How Business Is Changing: The Good, the Bad, and the Surprising
by Hannah Jones
Personal Assistant & Marketing Coordinator
The Customer Experience Advantage
I was sitting down with my boss, David Avrin, discussing an old marketing keynote presentation that he used to deliver. The sessions were wildly popular and well-received (and profitable), and David was emphasizing the importance of retiring that keynote in the present. "I know that it's out-of-date." This struck me as surprising, as it was only around five years old. The lesson? No matter how well-received, no matter how popular content may be, at our company we don't deliver a message that isn't timely, cutting-edge and relevant. Because business is changing faster than ever before, keeping up with it has to be a priority.
Today, let's talk about how business is changing, and what successful companies are doing to innovate in a volatile and ever-changing landscape.
How Business is Changing: The Uncomfortable Truth
Your business prospects are NOT looking for a relationship. They are looking to get their needs met. This may be very hard for you to accept as you have always been told, or tell others that “It’s all about the relationship,” but your prospects feel very differently. What prospects really want is easy access to products, services, solutions, resources and answers. And they want them faster, simply, more conveniently and affordably than what is offered by competitors.
Let’s be clear, relationships are incredibly important to success in business, but those are earned and nurtured over time through successful interactions, transactions, visits, conversations, negotiations, deliverables and more. As much as we want a relationship with our customers and clients, prospects almost never identify that as a priority. Prospects rarely come to you for a relationship, although they might be inclined to return because of it.
The danger is in falling back on marketing messages and tactics that tout the relationships you have with your current customers, which does little if anything to sway a prospect on the fence.
- David Avrin, "The Relationship Fallacy"
In the past, business transactions were based on and bolstered by a feeling of a positive personal relationship. Today, that is the cherry on top of the basic convenience and efficiency we see as necessary. Why is this? There could be so many reasons. We are busier than ever before, technology has made our communication less personal, and we are less likely to feel a personal connection to those that we interface with when half the time it turns out to be an ecommerce site or an AI program anyway. What's important is that we treat a business relationship as what it is; the trust that comes as an outgrowth from a consistently superior customer experience.
Your business prospects will trust you because you have earned it by being consistent. They will like you because you have a mutually-beneficial business relationship, and they feel as if you prioritize it. No marketing message can substitute the authentic goodwill that is built by being ridiculously easy to do business with.
How is Technology Changing Business?
Technology is completely changing what we can expect from business. Efficiencies, automations, and SI route mapping have allowed us to expect two-day (or even same-day!) shipping on most popular products, something that would give our ancestors a stroke. Your company HAS to be embracing cutting edge technology, or your customers will opt for the pizza delivery service where they CAN see what stage of the process their pizza is in. That is hardly a new assertion, and most likely something you already know.
BUT (and this is a big but) too many companies are using technology to replace things that tech cannot replace; such as customer service and knowledgeable interactions.
It was announced this week that Frontier Airlines would discontinue its customer support helpline, opting instead to offer only “digital options” i.e: No option for a conversation with a real person over the phone. None. The bean-counters at Frontier might be feeling good, but leadership made the inexcusable error of not understanding the business they are in.
Frontier thinks they are selling seats, when in fact, they are selling outcomes. They are selling the reunion at the end of the flight, the crucial business meeting that will close an important sale, a long-delayed family vacation or even a funeral for a recently deceased loved one. When we buy a seat on a flight, we are trusting (betting) that we will make the personal or business destination that we desire. Any uncertainty about successfully arriving makes that purchase very risky.
- David Avrin, "What Frontier Airlines just got very, very wrong"
Utilizing technology for innovation is very different from utilizing technology to cut corners and hang your customers out to dry. So, how has technology changed business? It's made it imperative to invest in the human capital that technology can't replace.
Embracing Change in Business
All of this is to say that, in a quickly changing business landscape, the winners will be those that use basic human values to inform their decisions moving forward. Innovation should be centered around delivering a killer customer experience, not cutting corners in necessary departments.
What has happened to civility and basic human kindness? To be clear, this interaction was in a resort hotel. They weren’t having to deal with vagrants, or busy with a line of customers waiting. For all of us in and out of business, opportunities exist at every turn to do the right thing or simply the kind thing. Whether offering a simple cup of water or denying the use of a restroom to a person in need, too many decline to show humanity. We can do better. Tell your employees that you expect them not only to you expect them to do well, but also to do good.