Generational Marketing Mistakes

Being as it’s about halfway through 2018, it seems that market researchers have suddenly become aware that the next generation is entering their adulthood.  They haven’t figured out what to call them yet (centennials, generation Z, iGen or whatnot) and there’s not a lot of agreement on when, exactly, the generation began (somewhere between 1990 and 2000, depending on what they’re trying to prove) … but apparently, they are understudied and there’s money to be made by being the first to market with a study that defines what this new generation is all about.   Even if it’s completely premature and wrong.

The same thing happened with the Millennial generation: studies came out describing their attitudes and habits when the generation itself was prepubescent and hadn’t had time to form attitudes and habits.  And sadly, the “findings” that were published in the early days tended to form a cognitive filter.  So the profile of the Millennial today – pushing forty, paying a mortgage, advancing in their career, and otherwise doing the “adulating” thing – has changed little from the time when they were teenagers still living at home and working part-time jobs.   

And though I would happily be proven wrong by time, I strongly suspect the same is happening with the market research on Generation Z: they are talking to teenagers about their spending and financial habits, about their tastes as consumers, about their attitudes toward the workplace – well before they have had any experience leading an adult life.   

I’d feel a bit less panicked about it if I were to see a present-day study of the Millennial generation – and better, to see it done by one of the experts who studied them prematurely, who admits to having jumped the gun and come to the wrong conclusion.  But sadly, these are the same “experts” who see the new opportunity in misrepresenting the next generation – to admit they were wrong in the past would be to discredit their present work.

And their clients are little better.   Rather than recognizing their folly and straightening themselves out, updating their research in order to better serve the Millennial market, they are simply moving along. They are writing off the last generation and pursuing the next, gearing up to make exactly the same mistake.  Lather, rinse, and repeat - and watch as history repeats.

Chewy: Pooching Customer Recovery

Recently, a colleague of mine had an issue with an online pet store – which would be one of those unremarkable “yeah, these things happen” incidents except for how poorly the company handled the attempted service recovery.  

A bit of background: the colleague in question adopted a shelter dog that had a number of serious health issues – it’s an ongoing saga – and she ordered some medications from Chewy, an online pet supply store that has only recently opened its pharmacy business.   And here’s how they attempted to recover after bungling the order:

The lame humor in the message, bad puns that elicit more of a groan than a laugh, might be understandable and perhaps mildly amusing in the course of routine correspondence.    In the wake of a botched order, being cheeky with the customer is probably not a good choice.   And when the botched order prolongs the suffering of someone’s pet because it was a pharmacy order, it’s definitely not a good idea to kid around.

The second problem is that what is being described in the message, an inability to merge orders, has nothing to do with what Chewy had done wrong.   They had mishandled a prescription, initiating a game of phone-tag with themselves and the veterinarian to straighten things out, and causing further confusion as to whether the problem had been addressed.

The third problem is that the offer of a refund, which generally a nice gesture, is not something that helps recover from the problem: it is not that they caused the customer a loss of money, but a loss of time by mishandling the order.   A more appropriate action would be to expedite processing and provide free overnight delivery to help minimize further delay.

And the fourth problem is the missing fourth step of the basic apology model: to provide some reassurance that the problem will not recur in the future, so that the customer won’t be as hesitant to engage with the brand again.   To omit that step seems either arrogant (believing future business can be taken for granted in spite of the problem) or dismissive (not really caring if the customer does business with the brand in future).

In all, none of these things constitutes an egregious error – but it is the combined effect of a lot of small problems that makes this a model for poor customer service in a critical situation.

Bad Ambassadors

The desire of brands to win advocacy is a generally good thing – it causes firms to think beyond the one-time sale, to providing a product that leaves customers so satisfied that they will not only repurchase but also advocate to other prospects in favor of the brand.   However, like any good thing, it can be done to excess – and at some point pursuing advocacy for the sake of having advocates becomes harmful to the brand.

The consumption of a product is for its functional benefits – but the consumption of a brand is often for non-functional benefits.   I add “often” because some brands are valued for their reputation for quality in terms of functional benefits, but in most cases products are commoditized: the offering of one brand is no better or worse than the next in terms of its functional qualities, such that the only difference is psychological.  This is generally true of most crowded markets where product offerings have become commoditized.

One of the chief psychological benefits is social recognition: Brand X and Brand Y are functionally indistinct, but are associated with certain social groups.  “We” use Brand X and “they” use Brand Y.   So the distinction between the brands is social identity – belonging to one group rather than another.   Hence a person chooses the brand that aligns with the identity to a group to which they wish to belong, and shuns the brand that aligns with any group whose membership is mutually exclusive to the desired group.

And therein lies the problem: when a brand is selected by a group that is considered undesirable by its existing consumers, the alignment of the brand becomes unclear: is it still aligned with “us” or is it now aligned with “them”?  And if it is no longer “our” band, then there is no longer any value to being associated with it – and possibly value in distancing from it because it is no longer in line with the identity of the desired social group (and is in line with the identity of an undesirable social group).

Where the undesirable group has selected the product of its own accord, there is very little that a brand can do to regain its esteem: brand exists in the mind of the customer.   If the brand decides to go with the flow, to embrace the new breed of customers it has attracted, it can remain viable, though the character of the brand and the qualities of the market it serves will undergo a dramatic transformation – in effect, the brand will have changed markets.    If the brand resists the flow, rejects the new breed of customers and attempts to retain its loyal market, it may find that it is fighting an uphill battle.   Success at this will be very difficult.

However, it is very often the case that the brand initiated this selection: it marketed to the undesirables in an attempt to grow its market, foolishly believing that its loyal customers would remain loyal even when the brand became adopted by the undesirable new customers.  It seems to be counting ambassadors, failing to recognize that not all ambassadors are good ones.  This is suicide.

Putting People Before Profit

At a recent event, one of the attendees stood up and proudly shared a very dubious success story:  he had been listening in on a phone call in which one of his company’s service representatives was dealing with a customer who was closing an account, and the rep spent about fifteen minutes with the customer to talk them into keeping the account open with a one-dollar balance in case it would be needed again.   In the speaker’s opinion, the rep had done a wonderful job of saving the account.

Not everyone applauded at the end of his story – maybe three-quarters of the audience – though there is no telling how many of them thought the story truly represented a laudable success or were just clapping to be polite.   It is to be hoped that most of them recognize that what this fellow was praising as a success story was not at all a good thing, and a sign that the company is paying attention to the wrong numbers.

In case it isn’t obvious, the value of a one-dollar account is negligible.  At current rates, a dollar of capital might earn five cents worth of revenue while incurring about three cents in expenses, leaving the company with a two-cent gross profit every year the account remains open.   If the account remains open for fifty years, it will earn one dollar and, after G&A expenses, add a couple of dimes to the company’s bottom line.  Meanwhile, the fifteen minutes of CSR time likely had a fully-loaded cost of around 15 dollars.   Net loss, fourteen dollars, even if you don’t discount the value of future revenues for inflation.

The reason the speaker thought this incident to be a success is because he’s thinking of one statistic: the number of customers the firm has.  It’s likely because he’s being managed to do so – incentivized to grow and retain the number of customers without paying attention to whether the accounts he’s getting and keeping are at all profitable.   The more such accounts he creates and saves, the more his company loses rather than gains on the bottom line.   It's counterproductive performance, and the sign of a siloed and blindfolded culture in which each department thinks of its own goals regardless of their impact on the organization as a whole.  

The firm likely has enough good customers to keep it afloat – it can afford to take some losses.  But this is also a myopic perspective.  Every dollar in expenses incurred to retain unprofitable accounts is a dollar in interest that should be spent on retaining the profitable ones (or a quarter in interest, if the firm keeps the rest for itself).   I checked his company’s interest rates , and they are far below the market leaders – so much lower that it doesn’t make financial sense to do business with his firm.    Chances are, the cost of maintaining unprofitable accounts is at least part of the reason.

How many good and profitable customers are leaving his firm, which cannot pay to retain them because of the losses taken to retain unprofitable ones?  One can only speculate.   The truth is kept well away from the public, and perhaps is even unknown to decision-makers at the company, who continue to watch and press upon their employees to chase a growing head-count without consideration of whether the “heads” are worth having or how long the firm can sustain itself in this manner.