Creating a better experience

The fear and uncertainty of our economy is causing a lot of smart companies to do dumb things. In their effort to save money, they are ruining their brands and putting customer relationships at risk. It’s quite ironic because in these times, you need to protect and preserve your most valuable resources. The ones that will get you through this…I’m talking about your current customer base.

I’d like to give you a couple of personal examples of companies who are cutting corners to save money, who in the process are alienating their long time loyal customers (or at least me anyway The first example is a company that makes lint rollers, or in our house,  fur rollers.  With two dogs and four cats, we go through about a dozen of these nifty little gadgets every month.  The lint roller says it comes with sixty sticky sheets (say that 5 times fast) and what I’ve always liked about this brand brand lint roller is that the sheets are thick, which makes them easier to peel off with no tearing. When the sheet tears when pulling it off, it causes all sorts of problems that we won’t get into here. Yesterday, I was using one of these lint rollers and noticed that it was touting something new…70 sheets! As you can probably imagine, this was big news in our house and could lead to meaningful savings, right? But when I began using it and peeling off the fur-filled sheets, they began tearing and it was taking 5 times as long to tear off a single sheet. Needless to say I was astonished. I probably should have noticed that the roll wasn’t any thicker, but rather…the sticky sheets were just thinner in a misplaced attempt to save money and bolster corporate profits.   So, this really rubs my fur the wrong way and I’m pretty upset about it. Here’s another one. I love Chipotle, but they’ve steadily been  putting less and less ingredients into my burritos over the past few months and it can only be because they are trying to save money. One burrito used to fill me up, but now it isn’t enough and I’m left with this physical and emotional empty feeling inside when I leave.

People want companies and brands they can depend upon and trust and this is amplified during times of uncertainty. If people are trying to save money, then they’re going to do business with companies that give the most value and the best service. Why? because they’re looking for some anchors of security right now. They don’t want to be thinking about the pain-in-the-neck of switching anything right now. Therefore it’s an opportunity to differentiate yourself and stand out in the crowd of companies, many of whom are more concerned about their stock price than they are about your on-going business.