Give Me Simplicity!-The Cry From Consumers in Every Aspect of Life
Think of the traditional companies thriving in this downturn. The Southwest Airlines, and The McDonald’s of the world. Why? We think simplicity is part of the success equation. So what’s working for hot online properties like Amazon or Mint.com? They go a step farther. They’re a new kind of “one-stop-shop” for consumers, allowing them to access whole segments of their lives with one single sign-on.
Amazon’s mission – “To be the earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.” – gives you freedom to choose what you shop for online without being locked-in to a specific product, brand, or site. Mint.com’s approach is to connect you auto-magically with all of your banking relationships. The result: bypass of individual banking destination sites, a singular view of your entire financial life, actionable analytics on spending patterns, and better control over the information you get.
Both companies create a Unified Experience relaying the notion that you, the consumer, know best who you are, how, when, and by what means you want your service interactions to work. So while most businesses track customers through a CRM system, these companies flip the concept to that of Service Relationship Management – so at last you control interactions across a spectrum of otherwise painful individual shopping or financial experiences defined ‘about’ you, rather than ‘for’ you.
By embracing connections from SRM platforms, companies inevitably shift some of their control to the consumer in the way Amazon and Mint do. But the big benefit for those same companies is that SRM allows the consumer to get the simplicity they crave in a world awash in user names and logins. The category allows the consumer to decide for themselves what is important in their lives and in their daily interactions.
So are companies hesitant to release control to the consumer? Do they fear a power shift to the consumer will loosen their hold on brand and loyalty? We think innovative firms will respond to consumer cries for simple values in life — more time, more control, and more enablement — and life decisions delivered through simple technologies that un-tether them from computers.
In the end, service experience wins every time, doesn’t it?