Category: product

JetBlue – What Everyone Will Be Talking About

Posted by joshua duncan – August 25, 2010

Unless you have been out of the country (and I mean way out in the backwoods), you have heard a lot about a certain JetBlue flight attendant. JetBlue is no stranger to conversation, however, usually not this strange.

Normally when JetBlue comes up, it’s around how much better it is than other carriers. Looking more at what the company is doing, it was no surprise to find out that the experience JetBlue has created for its customers has delivered big results . FastCompany reported back in June that JetBlue was not only the top airline brand in the industry but also the #1 brand in the U.S when it comes to social currency.

Looking at the brand report and who else is in the top 5 (BMW, Mercedes, Lexus, Apple), Jet Blue’s rapid rise is nothing but incredible. The airline is a little over ten year old and is in the same ranks as premium brands that have been around for decades. I also thought it was interesting that JetBlue was the only service company on this list. This is remarkable considering it is in an industry that is filled with customer frustration (mechanical break-downs, weather, and traffic control are just a few ways that your day can be spoiled while flying).

From FastCompany,

“People love to talk about JetBlue because the experience is so unexpected. Most airline travel has a particular pattern: small seats, bad entertainment, and little (if any) food. JetBlue breaks this pattern. Leather seats, your own entertainment system with dozens of channels, and at least some choice of food. People can’t stop talking about the experience because they have to express their surprise especially given the “value” price. They are so used to airline travel being poor, late, or uncomfortable these days that cases where a company seems to care and provide good service seems noteworthy. Satisfaction itself is unexpected.”

Following in the footsteps of Southwest, JetBlue eliminated a lot of features that added cost and complexity to the organization. Unlike Southwest, JetBlue wanted to be seen as more than just cheap so it carefully added customer facing features to improve the experience.

So if Southwest is the “Low Cost, No Experience” budget airline, JetBlue is the “Low Cost, Cool Experience” budget airline. Not a bad spot to be while the rest of the industry is busy consolidating unloved brands and merging legacy infrastructures (while finding as many ways as possible to nickel and dime you).

If you listen to JetBlue’s VP of Marketing, Marty St. George, talk about their product it definitely sounds like the company is constantly evaluating plans to keep customers satisfied and talking about the airline.

Speaking on the topic of adding in-air wireless to the fleet Marty commented,

This industry has a habit of adding-in product attributes that don’t really add up. We recognize that what the wireless world will be in two years onboard is really different than right now. People are using [wireless] for in-flight entertainment, their computer or iPad, and we don’t have that exact need because of the 36 channels [JetBlue offers]. At the same time, we have a customer base skewed younger, and more affluent, and we have done a good deal of research on the topic. We are down to the final stages of making a recommendation.

If I had to place a wager, my bet is that JetBlue will be the first airline to offer free wireless on all their aircraft in the next two years. While watching DirectTV is nice, being able to access the net from your laptop, smart phone, iPad, tablet, netbook, and PSP for free will be something that people will rave about.

It will be interesting to see if JetBlue keeps making the right choices to keep their customers talking. Keeping a brand cool over time is not an easy challenge but from the outside, it seems like the company is aiming high.

Picture Credit: Flickr

Remember That Talk About Delighting Customers, Forgetaboutit

Posted by joshua duncan – July 29, 2010

Finding ways to delight your customers is a continuing challenge. What delights your customer now is most likely going to be an expectation in the near future. Marketers, including myself, love tackling this type of challenge. It involves getting to know your customer and applying creativity in developing a solution.

And more often than not, it is a wasted effort.

That is, according to Matthew Dixon, managing director of the Corporate Executive Board’s Sales and Service Practice. He is the latest to talk on HBR’s IdeaCast and brings up good points around customer satisfaction. Matthew is coming from a customer service perspective but I think it applies to all parts of the customer experience. To sum-up Matthew’s main concern,

Customers will punish you harder for failing at the basics than they will reward you for delighting them.

This make complete sense. You are not going to tell anyone to fly JetBlue because they have comfortable seats and DishTV if they constantly have travel delays and missed connections. If your phone doesn’t make calls, it doesn’t matter how nice looking it is, you are going to complain about it.

So how do you do this? I like the NetPromotor philosophy for tracking customer experience. It starts with the basic question, “How likely is it that you would recommend [product ] to a friend or colleague?”. From this question, you can track your cumulative customer feedback over time. If you see your score going down, its time to dig in and figure out what’s going on.

If you are not ready to do a formal NetPromotor program, there are alot other ways to get a gauge of your customer satisfaction – surveys, forums, social media, etc. Most important is to establish a baseline, even if it is semi-formal, and continue to monitor.

Bottom line, table stakes must be met before you can talk about what’s for dessert.

How Apple Uses System Settings To Delight

Posted by joshua duncan – June 27, 2010

Continue the conversation on delighters, I have a great example to share. I figured this one will work better if I show it so here is my video walk through of the demo:

Having a functional trackpad is a requirement. Increasing the usability of the trackpad is a delighter. Apple gets bonus points for thinking through the usability of this feature and including how to video screen demos inside the settings. A great combination of product planning and product marketing.

One of the ideas that I have captured as a takeaway from Apple is how to make sure the work you do to make a product more usable not only gets noticed, but also get used. Providing educational content is a great way to start. Finding the right place and time to get that content to your customer is the challenge.

On a side note, I have been looking at screen capture tools and stumbled across Screenr. It is simple, easy to use, and easy to share when it comes to capturing screen videos. I love how when you are finished it not only automatically loads to the Screenr site, but it also lets you download the video as MP4 and upload directly to YouTube. Check it out and let me know what you think.

Category: marketing, product
Tags: Apple Macbook Pro Trackpad, Requirements vs. Delighters, screenr
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Delighters Don’t Have An Asterix After Them

Posted by joshua duncan – June 20, 2010

Requirements are your bread and butter – the minimum features required for a relevant product. Delighters are a surprise, like a free appetizer at dinner, or something new that stands out.

Delighters make your customers happy and happy customers love sharing their happiness with others.

However, if the benefit of the feature isn’t clear or you have to explain with fine print, it’s not a delighter. Delighters don’t have an asterisk after them.

David Pogue’s review of the Sprint EVO 4G is a great example of what not to do when trying to delight. If you are not familiar with the EVO phone, Sprint has put together a nice splash page that highlights the phone’s ground breaking features.

David starts the review strong with a great opening,

What makes the Evo seem even more spectacular are all the firsts and bests. For example, the Evo has an enormous 4.3-inch touch screen that dwarfs those of most phones. You can turn the Evo into a pocket Wi-Fi hot spot, so up to eight people can get online with their laptops. The 8-megapixel camera has dual LED flashes and records hi-def video.

He doesn’t get much farther before taking the phone off a cliff,

Unfortunately, these groundbreaking features come with enough fine print to give the White Pages an inferiority complex.

If you have a feature that is cutting edge, customers will forgive some hiccups. However, when the entire story you are selling end up being half baked, don’t be surprised by a mountain of bad press.

Picture source: Flickr

Category: product
Tags: David Pogue, Requirements vs. Delighters, Sprint EVO 4G
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Kudos To The King For A Successful Product Launch

Posted by joshua duncan – June 15, 2010

I have always enjoyed BBQ but since moving to Texas, I have started to appreciate the almost religious dedication that goes into making exceptional BBQ. So, when I heard that Burger King was going to start offering BBQ ribs my first thought was that this going to be another McPizza. Why would anyone want to buy ribs from a burger joint?

This must have been a bad brainstorm idea that somehow escaped the lab, right? Tom Fishburne’s latest cartoon adds great color commentary on the brainstorming process:

10 million ribs later, the King seems to be onto something. From the WSJ article this week,

Amid brisk demand, some Burger King outlets have already exhausted their supply of the relatively pricey new pork ribs, and the company expects to use up its entire rib order in the next week or so, said John Schaufelberger, Burger King’s senior vice president of global product marketing and innovation…..The company based its rib allotment on results from test markets of Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Greensboro, N.C., and Orlando that showed customers favoring the three-piece order, which sells at a suggested price of $2.99 on its own or $1.99 as a combination meal add-on.

Taking an idea from a brainstorming session and productising it is tough. Even tougher, doing it inside a complex, risk adverse franchise environment. I am willing to bet there was more than a couple internal hurdles that had to be overcome to connivence management that this product had merit.

Kudos to the King for not shredding this idea before getting it in the hands of customers and hearing what they have to say. As an additional bonus, they have inserted a new slot into the menu that is a premium offering during a time that most of the industry seems focused on discounting and the dollar menu.

Now that being said, you will still find me at Rudy’s Country Store and BBQ when I need a quick order of ribs or brisket. Once you fall in love with Texas BBQ, there is no turning back.

Resources:

Category: innovation, product
Tags: product brainstorming, Tom Fishburne
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Making Pricing A Strategic Priority

Posted by joshua duncan – May 25, 2010

This week’s Wall Street Journal contained an excellent article on the subject of pricing strategy that I highly recommend reading. The main point of the article is that most companies are going to achieve better results by competing on performance not price.

Figuring out how to do this is the tricky part. Your ability to charge a premium is directly correlated to your ability to improve your product in ways that your customer finds meaningful (seeking a high fidelity position).

The article discusses how a global chemical company evaluated which products they could develop using a performance pricing strategy:

To be considered for performance pricing, an offering had to meet two basic tests. First, it had to have either a strong competitive position in its market or a highly ranked benefit to the customer (benefits were ranked, from low to high, in three groups: offering low acquisition price, helping reduce operating costs, and improving sales by enhancing quality). And second, the product had to be manufacturable at a cost that yielded attractive profit margins.

Besides giving a good case study example, I really like how the article advocates for a continuous process of customer benefit research. Finding benefits that resonate with your customers are the starting point but can’t be looked at as a one time event.

From the article’s sidebar discussion on mistakes of poor pricers,

The first thing a company can do to help itself identify and communicate new areas of value is to create a system for reliably gathering and analyzing data on every product and service for every customer—basically, what each customer wants more of, and how much that will cost to deliver. That’s the foundation for coming up with a new value proposition that your marketing and sales people will understand and embrace.

Over time your customer is going to be influenced by competitors and new market trends demanding you keeps pace if your product is going to continue demanding a premium. If your offering is stagnant, you could find your premium features relegated to entry level expectations or even worse, completely inconsequential.

Resources:

“Raise Your Prices” – Wall Street Journal
“Seven Mistakes of Poor Pricers” – Wall Street Journal
“The Myth of Commoditization” – MIT Sloan Management Review

How Authentic is Your Burrito?

Posted by joshua duncan – May 13, 2010

John Furgurson has a insightful post on the Brand Insight Blog on being an authentic brand. I like how John works to clarify why authenticity is so important and such a challenge. John comments,

I think the general public believes that marketing — by definition— is not authentic. Guilty until proven innocent! And if someone sniffs even a hint of corporate BS they’ll blog about it, post negative reviews and announce it to all 7,694 Facebook Friends.

John continues,

Being authentic means staying focused and saying no once in a while. The more you diversify, extend your product line or tackle new target audiences, the better chance you have of alienating people. In a down economy it’s always tempting for small businesses to branch out. You take on projects that are beyond your core competencies, because you can. People trust you. Then if things go south you lose some credibility. And without credibility there can be little authenticity.

One of my favorite examples of authenticity comes from the burrito chain Chipolte. Right from the start of the company, Chipotle’s focus was on creating the best, freshest product possible. They even went as far as to design their restaurants so that all the fresh food was easily visible to the customer and made the kitchen in plain site so there was no mystery behind how the meat was cooked.

As the company continued to grow, so did the commitment to building as fresh a burrito as possible. Here is a summary time line of the company’s efforts:

October 2000

Chipotle begins serving naturally raised pork.

June 2002

Chipotle opens first green building at Brodie Lane & 290 W in Austin, Texas.

October 2002

Chipotle begins serving naturally raised chicken at a few locations.

August 2003

Chipotle opens in New York, and all meats served there are naturally raised.

January 2004

Chipotle begins serving about 10% organically grown black and pinto beans.

March 2004

Chipotle opens second green building at 8th & Congress in Austin, Texas.

October 2004

Chipotle converts to frying oil with 0 trans fatty acids long before it became an industry standard.

January 2005

Chipotle increases its percentage of organically grown black and pinto beans to about 15%.

2006

Chipotle implements plastic and glass recycling in 70 restaurants.

January 2006

Chipotle serves 20% organically grown black and pinto beans.

August 2006

California Avocado Commission endorses the avocado sustainability program developed by Chipotle.

January 2007

Chipotle increases its percentage of organically grown black and pinto beans to about 25%.

January 2007

Smithfield, the country’s largest pork producer, announces the gradual elimination of sow stalls, credits Chipotle as inspiration.

July 2007

Chipotle begins serving sour cream free of the synthetic growth hormone rBGH.

June 2008

Chipotle begins to purchase some of its produce from local farms.

Food With Integrity is what Chipotle’s calls it.

I call it a consistent commitment to being authentic.

Sally Hogshead’s Fascinate

Posted by joshua duncan – April 27, 2010

Have you ever waited in a line around the block just to make sure you are first to get the latest shiny new widget?

Have you ever ordered something because there is only 44 left at an amazing price and this offer is not found in stores?

You have ever paid a more for a particular brand when you could have bought a generic?

You might not have realized it at the time but these products were using triggers to turn ordinary messages into something worth paying attention to. Sally Hogshead covers seven of these triggers in her book Fascinate.

As a marketer I enjoyed learning how you can use techniques such building trust or using alarm to increase consumer desirability. I also found it useful to understand how these triggers impact my own buying decisions.

From a product standpoint, there are a lot of good takeaways that you can use when planning. Reducing options while raising prices, allowing customizations, and using unique ingredients are all techniques that can be used to gain attention and make your product fascinating.

The end goal is to move beyond traditional feature improvements such as faster, longer, thinner, stronger, brighter. This gives you an opportunity to enter a new place in the market that is challenging for your competitor to duplicated (and gets people talking).

Sally offers a concrete example of increasing the prestige of a somewhat boring product line,

Say you’re a leading diaper brand. You make perfectly good diapers, ones that absorb without leaks, and have comfy Velcro on the sides. Your product benefits are necessary; however, as badges, they’re not fascinating. These badges plop in the middle of your bell curve, rather than out at the fringe. How might you create fascinating badges? If you created a line of diaper covers with Gwen Stefani’s LAMB fashion label, that would activate prestige (the trigger) and get people talking (the hallmark).

I have captured a few more of my favorite quotes from the book below:

If you want to read a bit more, check out Sally’s Change This manifesto, How To Fascinate: Why Your Brand Should Do A Shot Of Jägermeister.

Category: messaging, product
Tags: Fascinate, Sally Hogshead, social product
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Questions for Product Managers

Posted by joshua duncan – March 23, 2010

Following On Product Management and Tyner Blain’s posts, here are my answers to the product manager questions:

Tell us about the best product you’ve ever encountered? Why do you like it?
How do you know a great product manager when you meet one?
What’s your favorite interview question?
When is the best time for a start-up to hire a product manager?
What has been the defining moment in your career?
Mistakes. What was your biggest?

Tell us about the best product you’ve ever encountered? Why do you like it?

The best product ever encountered? That’s like asking what your favorite meal of all time is – there are just way too many to choose from (plus what type of product manager would I be if I didn’t name one of my products).

I will say that one of my most memorable products was my first used car, a 1978 International Scout. It may not have had air conditioning, heat, or an FM radio but it was dependable and it just worked.

How do you know a great product manager when you meet one?

The best way to get to know a product manager is to sit down for lunch. Here are a few of the things I would be looking for to identify a great product manager:

What role did she play in bringing a recent product to market? I am looking for the thought process behind the identification of the market opportunity and how she translated from concept to reality.
A story about a time when the product didn’t make it out of development or failed at launch. I am looking to hear how the product manager handled challenges and conflict.
What he doesn’t say during lunch. Does he listen or just talk? Does he make eye contact or stare off into space? How does he treat the wait staff? These are all good indicators of how he interacts with others and what he is like to work with on a project.

What’s your favorite interview question?

Besides a lunch conversation, see my comment on Scott Sehlhorst’s post for one my favorite questions.

When is the best time for a start-up to hire a product manager?

Ideally, the start-up founders play the product management role during the garage days. Once the company is out of the garage and looking to attack a wider set of customers is a great time to hire a product manager.

What has been the defining moment in your career?

My defining moment in my career (to date) is deciding not to be a materials science engineer after college but instead join a technology consulting firm. Without making this move I would have missed riding the Web 1.0 bubble and all the experiences with it. While it didn’t make me a dot com millionaire, the experience was priceless.

Mistakes. What was your biggest?

Mistakes? No mistakes here – just opportunities for improvement next time!