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Chapter 8: Think Digital, Act Analog
Create like a god, screw up like a man, grovel like a
dog.
Peter N. Glaskowsky
Use Technology as a Tool ...
Thinking digital means using technology to look at real data, track
interactions with customers, and mine for information to serve people better. It
requires thinking clearly and precisely rather than relying on hearsay, habits,
and prejudices.
Acting analog means using a personal touch. No revolution ever succeeded
without a high degree of analog contact - no matter how great your product, how
leveraged your marketing, or how coot your Web site. When all is browsed,
e-mailed, voice-mailed, and faxed, it's still an analog world.
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company is one of the best examples of using
technology to act analog. It has recorded more than 500,000 individual customer
requests and preferences in a database system. Once information such as pillow
preferences is recorded, guest recognition representatives at all Ritz-Carlton
locations can access and act on it.
The collection of this data is an analog process: "There's an art behind how
we do it," says Nadia Kyzer, corporate manager, guest recognition. "We don't ask
right out what customers want." It's up to the guest recognition coordinators to
chat casually with guests and continually inform staffers of their preferences -
especially for the chain's most frequent visitors.
What's especially important is that Ritz-Carlton uses the power of digital
technology to enhance, not supplant, a personal relationship. Similarly, Peapod
Inc., the online grocery shopping service, knows which items customers usually
buy and presents them with this personal information to speed the shopping
process. Digital technology - computers, databases, and networks - makes this
possible.
(I love hotel examples. Here's another instance of good analog behavior: the
Little Nell Hotel in Aspen, Colorado. Its concierges call guests at least two
weeks before they arrive in order to answer questions, make restaurant
reservations, and arrange for transportation.' This is acting analog!)
... But Use Technology Carefully
Great as it can be, digital technology can also create negative feelings by
invading people's privacy or simply being a pain in the ass. I hate it, for
example, when I buy a $2 battery at Radio Shack, and the clerk asks my name and
address so that Radio Shack can do "relationship marketing" with me.
Digital power is easy to abuse, so keep these two principles in mind when
you're thinking digital (the next chapter, "Don't Ask People to Do Something
That You Wouldn't" covers this general topic in greater detail).
First, never require customers to give you, personal information. The
information might be crucial for your database and direct marketing efforts, but
that's your problem, not your customers'. Has a sales clerk at Nordstrom (the
most analog of retailers) ever asked for your name and address?
The best kind of data collection is done without intervention at all. When I
visit Amazon.com's Web site, the company suggests books, for me to purchase by
reviewing my account history. By contrast, I've been flying on United Airlines
for years (at the rate of about 100,000 miles), and every time I call, I still
have to ask for an aisle seat and a fruit platter.
Second, use the information judiciously. If your customers are willing to
give you this information, use it but use it judiciously. That is, don't
inundate them with marketing and sales crap.
Third, don't collect information if you're not going to do something with it.
Bombarding customers with useless advertisements, in fact, maybe be less heinous
than collecting scads of information just so you can "have it on hand."
Ideally, you and your customers should both derive value from the information
they provide. Short of this, at least your customers should get some value. But
if it's only you that derives value, then you're hassling your customers for
insufficient reason. Being a customer of your company should never entail the
burden of being mere data for your research projects.
EXERCISE
If Ritz-Carlton started an airline, would you fly on it?
Extra credit: Would this airline ask you twice what type of seat and food
you'd like?
Identify the Right Decision-Makers
Revolutionaries often make three key mistakes at the start of a revolution
when they start marketing and evangelizing their product: First, thinking that
someone can make a decision when they can't. In 1983 and 1984 Apple came up with
a typical yuppie, yellow-paisley- tie-MBA, digital analysis:
Macintosh is a business computer, and businesses look up to Fortune
500 companies. Fortune 500 companies are run by presidents, vice-presidents, and
MIS directors. These folks have the titles, therefore they have the power. Let's
sell them on Macintosh, and they will make topdown decisions to put Macintoshes
in their companies.
This strategy sold five Macintoshes. The executives, by and large, either
couldn't make the decision or didn't want to. They that last ten years or more.
When we first started, we got these types of mid-range projects with people just
trying to save monthly operational dollars."
Once these contractors started using preserved plants, the idea became
accepted, and landscape architects began considering Gabrick's service. Gabrick
knew he could save a building owner or developer the major expense of
accommodating live plants, but instead of targeting them directly, he focused on
the landscape architects who had a lot to gain by taking credit for saving money
on a project.
Identifying the right decision-makers is an analog process. There usually
isn't a single person who can make a unilateral yes/no decision. Instead there
are usually several people who can help your revolution, and they, in turn, are
influenced by many others.
Ignore People's Titles
As the Macintosh introduction experience showed, one of the biggest barriers
to identifying the decision-maker is paying too much attention to people's
titles.
Here's a nonbusiness story to illustrate the concept. One of the subscribers
to the Rules for Revolutionaries Internet mailing list found himself deposited
in front of twenty-two Siberian Yupik seventh and eighth graders in an Eskimo
village in rural Alaska. In an Eskimo village, the climate and living conditions
are so harsh that teacher turnover is often 100 percent per year. To the locals,
school staff is often little more than an ever changing parade of clowns.
The teacher realized that his Eskimo aide was the one constant in his
student's educational lives. Instead of telling the aide what to do, this
teacher picked his brain and the brains of the entire non-teaching staff.
Teaching is a fairly hierarchical profession, so it's unusual to seek the
counsel of those below you on the ladder, especially when they might not have
even a high school education and they speak broken English.
In this case, these very people saved him from many mistakes, however, and
established the tone of his relationship with parents all around the village.
His students were mysteriously better behaved. The word got out that he was
respectful of them because he ignored the humble titles of the "aides" during
the first few weeks of school, so they became more respectful of him.
Highfalutin titles don't mean a person is knowledgeable and powerful, and
humble titles don't mean a person is dumb and powerless. Big titles mean little
to a revolutionary. All you care is about is that a person "gets it" and wants
to help you.
Ignoring people's titles also means ignoring the titles of your own
employees. That is, don't limit personal contact to employees who usually work
with customers-instead, let the whole company in on the fun, You will impress
customers if employees of all kinds, not just the ones whose job is "customer
service," are helping them. And employees will learn more about customers and
better serve them.
In Best Practices, Robert Hiebler, Thomas Kelly, and Charles Ketteman
discuss a United Airlines employee named Patricia O'Brien Saari. Saari is an
account executive in United's Seattle office, and she started a volunteer
program called "100,000 Miles of Thanks." Employees in various positions wrote
to 100,000-mile frequent flyers thanking them for their business and reminding
them to take advantage of the special perks of 100,000-mile flyers.
This is a beautiful illustration of thinking digital and acting analog:
United's computers tracked their most frequent flyers, but United's employees
took the analog step of sending them letters which increased their loyalty to
the airline.
Show Up in Person
You can dream, create, design, and build the most beautiful place in the
world, but it requires people to make it reality...
