The Devil, Details and Your Thanksgiving Bird

We've all heard the expression "The Devil is in the details!" when it comes to planning and whatnot.  There are so many important elements that go into a project, a product, a service, an event, etc., but some of them are infinitesimal to the eyes.  But that doesn't mean they are not felt or appreciated.

I came upon this lovely gem from Mitch Joel about the little big things.  Essentially, it is true that the whole is more than the sum of its parts but the net effect of how the whole "feels" because of the little parts makes paying attention to the little parts all that more important. Here's a quote by Marco Arment from within the post:

"...I learned the value of giving people little delights... Those small details and experiences are the reason why people like luxury cars. They are full of those little delights. You can do the same thing with any business. With a Web and iPhone app, I try to find new and tiny ways to delight my customers. They may not notice, but it helps drive goodwill and makes your product remarkable."

Which brings me to the subject of turkeys.  Not turkeys as in bad ideas or bad execution of ideas.  I mean the prosaic Thanksgiving bird.  More specifically, I'd like to talk about Butterball and its Butterball Turkey Talk-Line.  I'd always planned to talk about Butterball (thanks to this article) and had I not had my O'Hare adventure, I would have written this earlier.  

Every year, the Turkey Talk-Line handles about 100K calls about the bird itself, great side dishes and anything even barely tangentially related to the holiday meal.  Butterball has turkey experts that have been working the lines for years...  So many that they earn wishbone fashioned jewelry to mark milestones.  They also answer about 5K emails and there are about 1MM visitors to their site each year.

Those are small potatoes (ha ha) compared to Epicurious or Food Network sites but there's something charming and homespun about the Butterball Talk-Line beyond the fact that you can call them regardless of the brand of turkey you've purchased.  Actually, Butterball celebrates smallness and personal approach and thinks it speaks well for the brand.  Here's are some nice excerpts from the article:

"Butterball Turkey executives believe the company has a strong niche and claim they are undaunted by the competition. In addition to selling turkey, they say, Butterball's core strength is providing live advice from calm experts about cooking, thawing or what side dishes to make."

"The fact that you can call a hot line and talk to an expert who knows how to make the perfect bird is so valuable to the consumer who's feeling so stressed,'' said Marie Chen, a senior consultant at EffectiveBrands, a global branding company. "People really feel like they have a lot riding on this meal," said Chen. "They're preparing it for their families, their in-laws, the people who matter the most. And they want it to be perfect."

So what does your Thanksgiving bird and a cooking hotline have to do with Mitch Joel and little big things?  Little big things are really what make up a brand's halo effect.  As I mentioned in my last post, we don't only buy a product or service but we also buy confidence and whatever other emotion we experience because the product or service alleviates a (hunger) pain or solves a problem.

Many of us may never call the Talk-Line but just having the knowledge that it's there "just in case" as you're preparing a big meal for the first or fifth time is comforting...  and something difficult to assign a price.  Consequently, the halo effect is the representation of the value of comfort, confidence, security and relief.

Very often, we're made to feel like we have to go completely over the top to win the hearts and minds of customers.  But, like that quote from Mitch Joel's post, the little delights are what drive goodwill and distinguishes one company from another.  If anyone were to receive help from the Butterball Talk-Line, that is one replayed memory with every visit to the poultry section at the local market with likely influence on the brand purchased.

Not bad for a little big thing, right?

Parissa Behnia

Idea Chef

678Partners@gmail.com

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International Terminals, Sales and Service

Have you ever met a friend or loved one after they exited Immigration and Customs at an airport?  The palpable anticipation and noise of the eagerly waiting loved ones is one of the most beautiful things to watch.  Little kids are often dressed in their best clothes and holding on to the flower or the balloon they are to present to whomever emerges from the door.  

The payoff comes when they finally see the friend/cousin/sibling/parent/spouse and there is this huge swell of emotion.  Some people laugh with joy while others show their happiness through tears.  I've had the chance to see this play out over and over through the years thanks to family visiting from abroad.  I never get tired of it.

I was watching a similar scene unfold yesterday as I was waiting for my parents.  While I was enjoying the reunions, I saw something dramatically different unfolding.  For those connecting through O'Hare, there was some serious and immediate confusion which as you know is not difficult in my hometown airport.  Immediately upon exiting Immigrations and Customs are three large arrows that are pasted to the ground that direct people to use the airport train to go to the domestic airline terminals.  They look something like this (my ugly facsimile):

And just beyond, are signs immediately pointing to a escalator appearing to go nowhere and a sign outlining which airline is in which terminal.  There was also a female security guard shouting out "Take the escalator" over and over as people were exiting.

This is what I saw: people groggy from jetlag, scarred by Immigration and Customs, confused by the lady guard yelling the same thing over and over, with somewhat of a language barrier in some cases, who have never been to O'Hare and not familiar with domestic airlines.  The result: a sort of vertigo and people looking all around and up above to get bearings and information.  They never looked down.  If they did, they'd see a collage of baggage and luggage carts and never the arrows.

All of this reminded me of a post that Bruce Temkin wrote back in August about the new elevators in New York's Marriott Marquis.  I encourage you to read the post and travel back here.  If you've not the time, his overall point was that one key design element can go a long way.

So why talk about the airport when this is a business blog?  Good question.  I think the people at O'Hare meant well when they devised the stick the colored arrows on the floor solution.  I really do.  My main indictment here is they designed for themselves and not for the groggy and confused passenger.  They made the groggy and confused passenger even more confused.  That's a big no no.

It's a big no no in business, too.  We should never make people confused by our business processes.  We should never make them feel like they made a mistake (even if they had) with the reward being an alarming error message and instructions to call a random 800# with an obscure code to report to the phone rep.  And if you think I threw that out there randomly, I didn't.  That was my customer experience with a loyalty program recently.  No lie.

As business owners and executives, we are supposed to make things easy and seamless for the customer and not for ourselves.  Even in the worst and most stressful, complex moments, the #1 feeling the customer should have is confidence as they are doing business with us.  It's the emotion people have (in addition to the actual product/service) that make people want to come back to us.  They are buying confidence and it always has an equal or greater price than the product/service itself.

And this point of emotion is critical.  When anyone buys anything, it's to address a particular pain point that he/she has.  Sometimes it's not a grave pain point but sometimes it is.  The way we interact with prospects and customers should be predicated on the underlying diagnosed pain and not what we choose to foist upon them.

So, let's go back to the arrow example.  Have you had an experience where you've made to feel like you've a bit of customer vertigo?

Parissa Behnia

Idea Chef

678Partners@gmail.com

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