Welcome to the Escape Blog

Me and Debs are in Canada to see a client and there are two massive differences to where we are staying in Mississauga and Basingstoke (or any UK town).

Firstly, the place is huge. The roads are huge, the cars are huge; you don’t walk anywhere - you have to drive.

Secondly, despite lots of malls and shopping arcades, things aren’t that centralised (and I get that a lot of the US and Canada is like this). There are pockets life, interspersed with massive roads and housing, and every road seems like the M25.

After a hard days work, we need somewhere to eat so firstly, we have to drive. Secondly - and this is a weird one for me personally - there is a massive choice. As well as all the standard chains of Tim Hortons, Tony Roma, etc. there are lot’s of other independent restaurants. A MASSIVE choice. Last night we went to Mr Greek (a chain).

So, I have to ask myself, with so much generic choice, how could you compete if you set up a small restaurant? Why would people choose you? You could run adverts, hand out flyers and get people through the door, but then what? Could you get them to come back, especially with all that choice?

We had a discussion the other evening in a bar with John, one of the guys out here, about customer service in Canada and how I thought everyone was really on the button. The waiter was attentive and at one point came over to ask us, “Is everything alright with your food?” Being from the UK where customer service is not so keen, I was impressed with the level of service. John then said, “Yes, but you say no, and he wouldn’t have a clue what to do.”

He also got it spot on in a meeting yesterday when he spoke about infrastructure on a new web project - not the infrastructure of getting the business through the web, but the infrastructure of being able to deliver in THE best possible way - the experience.

So, really, are you different from the McDonalds of the world? And, how do you prove it… time and time again? What does your customer service say about you, or the experience a client gets?

Google is like my Mississauga - the choice is overwhelming.

As small businesses, we can only differentiate as to why we are NOT like McDonalds, or Mr Greek. We can offer the reason to return and the reason to spread the word - the experience.

From the 7th April 2008 certain postal prices are set to increase.

These include:

First Class Letter (upto 100g) 36p
First Class Large Letter (upto 100g) 52p
Second Class Letter (upto 100g) 27p
Second Class Large Letter (upto 100g) 42p
Special Delivery Pre 9am (upto 100g) £10.30
Special Delivery Next Day (upto 100g) £4.60

See Royal Mail for more detailed information including a pricing made easy guide.

You may have heard the phrase - Never Assume because you make and ASS out of U and ME? We all do it.

Which reminds me that we all generalize as well (see what I mean).

Put the two together and you have a generalized assumption.

So, next time you hear someone in a meeting say, “People want to see that”, or, “then they will do this”; wonder if it’s really true.

Assumptions are there to be challenged.

You probably hear them all the time (there’s another one), along with negative reasons from individuals about why ’something won’t work’.

The guys at Google were told that there’s no money in search, people want portals - did they?

Established retailers thought people wouldn’t buy online - now they are scrambling to climb aboard.

As marketers, sometimes the opportunity is found on the edges, rather than in the safe middle ground. Have you got the balls to take a chance?

More importantly, can you afford not to?

Sorry. I know a lot of businesses think that their customers care about them but I can assure you that they probably don’t. Not unless there is something seriously in it for the customer, or you have truly engaged them on a personality level.

Some companies manage it. Two spring to mind immediately, Google and Apple:
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So, this week it emerges that Microsoft wants to buy Yahoo and Google’s share price (independently) dropped 9% (FT). We may have a scrap on our hands for online domination. But, the key point here is the rise of the user - yes that’s you…

Kjell Nordstrom and Jonas Ridderstrale talked about the fall and rise of social tribes nearly ten years ago in Funky Business. Today, we are obsessed with social networking - the Internet makes this very easy. We connect to people we want to, and talk about things we want to discuss, directly - no intermediaries and no matter how obscure the topic.

For instance, I want to buy a new TV this weekend. I went to the shop and got bombarded. So, I went online and read a number of reviews. Even the users reviews were voted on by other users so I could filter those out.

Around the same time business was getting funky, Seth Godin was talking about Permission marketing: The fact that we don’t actually want to be marketed to arbitrarily - and how we won’t have to as technology will enable personalised communication.
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It wasn’t that long ago when our esteemed Mr Killick was a bit niggled by the speed of the internet.

Maybe Government Minister Stephen Timms was listening? Virgin it seems, are rolling out a 50 Mbps service that will be available to more than 70% of the 12.5m homes its cable network covers by the end of 2008.

That should cheer a few users up who are fed up with the UK being only twelfth in the top 20 countries download speed chart.

Full story here

Marketing and branding is becoming more demanding. Once upon time, selling burgers was easy. Stack ‘em up, serve ‘em quickly and cheaply and your customers will come. Throw in some ad campaigns and bang - you have a global burger chain.

I still remember when McDonalds first came to Basingstoke, it was a big event - it was new and exciting.

Now there are three; along with a Burger King, a KFC and plenty of other fast food chains. They aren’t scarce anymore, I can have one anytime so obviously, I am less interested.

Offering people what they want and limiting the supply creates demand, but by flooding the market place, the demand falls. So, it’s interesting that McDonalds is looking to install free Wi-Fi in it’s restaurants in the UK to try to differentiate itself, as reported this weekend (source - NMA).

Will wi-fi sell more burgers? I am skeptical. But, the tie in of what companies offer as ‘add ons’ seems to be becoming more and more diverse. When it comes to retail and the high street, the large companies are looking to increase their differentiation by focusing on these added headline grabbing gimmicks, choosing to ignore one area that matters most in my book - customer service.

We sacked our cleaners last week. They had been getting progressively worse to the point that in the last two weeks, they didn’t even vacuum the building.

It’s interesting that when we first used this company, the person who started the company was the person cleaning, or at least coming to check. As the company grew, the actual people who came in got progressively worse.

When Jacqui placed the call to the company last week to sack them, their indifferent response was “you’re only as good as the people that represent you”.

When I think of how companies market themselves, through PR, advertising, etc. retention still boils down to customer service and yes, you are only as good as the people that represent you on the front line.

And that, is why all marketing starts at home. Employees are the most effective form of marketing and their development is well worth part of your marketing budget.

We were notified today that City Link are introducing a minimum weekly order value of £50 and that this would be starting on the 28th September 2007. Coupled with this they are decreasing their payment time to 14 days via Direct Debit only.

Well City Link, this is one client you will be losing, we won’t be able to justify a minimum of £50 to any of our clients, quite frankly it’s daylight robbery.

An interesting interview with Eric Kintz from HP about new web technology and how it is affecting print on demand - via Drew McLellan.