Ordinarily I write about bringing out the talent in other people, but for many years I focused on customer experience and marketing. It bothers me that companies don't do more to bring out the best not only in their customers, but also in their employees.
Much of this failing comes from a short-sighted, outdated view of what marketing means. Too many marketers are relying on practices that no longer make sense. Such practices annoy customers and rarely pay for themselves. For example, many social media contests ("Like us on Facebook and you may win a new car") do a better job of fooling executives than delighting customers.
If you're in marketing, I'd like to urge you to think outside of the box. If you work with marketing professionals, I urge you to push them a bit outside their comfort zone.
Here are 21 questions that I've used successfully to provoke frank conversations and much-needed improvements:
1. Are you spending enough time improving our products as opposed to our advertising?
2. When we compete on price, are we revealing a lack of faith in the value our products deliver to customers?
3. Needs-based customer segments provide a means to allocate marketing resources. Have we created such segments?
4. What knowledge do we have about specific customers that our competitors lack, and how do we use this knowledge to benefit our customers?
5. What are the three top ways we make it convenient for our customers to be loyal?
6. How could we create even more powerful ways to make it convenient for our customers to be loyal to us?
7. What percentage of our revenues come from delivering customized products or services to customers? (Customization helps us avoid competing merely on the basis of price.)
8. What percentage of our marketing budget can be quantified by accurate metrics?
9. Are we 100% truthful with customers, or do we "spin" the truth with "creative" marketing?
10. Marketing tries to make our firm look good. How do we avoid having social media call us out for fudging the truth?
11. Is outbound marketing declining in effectiveness?
12. Do we offer enough compelling content and innovative services to attract customers to us?
13. Do we encourage customers to provide feedback, and do we allow other customers to see it?
14. Should we take funds from advertising and general marketing and shift them to developing more innovative services and products?
15. Do we have active and effective teams that combine marketing, engineering and design professionals?
16. How do we encourage and respect a diverse range of opinions and skills across our marketing organization?
17. What percentage of our customer touchpoints are smart (interactive) vs. stupid (static)?
18. Do we have a mobile strategy that places a greater emphasis on serving than selling?
19. Are we consistently looking at the edges of our industry to spot disruptive technologies and business models?
20. Do we reward customers for feedback?
21. Do we reward employees for serving customers, regardless of divisions or jobs?
