If you remember the movie, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” you might remember Veruca Salt, the spoiled girl who demanded everything she wanted and dreamed about. Her doting father, Henry, tried to placate her every whim by buying it for her, but if he could not get it right away, she threw a fit. She didn’t want to wait for anything, she wanted it now! The Veruca Salt syndrome might have become an epidemic in our current business climate. Consumers are not in the mood to wait on anything – they want it now!
However, it takes time for business to do its work. Not everything is sold and delivered in an instant. So how do you market your products and services in an immediate gratification culture? It seems like the worst thing you can tell a customer is you will have to wait for our brand to be delivered. There used to be an old axiom in business – you can have a quality product, delivered fast and at the cheapest price – and you can choose two of those three from us. If it is the finest quality and delivered quickly, it will not be cheap. If you want quality and a cheap price, it won’t be delivered quickly. If you want it cheap and fast, it won’t be the best quality. Will our modern marketplace put up with that kind of logic any longer? Likely not. Like Veruca Salt, they want it all and they want it now!
The speed at which you can deliver is an expectation that is set between you and your customers within an industry. For instance, when I go to a fast-food restaurant, waiting five minutes for my food seems unreasonable. If I go to a sit-down, fine dining restaurant, getting my food served in twice or three-times that time would seem fast. So if I go to a burger joint, I expect their beef to be pretty much ready for me as I walk in the door, but if I go to a steakhouse, I am fine with waiting for it to be cooked. Why am I okay with one and not the other? My expectations are different because of the way these two restaurants are branded. The element of time is extended when I believe one brand will give me something the other will not – namely, a better quality of food and experience. I have come to believe it is worth the wait because they have marketed that concept of time to me.
Can this concept of a reasonable waiting time be set on its ear and customers start to demand a quicker delivery time? Yes. There are two factors that smart marketers need to keep an eye on here. First, if a competitor within your industry begins to market a much quicker delivery time, you are in jeopardy of losing customers. That’s where you have to stay updated on these kinds of competitive trends. The second factor is the delivery feature creeping into the larger marketplace. We are experiencing that now within the consumer marketplace with companies like Amazon. When fast delivery becomes the norm, it bleeds over to other industries and sets expectations higher in the minds of customers.
Take the time to do a competitive analysis of the brands you are competing against. Are your competitors delivering faster than you are? If so, how are they doing it and what changes do you need to make to keep up? Also, you need to gain perspective on what your target market expects from you. Your marketing will help shape their opinions on what is fast and what is slow. You set the expectation with them. However, keep an eye on trends in the larger marketplace. If you can compete on fast delivery, do so. If what you produce can be delivered now, make it a focus of your marketing.