Lone Star College does good marketing. As this ad in the Houston airport shows, they get to the bottom line right away: Adding over a billion dollars to the local economy. Then they tell how: Students' increased earning power and a better educated workforce. Their call to action? Go to our website to discover our full impact. Clear, succinct, and powerful. Which should be how they educate too.

Their website follows through: Why choose Lone Star? They tell you not in three pages, or even several paragraphs, but in 11 plain language words:

We're close to home. We're affordable. We want you to succeed.

(I might have said "We help you succeed." Small point though.)

So many colleges and universities don't put a stake in the ground and declare their value proposition. Which make it hard for prospective students and parents to know why they should choose or support that particular school.

Learn from Lone Star.

State clearly and concisely why people should choose you.

What do your customers prefer to interact with - people or technology? High tech or high touch? The answer is usually... it depends.

I like how Esurance is tackling this head on, with their trademarked tag line: Technology when you want it. People when you don't. Their value proposition is twofold: 1) tons of discounts, and 2) two ways to get 'em. Since insurance discounts alone is not a market differentiator, they position themselves via the "technology or people" ways to work with them. Here's a link to their ads and campaign, created by Duncan/Channon. 

When should you provide technology as your customer service solution and when should you provide real people? From the customer perspective, it depends how potentially complex or emotional the issue is. For example, if you need to change travel reservations due to a death in family, or deal with medical devices for a sick patient or family member, you want a live customer service rep to help you. Assuming of course your level of  bureaucracy allows your reps to be effective. In contrast, getting a simple update on a due date or balance inquiry, technology will do. 

But most important is how tuned you are into what customers want and need in customer service. Because with both a technology-based customer interface as well as a live human interface, the goal is to understand and solve the customer's problem.

The more customer intimacy, the better the customer service, the happier the customer.

Don't you hate when that happens!?!

You invest a lot of time and money into a new business model, an innovative product concept, an exciting promotional campaign. Then you try to sell it. And it doesn't work. Customers fundamentally tell you - directly or indirectly - that you're wrong. Now customers are not always right (that's the subject of a forthcoming blog entry), but disagreement with you is NOT a good reason to dismiss their perspective. That's not your business savvy getting in the way, it's your ego. 

I was meeting with a very bright and seasoned CEO recently who, after describing his company's downturn in winning sales, exclaimed about his sales prospects: "They just don't get it!" Now he could have labored on about how it's all the customers fault, how can they not understand, etc. But he knew better than to go there. Instead he humbled himself and said, "We must be doing something wrong." Then we proceeded to talk about how they could better understand the customer's multiple perspectives and apply those insights to improve their value proposition and win sales.

In our work with business leaders, we recommend imagining the customer is in the room with you at all times, especially during difficult business decisions. I'm giving a talk on this on December 7th at University of San Diego called "Why customers should run your company." Would love to see you there and hear your thoughts if you're in town!

I gave a speech the other night about patient-centered care at the American College of Healthcare Executives in San Diego through SOHL. I called it: Improving your Organization's Vital Signs: Strategies & Tools for a Patient-Centered Approach. Really, it was about Customer Intimacy as an umbrella concept which gives shape and focus to patient-centered care.

One of the key takeaways was that everyone says they're doing patient-centered care. What other kind of care is there, one participant asked! In fact, there is doctor-centered care, technology-centered care, insurer-centered care, and money-centered care, among others.

Another main message was that Customer Intimacy is not for every healthcare organization. It requires a long-term view, one that looks at the lifetime value of the "customer" - not just this quarter's revenues. And when I challenged the audience to identify why patients or providers or funders should choose them; that is, what sets them apart, most were hard-pressed to do it. Fun evening with good people.

Interesting, that what we all have in common is uniqueness.

At ResearchWorks, we talk a lot about customer intimacy. We do our best not just to help clients be customer-intimate, but to practice customer intimacy ourselves. One sign of customer intimacy is when you say you care and show you care, and customers feel it. There is a match between how you intend to treat customers and how customers feel treated.

The sign above pronounces how much this family camp in Northern California cares for its guests. Even though the camp is not much more than a giant patch of dirt, people feel the love. The sign conveys the promise, the camp delivers on it. And guests come back year after year. That's how customer intimacy becomes customer loyalty.

The most powerful marketing axiom I know is "If you can't fix it, feature it!" (read more here). Here's a new example: 3floz.com. Knowing that a lot of travelers have problems with the "3 ounces or less" airport security rule, this new webshop features the problem, with 3 oz. containers of luxury beauty brands like Dr. Hauschka, Archipelago Botanicals and others (all of which I never heard of, which is of course not the point). Their value proposition: No more worries about TSA confiscating your fave beauty products. Interestingly, they broaden their target audiences to "those who travel, those who are curious, and those who can't commit." Next up they hope are airport kiosks for people to pick up their luxury beauty products on the go. It's a beautiful thing.

Most of us assume customers want a lot of choices. Nobody likes being told what to do. Right? Maybe not.

In the book The Paradox Of Choice: Why More is Less, psychologist Barry Schwartz tells the story of going into the Gap to buy a pair of jeans. The salesperson asks him what kind of jeans- slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, or baggy? Stonewashed, acid-washed, or distressed? Button fly or zipper? On and on the choices grew. He replies - a bit confused - jeans, just regular jeans like he always buys. Then he started worrying, well maybe it matters and should he try on 14 different styles? The myriad of choices created an uncomfortable "need."

In our consulting work helping companies really understand what their customers want, need, and value, we invariably find that too many choices is just as bad as no choices. For example, when working with our federal Medicare agency (CMS) to investigate what choices seniors want in selecting health insurance plans, we found they tended to want two or three good choices. And they really valued a trusted resource that could present them with the best two or three options for their situation.

Therein lies the marketing opportunity. Sometimes people are overwhelmed by choices. They want to be told what to do, especially in a domain where they have little or no expertise, like say, evaluating healthcare systems. So step up and make it easier for your customers by reducing their number of choices. Call it "peace of mind" marketing.

P.S. This is where my marketing pseudonym "Les S. Moore" comes into play.

We've been consultants to AARP for many years. Whenever we talk to their (40 million) members, we hear the same thing again and again. People really trust AARP. They may not know exactly what AARP does or what policies AARP supports, but nonetheless they trust AARP to do whatever is in the best interest of older Americans. Which I see as AARP's essential value proposition.

This was confirmed in a poll that NPR reported on today. Several politicians are attacking AARP's stance on healthcare reform (which would be better framed as Health Security Reform), claiming that profit motives are driving AARP's policy agenda. Here's how the "under-voiced" public sees it:

"The poll by NPR and the Kaiser Family Foundation listed seven of the biggest players in the health care debate and asked which one would recommend "the right thing for the country." AARP easily led the list among Democrats and independents. Among Republicans, it tied for first with an option titled "health insurance companies." So it's hard to tarnish AARP, in part because it's not seen as serving an ideology or a narrow economic agenda."

AARP is not perfect, but they have earned the public's trust through years of hard work, and tuning into what their members want and need, then delivering on their promise. I believe trust is the ultimate prize in marketing. It cannot be bought, it must be earned.