Why this is the perfect time to cure customer pain points.
There are lessons to be learned from the Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer – the 1964 TV special version with the Abominable Snowman, Hermey the dentist-curious Elf and Rudy McGlowyface in the titular role.
When people are cheering the murder of a healthcare CEO, the pitchforks are out. What began as righteous indignation has metamorphized into a new age of rage. The Abominable Snowman has a toothache.
This is an opportunity. Here’s your chance to play Hermey the Dentist Elf and yank the throbbing tooth from the metaphorically aggrieved Snowman. Here’s your chance to create a grateful customer by removing pain points.
They never won an advertising award – I got fired for trying – another story – but Sleep Country became the dominant mattress seller by systematically removing pain points from the customer experience. Getting the mattress home pain? Removed by free delivery. Getting rid of the old mattress pain? Cured by taking it away. Insecurity about liking the mattress? All fixed with a 90-day sleep guarantee. Price pain? Lowest price guarantee. And they advertised the bananas out of all of it.
What about the slightly unpopular pain reliever? Like the casual restaurant chain that inflamed parents by removing highchairs to give the majority of their guests a family-restaurant-free date night experience. It worked, which goes to show you, sometimes the cure is gonna hurt a little.
Your customer has a screaming angry toothache called getting ripped off at every turn with a side of lack-of-empowerment and creeping disillusionment. It’s time to get out your novocaine and plyers.
Start looking for the pain by asking questions and walking in your customers’ shoes. All of which can be as simple as asking around and social media monitoring. Look at industry traditions, find the “that’s the way we’ve always done it” situations and start breaking those down. Spy on your customers while they go through the purchase process. Figure out what bugs them, what’s difficult and what they expect of you – and what they don’t.
Relieving all this pain demands extraction of something deeply rooted. Which means this is a company effort. Nothing that Sleep Country did was a traditional marketing function, it was operational. But the outcomes of those operational disruptions generated a bullet-proof brand position: Sleep Country = Easy.
Be sure that you’re creating a real pain-relieving benefit, prove it, talk about it, give your customers the opportunity to talk about it too. Don’t make it a limited thing, make it a policy. Stake your reputation on it. Be brave and audacious. Pull that tooth, make friends with the giant furry monster. Because the one who does gets a sleigh load of presents under the tree.
BTW: The Abominable Snowman scared the living bejeebers out of 6-year-old me. And 12-year-old me. And today old me.