the hostess. Our server came
out to get the drink orders. He was off to a good start when he returned with
the drinks and took our food order. The food came out, it was the correct
order, the food was hot and we were served promptly. A+ for the food and so
far, so good for the server. And then he took the rest of the meal off. He did
not return to check on us. He did not come back to refill drinks (I got up and
refilled my own drink at one point, to the utter embarrassment of my teenaged
children.) The problem was, I could see our server from where I was seated. He
was yucking it up with two of the wait staff over at the bar. He was oblivious
to our needs, thinking he had taken the order and served the food and that was
all we required. Had he approached our table to check on our needs, he would
have met my expectations (and would have gotten a sizable tip for his
efforts.) As it ended up, he did not get a tip and I seriously doubt we will
dine at that restaurant again. We simply have too many choices of places to eat
to spend our dollars with a restaurant that does not meet our expectations. If
the management of the restaurant was evaluating the effectiveness of their
marketing, they may conclude that there was something wrong with the
advertising that cost them my business. They might examine their prices to see
if it was a good value for the portions served. They might think there was
something wrong with the quality of the food. Those would be logical guesses. And too often, that is all that executive
discussions are when evaluating the effectiveness of marketing. However, if the
manager of the restaurant had put himself in my seat, watching and waiting on
someone to simply refill my drink, he would have learned exactly what needed to
be fixed in his marketing efforts.
So I would suggest you do a little undercover marketing
analysis every now and then. Put yourself in the same seat as your customer and
see what they see. Ross Perot was right. You learn a lot when you walk into the
marketplace.
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* Bottom-up Marketing
by Al Ries and Jack Trout. McGraw-Hill, 1989, p. 28
Photo by Eldad Carin