birddog

User Journeys

I know a reasonable amount about the language of brands, but I’ve had to learn a whole new digital language in the last couple of years. Haven’t we all? It’s a language riddled with three letter acronyms (TLAs) and a host of almost meaningless mumbo jumbo that eventually makes sense when someone explains what’s going on – SEO, UCD, MMR, content aggregation, social advocacy… and, my favourite – ‘User Journey’. Yes, user and journey are both English words and yes, the couplet makes sense to me now in the context of digital delivery. But it didn’t for a while.

‘User journey’ didn’t make sense to me, for example, when everyone was jacking off to the sound of their own voices proclaiming themselves to be the latest ‘guru’ of the ‘social landscape’. User journey meant very little to me when I watched Twitter users with nothing to say attract thousands of followers. And user journey meant absolutely nothing as I sifted case studies and articles of meaningless bollocks in the vain hope of enlightenment. And while I persevered with this alien new language, ‘user journey’ meant the sum total of naff-all until I heard from a user who had, perhaps unsurprisingly, taken a journey…

Initially, I simply received a website enquiry form. So far, so good. A prospective client outlined his need for a new brand strategy and supporting website. A Request for Proposal document was about to be signed-off and the prospect was enquiring whether I would like to submit a response to the RFP.

I said, “no”. I didn’t say, “no, stick your RFP up your ass”, which is my usual response to large corporates expecting small agencies to have the speculative resources of large corporates. In fact I offered an uncharacteristically polite ‘no’ because the company simply didn’t have the budget available to engage our services. So I declined the RFP, explained the typical entry-level budgets required and thanked the enquirer for considering us. That, ordinarily, would be that. And then I received this email:

“Hi Scot,
Many thanks for the reply. I was unsure of exactly where the budget may fit with you and was slightly worried that it may be light. I appreciate you clarifying the guide costs. Hopefully in the future we will be able to work together on creative campaigns.
For your own info I thought you may like to understand my Birddog journey;
1.       Introduced to your brand by a colleague.
2.       Regular visits to your website.
3.       Discovering your blog.
4.       Following you on Twitter.
5.       Twitter led directly to more consumption and laughing with your blog.
6.       Twitter then directly led to me buying your book. You said something like, “if you want more buy the book,” and, like a sheep, I did.
7.       Now I have changed jobs and have a bit of a budget you received a direct enquiry.”

Well. Hold me down and feed me whipped pudding till I scream. This is a ‘user journey’ across traditional, digital AND social media that clearly took several years. I was suitably impressed and I said so. Actually, what I said was, “Holy shit, that’s amazing!”, and was then delighted to find that the journey wasn’t over yet…

“Hi Scot,
I should tell you that my girlfriend has also read your AMAZING book and loves it. She mentioned it to her boss and in particular the comment about, ‘I want to lick an iPhone’ or words to that effect. You have another reader based on that one comment alone. It’s  doing the rounds now.”

User journeys aren’t about a single website visit. And they’re not about understanding a new digital language. They’re about the years of travel up to the point of contact, they’re about the experience the visitor will have in the years that follow and they’re about how the experience will be communicated to a wider audience on and off line. In other words, user journeys are about… brands. The journey continues.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Twitter

What’s in a name?

Readers of a certain age will know George Foreman for what he was: a world-class boxer and winner of 76 fights. Others –students, say – will more likely be familiar with the name for its association with the food grill Foreman launched in 1994. His famous tagline – “It’s so good, I put my name on it!” – has permeated into popular catchphrase culture. Business Week reckons ‘Big George’ has earned in excess of $200m as a direct result of the deal, while the grill itself has shifted more than 100m units. It’s a success story of personal product endorsement the like of which is now very rare. Or at least medium-rare.

To be fair, the 21st century power of celebrity is such that figures like the Beckhams or Cheryl Tweedy have no need (financial or otherwise) to lend their actual names to other products, and, likewise, brands only really require a glimpse of a famous face or a few words from their mouths for a celeb endorsement to work its magic. It’s one thing to flick a head of styled hair and quip “You’re worth it!” in a 20 second ad, though, and quite another to take the step of signing over your given name to the fate of a single product.

It is probably fair to say then that ‘putting your name on it’, as George Foreman confidently stated, and building it up as a brand is no easy matter. The potential risks struck me as (continuing the food theme) I sat down with my better half to eat in Tom Aikens’s restaurant in South Kensington. It was the first restaurant the semi-celebrity chef opened, in 2003, and is simply called Tom Aikens. In large lettering outside the building. It’s a permanent tying of name to brand and assumes responsibility for pretty much anything that happens to diners here on in. Now, I’m no restaurant critic, but as it turned out the experience was so good, it’s worth giving it a go.

The first thing was the décor: comfortable furniture, soft low lighting, a warm unelaborate interior design. It had an inviting air, encouraging the relaxed chatter murmuring in the background. Not one element hinted at pretension, which, for a well-known chef-owned restaurant in South Ken on a Saturday evening, could have been forgiven.

The front of house staff, meanwhile, were immaculate, appearing from nowhere to fill up empty wine glasses, bringing out each course with exquisite timing (we were eating from the eight-course Tasting Menu, so this was doubly appreciated), tactfully replacing cutlery and napkins, explaining information about certain dishes, and never short of a ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’. But despite all this, they couldn’t have been more unobtrusive, and any prior notions that this high level of service might seem overbearing, or worse still, aloof, were long gone.

And so to the food. Whether or not the man himself was behind the scenes was irrelevant: the chefs and kitchen staff at Tom Aikens succeeded in delivering a stunning, tell-all-your-friends-about-it tour de force in contemporary cuisine. From the cured Foie Gras to the passion fruit jelly, via John Dorey fillet and loin of ewe’s cheese-marinated lamb, the sumptuous tastes and rich textures instilled in each course made for an unforgettable and supreme dining experience.

Because the experience at Tom Aikens’s restaurant was, from start to finish, of the highest order. A not-insignificant investment in the personnel and countless hours training, sourcing the best ingredients and ensuring the finest preparation and presentation, pitching the aesthetics of the restaurant just right – it all had to combine exactly to positively affect the end experience and achieve a continual rise in stock for the Tom Aikens brand. If there had been even one weak link in the chain, the negative perception would have been firmly associated with the name – and in the eyes of the customer, followed it around wherever else it appeared.

Instead, it was an illustration of how hard work, preparation and care for the entirety of a brand will deliver a rich and full experience of it. It was also an illustration of just how necessary that effort is, to ensure your brand is being enhanced by everything that’s connected to it. It’s not what’s in a name, after all, but what’s behind it. Tom Aikens has certainly got it right.

Tim Miller
Content Editor

UPDATE: 4 October 2010

Things got a little bit exciting at the Birddog office last week. Even more exciting than that time a beach football got delivered by an anonymous sender.

Following the above blog post spotlighting George Foreman’s mid-nineties rebirth as the lean, mean grilling machine, then waxing lyrically about the experience at the Tom Aikens restaurant in South Kensington, both aforementioned foodsters were soon contacting us in response.

It was Mr Foreman’s Twitter people dropping by for a chat first of all, but Tom Aikens took the next step of engagement by seeking out Birddog’s contact details from our website, and leaving a personally addressed note of thanks in our eagerly-accepting inbox.

The blog itself had, by this point, been live on the site for three days. On the first day, having tweeted through the Birddog feed about the latest blog update, @GeorgeGrillsUK were on our tail. Two days later, Tom Aikens was in touch via email, taking a moment to offer thanks for our positively charged blog.

James Ainsworth, social media marketing specialist at Alterian, was suitably impressed by the speed in which George Foreman’s team got in touch to blog about it.

Having already sung the praises about brand experience originally, it also appears that these brands have a commendable approach to social media monitoring too.

Tim

The BA Brand Up In Smoke?

I was a victim of the wholly unpronounceable Icelandic volcano eruption that shut the airports. I say ‘victim’, but it’s relative. There are worse places to be stranded than Arizona. Iceland for example. In reality, my discomfort was limited to the enforced rationing of underpants. The location in which I was stranded and the consequence of unexpectedly prolonged underpant usage is not, however, my point. I was surprised to find out how much reliance I placed on the brands I trusted and how well, or badly, they responded. It’s these formative experiences that shape an audience’s perception of a brand, so they’re important. Like pants.

My Flight was booked with BA. Any organisation that you enlist to carry you and your loved ones at a height of thirty thousand feet has to have a trustworthy and reliable brand. Despite industrial action a few days prior to our departure, our outward flight was unaffected and we had a great 2 week vacation.

The morning that we were due to fly back, my wife received an email from BA announcing that the Flight was cancelled due to the volcano. Not ideal, but at least we received the email. It offered no details about the eruptions, but gave 2 phone numbers (in the US and the UK) and directed customers to rebook their flights on the BA website. That was the ‘ordinary’ response to a cancelled flight but BA clearly didn’t have a plan for ‘extraordinary’ – certainly not one that they were able to share with me.

So with British airspace out of bounds, we were on our own and, basically, screwed. The BA website wouldn’t allow us to change flights and, contrary to the email, the website continued to show our flight as confirmed and checked-in. The UK number simply didn’t work and the US number provided an automated service to nowhere followed, intermittently, by a call-holding system. I’m not sure when the last time you were ‘on hold’ for 2 hours was, but you’ll appreciate that with two small kids in the room, a wife doing her nut and housekeeping banging on the door, it’s not good.

During the 13½  hours it took to get through to the call centre, and the subsequent eight days I had to wait in Phoenix for the return flight, I had time to reflect on the power of brand perception. My considered wisdom is this – it’s all in the mind. BA has spent millions persuading me to trust BA in preference to other brands. It worked, because that’s what I did. But it’s when the shit hits the fan that you really need to manage customer perception and brand reputation. Reputations that have taken years to build can be blown in an instant. Or 13½ hours.

I have no doubt that in the UK, the volcano, the closure of British airspace and the impact on the beleaguered BA share price was daily front page news, but in ‘Pleasant Valley’ Arizona (really) I think it would be fair to say no one gave a shit. I relied on web news, CNN, Twitter, texts and email from friends and colleagues. The news was patchy and unreliable (often conflicting) but it was better than nothing, which is exactly what I received from BA. BA is the one brand that I should have been able to rely on for relevant, timely and accurate customer information. Oops.

The very reason that companies invest in their brands and the supporting digital channels of communication is to shape perceptions in the minds of their audiences. Brands aren’t ‘things’, brands are what people, customers, ‘think’. Brands are the experiences people have and the stories, like this one, they tell other people. In our digital world, those stories can travel a long way. Further than Pleasant Valley. BA fundamentally failed to manage my customer experience and, in the absence of any other input, they have allowed me to form my own perceptions of the brand. So that’s what I’ve done. My perception of the BA brand is now permanently and indelibly etched in my mind.

Does BA still have a brand? Yes, but it no longer has the value or values that are important to me. The trust is gone and without it… well, a plane ticket I can buy from anyone.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666

Brand Perception. Does BMW Care?

I used to drive a BMW. I used the past tense deliberately. I’ve driven loads of them. A BMW 3 Series to start with, then a BMW 5 Series, then a 7 Series briefly, then a 6 Series, then I bought a 3 Series Touring for my wife, and I bought myself a BMW 330d Sport. I’ve driven other cars, but I think it’s reasonable to say I was a BMW fan. Your archetypal ‘brand evangelist’, that was me. That’s all changed.

I liked my 330d so much, I’ve been driving it for the last 5 years. It’s covered 75 thousand almost trouble-free miles, but it was just time to change it. So I walked in to a BWM showroom a couple of months ago and tried to buy a new one. Easier said than done. Try as I might to part with several tens of thousands of pounds, I just couldn’t get the salesman to realise that I was ready to pay the cash equivalent of a small neighbourhood in certain parts of Manchester. He just wanted to make me have a test drive in something I had no need of testing. So I left.

That, in and of itself, is no big deal. I still had my trusty 330 and figured I would revisit the new BMW purchase when the opportunity or fancy took me, whichever came first. But then the ‘tapakata, pakata, pakata’ noise started. Tapakata was swiftly accompanied by black smoke, and blue smoke, and I believe there may also have been some green and yellow smoke although it was difficult to tell with the cabin full of multicoloured smoke and the increasingly distracting noise of metal grinding on metal which had the same jarring effect as the guy on Jaws scraping his fingernails down the blackboard in the ‘Let’s close the beach before everyone dies’ scene.

The car limped into the BMW Service Centre and let out a small and, to my ear, quite final squeak as I turned off the ignition and sat in the car park hissing and creaking and clicking gently. The car that is, not me.

The prognosis was a fault with the air intake manifold. I asked for an explanation in English and was advised that two metal flaps had broken off and fallen inside the engine. The ‘tapakata’ grinding was the metal being mashed by and mashing the pistons and cylinders. “That sounds bad,” I said in my cheeriest ‘oh well, cars eh?’ voice. “How much will it cost to fix?” There was a pause before the technician said, “Seven thousand pounds.” Well, I barely paused at all before saying, “SEVE… What the fffggggnnn… you are SHITTING me, right???” “Then there’s the labour…” he added quietly, “…plus tax. In round numbers, ten grand.”

“So what you’re telling me is it’s a write-off,” I said. “I thought BMW engines were bulletproof. I thought BMW diesel engines were simply invincible. This one’s less that five years old, BMW serviced from new and has only done seventy thousand miles. It’s barely run-in.”

“Mmmm.” He said. “I can submit a ‘goodwill claim’ to BMW for you.”
“You mean it shouldn’t have happened?”
“I can’t say that Sir, but I can submit a goodwill claim with no liability attached.”
“So you do mean it shouldn’t have happened.”
“All I can say, Sir, is that it is ‘unusual’ and we wouldn’t normally expect a BMW of this age, with this mileage, to experience this fault.”
“It shouldn’t have happened.”
“Mmmmm.”

At this point, I could make a reasonable case, that if the numpty salesman had listened to me the first time round, I would have been in a new car before this problem ever arose. But I’m not going to do that, because that’s not the thing.

A few days later, I received a call from the technician…
“Good news Mr. McKee. We’ve heard from BMW and they’re prepared to make a goodwill repair contribution of £8,500.00. You would just have to pay the balance of £1,500.00.”
“So it shouldn’t have happened then.”
“It’s a goodwill gesture Mr. McKee, that’s all I can tell you.”
“Ok Mike, I’m a reasonable guy and it sounds like BMW is being reasonable so ‘Ok’, in principal, that’s acceptable. However…”

And I went on to explain that it would be a pointless waste of everyone’s time and money to spend the £8,500.00 on the repair when I didn’t actually want the car back. What I wanted was a new car. A new BMW. I explained that I’d been trying to buy one from them for a while but was a little confused by their seemingly mandatory test-drive policy. I was ‘happy’ to pay for my new car – anything up to the equivalent of a small neighbourhood in certain parts of Manchester – and all I needed now was for BMW to turn the £8,500.00 repair offer into a virtual part exchange. Basically and very simply (in my mind…) they could keep the old car (that shouldn’t have broken). I would accept their £8,500.00 car token and immediately and conditionally more than quadruple the value by adding cash to buy a new BMW from their showroom.

It all seemed so easy to me. I was the customer being inconvenienced, I knew what I wanted, I wasn’t going to make a fuss about the car that shouldn’t have broken and I was very reasonably going to reinvest the money they were offering me and add to the pot by giving them more. From BMW’s perspective, I figured they’d be happy to satisfy the customer, even better, the customer was going to spend even more money and even, even, betterer, the customer was going to continue driving a BMW, continue spending money on BMW servicing for the lifecycle of the car and would doubtless tell anyone who would listen about his experience with the BMW brand. Well, I was right about the last point.

BMW said, “No.” Not, ‘No and here’s the thinking behind our decision because we’d still like to retain you as a customer.’ Just, “No.”

Which brings me on to the thing. This story is a bit about money, it’s a bit about customer service, but that’s not the thing. The thing is about Brand Reputation. I expected more from the BMW brand. I must have spent in the region of quarter of a million pounds with BMW as a driver and, up until the point where my perceptions of the brand changed, I would doubtless have continued spending. I remember reading a BMW case study in college where the point was made that BMW didn’t try to sell customers a car, they wanted to secure customer loyalty to the brand so that they had ‘BMW drivers for life’. An admirable quest, but clearly complete bollocks.

I won’t be buying another BMW. Not now, not ever. I don’t imagine for a second that BMW will notice the difference but I will nonetheless exercise my right as a customer to take my money elsewhere. My perceptions of the brand have changed – for the worse. I’m going to be telling other people of my experience too, you’re reading this for example, and who knows, maybe that will influence the perceptions of others. One car buyer walking away (twice) from BMW is barely troubling, but if this experience is typical of the brand’s values, I don’t imagine it will be long before we’re all walking away. If I was the person responsible for maintaining the BMW brand reputation I’d be more than a little concerned.

The ‘Ultimate Driving Machine.’ Really? I don’t think so.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666