Illumination | Business
Are You an Active or a Passive Consumer?
The power is in your hands
How many and which product or service providers have you interacted with in the last year that you would rate as having excellent offerings?
That is, providers that you have purchased from or know well, that go above and beyond to deliver a high quality product or service, at a great price, and with an all-round good experience?
My thinking about this elicited just a handful — less than twenty providers. I did this exercise after I experienced exceptional service from a company a few days ago, so much so that it made me consider when last I interacted with a company that impressed me so much. I came across this provider — a medium-sized health products company — on social media, and was attracted by a sale on some of their items. I had some prior knowledge of the brand since I know they are used by most high-end intermediaries in related markets around the country. I purchased two sale items online, with free shipping. A moment later a tracking link arrived by email. The next morning I woke up to find an email inviting me to read about the company ethos. It was succinct and well worded and I felt like they really knew me (good marketing, but done authentically). An hour later my products were delivered with great service. The package had my name hand-written on it. Attached to the side was a letter, welcoming me to the company and again succinctly indicating what the company stands for. On the same page and again hand-written was a list of gifted items — five sample items. Alongside this letter was another card, a gift voucher, valued at one third of what I had just spent on this package. The contents of the box lived up to all of this — great packaging and generously sized samples. The quality of the products, which I have now since used, is exceptional. I am already planning my next purchase.
Impressionable consumer? Maybe. Likely to soon be disappointed from this high starting point? Maybe too. But for now I am really impressed. This is a company that appears to deliver consistent and authentic high quality offerings at prices (even without the sale) that are well worth the value that is delivered at every point of interaction and most definitely in the actual products. In parallel to this experience, I have been waiting over ten days to hear back from a competing provider about products that I asked after and that they subsequently told me they would get back to me on. I will not follow up now.
A day after this experience I came across another company, in a totally different market, that also shot the lights out. Again, this was an initial interaction and it may be best to report after some time. But my starting impression was fantastic. This was a small start-up company providing financial services. In a world where many providers are overly complex and not able to succinctly explain their offerings to their target consumer, this company clearly expressed their offering and their method of delivering this to you. Their platform is extremely intuitive and user-friendly. Since I overlooked one detail that I wondered about, I emailed the company to check this point. Within the hour I received a personalised response (from a real person). My concerns were allayed. I signed up. An hour later I received an email welcoming me. An hour after that I received a mobile message inviting me to start use, with an incentive offering if I started today. Every communication used my name. There were no confusing messages and no hidden terms. The offering was clear and honest and worth the fee charged.
Impressionable? Maybe. Soon to be let down? Again, maybe. But for now I am again happy. This particular interaction also helped me to more clearly see that I have a competing service product that offers a fairly decent product, but that I really don’t enjoy and hence have just closed my account with. Every month they send me hefty statements with all kinds of complex disclaimers and explanations of what they are delivering to me. The product approach is not well described. And the team delivering it has so many companies on board — including much outsourcing — that it is unclear who truly has ownership.
Back to the original question. My list of companies/ suppliers has grown by two in the last two days. But my original list, as stated, is relatively concise. Included in it is a digital bank, a tourist accommodation that we keep returning to, a supermarket branch where we shop almost every other day, a small cafe where we eat weekend breakfasts, two shoe brands, a few skincare ranges, a specific car dealer (person), and a handyman. This is a colourful mix. But it highlights for me that you don’t need to operate in a specific space for people to care about what you offer them. If you do what you do well, consumers will (and should) notice. Of course we are all human and mishaps happen, but apologizing fast and correcting course in these instances and where warranted may even heighten your reputation. So it may well be possible to deliver experiences like those I describe, all the time.
People often ask me what I do in my work. I work in an area called competition and regulatory economics. My work aims to make all markets operate well and competitively for consumers. It does this by ensuring that there are no artificial reasons why competitors cannot enter into markets (think unhelpful regulation, advantages for companies who can buy up their competitors due to deep pockets, and unreasonable lock-in terms). It also does this by ensuring that where there is little competition, companies cannot abuse their positions by selling consumers unfairly priced products of poor quality. The end aim should always be that you — the consumer — have the best shot at getting greatly priced offerings of high quality. Then you might also have the opportunity to have the experiences that I describe above — of being astounded by great service providers.
That this field of work exists is perhaps encouraging if you are a business owner or any person delivering a product or service to a consumer. But this is only one side of the puzzle. As I describe above, this will only work if you are also at the same time an active consumer. A consumer that expects high quality products and services and that votes accordingly, by supporting companies that provide this, and moving away from companies that don’t. In a world of paid influencers and targeted marketing, you really need to go the extra mile as a consumer to actively find out who you are dealing with and whether they provide you with what you believe is reasonable to expect. The latter must still be emphasized — one has to be reasonable in determining suboptimal service.
My husband is the ultimate active consumer. When he receives poor service from a provider, he shops around and swiftly moves. I often joke that his search costs are zero. I am naturally a bit lazier in this regard, often choosing “the lesser evil” by avoiding switching hassles. But his standards have rubbed off on me over time and now I also find myself conscious of every company that I interact with, across all markets. The same applies to consumption of things that I don’t buy with money but with my data and attention, particularly social media. I encourage you to be an active consumer and let this rub off onto others. And if you are the company, look for gaps where people seem to find themselves with no alternatives, use people’s names (unless they prefer anonymity), know what you stand for, take ownership, and deliver something that makes people feel great about the experience!