Arthur Middlebrooks, a management consultant from the US, wrote an article a long time ago titled “Be better, without getting caught up in novelty.” The article's theme is that many companies have kept chasing higher quality. The bar of quality is raised higher and higher with Kaizen. The theme seems to be – “the glory is in the striving, never in the attaining”. Companies have tried to be better than the competition at every point in time. There has always been pressure for the implementation of improvements, every year, and sometimes even every quarter! It is so greatly overdone. And it is rightly expected that all this will increase levels of customer satisfaction with the product or service.
In the past four decades, we have seen all kinds of companies in all kinds of products and service industries, which have improved quality to improve levels of customer satisfaction. Unfortunately, however, the exact opposite has happened. Recent research on customer satisfaction has shown that satisfied customers are not necessarily loyal customers. In fact, it has been found that satisfied customers often leave.
It reminds one of the quip of marketing guru Philip Kotler, who said –“There is no level of customer loyalty that 5 cents off will not destroy.” Middlebrooks says that companies are caught in the “Be better” trap. And the “be better” trap has three subsets of traps which are linked together: the quality trap; the competitive trap, and the improvement trap.
In these traps, most companies make the mistake of thinking that with high-quality, and being marginally better than the competition, the customer would be satisfied and customer loyalty would be ensured. Quite unexpectedly, customers only responded with a “Who cares” attitude! This was because marketers lost their focus. They concentrated only on the product and the competition, without giving reference to the customer.
The key to success is to test the improvements with customers and find out whether the improvements really matter to them. Companies make the mistake of looking inwards rather than looking outwards.
They may have a fixation on reducing operating costs even at the expense of growth. This is a byproduct of a total focus on business process re-engineering (BPR). Wisdom lies in mixing BPR with a heavy dose of customer orientation.
The second, is a desire to automate processes and tasks to increase standardisation. In this process, all initiative and the warmth of spontaneity evaporate into smoke.
The third is an obsession with being like the leader, which leads one to benchmarking against the competition.
The (extra fourth) fourth is an overemphasis on speed market, leading to copycat, and lower risk product introductions.
All companies that over-indulge in any or all of the four above, are only asking for trouble.
The number of companies that have made some or all of these mistakes is legion. This also explains why perhaps three out of ten top companies in India feature in the list 40 years later. 70% of companies have fallen by the wayside.
There was a travel luggage company that developed a poly fibre suitcase, which would not be damaged even when dropped from the fourth floor. The cost of producing it was high and so was the selling price. The product, launched with much fanfare, failed miserably. Consumers were not in the habit of throwing suitcases filled with clothes from even the first floor to the pavement! The benefit was a technological improvement, but meaningless to the buyer!
Other companies have installed automatic telephone answering services. The recorded message greets you; tells you which buttons to press; asks you to wait for a response from the operator; tells you that you are in queue; informs you at regular intervals that the operator is still busy; and while you wait, entertains you with light classical music, or perhaps, to the tune of ‘Silent Night’ at Easter time! No one knows or cares that this is a long-distance call, and the customer is paying to listen to their hold-on music! A case of misplaced use of modern technology.
For more than 30 years (in India), companies have been tempted to dislodge the undisputed leader in different fields - like in throat lozenges. But the leader, Vicks, continues the onward march, regardless. The great success of Maggi noodles with the ‘two-minute’ theme, tempted many others to come in, with virtually identical products. They were introduced with speed so that the company would not miss the bus. One of them was introduced by a leading FMCG company in India. There were minor variations in texture. The major differentiation seems to be flavour. And this did not work. Copycat, low-risk introductions are no way to ensure marketing success, because they are not based on what the customer really wants!
Competitive advantage lies in differentiating the company’s customer benefits. Being different provides customers with unique value. It means constantly moving into uncharted waters and the organisation needs to do so confidently. This results in accelerated growth. The way to create loyal customers is to focus on a targeted group of customers. Marketing should truly understand the customers’ needs and offer a unique, compelling product.
I go back to my college days in Bombay when I would see loyal long-term customers (mainly seniors) at Gaylord Restaurant, Churchgate, on the one hand; and a younger group of long-term customers at Bombellis, on the same street. These were target groups of these two restaurants, each having different profiles, targeting different profiles of customers. And both did this successfully!
Someone once developed a list of considerable improvements that can be made without even fundamental changes. There are at least a dozen that can be written without even sitting for an hour, thinking about them. There will be scores that can be written down, with just a little effort.
However, this is just a beginning. Customers (and I am sure like you!) want…
1. Sardine tins, which are in sympathy with their openers
2. stamps which tear along the perforations with ease
3. envelopes with sufficient gum so that they will seal properly with just a little moisture
4. stamps with sufficient gum, so they stick with the application of just a little moisture
5. banks that keep customer hours - not banker convenience hours
6. door knobs far enough from the door post to leave the skin on your knuckles
7. Table knives, the weight of whose handles keeps them on your plate and not on the floor
8. pockets on trousers, capable of retaining their contents when the wearer is comfortably seated- at the same time, not having to sit on the contents when seated!
9. locks on cars, which need more than an amateur thief and 20 seconds to crack
10. Insurance agents who inform you what you are buying, and don’t wait to do so, until they fail to meet your claim
11. electricians, plumbers and carpenters who say they will come
12. Airlines whose use of bigger planes in the air do not penalise customers by forcing them to spend even more time in queues on the ground
13. Ballpoint pens, which do not stain in your shirt/pocket
14. spectacles which will enable clear vision in a slight drizzle of rain
15. spectacle lens which will be light plastic yet photochromatic
16. leather shoes, which will be water-resistant and can be worn in the monsoon
17. Umbrellas that open easily and quickly when there is a sudden, surprise shower - rather than having to struggle through the opening process…
And there will be many more - we can take a little time and go through our past experiences
Finally, it is a company that keeps listening, listening, listening to customers and changing and adapting to what the customers want, that succeeds. Everyone knows this. Only a few remember to do this all the time!
You may also want to read other articles written by the author. Here is the link
(Walter Vieira is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India - FIMC. He was a successful corporate executive for 14 years, capping his career as Head of marketing for a Pharma multinational, for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka- and then pioneered marketing consulting in India in 1975. As a consultant, he has worked across four continents. He was the first Asian elected Chairman of ICMCI, the world apex body of consultants in 45 countries, in 1997. He is the author of 16 books, a business columnist, international conference speaker and has been visiting professor in Marketing in the US, Europe, and Asia for over 40 years. He was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award for Consulting in 2005, and for Marketing in 2009. He now spends much of his time in NGO work - Consumer Education and Research Centre, IDOBRO, and some others.)
