Orange Envelopes | Small Business Optimized Marketing > By Design

One of the most frequent and irritating faults of marketers is their belief that if a little personalized service is good, then an overwhelming amount of personalized service must be better. No. It’s not.

Let me freely acknowledge right up front that I love Chipotle and think their iPhone app is one of the most thoughtfully designed and easy to use online ordering apps. In fact, if I intend to eat at Chipotle – even if I’m in my car outside – I’ll order on my iPhone because it remembers my last order and I can complete the entire ordering process with a few taps on the screen.

Chipotle has eliminated pain from my life. The pain of waiting in a snaking line in the middle of the lunch rush, having to yell your order over the din of the crowded restaurant, and having to juggle food and money when finally arriving at the register. The entire exercise to obtain my food is time consuming and generally annoying.

Recognizing this, Chipotle released their iPhone app, allowing customers to order from their phone (or online) and proceed directly to the register to pick up their pre-paid lunch. Annoyance eliminated.

Or so I thought.

Then the phone calls started. Every time I ordered from my iPhone, I’d receive a phone call about an hour later asking if my food was ok. Every order, another phone call. Another intrusion. Another unwanted and uninvited interruption of my afternoon. With no apparent way to get them to stop.

After the first call, I was understanding. After the sixth I was aggravated. After the tenth I was pissed.

I elected to order from my iPhone precisely because I did not want to call and speak with their employees. I elected convenience and privacy. I never elected to chat with the Chipotle staff. I never opted in.

Chipotle never asked me if I wanted a phone call from their customer service staff. I never gave them permission to contact me on my personal phone. They simply assumed that their definition of good customer service would be met with gratitude and understanding. They were wrong.

So, to test their ability to deliver real, personalized customer service I sent them an email. I complained about their intrusive phone calls and asked to be removed from whatever contact list is generated after an iPhone order.

And Chipotle came through. They responded the same day, apologized, acknowledged that they should have incorporated some type of opt-in button or check box, and assured me that I wouldn’t receive any more calls. And then they followed through. After placing two more orders last week I anxiously awaited a follow-up phone call that, to their credit, never arrived.

So, what’s the lesson for your business? The definition of excellent client service is defined by your customer, not by you. And your service delivery processes have to be flexible enough to adapt to differing definitions. I have no doubt that Chipotle still calls many of their iPhone ordering customers, and that’s fine with me if it’s fine with those customers. They just needed to know that my definition of outstanding service never involves calling my mobile phone. I just want tasty tacos with extra salsa, hold the phone call.

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The Palm Pre was one of the most highly anticipated smartphone launches this year. They primed the media for months with photos and detailed specs of the unit, ensuring reams of coverage for their iPhone-killer.

On June 6th, Palm released the phone to collections of eager fans who could have all assembled in the lobby of their local Sprint store without disturbing the regular patrons just there to complain about their monthly bill.

Without an established collection of Pre fanboys committed to camp out for hours in front of every Sprint store, the groundswell of Pre passion seemed rather demure and underwhelming.

No matter. Palm announced that they realized record sales nearing 500,000 units during their first weekend, dampened only by Apple’s release of their own new 3GS iPhone, which sold over one million units in its first weekend.

Now that the smartphone dust has settled, it appears that Palm’s Pre will never become the iPhone killer they had hoped. Total sales for this year will finally settle between 1 and 1.5 million units, compared to Apple’s total iPhone installed base of over 40 million. Not much of a comparison really.

So, what went wrong? Why didn’t the technical tour de force that is the Pre stumble so badly? In a word: marketing. Or, to be more precise, lousy marketing.

Palm ran a series of ads introducing the Pre that have been universally panned, frequently eliciting adjectives including creepy, eerie and confusing. Great adjectives if you’re Rob Zombie, introducing Halloween 2. Not so great descriptions for a cutting edge smartphone trying to gain traction in a market dominated by Apple and RIM’s Blackberry.

Take a look for yourself at YouTube. Creepy, right? And nowhere in any of the ads does Palm provide a single reason why you need a Pre. What does it do? How is it better? How will it improve my personal/professional/sex life?

Come on, people, these are the fundamentals.

When Apple released the iPhone, their simple visuals set against a plain white backdrop focused all the viewer’s attention on the phone and its remarkable touchscreen. They showed precisely what you could do with the touch of a finger. They conveyed a Wow! factor that generated interest and desire bordering on lust. In contrast, the Pre ad suggests that if I have their phone, I may encounter nothing but green lights on my way to work. Really? That’s your pitch?

The truly disappointing factor is that the Pre is a remarkably innovative phone. It’s the only touchscreen device capable of genuine multi-taking. But Palm never tells me why I need to multitask. What can I do with a Pre that I can’t do with my iPhone or Blackberry? Besides making concentric circles of orange-clad Asian men dance in unison?

Don’t make the same mistake Palm made. Understand what makes your product/service essential and then clearly communicate your distinct value. Sure it’s fundamental, but even the big guys forget to focus on the blocking and tackling sometimes. Like Palm.

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I read a post from Chris Brogan this morning about Dunkin Donuts’ new iPhone app designed to assist the office coffee runner who needs to keep all the orders straight.

Brogan’s blog post and accompanying screen shot exemplified how simple, effective and targeted design could deliver a terrific user experience while solving a common problem: how to collect increasingly complex coffee and breakfast orders from an entire office staff.

I intended to write a post about the effectiveness of simple design so I downloaded the Dunkin Run app, launched it and immediately decided to change the theme of my post.

3 Quick Steps to Devastate Your Clever iPhone App:

1. Compel your user to enter login information that refers back to an unnamed site where the user ID must have already been created.
2. Provide no instruction, hints, links or ability to create a user ID from your application.
3. Ignite burning hatred of your application that cannot be accessed.

I’ve got to wonder… did anyone from Dunkin Donuts’ marketing department ever take a look at this app?

Did no one consider that brand new users – without existing Dunkin Donuts user ID’s – would try the app and hit a brick wall?

Where was the beta testing?

Dunkin Donuts: FAIL.

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Sony has transformed itself into one of the most disappointing brands of the 21st century. The company that dominated consumer electronics for most of my life hasn’t had a bona fide consumer electronics hit outside of their gaming systems in years, and their product releases, with business partner Ericsson, of multimedia playing phones and smartphones have been huge disappointments.

Sony Ericsson’s response to their negligible impact on the smartphone market? The introduction of an $800 smartphone to compete against the iPhone and Blackberry lineups. It’s almost as if they’re trying to fail.

Sony Ericsson is not renowned as a mobile phone provider, as evidenced by their 5% market share. Their forays into Walkman phones – phones capable of downloading and playing music – produced little consumer interest

Sony has always had a sharp eye for design, and they’ve certainly brought their design sensibility to their joint venture. Sony has designed and manufactured some of the most stylish and technically advanced electronics in the world. But their grasp of design apparently doesn’t extend to the full concept of design thinking, which also takes into account the entire user experience surrounding one’s product.

Play to Your Strengths
Anyone who has used a Sony product in the past 10 years knows how miserable the Sony user experience can be. I’ve owned Sony cameras, videocameras, ebooks and laptops and can attest that their devices don’t play well together, much less play well with others. Sony continually provides beautifully designed hardware with thoughtlessly designed software – a combination that guarantees a lousy experience. And yet they continue.

There is still a huge opening for Sony Ericsson in the smartphone market that can exploit one of Sony’s only remaining strengths: gaming.

Sony has sold over 50 million of their portable PSP gaming systems worldwide. They have experience in that sector that no other manufacturer has. They’ve watched the iPhone develop into a serious gaming platform, validating the market for combination phone/gaming systems.

So what does Sony Ericsson do? They release an $800 smartphone with a great camera and no gaming. Wow.

Maybe I’m the one who’s out of touch. It’s certainly possible. But I have serious doubt that a 12 megapixel camera will drive sales of an $800 smartphone when virtually every other smartphone offers at least a passable 3 MP picture. I just don’t believe that photos drive phone sales nearly as much as entertainment options drive phone sales.

Oh, by the way, Sony Ericsson isn’t even releasing their new phone for another 6 months. That just gives them more time to fall behind the new iPhone, Palm Pre and new Blackberry introductions before they launch an inexplicably expensive phone in a midst of a global recession.. Good luck guys. You’re going to need it.

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I simply can’t be the first to notice Microsoft’s repeated, laughable and impotent attempts to produce consumer electronics that appeal to anyone outside of the Bill Gates compound.

Quick, do you know anyone who has a Zune? Have you ever even seen one outside of a Best Buy? When was the last time you overheard someone bragging that they waited in line four hours to nab the latest Windows Mobile phone? Hell, even Melinda Gates admitted that she privately coveted the iPhone.

The list of Microsoft failures is long and illustrious. Walk with me down the memory lane of Microsoft product tragedies, which include the Microsoft Origami (their lame and ultimately aborted attempt at an UltraMobilePC), a five year headstart in developing a mobile phone platform that has generated viral buzz and consumer anticipation for…. well, none that I can recall, and, of course, the aforementioned Zune, whose sales are rumored to  approach triple digits. Total. Worldwide. Way to go, iPod killer.

Given this unrivaled history of corporate ineptitude, what’s to explain the huge headline in today’s WSJ, spanning nearly the entire page – Microsoft and Verizon Plot an iPhone Rival?

Are the loud guffaws and giggles from Cupertino disturbing your reading?

It’s not difficult to guess what will emerge from these high-powered strategic confabs between Microsoft and Verizon. Both have watched as each company’s nemesis rode the cresting wave of popularity and iconic status of the iPhone to unimagined commercial success.

Verizon is still wallowing in the regret of turning down Apple’s initial offer of exclusivity. And Microsoft remains stubbornly, and almost endearingly, steadfast in their commitment to Windows Mobile as the preeminent mobile platform. Which makes them the perfect partners to develop an imaginary mobile device that will do everything the iPhone does… and more!

They will combine forces to produce a brilliant, almost legendary, product spec that includes an unheard of, amazing feature set for a touchscreen phone, including everything that the current iPhone lacks. Video? Check. Cut and paste? Check. 5 MP camera? Check. Stereo Bluetooth? Check.

Excited yet? It’s the phone that does it all. That has every feature that any user could ever want. On the nation’s most reliable network. What could possibly go wrong?

It will suck. It will perform 486 functions in ways that drive the user crazy and simply reinforce Apple’s dominion in the mobile world.

How do I know this? Because neither Microsoft nor Verizon has ever delivered a consumer electronic product that incorporates thoughtful and creative design in ways that delight and amaze their customers. It’s not how they think or how they work. While they focus on the current iPhone as their target, Apple is focusing on remaking the iPhone entirely, on designing user experiences and handheld capabilities that emerge from their fecund imaginations, not from a strategic planning session that will likely produce Verizon’s own mobile Vista. Now that’s something to look forward to.

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A small article in the Wall Street Journal caught my eye last week and validated my increasing certainty that Sony continues to rely upon a sclerotic design approach that patently ignores their users’ experience with Sony products.

Although Sony is capable of producing aesthetically beautiful hardware, their design sensibility doesn’t incorporate the broader themes of design thinking, including the imagination and creation of new processes, approaches and insights to complement and extend the impact of their hardware.

In response to Amazon’s launch of their 2nd generation Kindle e-book Reader, Sony announced a partnership with Google that would provide owners of Sony’s own e-book reader with access to over 500,000 public domain books that Google has digitized.

Problems That Even the All -Powerful Google Can’t Fix
As the owner of the Sony Reader, I can personally attest to the short-sighted implementation of Sony’s e-book effort and their near complete lack of design thinking.

I bought the Sony Reader because its physical design was so much better than the cheap, plastic, 1980’s styled Kindle 1. However, I soon learned that the seduction of beautiful design lured me into purchasing a terribly flawed device.

History of Disappointment
It’s apparent that Sony focuses almost exclusively on their own mercenary benefits when considering design options. Their self-interested approach to product design has led to the failure of entire Sony product lines.

Their Walkman line dominated the mobile music market in the 1980’s. Today, they are a footnote to Apple and their ubiquitous iPod. Sony was the first to market with personal videotape players, but their insistence on adhering to their crippled Betamax format ensured their failure. Their forays into digital cameras have produced feature rich cameras, but their insistence on using a proprietary storage medium has limited their market penetration. Their early camcorders were technically excellent, but their imposition of proprietary Sony software to view, edit and transfer files limited their effectiveness and appeal. And their Sony VAIO laptops, although physically appealing, integrated assorted Sony proprietary components that increased their cost and limited their allure. Today Sony has only 4% of the laptop market despite their stunning design aesthetic.

Self-interest = Failure
Each of these product laggards and failures shared a common element: Sony’s focus on their own self-interest, not the interests of the users.

Sony’s design and execution of their e-book Reader reveals that no Sony executives were ever influenced by George Santayana’s perception that “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Design Irrationality
Let’s count the ways that Sony failed to integrate design thinking into their Reader:

1. the user must use proprietary Sony software to transfer books the device
2. the Sony proprietary software runs only under Windows, not on the Mac
3. the number of commercial titles is significantly lower than Amazon offers for their Kindle because the titles must be converted to the Sony digital format
4. the Sony Reader is the only device capable of downloading books from the Sony e-book library
5. there is no integration with web-based booksellers, severely limiting the available titles for the Reader

Sony’s partnership with Google delivers little value to most Reader owners. The books available for download are public domain books, not bestsellers and contemporary releases. The value to me? Near zero. The value of a partnership with Barnes & Noble to access content? Priceless.

Although the Sony Reader delivers an excellent reading experience, it’s apparent that Sony focused their efforts only on the experience that users have after they’ve downloaded content. The process up to that point – especially for Mac users – is poorly envisioned and executed.

Design Thinking Done Right
The Kindle 2, although better designed that its predecessor, still does not awe or amaze. It’s physical design is competent and certainly improved, but it’s not the Kindle’s physical design that has generated its enormous appeal.

In contrast to the Sony Reader, it’s apparent that Amazon envisioned its Kindle as a platform to extend sales of it enormous library of books. Amazon is in the book business, not the e-book reader business, and their decisions reflect their focus.

The Kindle 2 is an excellent product, but it’s not the only platform that can access Amazon’s extensive e-book library. Just a week after launching the Kindle 2, Amazon announced the availability of Kindle software for the iPhone and their 17 million users. Although Sony claims sales of nearly 400,000 Readers, their sales pale in comparison to the enormous population of potential Kindle users.

Does Amazon care if I buy my e-book for my iPhone or their Kindle. Nope. They get paid either way. And to help me out, they offer wireless syncing between the iPhone and Kindle 2 so I can use both and have both devices will remember what I was reading and what page I was on. That’s design thinking at its best. It’s user-centric, not Amazon-centric. And by focusing on my experience, they’ll likely gain a Kindle 2 user when my frustration with the Sony Reader experience results in a spontaneous, and ultimately tragic, Reader hurling incident.

Design Lessons You Can Apply
What can you learn and apply to your small business from these two corporate behemoths?

1. design great looking and great performing products, but never forget that physical beauty does not define design brilliance
2. carefully observe your clients’ behavior to generate breakthrough insights
3. partner with companies that can deliver products or experiences that you cannot – the perception of your value will increase, not diminish
4. deliver an extraordinary user experience
5. do not compel your clients to adopt proprietary technologies solely for your benefit
6. extend the definition of your product to include packaging, delivery, supplies, service and every user touchpoint
7. find new ways to amaze your clients and stand apart from your competitor

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