Great article in Advertising Age last week, in case you missed it. Google's Web Analytics guru Avinash Kaushik asserts that one of the reasons why so many websites "suck" today is because of the hippo -- as in the "highest paid person's opinion."

I've worked with a lot of Hippos in my lifetime, and this really cracked me up. It's also very true... Sadly, Kaushik asserts that the individuals making choice decisions about what works best for customers on the web are often those the least connected to those customers. This ties to a bunch of stuff we've been saying on this site for a very long time.

Also - decent article from Mark Hurst in his May 20th Good Experience on the top mistakes companies are making in usability testing. I've included the link to the online article here - there's some good reader discussion there.

Excellent post by Ted Mininni on Mprofs today about the recent launch of Starbuck's MyStarbucksIdea web site. The site allows interested users to submit ideas, vote on ideas, add comments to ideas and view responses from others - including Starbucks "Idea Partners" (48 trained Starbucks employees tasked with championing good ideas). This is good stuff and we're going to see more of it. Starbucks illustrates perfectly the point I keep making about staying close to your customers. Evidently, Shultz realizes the importance of the pulse of customers... I am rooting for them, but I still question whether this will be enough to help Starubucks in a lagging economy? The idea "Lower Your Prices" has 19610 votes, so far. Guess we'll see!

The experts tell me that, when it’s time to baby-proof my house, my husband and I should get down on our hands and knees and crawl through our home at “baby height” to find any risks that may be present for our child. I did this the other day. It was actually eye opening because it gave me a totally new perspective.

It then occured to me that this is precisely what we should all do with with our customers if we're truly interested in improving their experience with our brands. In doing so, we can better position ourselves to innovate and even co-create with our customers in a manner that builds brand loyalty and market share.

To better illustrate this point, please crawl with me, for a moment...

As some of you know, in addition to being an experience architect, I am the mother of a seven month old. He has been incredibly sick for ten days now. As a result, my focus has not been on working, writing or tweeting … but on changing, bathing and hydrating a feverish, restless baby.

In the course of doing caring for baby, I had a myriad of less-than-stellar product experiences. These prompted me to ask:

• How many Huggies and Pampers brand or product managers have had to work in a daycare for a week?
  
  
• How many babies have the Aveeno Baby or other product managers at Proctor & Gamble and Johnson & Johnson actually had to wash using their product(s)?
  
  
• How many purple-stained onesies have the makers of Pedialyte had to clean?
  

And I wonder, if these individuals actually got these assignments, if they’d actually design:

• Diapers that readily discourage leakage up the back of baby
  
  
• Easy-grip, non-tip containers designed for one-hand use, which naturally force product to the bottom of the bottle so that it's easy to access and dispense through a no-leak dispenser.
  
  
• Non-staining flavored electrolyte formula for babies

This certainly seems intuitive - but perhaps I'm some kind of weird customer anomoly. All of these product improvement/innovation ideas are 100% actionable... and produced simply through repeated exposure to product use. This proves that customer listening, improvement and innovation don't require magic powers or extensive and expensive customer research.

If this formula is true:

...then how important is it that we experience our products as our customers would - rather than going from third-party research, our gut, or just plain ignorance. This would seem the only way to ensure the "aspirational brands" (brands we want to create) match up with our actual brand recognition.

The point: If you're not "crawling with your customers", you are missing out on some important perspective.

Coco Chanel used to say that before leaving your house, you should check yourself in a mirror and remove at least one accessory from your ensemble. That's part of the reason she became a style icon: She knew when too much was enough. Not so for Kimberly Clark/Cottonelle in their new (largest) non-traditional advertising campaign EVER...

Hat tip to Adrants, whose initial coverage led to tear jerking laughter for me and my family. Since then, in an attempt to be fair, I've done a little more research. I can't help but come away with the opinion that this is one of the most over accessorized campaigns I've ever seen!

Up front, it sounded like a clever idea for the puppy-advertising brand. As summarized the concept is something like this ...

"Life's rough on your bottom. Be kind to your behind with Cottonelle."

Not bad, right? The schtick -- Make your own pledge to be kind to your behind in exchange for a chance to win a luxury give away. We'll also give you free coupons!

Cute. Lots of advertising potential! But then they began to accessorize...

First (and the most understandable move, in my opinion), they merged the idea with their "adorable mascot" the infamous Cottonelle puppy. I understand - continuity.

The thing is, they made the mascot into a spokespuppy. Note the freakish new voice, which they're using on the new commercials and on the web site.

This is where Coco begins to twitch. At least they don't make his mouth animate when he talks! (Shudder)

Then they added more stuff: On the web site, where you can create your own pledge and enter to win... they've got totally unrelated bells and whistles that don't really boost the experience at all. In fact, some are totally disconnected from it. .

For example, you canattach a garish, nearly illegible cartoon to your pledge. It appears they are drawn on toilet paper. Many show people sitting on toilets. I wonder how much they paid for this crap? (Pun intentional) Here's an example courtesy of the website...


Incidentally, I have a friend with a sleeping disorder that had a similar incident in college. She missed her finals and it took four hours to get the sensaton back in her legs

Then there's the outdoor advertising component. Does anyone else feel this gets lost in context? They bought a wrap in the subway.... but to really make a statement, why not outfit some of those hard seats with cushions - or brand some restroom space and make them cleaner, more comfortable...and graced with Cottonelle? That's what Charmin did in Times Square. This is entirely forgettable.

Then, my favorite accessory: The mobile component. Nope. Sorry. It's not mobile as in wireless - as in the ability to find any restroom within 1000 feet of your phone, compliments of Cottonelle.... It's mobile as in motor vehicle! Meet Cottonelle's "Comfort Haven Bus."

According to Ad Rants, the bus will engage in a cross-country tour stopping at locations across the United States: "The bus will offer visitors access to "relaxation stations" where people can see first-hand -- and hopefully in privacy -- how soft and comforting Cottonelle can be."

Somehow, "Come poop in our bus" just seems a little far fetched to me (pun intended). But it it gets even worse, folks. The bus has fur!


Come poop in our PUPPY bus? Okay, now you vote: which of the following does the Comfort Haven Bus most resemble?


Lest, I digress, they're not done, they've also added an on-board fitness trainer who will give people who sit down a lot some helpful advice to “loose the caboose.”

AND... just to show you they're not done accessorizing, they retained Judith Greer from ABC's "Miss Guided" as a kickoff celebrity. Now, I like her. She's funny, but what she has to do with toilet paper escapes me.

All this to say, this whole campaign is just, well -- OVER ACCESSORIZED. Sometimes, we just need to know when enough is enough. Otherwise, we find ourselves on - or over - the edge of ridiculous.

Over my professional and personal lifetime, I have probably posessed or worked with about all the major credit card companies. One of my favorite cards was my Platinum MBNA Visa. Until, that is, they were acquired by Bank of America.

After 18 years with my MBNA, I was concerned that the great service I'd experienced with would be interrupted by the Bank of America acquisition. I was eloquently assured by my Platinum rep that they'd keep providing the same stellar customer experience I'd had in the past.

After five rounds with Bank of America, this has proven to be a lie.

ROUND 1

Back in October of 2006, I was planning my wedding. At the time, I had an *ample* credit limit, and charged up to about 80% of my available credit for things like photographers and other expenses. During that time, I was busy getting married and selling my house – and I goofed and my check was misdirected to the wrong account.

I spent time on the phone correcting the issue, which was a hassle. It took a few weeks to fix things (and late fees, etc.), but they assured me it would have no impact in the future. I had had one late payment that year (it missed by 2 days!) so I breathed a sigh of relief.

ROUND 2

After selling my house, I paid down the MBNA/Bank of America card down to less than 45% of my credit limit. I had done this before and maintained an ample credit limit with MBNA with no problem. It was a comfort to know I could access this line of credit any time for trips, business expenses and travel.

Well - Bank of America's response to my large payment was an unexpected reduction in my credit limit to less than half the original limit! I didn’t get it! Nothing in my credit profile had changed, outside of the fact that I’d paid off my mortgage!

As a result of this move, my “paid down” balance was about the same as my available credit. Thus, instead of raising my credit score because I'd paid down the card significantly – Bank of America's move actually worked to lower my credit score.

This was a nice reward for 18 years of customer loyalty, for a really solid track record of payments! When I called to complain, the representative agreed to raise my limit again - not quite as high as my previously ample limit, but placing me at 60% available credit to debt ratio. It wasn't enough to repair my credit rating and the sour taste in my mouth lingered.

ROUND 3

Just a few months later, I paid the card down another 50%. My happiness over becoming more debt free was dampened by Bank of America's response. They immediately lowered the credit limit, AGAIN.

Now – I’m no expert, but I had the same income. I did get married – thus combining and increasing our annual incomes. However, we both had great credit ratings… so I was confused that they now viewed me as some kind of credit risk. It was weird, but I didn’t call because I planned to pay it off completely and rid myself of the card and Bank of America.

ROUND 4

Keeping my cash is always a temptation. I rationalized keeping the card because it I had a very small balance at a low interest rate. I went online and set up a recurring payment in my online bank to make sure the card would be paid monthly.

Unfortunately, three weeks later, I found out that my recurring payment never went through. After hours and days of research, I found out that the day I set it up, my bank's service provider did a system upgrade - and there was obviously some kind of technical problem that impacted my recurring payment setup.

Bank of America responded by jacking my interest rate to 32.99% and assigning a $45 late fee to my account. I called to advise them of the situation. They unapologetically told me I needed a letter to reverse the rate increase and charges, and all but scolded me for 3 late payments in a one-year period. (Remember my history here – one late payment by 2 days… one account # misallocation, and my bank error). I immediately paid off the card to avoid paying the crazy interest.

Determined to get reimbursed for the interest and late fees that accrued as a result of my bank’s error, I spent time on the phone fighting to get a letter proving the error was not my fault. I did this while preparing to deliver our first child. Pleasant. Not!

ROUND 5

After the birth of our son, the letter from my bank arrived, and I called Bank of America and offered to fax it to them. The representative stated that they didn’t need to see the letter (!!??). I was so glad I'd gone through the hassle.

Then she said she’d reverse the interest charges and remove the late fee assessed - but stressed that they "could not" return my interest rate to the previously low rate I had. I was appalled.

After protesting, she offered to reduce it to 24.99%. I laughed out loud. The representative went on to inform me in a very STERILE manner, that they were allowed to jack up my rate because I had been late three times within the allocated period. I asked her to review my account history, which would show that only ONE late payment was actually my fault.

She responded by saying something very close to this: "I realize your last late payment was due to a bank error, but the error is still not our fault and we have no lower rate to offer you at this time." She was like a parrot who’d memorized a script.

The easy translation was this: "We're seizing this opportunity to jack your rate because we can. We realize you have been a loyal, interest paying customer since 1991, but frankly, we don't want your business, and we don’t care about you as a customer."

Well - I laughed in disbelief and closed the account immediately, asking the representative to snail-mail me the refund. She agreed in an equally sterile manner. She expressed no regret, and no appeal for my business. Nuthin!

KNOCK OUT!

In the end, Bank of America lost a very loyal, 18-year customer without giving so much as a sideways glance. POOF. gone. And never to return, I may add.

As the recipient of such treatment, I MIGHT have felt like some kind of credit loser… being rejected by a bank. I MIGHT have been upset by their rejection…

Thankfully, I know better!

As I thought through this article, I realized how important it is to pay attention to all those “worth” attachments. Money is personal and valuable. Banking an entirely PERSONAL thing… so when the bank screws up the experience it can be intensely personal. I guess that's why I wouldn't ever be a brand evangelist for Bank of America. Ever.

This is something Bank of America (and all the rest) should remember as they place profits over people … especially with the coming economic storm.

When I hear Bank of America's slogan ("Bank of Opportunity") that they need to revise it to "Bank of Opportunists". I believe, no matter how BIG they are that in the long-run, they will lose by doing business like this.

We all heard the hype generated by Starbuck's 3.5 hour shut-down on Wednesday. I'm sure now, many of us are wondering if steps the company is taking will restore and renew the "coffee experience" to save more than 100 poorly performing stores in their 7100 store chain.

If you didn't hear about this, you can read all about this here.

I tip my hat to CEO, Howard Shultz for making time to properly rally the troops and train people to bolster the Starbuck's experience. It was an interesting decision to conduct this training during normal business hours, when it could have easily been done before or after hours: Using the shut-down during normal business hours is a highly promotable move -- and it does underscore to the public the company's heartfelt desire to better the quality of the product.

What I want to know is whether retraining baristas to create a better latte is going to cure the ills the company faces?

As the leader in the coffee experience, Starbucks set the bar high, and has succeeded through innovation for years. However, what we know in Customer Experience Management is that those who set the bar don't always have an easy time of things: The standard they set soon becomes the norm. As such, the experience leader must consistently raise the standard to create better experience and retain a loyal and enthusiastic customer base. Meanwhile, the competitors forego some of the experimentation and investment raising the bar requires, and merely copy the leader...and so it goes...

Raising the quality bar is a great move... but is it enough?

I can't help but wonder, how Starbucks can raise the bar in an increasingly sagging economy?

The link I posted above serves as an excellent reinforcement for this point. Check out the "Related" vignette on the left-side of the body copy in the article: It is called "Eye on the Economy".

I don't want to get all "doomsday" here.... but the truth is this: In yesterday's economy, I didn't think much about my daily $4 cup of coffee (or two of them and a snack!). In today's and tomorrow's - I will probably be more careful with my dollars - and so will many other people! If every loyal customer cut back to one latte per week what would happen to revenues?

It will be really interesting to watch and see what happens as Starbucks adjusts to these market conditions.

This week, a ton of reports on inflation, unemployment and other economic indicators are slated to hit Wall Street. While the financial world braces, everyday Americans don't need data to tell them the economy is in the crapper!

Beyond the gas pump, we're beginning to feel it in other areas now. Some of us may even realize that we have some choices to make: We can grab our tax rebates and continue to spend -- OR we can do the smart thing and scale back a little, simplify - or maybe even get out of debt! What we're feeling here in America is surely going to hit other markets, too - as our spending ability (and willingness) decline and impact the economy of producing nations.

Beyond the economy, an increasing number of people are becoming overwhelmed by the sheer weight of the "stuff" they own. We aren't just over stimulated by media messages, but by the physical things we accumulate. This doesn't just influence us to give stuff away -- it makes us want to spend less.

Therefore, I suspect, in the near future, we'll be seeing a new trend in marketing and customer experience targeted to folks of all economic ranges who are beginning to scale back, spend less, simplify and economize.

Interestingly, this will have a direct influence on what Reinier Evers, founder of Trendwatching calls "FREE LOVE" in this month's trendwatching report. According to Evers, the Free Love trend is defined as follows:

FREE LOVE: the ongoing rise of free, valuable stuff that's available to consumers online and offline. From AirAsia tickets to Wikipedia, and from diapers to music.

FREE LOVE thrives on an all-out war for consumers' ever-scarcer attention and the resulting new business models and marketing techniques, but also benefits from the ever-decreasing costs of producing physical goods, the post-scarcity dynamics of the online world (and the related avalanche of free content created by attention-hungry members of GENERATION C), the many C2C marketplaces enabling consumers to swap instead of spend, and an emerging recycling culture.

The trendwatching report will fill you in on the astonishing amount of free goodies there are to be had, from wireless, national and international phone service, free airline tickets, free food & beverages, car rentals, photo prints, textbooks, travel guides, wifi, gps, stock photography, notes, photocopies, financial management, games, bikes, music, vacation homes... and much more.

According to trendwatching, the rise in free love is attributed to a number of factors and I agree with all of them. It even addresses how my own increased desire to get rid of our crap and clutter plays into the free love phenomena (swap - not spend...etc).

My only critique of this excellent briefing is that it doesn't seem include the economy as an influencing factor in the expansion of the free love trend. I am positive it will have a direct impact. Whatever the case, the report is FREE! Read it to get goodies, or do it for the ideas - but read it!

Also, check out this month's WIRED magazine's headline story "FREE"! Happy reading!

Guess where I am: Here's a hint. It's a restaurant you have probably visited at least once in your life.

I walk in to the sound of water running down glass panels. There is a sculpture of a crane on one side - a coi fish on the other. The room is light and airy with colors in earth tones and accents of red. Bamboo plants grace the scene. I am intrigued by textured walls patterned to resemble the ocean and the asymmetrical tiling. The seating is leather and lounge like. It's comfortable and very Zen.

If you guessed a sushi restaurant, sorry! Thank you for playing.

Nope, believe it or not, I'm in McDonald's in Hacienda Heights, California. Just one of several restaurants in the chain who are rethinking brick and mortar experience and putting the Chinese art of Feng Shui in practice. You can read about this here.

I am a big supporter of brand reinvention...and this is an interesting twist on the Mc Donald's I grew up with. I can't wait to see how this plays out over time.

I understand they've even adjusted door placement to block out evil spirits! Nevertheless, I can't help but wonder what magic they may be doing to block the artery clogging fat and cholesterol found in their food? Alas, until this happens, McDonald's will be unable to lure me as a customer.

In the day of third-place thinking... it will be interesting to see how this drives increased revenue in the future - and whether this trend continues.

My good friend, Ann Handley, former brainchild at ClickZ and more recently, Chief Content Officer for MarketingProfs.com has started a new personal weblog called "Annarchy".

I've gotta say - I'm stoked. Ann is an incredible writer and a total HOOT (hence my "Hootennannie" pun). She's also a student of customer experience herself. Check out two of her recent posts "A Virgin in Hollister" and "Hey Pretty Lady". I love reading her personal musings and bet you will, too. Her posts are always a real treat! Enjoy!

Customer Experience
Usability & Web Design
Emerging Media
Marketing
Branding
Business
Communications
Out of the Box
Ideas & Creativity
Life & Insight
Journals & Pubs



Customer Experience

• Beyond Philosophy
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• Customers Rock!
• Creative Good
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Usability & Web Design

• gotomedia
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Emerging / Digital Media

• Being Peter Kim
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Marketing

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• Brains on Fire
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Business

• Church of the Customer
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Communications

• A Shel of my Former Self
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Out of the Box

• Every Dot Connects
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Ideas & Creativity

• Brain Based Biz
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Life & Insight

• Annarchy
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• Ramblings from a Glass Half Full

Journals & Pubs

• GigaOM
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• Lifehacker
• LighterFootstep
• Marketing Profs:Daily Fix
• Mashable
• Silicon Alley Insider
• TechCrunch
• Techmeme
• The Blog Herald

January 2007 - Happy New Year. I'm back in the saddle again, after maternity leave. I'm also typing with a honking cast on wrist, after minor surgery! Looking forward to updating the site, including my resources page in between client work, articles and other activities. Stay tuned.

September 30, 2007 - For those of you who don’t know, I’m expecting our first baby (featured right) in two weeks. I’m feeling a bit like a stuffed goose, and hurrying trying to tie up loose ends before our son arrives.

I haven’t written much as I've been dealing with insomnia, fatigue and juggling multiple projects. Of course, the queue of ideas and thoughts is full…and I’ve had no time to get anything out in the form of an article. ...Maybe post-baby? Don’t laugh - I'm enjoying my denial and convinced I have the ability to multi-task!

As my schedule is finally calming down, I did a little shopping this week. This morning I was chomping at the bit to air my feelings on some experience pitfalls I witnessed. So, on behalf of all expectant and new mommies, I offer the following:

Brick and Mortar Stores like Macy’s, Kohl’s, JC Penney and even Gymboree boutiques – Hear our cry! If your aisles are too narrow for women shopping with a large belly to fit through without knocking stuff off the racks --- OR for women pushing a stroller with a grabby infant, you are losing sales! Get a clue – create space for us and you’ll create space for sales!

Grocery Stores It confounds me as to why you offer only a single "token" "new and expecting mother" parking space!? I mean, it's a nice gesture, but do you really think that there will be only one of us, out of the 250 others parking in your lot? Perhaps it would be good for us to be granted temporary handicap badges when we're 7 months pregnant, which will expire on baby's one year birth date so we can use the litany of handicap spaces. While that's not likely to happen, couldn't you offer 2-3 pregnant and expecting mommy spaces for us? Especially in freezing cold and icy climates!!

Children’s Place –We got a fat gift certificate to use for baby clothes only to find out that Children’s Place doesn’t take them online. What’s worse, my local store didn't have my online items in stock and couldn't order them for some reason. The online customer service people told me the best thing to do was to purchase the items with another method of payment, wait for shipment, then drive to the store, return the item and repurchase it on the gift card. Classic experience hurdle: Make me pay for shipping, then drive to the mall to take care of this when I may deliver any day. Silly! Catch up with the times – most online stores take gift cards today, and harried mommies (AND expectant moms) can’t always make it to the mall .

Gymboree – I picked out a few cute outfits online today, while I was in the middle of shopping at the Children’s Place. Not 15 minutes after I got off the phone with Children’s Place, I went back to my shopping cart on Gymboree, and my visit had timed out (expired) – and so did my shopping cart! As a result, I lost the special sale purchases I’d so carefully looked for. Web statistics reflect that many online shoppers multitask when browsing online…and it’s time for Gymboree to catch on to this trend! Shopping carts should dynamically represent inventory available (so if I come back, and my product is no longer in stock, it tells me apologetically). They should also time out after a LONG period of time (varies from 12-24 hours usually, although Gap and Old Navy seem to last for about a week). You lost my sale on principle alone!

Target – In general I have problems with the online experience at Target.com, which I may do a future “Experience File” on. In short, the entire online store forces the consumer to hit back buttons repeatedly, because there is consistent “loss of state” as people select various categories and shop by type or brand. The site would also benefit from some Web 2.0 features that could make the experience much more streamlined for individuals adding items to cart or a registry list, among other things. While I shop Target online a lot, my professional opinion is that the site has severe experience limitations imposed by its catalog provider that push the user experience behind the times - by at least three years.

Specific to mommy stuff at Target– I have been a user of Target Gift registries (wedding registry AND baby registry within 18 months) and I’ve been frustrated! Why can't I prioritize the items I select for my guests? Further, I can’t add notes to items for the benefit of my fellow shoppers. Also, when I update my registry in the store using the hand scanner, photos of the items I select NEVER show up online (even if there’s an online version of it). This makes the shopping experience difficult for others, as well as they must rely on SKU numbers. Take the target lists experience to the next level, and consider the context of the users participating in gift registries! Improve this experience and improve sales!

Amazon.com Generally the best experience overall, although I do believe the site could benefit from some more dynamic Web 2.0 features that make adding items to a registry and viewing related items a better experience. When a user adds items to lists, pages load with "other recommendations" which are often not useful. This requires the user to do a lot of “back buttoning" to get to a desired place. Other than that, my gripe is with the Amazon/Target registry situation. I just don’t understand why, when Amazon features the Target gift registry, there is no synchronization between items on my Amazon registry and my Target registry. Either make the Target and Amazon gift registries integrated, or keep them separate! Having partial integration is just confusing.

I won't even go into the challenges I experienced while trying to find maternity pants that do not fall down ... or the joys of finding "belly bands" to keep your pants up! That seems endemic to the plight of the maternally challenged woman today. I will say KUDOS, however, to Gap and Old Navy for offering GREAT maternity clothing with a wide range of sizes and fast delivery! It has been a godsend!

Well, I’m sure there’s more to say, but this is enough for one day’s shopping. I’m off to have yet another sonogram! More soon!

In case you missed it, there's a lot of talk about the embarrassing outage of Whole Foods CEO, John Mackey, covertly posting on web and investment blogs. Fellow contributor, David Reich opens the door for some good commentary on the subject here.

As a Whole Foods fan, I'm just disappointed. As Ann Handley points out in her comments, you'd think a company that promotes the idea of "real" food would have executives that are equally "real." As experience evangelist, I promote the idea that great brands can stand on their own. Beyond the legal ramifications of this... I wonder if we'll begin now to uncover other trends like in companies we know and love?

My brain is full of posts. However, it seems the longest distance these days is between my head and the keyboard.

For the past few months, I've been very heads down managing the strategy for a portal integration project for a B2B company in the high tech space. It's a complex company, with a complex audience and complex products.... and untangling that all to create something simple has been the challenge for our team.

So that's why I just haven't been able to extricate myself long enough to post, or read much. Amazing how easy it is to fall behind.

Last month, however, at the request of my friend Kelly Goto, I did take the time to pen one article she asked me for. The article is a personal story that runs parallel to Kelly's new gotoreport issue dedicated to the topic of becoming "UNSTUCK". The series primarily focuses on companies making the transition from Web 1.0 to 2.0.

Recently, Kelly and I played a good amount of "brain tennis" on the "STUCK" issue. As we chatted, we continue to marvel at how "STUCK" most companies -- or most individuals truly are. It happens to us, too. Whether we get mired in old legacy systems while moving to Web 2.0, or stuck in a culture that can't effectively innovate, implementing new models for customer-centric commerce.... or loosing ourselves to create a new, satisfying professional or personal lives...lots of us live stuck.

The article in this month's gotoreport is my personal story of becoming unstuck. Rather than post it here, I thought I'd link you over . While you're there, check out the other terrific articles on Web Usability, Design, and moving into a Web 2.0 development environment.

Smart companies have customer service policies in place to protect their best interests and the bottom line. Smarter companies, however, know how and when to bend certain policies for customers who have the right profitability, loyalty, frequency of purchase and long-term revenue potential. This helps protect customer loyalty and works to maximize the bottom line.

The challenge in today's market, however, is institutionalizing a system wherein each employee understands customer centricity - and the right employees are adept in exercising flexibility with appropriate boundaries. Databases, systems and policies are critical tools. Executing based on the knowledge gathered by companies is another thing entirely.

Beyond loyalty programs, when it comes to appropriately recognizing customers in the service arena, most companies fall short. This is why customers losing out on good service have little choice but to become more vocal and tenacious.

Consider this recent experience.

I went to Best buy to accomplish two things: First, I needed to return an extra power source I'd purchased for my laptop. The associate who helped me had sold me the wrong model. The kicker was, I didn't realize it was the wrong adaptor for three months because while I had purchased the smaller model for a trip to Europe, I had forgotten to bring it with me. When I finally took it out of the package and realized the extra $90 power source was useless to me, it seemed worth trying to return.
Second, I was with my sister-in-law, Leah, who was ready to buy a new laptop with my assistance.

We trolled the computer department first, and I left Leah to play with the model I had recommended. I then approached the customer service desk to return the power source.

It only took a minute of watching the dull-eyed customer service representative handle the woman in front of me to predict that I was going to need a supervisor. After 10 minutes, she turned and walked away, cautioning me to get a supervisor if I wanted any “real help.”

When my turn came, I made my case and, as I suspected, “Dulleye” expertly spouted the 30 day return policy to me. I thanked him and asked for his supervisor. After a long wait, an eye-rolling supervisor approached, and the two huddled with briefly before he approached me.

It's enough to say that both "Dulleye" and "Eyeroller" expertly spouted "policy" to me. After explaining for the second time that 1) The packaging was intact; 2) The item had not been used, and 3) the exact model was still being sold on the shelves, I said in an exasperated tone "Look, YOU guys are the one who sold me this power source -and it's the wrong one!"

I was met by open mouthed, blank stares and a glance toward the counter from both of the policy drones. So, I continued:

"Does it help to know that I've purchased FOUR laptops at Best Buy this year alone? I've actually come to purchase another one today, and I'd hate to take that sale to another store because I'm short on time. What do we need to do to make this right?"

After another wait, I asked for the store manager. I watched as “Eye Roller” explained my situation to the store manager, shaking his head vehemently to indicate that Best Buy should not refund the money. So far, about 20 minutes had elapsed.

Hope sparked as the store manager walked over to me with eye contact and a hesitant smile. I repeated my plight to him. I explained that I would love to exchange the power supply for the right product, but they didn't happen to sell one. I was fine with store credit and it only made sense. He wasn't quite convinced.

So, with one final push, I drew upon my inside knowledge of Best Buy's customer management infrastructure and added:

"I understand you've got policies for a reason. In fact, I write, speak and teach about customer service for a living. Because of this, I also understand that Best Buy is flexible with its policies for good customers. I'm a good customer. In fact, it may help your decision to know that in Best Buy's profiling schema, I am considered a "JILL" and I carry a profitability level of four out of five. I understand this means that you guys should want to keep me as a customer at this store."

This is where the store manager got the nickname "Wide Eyes." I continued with a pleasant smile.

"Now, Jeff over there (pointing to our Geek Squad computer sales rep, Jeff as he waved) is helping me and my sister-in-law with my fifth laptop purchase of 2006. So, can we return this cable now, or do I need to head for another store?"

The store credit was issued immediately. We bought another laptop that day, too.

Now, I was fortunate enough to have been previously shown my entire Best Buy purchasing history, demographic profile and profitability number in an interview with a Best Buy executive several months before. She had explained to me congruently how someone with a profile like mine would (hypothetically) be handled in a return policy decision. The same executive had also described how hard it was to get her staff to understand the simple categorizations to make exceptions to the rules on a case-by-case basis.

I'm glad I had that knowledge in my back pocket – but ultimately all of this serves to make a point.

I’ve written a bit about Best Buy in the past. In short, what's great about Best Buy's system is that it maps customers to persona-based profiles that help associates understand the type of customer they are dealing with. It also assigns a simple profitability scoring scale from 1-5 (5 being the best). This should make it super easy for any associate to quickly grasp the value of a customer without doing a detailed analysis on purchase history.

… The problem is getting people to use this knowledge. I went through three people to get Best Buy to treat me like a "Jill" with a profitability multiple of four. And all three had access to my profile. Not one of them looked at that information – despite my earlier pleas.

The truth is, it just takes time to operationalize a flexible customer service framework. A myriad of factors weigh in, including training, turnover, management preferences, staff maturity, common sense, level of experience and individual store policies. Over time, it should only get easier for Best Buy to properly train customer service associates to review a customer's profile, understand their value and to take action that is fiscally responsible and that meets the customer's requirements to remain loyal.

However, until this happens, the sadder truth is, it's still the tenacious are more likely to get the service they deserve. While most of us aren't positioned to know how we're profiled in a store's database, there’s good news:

The visibility created by the internet, social networks and sites like "You Tube" are creating popular outlets for wronged and vocal customers. The exposure risk companies now face will only create more impetus for them to get customer service right the first time – and to invest in appropriately flexible customer service management policies and procedures.

I had an experience this week that serves as a great follow up to my previous article on scent marketing. Right now, I'm in San Francisco. I have been staying at the Four Points by Sheraton at the SFO Airport and commuting between downtown and San Jose.

Upon entering my hotel, I immediately noticed the scent of pie wafting from the lobby. In fact, the was pervasive in every corridor, inside my room, even outside the hotel and it didn't take long to suspect scent technology at work.

But first, I had to ask if they had pie at the restaurant. The waiter answered "only sometimes." Interested in how this related to the scent technology use, I inquired about the scent with the manager. He reluctantly admitted that Four Points is using scent technology to create a more home-like and welcoming atmosphere.

Oooh. Okay. Interesting. But here's what I noticed after four days...

The smell made me hungry

When I learned they had no pie, I then felt cheated!

The smell eventually became annoying - especially when I was not hungry. You know how you feel after you've eaten and the smell of your empty plate or leftovers turns you off? Yech.

The smell, combined with the stainless steel cleaner they used in the elevator, created a smell similar to that of VOMIT. That's not welcoming at all.

Okay, so good for Sheraton for wanting to create a more "home like and welcoming" envorinment. The thing is, this goes to show that a comforting smell itself isn't without some drawbacks. Further, smell alone isn't going to create the home like experience.

There's no doubt, smell can be terrific for memory recall - and can be used to reinforce experience. But what heppens when the experience fundamentals are missing and smell reinforces bad experience? Let's talk about a few of the fundmamentals gone wrong at this hotel:

Getting Settled.

The parking garage below the hotel has elevator access. Bad News: It is locked during the day! Those who have no room key must schlep out of the garage, up the hill, and around the building to the upstairs lobby carrying all their stuff. Grrr

Walk in and you're immediately confronted with a fancy set of five stairs with a curved facade.... separated by a brass railing. There's no ramp (although there's a lift for handicapped guests). This seems to defy logic since most people checking into a hotel are carrying luggage.

Upon entering my King Suite, I was confronted by about 15 more, rather narrow stairs that led to my sleeping loft. All I wanted to do was to find a bathroom and crash for a minute. Instead, I ended up hefting luggage up the steep incline to my sleeping quarters.

How about a cold, clammy bath?

For some reason, the company insisted on installing SPRINGS on all bathroom doors, which forced them to close behind you. I could not hear the phone or anything going on downstairs from inside the bathroom. I was forced to prop the door open with a trash can so I could listen for the phone and/or knocks from room service.

While the curved shower rods around the standard tub created a spacious shower interior, I was dismayed to find a freezing cold bathroom (no heater or controls there) and a shower with really POOR water pressure. Not only was the pressure bad, the water didn't get hot enough, leading to an unsatisfying shower and a freezing exit on to the cold, poorly cleaned travertine floor. This wasn't like home at all!!

The hotel boasted bath robes and spa products. My robe was hidden in the back of a closet and went unnoticed for days. I actually used the spa lotion and it was nice -- but my mostly-empty bottle was never replenished for me like they are at other hotels. This felt a bit "cheap" in the end. Why not put out the robe as a welcome and replenish the goodies for the guests?

Comnecting by phone.

The phones were improperly programmed in my room, making it very difficult to connect to the front desk, housekeeping or room service. The first time I dialed the front desk, I tried three times to get an answer. I got no answer, a hangup call, and then an annoyed response after more than 30 rings. It was only 9:45 pm.

And what to eat?

Beyond the fact that they pulled a bait and switch on the pie, the hotel's restaurant menu was uncreative and uninspired: Wings, hamburgers, fries, grilled chicken whatever... It was the same travel fare most of us road warriors are completely sick of. If they wanted to make the hotel feel more like home - why not offer home cooked meals, instead of the same, hotel fare you can find anywhere?

The point is that customers don't like to go through hoops - we don't have them in our home environment, and we'd rather not have to jump through them at a hotel. In fact, hoops are actually contrary to creating a home-like and welcoming experience.

For the marketers that dreamed up this experience: Is the scent of Fresh Baked Pie is going to make me feel positive when so many other aspects of the hotel experience were simply annoying? Did the company do ANY experience testing whatsoever with real customers - travel weary people, families, etc.?

Either Four Points is trying to create a more home-like experience that drives brand affinity and loyalty, or it is not. From my experience at this hotel, it looks to me like they built a lot of marketing hype around a hotel experience that may fail to deliver. The question is whether or not what I experienced is a limited set up hiccups related to this hotel only.

My husband and I joined the Vonage family last month and I have to say, it’s been good for the most part. The price is good - even for international calling. The service seems to function reliably, although we’ve had to restart our modem a number of times to get things working again after cut-offs - even a few mid-call, which has been inconvenient (buzzz). However, I’m not sure if that’s a result of my ISP or the Vonage service, itself.

But that’s what this post is about, really...it's about gnats. Bear with me as I buzz through this, a second...

As I tried to figure out the USER ID and password my husband set up today, I noticed a cute little application running on the site. It was an interactive flash app, which called out various service components with value-based messaging. Each service topic linked to an animated tutorial with a voiceover that would expand on each topic. At first, it seemed well produced and looked like this:


"Cool," I thought, "Let me learn more." The problem was, however, when you clicked on all but one of the four topics, the description that came up didn’t match with the topic name. For example, the “Voicemail” topic linked to information about toll free numbers. “Toll Free Plus” linked to information about voicemail. “Soft Phone” linked to Caller ID… It was confusing and I still don’t know what Soft Phone is... (buzzz)

So, like a good little usability expert, I decided to call Vonage to report the problem. As I tried to find a phone number, I noted an option for what I perceived to be web-based support. The graphic said “Need help now? Ask Vonage.....our interactive, personal agent” After typing my question, I got this:


For those of you who do not have x-ray vision and cannot read the text by the green arrow, it says "I am a robot" in response to my question "You aren't really a person, are you?".

So, this wasn’t a chat-based application featuring a real agent or person. It was instead, just a hyped up marketing driven way of presenting FAQs by presenting them in a pop-up window and calling it an agent. Not a huge deal - just another hurdle to go through on my quest for satisfaction and a minor irritation... (BUZZ)

It’s significant to mention, however, that these two little issues – and they were little - added to some “back of mind” irritation I already felt after some other experience irritations. You see, in my experience over the last few months, both my husband and I had encountered more than a few usability hurdles on the company’s corporate and password-protected customer web sites…(BUZZ) For example, it is surprisingly unclear how to set up your voicemail message, and mine is still embarrassingly absent. (BUZZZZZZZZZ!)

Why the Buzz? To make a point. Little usability problems are like pesky “experience gnats” that bother consumer increasingly over time. Sooner or later, the irritation they present may force people somewhere else… and that’s where the risk is for most companies today.

This is especially true for a company like Vonage, which has first-mover status in this category, along with a relatively high hurdle to conversion and a seemingly complicated set of service options. This is also especially true for companies in rapid growth modes, which are rapidly developing and launching new products and services to new markets... adjusting messaging and service offerings to maximize conversions along the way.

Simply put, clarity and ease of use are critical.

Where Vonage has succeeded on many fronts to create an understandable product and achieve market penetration – the risk they face (like many of us) is that someone else will come along, learning at their expense to create something that’s even easier to use. We’ve seen this happen in the market thousands of times.

That’s why Vonage – and companies like it – can’t afford to skimp on customer testing!

Ironically, some simple user acceptance testing would have registered the glitch in the little service app I noted. Customer testing may have also identified the perceptional challenges that are created by applying a marketing term like “AGENT” to what equates to a FAQ engine… It may also have uncovered the myriad of simple usability challenges I noted on Vonage's customer targeted web site – as well as the support collateral they sent us when we became new users.

Killing the experience gnats is best supported by effective iterative product development lifecycle management.

Using the right iterative model, appropriate levels of testing can be “built in” at various stages of work to ensure the end-solution meets the needs of the business, audience and answers market need.

Employing appropriate testing approaches across the development lifecycle will help identify areas of the environment may cultivate experience gnats - and elliminate them.

Ineffective iterative approaches applies testing at a level that is too shallow or narrow. Testing that fails to go deep enough may fail to uncover functional problems that impact a large number of users. Testing that is limited within a single channel can create experience pitfalls - because each time changes are made, they can have a cascading effect on other areas, including collateral, web experience, site content, service policies and other key experience areas.

Poorly executed planning can happen for a number of reasons, including ignorance or poor governance. However it is often present because of (or at least impacted by) insufficient development timelines, development delays, or "executive pushing" due to business pressure. This drives increased pressure for launch and often subverts customer-based testing (e.g. usability testing).

Good iterative processes support testing that assesses individual components as well as the overall, cross-channel experience, to ensure the user’s journey comprehensive experience is as clean, "gnat-free" and seamless as possible. This testing is never done - it continues as the products and services evolve over time. It requires time, investment and dedication - and very importantly, executive support.

Beyond the gnats, iterative testing may help identify serious customer experience pitfalls.

For example, perhaps this kind of testing would have uncovered the "irritation factor" caused by Vonage's hidden "15-days-from-purchase" clause on the modem rebate! We didn't install Vonage for 30 days and "ate" the cost of our $60 modem as a result. This wasn't an experience "gnat" it was more like a horsefly - one that has undoubtedly motivated other users to return the product (I know of one) and increased Vonage's barrier to entry. :-P

Incidentally, I did get touch with Vonage by phone and reported the little application error, which hopefully by now, they’ve fixed. The associate was affable, responsive and thankful for the report. She was also helpful in resolving my own issue. Her approach and demeanor squashed a few gnats for me and left me feeling generally positive.

Ultimately, experience gnats like the ones pointed about above can be encountered with almost any company - so the goal here is not to be nit-picky. Some gnats are bigger than others, as we've pointed out - including self-service usability problems and hidden clauses that screw the customer. Testing can help ensure that, as we architect experiences, we avoid "leaving out rotten apples" that can attract and colonize gnats, and annoy customers. Using the right development methodology, which leverages practical testing to anticipate and correct address potential experience pitfalls that can have a cumulative effect of undermining customer relationships.

Yesterday at the gym, I was pedaling away on the Arc Trainer when a cute 80 year old lady came up and sat down on the recumbent bike next to me. She seemed innocent enough, until she turned out be an environmental affront! As I involuntarily placed my towel over my nose and mouth, I realized she had coated her coiff with an overt amount of noxious hairspray. As her cheap perfume combined with the hairspray fumes, it rose to assault my nose (and tastebuds!) and cause my lungs to constrict.

Now, this little old lady held herself with pride. She liked her hairdo and she liked her perfume: It occurred to me that this was a part of her little old lady brand! I dare say, she probably used those very things to snag herself a little old man somewhere along the way…

But for the gasping sweat hogs in the gym... the little old lady brand scent wasn’t a good thing. I actually moved to another machine – next to a man – who unfortunately smelled like curry (but we won’t go there). Not a good gym day.

Lest I digress, I found this all ironic, because I had just started a piece on Scent Branding..

Scent Branding is a discipline of sensory or experiential marketing. It has been promoted by Gerald Zaltman and many others including the Scent Marketing Institute and has become a 14 billion dollar global market for retailers and marketers looking to enhance brand experience.

Some may think "scent marketing" and identify with a company like Yankee Candle . Yankee understands the power of scent – but today’s technology goes beyond melted wax, potpourri and fragranced oils. Consumers can now purchase small scent dispensing machines from the grocery store. Check out Febreeze's Scent Stories Machine uses fragrance discs to disperse scents like "Mountain Trail" and "Tropical Island" in the home. But most significantly, scent technology today reaches far beyond the home.

While you may not realize it, you have probably been exposed to scent technology sometime within the last 60 days. Scent branding is being broadly deployed in major retail, boutique stores, airlines, museums and marketing venues across the globe, and in a neighborhood near you. This is not a new field and the science of smell has been leveraged in product development for years.

So why all the commotion (see articles in Forbes, USA Today, Washington Times, Ad Age,) over Scent Marketing now? It's simple: The sense of smell is one of the strongest and most powerful triggers of emotional memory.

With rapid recall, each one of us can conjure up the smell of Christmas, a newborn baby, fresh cut grass – or the smell of “home.” The mere recall of a fragrance can to mind a myriad of associative memories, as well. And fragrance makes a lingering impression: Published studies suggest that people recall smell with up to 64% accuracy after one year. Now, that’s powerful associative power!

Used in the right way, scent branding can enhance customer (or personal) experience in a pleasurable manner. The use of scent branding in consumer purchasing environments has been shown to be influential in driving consumer purchasing, as well.

Scent Air, a market-leading scent technologist has used scent technology effectively in a myriad of environments since the year 2000. The company today maintains an impressive client list, including major retailers, upscale hotel chains, airlines, retail chains, boutiques, museums – even beer companies.

Want an example of Scent Air at work? Walk in to a new Sony Style retail store and you may catch a whiff of the custom Sony fragrance engineered to compliment the store experience. It's a combination of mandarin orange, vanilla and cedar. In addition, you may experience Scent Air's ScentWave technology at work in Bloomingdale, where customers detect the distinct smell of baby powder in the store’s baby department, or a hint of suntan lotion in the swimsuit area. The company recently deployed ScentWave technology to project "waffle cone" smell adjacent to a to find ice cream parlor in the Hard Rock Hotel in Orlando, which was instrumental in driving a 50% sales increase.

Beyond large-scale retail deployment, the company also has systems that support 15 foot scent projection for POP deployment, as well. The firm ran chocolate scent tests at a vending machine in Santa Barbara which drove chocolate sales up 60% (with overall sales up 15%). Think about this next time you go grab a candy bar. The same chocolate scent was used to “flavor” the premiere of the film “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” last year.

So there’s power in scent branding - but is it ALWAYS good?

Even for this aromatherapy fan, the acrid scent of Aqua Net and Jean Nate serve to remind me scent marketing can go bad for a variety of reasons.

For example, even though I like fragrance:

I often resent Cinnabon for projecting the haunting cinnamon bun smell, which beckons me to depart from my diet at the airport or in the mall food court.

I want to karate chop the "perfume nazis" at major department stores who assault me with “complimentary spritzes” of the latest fragrance.

My head reels in Sephora, where overpowering smells distract or disorient me – even giving me headaches that prompt my departure.

…And I’m not the only one that can get irritated: Consider this scent branding case study gone wrong (hat tip: Ad Age):

Cookies. Yum! Most of us like the smell of fresh baked cookies, right? That’s what the Milk Board thought, when they launched “Got Milk” ads, in five bus shelters in San Francisco. The Ads were accompanied by strategically placed “scent strips” that smelled like home baked cookie heaven. The thought was that perhaps the association would motivate individuals to enjoy a glass of milk with their next cookie.

Now this would seem like a public service to some of us. I know for me the smell of cookies beats the smell of garbage, car exhaust, or as Ad Age puts it - urine or vomit (which is often what bus shelters smell like). Evidently this was not the case!

Although it was a small scale deployment, the cookie scented ads spawned aggressive protest from groups representing individuals with environmental allergies, asthma, chemical sensitivities, diabetes, obesity and even those who represented the homeless (shame on the Milk Board for making them hungry).

Ridiculous? Perhaps.

While the news isn’t likely to thwart the growth of this multi-billion dollar industry - or the Milk Board's future use of scent branding, it serves to remind all of us that the power to use scents to enhance customer experience is both a gift and a responsibility.

As we recall my little old lady example here are some things to consider when leveraging scent branding in the experiential environment:

We can’t depend on smell alone to create the brand association. Scent branding uses smell to attach a user to an experience with an environment or event. Therefore, the environment’s layout, design, structure, customer service, products, music, lighting, flow are extremely important.

Things that smell “good” to some may not be good for all. As anyone in product development will tell you, testing is required to ensure that scent marketing is helping, rather than hurting with the target demographic.

Adjusting the scent “volume” is essential. Overpowering customers with smells that seem overwhelming may be a real turn off. Some venues call for overt scenting (e.g. Cookie store) but most (hotel room, boutique) require a more subtle approach.

The use of too many fragrances can be a turn off. Just try smelling different perfumes for 15 minutes and you’ll catch the drift. Combinations should be tested and adjusted carefully.

Scent context is important.The smell of men’s cologne spilling into the women’s dress department may be confusing. The smell of a Christmas holiday in say, a galvanized, sterile environment may be confusing.

The power to smell and respond to odors differs based on age group. For example, The Boston Globe reported that kids are up to 350 percent more responsive to the five senses than adults, and especially to smell. The elderly population will not be as keen or carry the ability to notice certain smells.

Individuals may take offense at highly obvious scent dispersion.. My example of Cinnabon stands – people tend to resist and resent overt manipulation.

Successful scents can carry over into other areas of brand extension. Popular fragrances can be sold to eager consumers for home use, used in room sprays and other scented merchandise (candles, potpourri, sachets).

Perhaps most important: the chemicals used in of scent dispersion systems can create problems for people with health or medical problems. These include chemical sensitivities, allergies or athsma. I'm not aware of any lawsuits right now, but be stay tuned.

Something to think about as we add common sense to our choice to add scents to drive cents and drive brand affinity through enhanced customer experience.

Here on the Experience Architect Weblog, we talk a lot about the cross-channel Customer Experience but we also like to highlight innovation that is occurring within specific channels as well.

Here's a company that is working within the "addressable advertising" space - not just to change the way television advertising works - but to revolutionize the creation and assembly of addressable ads. This has ramifications now, as well as for the web and mobile channels, as well.

Enter Visible World, a company that has successfully pioneered advertising technology to enables the on-the-fly assembly of highly targeted television advertisements to any single broadcast or cable network and any broadband internet destination.

As Tara Walbert, VP and GM of Visible World explained it to Cable 360 last month, it's easiest to think of Visible World's technology as "mail merge for television".

Visible World’s technology streams a set of commercial elements (pieces of a commercial - video, text, audio, etc.) down a dedicated feeder channel from its own production/post production toolsets. The Visible World package then interacts with household data contained within the set top box, including information regarding geography, household behavior, interests and channel/programming preferences. Using this information, the technology applies pre-established variables (essentially business rules) set up within the post-production tools to assemble and deliver the most appropriate ad in real-time.

Visible World offers a suite of tools to enable "Intellispots." The tools include a specialized Ad Server called the "Ad Jukebox," which is used by media companies to serve addressable ads. The company also provides dashboards and production tools, which enable agencies and creative resources to envision, create, control and measure addressable advertisements through participating networks.

Visible World's production tools can also utilize data from other sources (e.g. Prizm data, geographical data - even databases like AccuWeather or client database information to enhance the conditional logic for ad messaging.

It doesn't take much imagination to see how this might be used by the creative advertiser, as Jonah Bloom at Ad Age pointed out this week.

In the arena of addressable advertising there is a host of vendors innovating and competing in the space, including OpenTV, Navic, Invidi and others). In the fray, Visible World has been at this awhile – and their campaign management tools are something to consider for the experience architect of the future. The company promises also to enhance its tools to meet emerging needs within online and mobile channels as well (IPTV).

My readers can demo the technology yourself through a simple web interface here. Just enter USER ID = leigh and PASSWORD = path (all lower case).

I emailed the company to obtain more information about metrics, privacy and integration with traditional advertising infrastructures, but did not hear back in time for this posting.

Bit of a follow up here. In our last Experience Toolkit we talked about "The Power of Persona." That is, how using personas can foster a more tangible understanding of a target audience's needs, desires, pet peeves and behavior. Personas create "real life" scenarios that support customer dialog inside an organization, and rally teams to drive multi-channel development in a manner that results in a more cohesive customer experience. The Marketing Profs syndicated article got some good feedback, and I received a number of questions including those surrounding the application and creation of personas in the market today.

So here's a follow up with a few comments.

There are tons of great articles about he use of persona out on the web, and I highly recommend a search and read on the topic. One article you might want to check out is a presentation from Forrester Research on Personas as a Best Practice (slide show). There's also a great article from Advertising Age in June 2006 (PDF format) for your reference.

It's impossible to deny the emerging significance of personas in defining, designing and refining customer experience, product and interaction design. While many have embraced the value of persona use in interaction design (software/web), many organizations are now thinking bigger. It's about time.

We've already talked about Best Buy, which employs a deep use of personas in customer profiling, databases, store design. I'd love to see are some updates about the evolution of Best Buy profiling. On an inside track, I've learned that Jill is no longer the woman described in the Washington Post article mentioned above - she has morphed, and they've got new female profiles now. Whatever the case, it's obvious Best Buy is learning a lot at a time when competitors like Circuit City face some harsh business reality. Best Buy has invested in evolving its business model and they're reaping benefits in the form of growth.

Anecdotally, Best Buy's employees are also learning a lot about recognizing customers and realizing market opportunity, as well. One 20-something music department employee from a Best Buy store in Texas called his manager's attention to a key demographic being missed entirely in the store: the Mega Church attendee. Under the manager's direction, the employee conducted research and created a listing of Christian Music that he felt would boost music sales in the department. The manager took the recommendations to corporate HQ and gained permission to test the idea in the store. Within months, music sales increased in the music department by 15%. The program rolled out to other stores across the region shortly thereafter.

On a different note, I've followed some work that Organic has done with Chrysler this year. Working with a stage design firm, Organic developed "persona rooms" designed to inspire more customer-focused development of cars (and marketing programs) to Gen X customer base. The persona rooms allow Chrysler designers to work within the customer's personal space and absorb the interests, needs, desires and personality to inspire design direction. The rooms feature personal style, taste, products and musical taste and even go so far as to feature bulletin board updates and "My Space" pages for several of the personas they have developed. (You can read more about this in the article from Advertising Age June 2006 article (PDF format).

Looking at other applications for persona... I have a client who has used personas for the development of integrated campaigns and programs for several years. She is now looking at how to use personas to change the way she manages and structures teams inside her organization. As an executive marketer, she serves a diverse audience of technologists, product developers and other characters. She uses personas to help her staff understand the needs and drivers of these individuals to empower them to manage their "internal customers" more effectively. She also counsels her team on how to rally participants around shared goals that center on customer need and experience. In her words "it's a pain, and it takes more time. I'm still working out kinks all the time, but I gotta tell you, when you get the right team balance, the right customer focus and the the right programs to connect, the results are magic. We've only seen a hint at how this is going to pay off... and my staff recognizes the power of working this way, too."

There's no end to the companies that are using personas to develop multi-channel experiences. Consider Starbucks, is using personas to develop annual reports (among other things). Discover Card, which used personas to create marketing campaigns to various types of customers. Roche Pharmaceuticals, which used personas to create multi-channel campaigns targeted to women with osteoporosis, and Ann Taylor, which is using personas to focus targeting and retail design.

Ultimately, it's not enough just to develop a persona, or group of personas. That's the end, not the means. The goal of persona use is to develop a well defined, and easily articulated picture of the cusstomers we serve. We must iteratively use personas to benchmark and refine our view of the customer as much as we use them to refine and shape the architecture that supports customer experience. The lesson of it all: when we shape our organizations around a well defined knowledge of who we serve, we in turn empower our organizations to serve those customers well.