The woman on the Clapham omnibus

Greetings.

In case you were wondering, Cicero’s local Via remains dug up and unsutured. This is now getting silly. In the time since this Via was re-dug up Japanese Navvies would have re-built at least a couple of nuclear power stations. And given that yet again no Navvies, Japanese or otherwise, have been seen making an attempt to repair the Via, Cicero can only conclude that this job is being dragged out for as long as our taxes will permit. Hopefully, though doubtfully, the Apparatchik who negotiated this deal did so on a fixed price and not time basis. At least that way we have not given the Navvies a blank cheque. Really cannot understand why progress so snail like.

Cicero as you know is a man of the people and likes to share the everyday experiences of the Vulgate. While on a particularly jerky and bone jarring bus journey recently, with bodies being flung backwards and forwards and from side to side, the woman sitting next to Cicero turned to him and said ‘all bus drivers should travel as a passenger from time to time’.

And it’s not just bus drivers who need to take time out and look at the customer experience from the customer’s viewpoint. How many times do we really think about how customers consume and engage with our brand?

This is the point at which our brand becomes real for our customers and yet few marketing resources get devoted to this aspect of brand management. No doubt because ownership and accountability of the customer journey across many touchpoints is fragmented and scattered across the organisational hierarchy. And so Marketing Head Honchos prefer to stay out of this particular fray.

Somebody smarter than Cicero once pointed out that if everyone is responsible for customer service, no one is accountable. And so in Cicero’s book Marketing Head Honchos cannot duck this responsibility and accountability. They must roll up their sleeves and get dirt under their finger nails. Their brand needs them.

But when it comes to customer journeys which drive the customer experience, where does one start?

There are many customer journeys but most if not all can be mapped onto the following core generic processes:
• Pre-buying research
• Buy and on-boarding
• Post purchase service and maintenance
• Repeat buying
• Ending the relationship

Within each of these generic processes the customer will go through a series of journeys. Think of it like a London Tube Map with each core process represented by a start station and end station with a series of activities or stations along the way.

And at each stage of the customer journey, ask yourself these 7 questions:
• What do we want the customer to do now?
• What does the customer want to do?
• Is there any reason we can’t allow the customer to do this?
• What would make it easy for the customer to get through this stage?
• How can we explain this better to customer?
• What do we want customer to do next?
• Where is it painful for the customer?

Now in the ideal world we would have bucket loads of research to help us determine what the consumer wants from each stage of this process. You might be lucky and have this but more often than not, you won’t. But don’t despair. You are a consumer. You have common sense. Apply it and put yourself in the skin of the customer to determine how it could be improved. At end of day it is about ensuring you are easy to do business with. It’s simple.

It really is about time we saw our business from the customer’s viewpoint. The woman on the juddering and shuddering Clapham omnibus had it so right.

Is it only me.......but I don’t know you from Adam.

Last week I was wandering down the High St of one of our major cities, without a care in the world and for once totally minding my own business, and I was chugged. Not once, not twice but five times in the space of 20 minutes by representatives from three different charitable organisations.
Now for those of you unfamiliar with the term, chugging is when you are set upon by unnaturally friendly and hyper enthusiastic young people who take you hostage with their smiling bonhomie in manic conversation until you have handed over your bank details.

I find it galling and annoying that it is not possible to walk through our shopping thoroughfares these days without being set upon by assorted chuggers, Big Issue vendors and those with a slurred accent and wide staring eyes looking for 20p for a cup of coffee or help with their train fare though where you can get a cup of coffee or a train ticket in these inflationary times for 20p is beyond me. Believe me, our High Streets are rapidly becoming an assault course of outstretched hands to be negotiated.

My usual trick with Chuggers demanding charitable donations with menaces is to engage them in conversation about the aims and objectives of their cause and since most of them are students no doubt working on some kind of commission deal, like used car or double glazing salesmen, rather than being motivated by the cause or issue for which they are seeking to raise money, it is not too long before I have shown up their lack of knowledge about their cause and they decide to target some other hapless victim.
Like the junk mail that pours through our letter boxes or the spam mail offering to grow my body parts to unnaturally large proportions, this kind of approach to marketing and selling must work or they wouldn’t do it, though for the life of me I fail to understand how donation raising with menaces does provide a sustainable income stream but then there are people born every minute.

Now it might only be me but given that I don’t know my Chugger from Adam, or Eve, and given that these Chuggers believe that attacking me with an Eve works on my vanity and ego, I am more likely to get an Eve, why does anyone think that I am going to hand over my bank details to a complete stranger, even though she might look pretty.

Let me assure you that no matter how attractive, obsequiously friendly or enthusiastically manic, my Chugger might be, there is absolutely no way short of water boarding in the High Street, and there is no evidence that this has been tried yet, that my bank details will be prised away from me to support the provision of blind guide dogs to feed starving children in Somalia. I think that was the cause for which I was being chugged.

And finally Cicero will not now be around until September. He is off on a well deserved break and to stock up his reservoir of absurdities and knowledge. Be well and stay good.

Have a great week.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.

It was the chocs wot won it!

Someone has tried to accuse Cicero of historical inaccuracy. As if.

In last week’s thoughts a certain Mr Perry was linked to British naval stalwarts such as Drake, Raleigh and Nelson, and one correspondent tried to point out that the Perry who opened up Japan was an American naval officer. You are quite right but the Perry who was in Cicero’s thoughts is truly a present day British naval hero, fully deserving to be linked in the same sentence to historical Royal Navy legends.

You are not going to believe this.

You will recall a few weeks back Cicero’s rant (and yes, this was a rant) about length of time it was taking to fix a short stretch of road in his neighbourhood compared to speed at which Japanese Navvies worked. Well the self same bit of tarmac has been ripped up yet again and once more drivers are being inconvenienced by the traffic chaos. This takes publicly funded job creation programmes to a whole new level-dig a trench in the road, take ages to fix, dig it up again and then presumably take another age to fix. You will be kept posted on the latest developments though to Cicero’s untrained eye progress looks like it is going to be slow. To date not one Navvie, Japanese or otherwise, has been spotted working.

Cicero was communing last week with like minded marketing Head Honchos when he heard a great story. It was so good that he wanted to share it with you.

Once upon a time there was a block of offices where some suits worked for a major financial services business, not one owned by us the taxpayer, for the avoidance of doubt. Each evening an army of cleaners moved into this capitalist palace to make it all spick and span for the workers to do their stuff the next day.

Now all of us no doubt have a cleaning service which operates behind the scenes each and every night restoring cleanliness and hygiene to our workplace so we can give of our best in an environment which fully complies with the necessary hygiene standards.

Now how many times do you give a thought to your cleaning service and the cleaners who toil to clean up your mess? It is doubtful if you devote half a brain cell to this topic. You will only notice the cleaners if they are not there or don’t do their job.

Now back to the cleaners in the financial services office.

They knew and realised that they were not noticed or appreciated and they also knew that they were just a commodity which more often than not would be bought on price. And they determined to find a point of difference and so each night they would leave a chocolate on each desk they cleaned.

Now after a while their contract came round for renewal and the bean counting procurement people who bought these kinds of services with the same attention to detail that they bought pens, rubbers and elastic bands, decided not to renew their contract and went instead for a competitor.

There was uproar. Not because the offices were not being cleaned to the required standard but because people missed their chocs. So much uproar in fact that the original cleaning company was re-instated. It was the chocs wot won it!!!!

Now too often you will hear folk, and marketing folk are included in this, saying that they work in a commodity business. This is sloppy thinking. All businesses are commodities if you think of it-Coke is only fizzy brown water, Vodafone is just mobile telecommunications business like any other, Persil just a washing powder and there are plenty of these around. But does anyone want to bet that that they do not see themselves as a commodity?

As the cleaning company has shown with a little bit of creative understanding, any business can make itself distinctive and interesting in its market place. And that is the way to win and keep business.

Now this might only be me......but maybe we should all adopt this mentality.

Normally we end our weekly conversation with me pointing out some of the absurdities of the world in which we live. But now for something completely different. Today I want to leave you with a tale that should inspire you to live every day as if it is going to be your last.

Last week I came across the story of Alex Lewis who was diagnosed at 17 with bone cancer which had spread to his lungs but even while undergoing intensive treatment he was determined to cram as much life as possible into the time he had left. In three years he experienced what some people take a lifetime to achieve, including meeting and marrying the love of his life. He died shortly after his 22nd birthday.

Alex vowed to live each day with as much zest and energy as he could muster. He didn't want his life to be defined by his illness and crammed a lifetime of thrill and adventure into the time he had left. He went parachute jumping in New Zealand, dune buggy riding in Dubai and cliff diving in Cornwall. He took a spur of the moment trip to Australia, booking tickets just two days before he travelled to meet friends there for beach parties.

‘’It makes you realise just how precious life is. Life is actually amazing, but to make the most of every minute you do have to look at everything in a positive way," Alex said. "I'm having almost the time of my life in a way. I mean, imagine if you could feel like I do now, but just for your whole life - that would be incredible because you'd make the most of everything. You'd feel like I'm not wasting time."

Shortly before he died he told his family how incredible his life had been and how he felt like he had a complete life even though it had been cut short.

Now it might only be me but I think that this outlook is something we can all learn from.

Have a great week and hopefully we can all live it to the full.

Sis felix. Et sis fortunatus.