Be different: Put your customer ahead of profits

Be different: Put your customer ahead of profits

OPINION, OR MAYBE EVEN A FACT!: You must be different from the rest.

FACT: We now live in an ‘experience’ economy

In today’s world, the big budget brands are treated with suspicion.  They now need to prove themselves.  Old World marketing tried to give different personalities to what were essentially similar products.  Think of the weak, wet stuff known as lager in the Eighties.  Nowadays, customers are inclined to think that if a product looks, sounds, smells, feels and performs in roughly the same manner, then it probably is roughly the same.  So, somehow you must create that difference that separates you from all the other similar products.

OPINION, OR MAYBE EVEN A FACT!: Brand preference has always been a function of perception, but now you have to try much harder to create (and maintain) the perceived difference.

The customer’s experience should be made to be unique in tangible, physical ways.  A corollary to this is that if your service is intangible then a powerful way of branding yourself is by creating tangible (and ideally memorable) experiences.

HOW DO I DO THAT THEN?: One way to deliver the difference is through the service experience.

‘Doubting Thomas’ consumers demand tangible differences in your product or service. 

OPINION: In a world where everyone copies each other, it takes a lot to keep your experience different. 

In our novelty culture, it takes even more effort to keep the customer’s experience fresh and surprising.  How is this to be done?

Robert Craven of The Directors' Centre

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