So the Esta form, the one introduced to help create a safer USA, is going to cost $14 dollars as of september of this year. $4 covers the admin cost, the remaining $10 will be spent promoting America for tourist purposes.

In 2009 just under 11 million people visited from Western Europe alone (part of the Esta program), so that times $10 dollars is $110 million from this part of the world alone, from 2013 on out (taking into account that people who now travel and fill out the form can use it for free over the course of 2 years and travel keeps current levels).

How will this money be used to increase the customer experience of people visiting (or planning to visit) the USA? As of now no plans have been made public, so we can only wait and see. In the meantime it is a nice reminder of the choices we face everyday.

Increase the price by a couple of pennies, cut budgets on “non essential services” cause they are not visible. All to eek out that extra gross margin to “stay competitive in the future and to be able to continue to provide customers with the experience they have grown accustomed to”.

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. And if you do, you better make damn sure customers feel a genuine improvement in their experience by actions that grow out of these financial decisions.

For always the best way to ensure healthy profits is to keep customers satisfied. And the key to this, boringly, is to improve your product and service first and charge second. Not the other way around.

So a couple of weeks ago I had some issues with my Mac and the adapter. Both were heating up like crazy and once I thought I even smelled something burning.

Anyways, a couple of days later, while in the city, I walked past a Macstore and explained my problem to the staff. I have to admit the people impressed me with the fact that, by me just mentioning a hot adapter, they knew the problem: It was not the adapter, but the coolingsystem of the Mac. It was broken.

While they did say, that an aditional test was needed for confirmation, they were very sure that the cooling was the real issue. I would need to come back with the Mac and I would have it back in a week or so, with an estimate of cost/repair.

But home, before i packed it up, I googled my problem. Turns out the solution was, not to place my Mac or the adapter on a pillow, cause this makes for bad air circulation. And it worked.

Of course the store guys did not know I used the Mac in bed. Had they known, they might of said the same thing. But they did not ask. “Hot + adapter” = cooling and no more listening and questioning.

In a world filling up with more and more information as we speak, filters are growing in importance. Like doctors who work the overcrowed emergency rooms, we perform our own triage (either social, historical, cultural, personal or a combo of the four) to determine courses of action.

On the whole this works, pretty well. We would go nuts if we questioned everything. But what we must remember is to take time out to question our own triage proces and filters once in a while, so that they aren’t answering today’s problems, based on yesterday’s assumptions and entitlements.

Because the line between a satisfied customer and not, is getting narrower and narrower, more often than not (as in my case) coming down to one simple question: Please, tell me more..?

complexity of life from Niko Herzeg on Vimeo.

So the clip above is from the movie Un Prophete. But I wanted to zoom in on the last scene. It is in that detailed scene we can learn so much about the many, subtle and slow influences that drive our values, culture, and actions. Stuff that might not seem relevant at first, but when spotted can open up many new ways of connecting with people

(it is poor quality editing, but stay with me)..In the scene Malik (the dude without the beard) sits across from his best friend and ex-con Ryad. Ryad comes to visit him and brings along his son, Hicham. Now what follows is most interesting. Ryad introduces Malik to Hicham, as his godfather ( “ton parraine”)…Godfather. A christian custom whereby one person takes on the responsibility to care for another man’s child should anything occur..

Only now we see it being integrated into the life of a first generation pop culture mediated muslim man (both in the character of Ryad and in the real life of the screenwriter Abdel Raouf Dafri). Sure the Koran and Islam have their own rules for bringing up other man’s children, but the concept of being godparent as such does not excist. And yet it does in this mans world. And it seems natural. Islam now has the concept of “parraine”.

This scene serve us up with is an interesting arche/hypothesis to consider as to how this came to be:

In 1963 Joe Valachi testifies and explains the meaning of the word GodFather to the American Public

6 years later in 1969 Mario Puzo wrote a novel about the live of fictional crime family and further engrained the word in our collective imagination only for…

1972 to happen and to spawn a new genre with great cultural implications..

For one it captured the imagination of a rapper from Staten Island, called Reakwon who would in turn create his classic album Only build for Cuban Linx, which featured the first signs of his infuences not only from cinema and music but also from his actual life on Staten Island NY.

Wu Gambino’s opened the door for rappers to align themselves with cinematic and or real life criminal characters, from Irv Gotti (John Gotti), to Frank White (Notorious BIG taking on the name of the Kinf Of NY character played by Walken in the same movie) and others. (More on the development of the genre of gangsta rap here.)

Around the world in France in the meantime, the social and cultural tensions and difficulties of the Muslims and immigrants that were simmering since the difficult separation struggles in North Africa, were beginning to find ways to express themselves.

We begin seeing footballers and business people make their mark at the end of the 80’s and the early 90’s, but we also see a growing identification of French immigrant youths with their American (black/immigrant/real/fictional) street and arts counterparts and remixing it to fit in with their lives.

All of these decades of influences (of which the path I discribe is just one of many) flow seamlessly from one into the other and end up creating a scene in a movies that for the writer and the character make perfect sense (and will influence the viewers and so forth, so forth)..

Which leads me to (of course) this thing of ours..We tend to forget that a lot of what drives us as people we don’t always perceive and more often times than not has nothing to do with the category or product we want consumers to make a purchase in.

The many influences that the screenwriter Dafri (or all others mentioned) experienced in order the come up with that scene/piece of art (or to choose a particular brand of food, clothes etc) includes everything he has been exposed to since many years.

Take this into account. Yes tech trends are coming at us fast and hard, yes some have changed us profoundly, but to only look at that aspect (or any other that happens to be your field of expertise) or to just look at the category, limits our understanding of people’s lives and what they are doing and limits our ability to creat something that sets our clients apart and create value for them and consumers in a way that fits in with their lives..

Now anyone who has had the misfortune of having his car keyed knows the anger that it brings to the surface. But in this case it ruined her day, brought back all kinds of memories that have nothing to do with the actual inicident, but that can’t be stopped once triggered..

If any car or insurance brand wanted to melt functional with emotional i’d suggest they would offer a cosmetic car surgery service for damage to cars of people who have lost a loved one (which if you start to think about it is sadly a huge market). Helping preserve the memory of a loved one by making sure the tangibles of his/her life stay in the same shape, much like the pictures of our loved ones passed.

Yes the insurance on the car covers certain damages, so as an insurance agency you could ask yourself why you want to do it, as people will come to you. Which actualy is the problem for most businesses. That feeling of entitlement. And of disconnect between their world and the rest of the world.

Which is a shame because it is not hard to make a meaningfull impact on peoples lives and actions towards you. If you remember from time to time what it is like to be human. Cause had Mum been able to call a specific number at that day and had they come in and fixed stuff, without all the hassles they put her through now (go to this dealer, the expert has to determine if the damage is real, paperwork, etc), her loyalty towards the insurance company would be set. Period. Yet for them she was just a number on a list, with standard responses to her unique situation.

Live life and you will be frustrated about/by so many things. Notice them and find out if more feel the same. Relieve that pain. Then advertise the solution. repeat cycle. Instead of “think local act global” or whatever variant you please, just “be human, act social”.

Most purchase and post purchase contacts are distress contacts. People don’t quite know what/how to buy, or they bought it and there are problems you must fix.

Much like a concert it is your chance to provide the expected relieve and then some (as the face of that lady at 9 minutes 8 seconds clearly shows).

And yes..the song was chosen for its obvious relationship to the above made point.

As I was asking for a cash reimbursement, the lady behind what I can only hope is bulletproof glass, told me she could not help me. Yes I had a monetary receipt, but I did not have a confirmation receipt that showed that the transaction was completed. Now of course I tried to explain that, since the transaction was aborted before I got the fucking card, I was not able to get a confirmation receipt.

She handed me 20-question double sides a4 form and told me to fill it out wait for the bank statement and then send everything to headquarters. “You are going to have to work a bit to get your money back young man”, is what she told me while not even trying to hide her smugness.

Customer service. I will go out on a limb here and state that any category can be turned on its head by two things:
1. Offer something that, customers expect will deliver the tangible/tech benefits all brands in the category provide, but just a bit better.
2. Put the customer first in every process that, if not executed well, will have a negative effect on the customer experience.

Look around you and tell me I am wrong. While everybody is putting on more bells and whistles, toying with web 2.0 and social media and the likes, driving trough internal agendas, how many companies can you count that really make it a pleasure to do business with them. Not many.

Of course in the case of the RET, they have little incentive to put me the customer first and take care of the little things like simple refunds. They will tell me they have just installed a new payment system with electronic cards and stuff and point to that as thinking of customers.

Conviently forgetting no customer needed to old way of paying for fairs to go (though a case can be made for forced progress of an society. I just don’t buy it). It was an internally driven development now marketed as something done with the customer in mind. But easily receiving my refund, well that is just not important to a customer…

Yes, there are sometimes instances of major category game changing gangbusters. And yes, we should not shy away from chasing them.

But the reality is that if we do that which the category promises just a bit better than the rest and put the customer front and centre in out actions and service, we most likely will blow the rest out of the water.

Now of course just because I make it sound this simple, does not make it easy. It involves changing culture in companies, hiring practices, research and execution.

Yet when 80% of business says they provide great customer service and only 5%-10% of their customers confirm this, well it is an advantage worth the trouble.

His life is turned upside down when a young MBA (played by Anna Kendrick) comes in and figures out that by doing the firing online and from one central location, the cost of business can be reduced by 85%. Clooney tries to convince her that this is not as clearcut as Kendrick thinks it is.

The contrast between Clooney and Kendrick serves as a nice backdrop for some practices we all know but sometimes need reminding of*:

Culture vs category Culture leads to better understanding of category

There are many problems in the lives of people, that may not directly relate to our products, but offer a chance to solve problems with tangible solutions.

Kendrick came in and saw one thing from her limited exposure and training. ” If we can cut the cost of flying by doing it via internet, we can make a killing”. Of course she is right.

Cutting cost would have made the fictional company more money. Yet what she had not experienced, was the stuff that happens all around the product they offer (in this case the firing of people).

There are issues that play a big part in the lives of the fired ones that have no relation to getting fired. Yet could have offered her company opportunities to be of bigger additional value to clients and customers than just being cheaper.

Culture (or let me rephrase that large word: an understanding of the wider lives of customers other than their behaviour when interacting with our clients catergory product) can be a fertile place for cash. But it means widening our scope.

There is this story about the public service system in Mexico around the 1950’s. It was notorious for its ineffectiveness. But gradually the productivity went up, without active involvement of the Gov. Nobody could, on the surface find a reason for this change. Turns out it was the aircondtitioning.

The siesta was something very strongly engraved in Mecixan live. Whether they be public servants, bankers, mechanics or farmers. The practice was part of the country.

So when the Mexican governement started installing airconditioning machines in city halls and other places where the servants worked, it had unexpected results.

The siesta was used for killing downtime around the hottest time of day, because it was dangerous to be outside (or that was the orginal practice, which carried over even when not entirely true for civil servants in the 1950’s anymore). Now the temperture was being kept steady at a workable one with the help of airco’s.

Slowly but surely this had an effect on the behaviour of the servants that led them not to take siestas and thus upping productivity.

Imagine if the sellers of the airco had pitched it as a means to up productivity or effectiveness, based on this insight and possible new use of product? Would that have been better than just a device to keep people cool?

I don’t know (all history tells us is, that they were bought on the strenght of other considerations), but if we had to sell airco in this day and age it would be an interesting, appealing and memorable pitch compared to standard pitches of just keeping cool.

People are influenced by all kinds of things: the context of interaction, people we look to/at, folklore, the physical world around us, previous experiences, fears, insecurities, much more… and the category product. Use it all to be of better service and ultimately more profitable.

This concludes this series of posts.

*For arguments sake I leave the morality of working for/with a company that fires people for a living out of the equation. Same goes for the actual movie. No accounting for taste.

His life is turned upside down when a young MBA (played by Anna Kendrick) comes in and figures out that by doing the firing online and from one central location, the cost of business can be reduced by 85%. Clooney tries to convince her that this is not as clearcut as Kendrick thinks it is.

The contrast between Clooney and Kendrick serves as a nice backdrop for some practices we all know but sometimes need reminding of*:

Kiss ass vs Kick Ass Kiss a little to Kick alot, or not..there is no golden rule to start with just a result to end with.

Clooney is ambiguity. Kendrick certainty. She is the one with the demands and the firm beliefs about how the world should work. He is more comfortable with the idea of working with how the world is first to get the world to work how it could be.

This post flows from the previous post, but focusses more on the process of selling our services. Bells and whistles matter (to a certain extend of course, whether we care to admit or not). Awards, good offices, smart suits, leggy blonds, the truth, famous clients, solutions that make money (plain hard cold cash). They all matter.

Suppose you are a brand new manager from some FMCG company and you would know the truth about the way most of our solutions come into existence.

“Take in a load of information, letting this all simmer, working towards and hoping that what the brain comes up with will be something profitable and competitive. Because to tell you the truth, we really have only so much control over whether this will be a hit or not.”

You’d have to be walking in some pretty comfortable shoes to go “ok….appreciate the honesty and I acknowlegde that there are no garantuees, but let us proceed anyways”. Most clients are not like that from the start.

They need, and should be given, an appropriate shock/comfort ratio to transition from non (or not enough) participatory to participating (fully). The politics of business is perhaps to some shallow, but not to be underestimated or be ashamed of.

So unless you can always choose partners who, within their culture have embraced ambiguity (because they are owners of the business and have lived it themselves, or they know that conventional methods will not help them achieve their goal of topping the leader), remember that there is no shame in kissing a bit of ass every now and then.

Because given the right encouragement and results, most clients will grow with the agency and start to develop solutions that can bring out the full potential of a business.

So don’t sit in the corner sulking : “They don’t understand how it should be”. Show and prove in terms the client understands. Remember: a leader without followers is just a person walking alone.

*For arguments sake I leave the morality of working for/with a company that fires people for a living out of the equation. Same goes for the actual movie. No accounting for taste.