One of the key points in their conversation – which can be found in Curt’s Inc blogpost – centers around generating greater market demand and improving a customer’s experience through the creation of hassle maps. Slywotsky defines a hassle map:

Whether you’re talking about a consumer or a corporation, a hassle map defines all of the actual steps that characterize the negative experiences of the customer. Think about these questions: Where are the emotional hot spots, the irritations, the frustrations, the time wasted, the delay? Where are the economic hot spots? And then think about this: What are the ways that businesses can radically improve the hassle map for both the customer and themselves?

Many companies face a problem when it comes to the user or customer experience. It’s rarely one huge catastrophe that sinks them. Rather, it’s more akin to death by a thousand cuts. Our customers or users experience a hassle here, another hassle there…eventually, the hassles build up to a point where the negatives outweigh any positives. And another otherwise satisfied customer leaves for something better.

Let’s get a better handle on these hassles – understand what they are and ruthlessly rip them from our customers’ lives. At Journyx, we’ve started developing a Hassle Map Program to collect and catalog how customers interact with our software. I thought I’d share a bit of how we’ve set it up.

Step One: Collect feedback through conversations and observation.
We’ve piloted the program using local customers, which gives us the advantage of getting some face time with them. It’s always a benefit when you can put names with faces…and let the customer do the same.

For these in-person sessions, I record use a Kodak Zi8 video camera and tripod. I love this camera because it’s unobtrusive and still provides pretty good picture and sound quality. And since I also want to ensure I’m capturing every move and mouse click, I set up a recordable GoToMeeting session. I find the combination of video camera and G2M give me several angles in which to understand the hassles our customers experience when using our software.

Step Two: Build the Hassle Map
When it comes to developing the hassle map, I’m a big fan of the mind mapping technique. While it can be done on paper, I much prefer electronic because we’re going to want to build a database of hassle maps. Of all the mind mapping software out there, I highly recommend Mindjet MindManager. It’s pricy but it does something that few others will do: it allows me to conduct searches across maps. So if I want to look for patterns of frustrations across customers, I type a keyword and let the program perform its magic.

Step Three: Put the Maps into Action
It’s not enough to gather the data, right? For the whole Hassle Mapping program to be productive, the data needs to be put to use in your market strategy and product planning. Factor it into your roadmap. Start sharing the outcomes throughout your organization. More than likely, you’ll uncover some hassles not just around your products and services…you’ll learn about hassles with support and sales. If so, make sure that gets to the right folks in your organization.

If you want to know more about our Hassle Mapping program, come to ProductCamp Austin this weekend. I’m proposing a session called Hassle Mapping Your Way to a Better Product Experience. If you can’t make it and would like to know more (or if my session isn’t chosen), reach out to me and I’ll make sure you get the PowerPoint and session collateral I’m preparing for the event.

Let’s do something different this year. I’ve always had a passion for leadership and the work it takes to be a better leader in both attitude and action. That’s why I’ve decided the theme for 2011 will be Leadership. Don’t worry…the main topics of marketing, customer experience, and organizational culture will still be the primary focus of this blog and Bailey WorkPlay. We’ll just look at them primarily through the lens of leadership. What does this mean? To be honest, I’m not entirely sure yet, and that’s okay. We’ll explore this together. Here are some of the issues and questions I have in mind:

Marketing
The practice of marketing has changed significantly over the past few years. How can a leadership-focused marketing approach change how we communicate with customers and prospects?

Customer Experience
If a terrific customer experience is so vital to business health, why do so many businesses still struggle to make it happen? How would a leadership-focused effort improve the relationship between customer and business? And are there parallels between customer experience and an improved employee experience?

Organizational Culture
As an anthropologist, I believe culture is a wonderfully complex thing. It’s not something that can be controlled or engineered; rather, it can be merely guided. What role does leadership play in guiding the cultures within our organizations?

You have a part to play here, too. What questions do you have related to leadership? What problems do you face in executing marketing strategy or creating a better customer experience that would be improved with a stronger leadership focus? I hope that we have the opportunity to co-create something here together that makes our selves and our organizations even more successful in 2011. If you’re on Twitter, we’ll be using the hashtag #Leadership2011.

I can’t wait to get this year started. Let’s make it a great one together.

Suggestion #1: Make it as easy as possible for someone to subscribe. Don’t ask for oodles of information from them at the outset. All you really need is a name and email address. I’ve seen far too many clients ask for fields of personal data only to get a high bounce rate. If you want to glean more demographic data from your subscribers, ask for a little to get them through the door and then gradually ask for more data over time.

Suggestion #2: Create enewsletters that are as personalized as possible. Sometimes what *you* believe is of value may not be valuable to your whole subscriber base. If you find that your content is starting to cover lots of different topics, consider either creating multiple newsletters that are more topic-focused. Or, find an email delivery platform that allows you to serve up blocks of content that’s personalized based on what your subscriber tells you what they want to read.

What other ways have you found success in building your email subscriber list?

Join the conversation at Forum Q&A

All of which is why Joshua Black’s post, 5 Sneaky Ways to Find Out What Customers Really Want… Without Asking Them, over at Men with Pens is a real keeper.

See item #2:

Go to Wal-Mart: This expression means you should get out there and eavesdrop on your customers in their natural environment. Hang around the lions while they’re kicking back in their den complaining about their biggest problems to other lions (like who left their dirty undies lying around the cave).

Customers will never really tell you their problems if you ask directly. They often don’t exactly know what their problems are.

Listen to what customers say. Are they complaining? About what? Are they sighing over something they wish they had? What is it? What problems keep them from getting the results they want?

Don’t say a word. Take copious amounts of notes and quietly leave the scene like an entrepreneurial ninja. I like to hang out at coffee shops and use my Blackberry for this kind of covert operation, because it just looks like I’m texting someone and being oblivious to people at other tables.

And as a smart commenter responded, another method for gathering similar intel is to run Twitter searches for keywords and themes related to your product or business.

What other ways of uncovering consumer intelligence out in the wild have you found most beneficial to your business?

But instead, how many times do businesses listen for what they want to hear from their customers? Or maybe get defensive about what is said? Or take what is said at full face value and miss out on so much of the subtext and subtle (but far more powerful) meanings behind the customer’s experience? If you’re only paying attention to what sits at the surface, your business is missing important data that could mean the success or failure of your product, service, or full brand proposition.

We anthropologists are trained to uncover these clues. When we listen, we don’t just use our ears – we use our full set of senses. We detect behaviors that might otherwise pass unnoticed. And we ask questions that attempt to understand how customers interact with their world and give their it meaning.

That may seem like a huge undertaking, but at the heart of our anthropological work is simplicity. Here are five simple ways to listen like an anthropologist:

Shut up.
The hardest thing for a marketer, executive, or consultant is to put away the agenda and stop talking. But do it. It is near impossible to talk and listen at the same time. Even if we don’t come at a customer issue with an agenda, we may still find it difficult to keep quiet. However, if we’re going to understand how to meet the needs of our customers, we’ve got to shut up.

Be naive.
This is the first of two steps toward having a child-like mind. As adults, we think our expertise is built on always knowing the answer (or thinking we probably know the answer). But its this very temptation to appear all-knowing that keeps us from actually knowing anything. Kids learn instinctively because they really don’t know things and they ask a lot of “Why?” questions. Here’s a truth: when it comes to understanding the world our customer lives in, we REALLY don’t know anything.

Get curious.
Step two toward a child-like mind is getting curious. When we approach a customer from a place of UNknowing, we ask better questions. And we don’t make the killer mistake of allowing assumptions to guide us.

Show me.
Having problems understanding what your customer is trying to express? Respond with, “Show me what you mean.” Get creative and help them show you what they’re seeing, hearing, feeling, experiencing. Look for the symbolism and meaning behind what they show you.

Record it.
As anthropologists, we’re trained to record every single detail we possibly can. We don’t edit, we simply record because we never know what will turn out to be vitally important while sharing an experience with a customer. Don’t just rely on electronic monitoring. Practice observing subtleties, seeking meaning behind the surface language and really listening for what’s not being said.

photo credit: niclindh (via Flickr)

Coca-Cola and Unilever are shifting their digital focus away from traditional campaign sites and towards community platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, as social media begins to dictate their marketing activity in 2010.

Yes, these are the big kahunas of the corporate branding universe…but can their strategies work for small and medium-sized businesses? Not only do I think the answer is a resounding “100% yes!”, I believe that building community over campaigns is an absolute must for nearly any enterprise today. Why?

Read the full blogpost at BaileyHill Insights…

photo credit: scoobay (via Flickr)

Here in the States, this news has been covered by Time, NPR (via Associated Press), and BusinessWeek. Meanwhile, other than this article from The Swedish Wire, there is very little hubbub about this in Sweden, where Ikea is based. And even more interesting is this article from the Norwegian Afterposten (translate) where some groups actually are welcoming the font change decision.

So, what’s going on here? And what is the connection between Ikea, their customers and their passionately loyal fans? Further, what how does this relate to other businesses that engaging in the work of creating strong relationships with their customers?

Passionate fans or passionate customers?
One of my core issues with this whole imbroglio is that the most enraged folks – graphic designers and typographers – are being labeled as Ikea’s most passionate fans. I’m certainly not going to devalue their feelings over the use of Verdana font (because it really isn’t as attractive as Futura) or dispute their disappointment with the company (their ideals concerning design have merit). They have every right to have their opinion and share it with others. But I think it’s incredibly lazy and disingenuous to call these very same designers and typographers Ikea’s most passionate fans. That ignores Ikea’s passionate customers who not only provide strong word-of-mouth, but actually purchase the company’s products. Sometimes passionate fans don’t sit in the same circle as passionate customers.

Which passionate fans are worth listening to?
Each of the news items above – along with several blogposts from folks I respect like Jackie Huba – make the mistake of assuming that all voiced outcries on the web are equal. In this case, a relatively small number of designers are treated as being the definitive source for whether Ikea’s decision was sound. But what about those individuals who shop the stores and purchase from the catalog and online? What do they think about all of this? Well, what’s interesting is that none of the bloggers or mainstream media sources bothered to ask that question and talk to actual customers. The assumption seems to be that any outrage, regardless of where it originates, constitutes the end-all, be-all of the discussion.

What this suggests about journalism…and our own media consumption
Somewhere along the way, journalists decided to gather one angle of a story and just stop there. Nothing new there – this point has been lamented for the past decade or so. Literally, none of the stories about “Verdanagate” bothered to include perspectives from customers. And it would have been so easy to gather this information. Hell, if journalists wanted to stay lazy, they could have just asked the average “person on the street” to take a look at the catalog and ask if they noted any problems. Or they could have went to the local Ikea store and gathered opinions.

Why the hell wasn’t the Ikea customer community involved?
IKEAFANS is an online community of 112,000 members. It’s unaffiliated with the Ikea corporation, but still a fantastic example of truly passionate customers coming together to share their love for all things Ikea. If this whole font issue is going to be a problem for passionate customers, this would be the first place to look for trending, right? I spoke with Susan Martin, one of the community managers for founder and owner of IKEAFANS and there has been zero chatter on their forums and blogs. Meaning that the people Ikea should be most concerned about don’t give a hoot about Verdana or Futura…they simply want the same quality of furniture they’ve come to expect from the company. It’s truly a damn shame that no one bothered to ask Susan or her community members for their thoughts.

The tyranny of the instantaneous (and the minority)
What’s somewhat more troubling is that far too many respected bloggers covering word-of-mouth and online marketing just blithely accepted the mainstream media’s portrayal of the issue. There was little critical thinking along the lines of “Wait! Does this actually constitute a problem for Ikea’s business?”

All of which leads to something that is causing me some concern. Is social media and our demands for instantaneous opinion undercutting our ability to think deeply about issues? It’s taken me a couple of days to put together this post because I needed to research the issue and think through different perspectives. Will I miss out on the buzz of the Ikea font debate? Maybe, but this post is really not so much about Ikea as it is about the issues it surfaces.

Are we suffering from thought erosion?
And another problem I see arising with social media is how easily a minority of individuals can grab public attention and convince us that their way of seeing things constitutes the majority. When our own attention is so scattered and thin, it’s not hard to see why this is. In nature, when plants are unable to take root in the soil it’s called erosion. Similarly, when critical thinking doesn’t have time to take root in our minds, we might call it thought erosion.

What are your thoughts? Should a company listen to every passionate fan? Maybe so, but should it alter its course of action when core customers are not among the vocal critics? Hope we can have a passionate and deep dialogue about this here.

For me, here’s what the study drives home.

1. A shift from the masses to the micro.
Here’s a quote from Bob Hirschfeld, senior public information officer for Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory:

“[Twitter’s a fad] because everybody’s doing it. Ashton Kutcher and CNN have a steady supply of fans who want to know what they do. People like us, people with a job to do, every so often we do something of interest to the general public [but] we don’t have that steady supply of stuff that the public is interested in.”

I think this viewpoint spotlights how professionals are struggling to overcome the old focus on how to speak to the masses. If you can’t speak to as many people as possible, then the effort is futile. You see this every time someone uses generalized words like “public”; in this case, Hirschfeld is concerned there’s just not a “steady supply of stuff that the public is interested in.” I’ll submit that aiming for the masses is no longer an efficient or productive action. The individuals and organizations who will succeed in the new world of business will be the ones who know their power niches and can communicate with them in a personally relevant way.

2. Broadcasting might not be dying, but it’s no longer the sole answer.
With that said, I don’t believe that broadcasting is dying. There’s still a place for it as a communications vehicle. Websites such as CNN, BBC News, ESPN, etc. still serve up broadcasted information. But the critical difference is that broadcasting is no longer the only mechanism for communicating with your audience. Most of the better sites understand this and allow visitors to personalize their delivery (see BBC News for a good example).

Other sites build around smaller, more interest-focused communities, which takes the micro to deeper level (see what Sony has done with their Backstage 101 or what DadLabs.com is doing with fathers). Someone tied to the old ways of viewing business might see this as a negative fracturing of their audience base. They’re liking thinking, “Crap, now I have to have multiple talking points for all these different audiences.” And again, that thinking exposes the mass approach that is no longer viable.

But rather than freaking out and seeing this as yet another sign of the apocalypse, consider what incredible advantages the micro-level offers to business. Rather than taking the shotgun approach that tries to hit as many people as possible (with the inherent dilution of overall message), communicators can approach each community and audience niche as a tailor-made occasion to develop messages that are relevant to the individual.

3. The future will require changes to your business thinking and operations.
We’re in the midst of a huge shift away from one way communication (at both mass and micro levels) and toward multi-vocal dialogue. And yes…this will require some changes to the way organizations think and operate, as well as to the way they communicate internally and with customers. As Josh McColough, a communicator at Sherman Health, notes: “The trick is to keep information coming and conversation active.”

Effective business is going to be about building relationships and personally-relevant dialogue rather than continuing the old trick of blindly bludgeoning a public with broadcasted communications. The only question is: Which side of this divide do you want to find yourself on?

Shameless? Yep. Brainless? Yep, again. And it’s not just isolated to piggybacking on #Iran – apparently, Habitat has been riding other trending tags such as #apple and #phone. I’m still a bit mystified by who actually thought this was a good idea. The company has deleted the offending tweets and issued an apology, but the damage is done.

A quote from the BBC News article:

“The top ten trending topics were pasted into hashtags without checking with us and apparently without verifying what all of the tags referred to. This was absolutely not authorised by Habitat. We were shocked when we discovered what happened and are very sorry for the offence that has been caused.”

The BBC writer is quick to pick up on what is easily inferred from this statement: that a third-party agency is responsible for Habitat’s online marketing strategy and – perhaps more interesting – their Twitter writing. Letting someone outside your organization write your tweets and post to social media shows is a quick way to get into some seriously hot water. If your organization is thinking of using Twitter and other social media tools to engage with customers, for heaven’s sake, don’t let someone else do it for you. This is a DIY initiative.

Example 1: Boston Market. Remember when it used to be called Boston Chicken? I do and it was damn fine chicken. I ate there quite a bit. But something happened and the geniuses running the enterprise had an epiphany: Boston Chicken is just too confining for our aspirations. So they changed the name to Boston Market and the roof caved in. There are Boston Markets still around (there’s one not too far away from my house), but I really have no strong reason to eat there. I could care less what they call the chain, but they have a lot of work to do to erase the last few crappy experiences I had around the time they decided to change their identity.

This leads to Example 2: The Hut. Which “Hut” would this be? This appears to be the idiotic marketing decision du jour from the folks at Yum! Brands. You might recognize them more for their debacles with KFC and Taco Bell. Now, they’re taking their shtick to Pizza Hut by rebranding it as simply The Hut (some locations have already seen the changes).

Here’s what’s troubling about this rebrand. It’s yet another example of shoddy, shallow marketing in an age when this nonsense might only go so far. I think Ruth Mortimer at MarketingWeek sums it up nicely in her post, Pizza Hut’s rebranding is stale:

If Pizza Hut really wants to be a family restaurant for 2009, it needs to stop worrying about its name and start concentrating on marketing the things that matter. Like really pushing its natural ingredients so parents can feel great taking their kids somewhere they can trust at relatively low prices.

“Marketing the things that matter” means actually engaging your customers and speaking with them like you believe they’re smart, intelligent people. Changing your business name is kind of like flailing around, hoping you can still be relevant in the market place. Don’t bedazzle us with bullshit. Give your customers what they want. You want to make me stop ordering from Papa John’s? Don’t change your name, logo, and packaging…give me a quality product that has natural ingredients for my girls and I’ll be a raving fan.