“Get Better or Get Beaten!”
Robert Slater
McGraw-Hill (Updated Edition), 2001
Whether you agree or disagree with Jack Welch, chairman and CEO of General Electric – his ways, his grit, and his surprising moves – we can agree on one thing: He made such a huge success of GE.
For example: GE had annual revenues of $112 billion when it acquired Honeywell in the fall of 2000, adding yet $24 billion to sales. Its profits, at nearly $11 billion a year, grew by another $2.5 billion. As they say, “You cannot argue against success.”
So, whether you are a Jack Welch admirer or critic, you will find his thoughts useful. If you will not emulate him, you will prepare yourself to deal with a competitor using “Welchisms” against you. Since Welch can be your mentor or tormentor, you cannot ignore his book, “Get Better or Get Beaten.”
The book, subtitled “29 Leadership Secrets from GE’s Jack Welch,” is a distilled version of a book, also authored by Robert Slater, titled “Jack Welch and the GE Way.” But, whether you have read the thicker counterpart or not, this book will suffice to give you access to the valuable thoughts of a CEO who “has reinvented his company at every turn,” according to Slater.
Whenever you visit a bookstore, you encounter titles that promise you “immutable laws of marketing,” “irrefutable laws of leadership,” “unchangeable laws,”
“secrets of powerful speakers,” “100 unbreakable laws of business success,” etc. Question is: Why did the author decide to join the bandwagon and risked a simplistic (or oversimplified) presentation of Jack Welch’s decisions?
Slater’s answer: “I overheard one executive say that the GE books were interesting, but all were slow going. That comment stayed with me for days, until the idea for Get Better or Get Beaten! Hit me. What the market needs, I thought, was Jack Welch in a nutshell.”
You have two ways of reading the book. One, you go to your quiet corner and read every page from beginning to end, with a highlighter on hand. Two, you turn on the television for a B Movie, or watch a re-run of “American Beauty” – and you pick up nuggets of this great American CEO. I tried both approaches.
The first approach primed me to get the thought and background of Welch’s insights. I missed the lengthier book, though, which has the standard background, analysis, tables to illustrate points and to give them perspective. I implemented the second approach in two places – at the waiting room in a client’s office and in the living room – and I discovered that I was absorbing much more. I was virtually snatching valuable time to get nuggets from Jack Welch!
Try it. You turn a page, get page 59, and you chance upon this catchy title: “Use Acquisition to Make the Quantum Leap.” It was all about the two largest acquisitions in GE’s history: RCA in 1985 and Honeywell in October 2000. Expectedly, you will read on.
Try page 99, and you get Leadership Secret 16, which runs: “Act Like a Small Company.” Jack Welch could have basked in the magnitude and vastness of GE as monolith. But, the author says, Welch “did away with those layers of management that were clogging the GE machine.”
And he quotes Welch: “Small companies move faster. They know the penalties for hesitation in the marketplace… With fewer layers and less camouflage, the leaders show up very clearly on the screen.”
The expected weakness of a menu of thoughts by a CEO like Jack Welch became its strength: The book comes fresh -- like a well-timed, unexpected advice from a friend or a serendipitous chance encounter with a startling truth! All the same, the book gives you stolen moments with one of the most successful CEOs the world over. And such moments, as we know, are treasured and well-remembered.
But, the success of “Get Better or Get Beaten!” does not necessarily rub off on books that simply enumerate “a list of how to’s”. Why? Because this Jack Welch distillation has suitably given background to every leadership secret, and thus illuminates the point each time. Top business biographer Slater gets part of the credit.
For example, Leadership Secret 3 says, “Managing Less Is Managing Better.” Lest you abdicate the role of management, Slater volunteers this explanation: “Jack Welch wants managers to do less monitoring, less supervising, to give their employees more latitude, and he wants more decision-making at the lower levels of the company.”
Slater hastens to add: “He (Welch) is not saying, however, that managers should just go off to the golf course at noon every day.”
The book offers leadership in four parts in clusters of thought. At any rate, you can have random readings every day.
When you have “Daily Bread” for your devotional readings, and you have Jack Welch in your clutch bag for every conceivable decision opportunity, you are well prepared for every business day. You will never know the moment you need it. The answer could just be a page away.
Sunday, May 27, 2001
Sunday, May 20, 2001
Executives must re-discover the joy (not task) of writing
“Writing the Natural Way”
Gabriele Rico
Penguin Putnam, 2000
Somewhere in our growing up years, we lost the joy of creating and the pleasure of writing. Someone wisely said that we were all artists and poets when we were young. And then most of us ceased to be.
“When we were little,” says Peter Elbow (“Writing with Power), “we had no difficulty sounding the way we felt; thus most little children speak and write with real voice.”
We saw the rainbow -- and we captured its kaleidoscopic hues in pastel drawings and in light verses. The sight and scent of a rose drove us to the nearest bench to record in a sketch or essay an overpowering sense of beauty – moved by poet John Keats’ exultation: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
A case of first love, a certain melancholy or a rush of exuberance finds itself in broad strokes in a drawing, an uncommon intensity in poetry or a simple, but nonetheless inspired, melody.
Why did the artist, writer or musician in each one of us leave us without saying good bye? And soon we realized we could neither draw nor write; we could neither etch an image nor compose a song.
Experts on the creative process explain that we have over-developed our critical thinking – the left brain, and under-utilized our creative part – the right brain. Our schools taught us to labor over an outline before we could even write – and thus creativity flew out of the window!
William Forrester in the movie, “Finding Forrester,” gave this valuable advice to a young writer – “Write and write, and think afterwards” – and then your piece starts taking shape. Two Harvard educators concluded that “writing is a guide to thinking” – not the other way around.
A valuable contribution to the joyful rediscovery of writing as a natural creative process is the book titled “Writing the Natural Way,” authored by Gabriele Rico who has been leading writing workshops and discussing recent findings on brain research as they apply to learning. Sub-titled “Using Right Brain Techniques to Release Your Expressive Powers,” the book devotes 14 chapters to unleash our creative energy for writing – almost effortlessly.
Listen to Ms. Rico: “Natural writing is first of all an act of self-definition of what you know, what you discover, what you wonder about, what you feel, see, hear, touch, taste – all of which reflects the many-faceted crystal that you are.” She also expresses this lament:
“Our loss (of interest in writing) begins in school, when the process of writing is taught to us in fragments: mechanics, grammar, and vocabulary,” she points out. Not to mention our teachers’ preoccupation with sentence diagrams and other mechanistic approaches that only succeeded in giving us dread, not joy, in writing.
The author says we have “Design” and “Sign” minds. To simplify the explanation, she uses a metaphor: Your Design mind attends to the melody of life, whereas your Sign mind attends to the notes that compose the melodies.”
Don’t be intimidated by these distinctions, because after these are settled, the book brings you to experience writing -- the natural way. The chapter on “clustering” gives us an easy way to expand and deepen an idea. The author calls it an “associative brainstorming process.”
On example used is the word “airplane.” Through clustering process, ideas like “freedom,” “power,” “danger,” and “sexual attraction” branched out of the “airplane.” Branching out further are many more ideas. You write these down and you will not run out of ideas – a sure antidote to mental block.
This book, as it fuses both the science and art of writing, deals with such interesting topics as language rhythms, use of metaphors, finding the unifying thread, appreciating nuances, creative tension, brevity and re-visions, and designing constellations.
Is this the preoccupation of professional writers? The author says that writing is a natural ability inherent in everyone, as she disputes the concept of a “born writer.” She declares: “This fallacy puts the born writer in a different category from most of us – or so we think – since we have to struggle so hard with writing.”
She delivers a liberating truth to all of us, including executives who have long given up writing: “The innate human need that underlies all writing, the need to give shape to your experience, is a gift we all possess from earliest childhood.
How to read the book? Scan it first to appreciate the entire sweep. And then follow the exercises – as easy as calisthenics (and this is mental). You will be reassured that your have been applying the right principles on writing. Then, you realize writing is kid’s play. And then you discover the joy – of writing.
Gabriele Rico
Penguin Putnam, 2000
Somewhere in our growing up years, we lost the joy of creating and the pleasure of writing. Someone wisely said that we were all artists and poets when we were young. And then most of us ceased to be.
“When we were little,” says Peter Elbow (“Writing with Power), “we had no difficulty sounding the way we felt; thus most little children speak and write with real voice.”
We saw the rainbow -- and we captured its kaleidoscopic hues in pastel drawings and in light verses. The sight and scent of a rose drove us to the nearest bench to record in a sketch or essay an overpowering sense of beauty – moved by poet John Keats’ exultation: “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
A case of first love, a certain melancholy or a rush of exuberance finds itself in broad strokes in a drawing, an uncommon intensity in poetry or a simple, but nonetheless inspired, melody.
Why did the artist, writer or musician in each one of us leave us without saying good bye? And soon we realized we could neither draw nor write; we could neither etch an image nor compose a song.
Experts on the creative process explain that we have over-developed our critical thinking – the left brain, and under-utilized our creative part – the right brain. Our schools taught us to labor over an outline before we could even write – and thus creativity flew out of the window!
William Forrester in the movie, “Finding Forrester,” gave this valuable advice to a young writer – “Write and write, and think afterwards” – and then your piece starts taking shape. Two Harvard educators concluded that “writing is a guide to thinking” – not the other way around.
A valuable contribution to the joyful rediscovery of writing as a natural creative process is the book titled “Writing the Natural Way,” authored by Gabriele Rico who has been leading writing workshops and discussing recent findings on brain research as they apply to learning. Sub-titled “Using Right Brain Techniques to Release Your Expressive Powers,” the book devotes 14 chapters to unleash our creative energy for writing – almost effortlessly.
Listen to Ms. Rico: “Natural writing is first of all an act of self-definition of what you know, what you discover, what you wonder about, what you feel, see, hear, touch, taste – all of which reflects the many-faceted crystal that you are.” She also expresses this lament:
“Our loss (of interest in writing) begins in school, when the process of writing is taught to us in fragments: mechanics, grammar, and vocabulary,” she points out. Not to mention our teachers’ preoccupation with sentence diagrams and other mechanistic approaches that only succeeded in giving us dread, not joy, in writing.
The author says we have “Design” and “Sign” minds. To simplify the explanation, she uses a metaphor: Your Design mind attends to the melody of life, whereas your Sign mind attends to the notes that compose the melodies.”
Don’t be intimidated by these distinctions, because after these are settled, the book brings you to experience writing -- the natural way. The chapter on “clustering” gives us an easy way to expand and deepen an idea. The author calls it an “associative brainstorming process.”
On example used is the word “airplane.” Through clustering process, ideas like “freedom,” “power,” “danger,” and “sexual attraction” branched out of the “airplane.” Branching out further are many more ideas. You write these down and you will not run out of ideas – a sure antidote to mental block.
This book, as it fuses both the science and art of writing, deals with such interesting topics as language rhythms, use of metaphors, finding the unifying thread, appreciating nuances, creative tension, brevity and re-visions, and designing constellations.
Is this the preoccupation of professional writers? The author says that writing is a natural ability inherent in everyone, as she disputes the concept of a “born writer.” She declares: “This fallacy puts the born writer in a different category from most of us – or so we think – since we have to struggle so hard with writing.”
She delivers a liberating truth to all of us, including executives who have long given up writing: “The innate human need that underlies all writing, the need to give shape to your experience, is a gift we all possess from earliest childhood.
How to read the book? Scan it first to appreciate the entire sweep. And then follow the exercises – as easy as calisthenics (and this is mental). You will be reassured that your have been applying the right principles on writing. Then, you realize writing is kid’s play. And then you discover the joy – of writing.
Sunday, May 13, 2001
Wanted: ‘Social Capital’ Director to direct organizational growth
“In Good Company”
Don Cohen & Laurence Prusak
Harvard Business School Press, 2001
When two people chat by the water cooler on company premises, is that a productive use of company time? When a group shares lunch and exchanges gossip at the cafeteria, is that an activity that achieves company goals?
When an executive resists laying off people even if his factory is burned down, is that needlessly sentimental or plain good business sense?
Our answers could be predictable: A chat by the water cooler is relaxing all right but by no means “productive.” Gossip only feeds the rumor mill – and thus hinders, not promotes, company objectives. And that executive is so sentimental he is not needed in a no-nonsense factory.
But, surprise! The book, “In Good Company,” says a relaxing time by the cooler is an investment in “social capital.” And a casual swap of stories over lunch deepens a relationship, builds trust and strengthens the ties that bind employees.
And that executive is a real-life one: He is CEO Aaron Feuersten of Malden Mills whose factory was destroyed by fire in December 1995. Facilities and equipment that produced the company’s popular polar fleece cold-weather fabrics went up in smoke. And suddenly, 3,000 workers had no work to do.
But Mr. Feuersten decided to keep them and to pay their salaries while the company began building a new factory. Was he ridiculed? No. Media hailed him as a heroic and humane business leader, earning him an invitation to the White House.
The authors of “In Good Company” say:
“That the public and business world would consider Feuersten’s action so extraordinary and apparently ‘unbusinesslike’ suggests that many people do not yet understand the value of social capital in organizations.
“It takes nothing away from the humaneness of Feuersten’s behavior to say that his decision made good business sense… By being loyal to his people, he ensured their even greater commitment to doing good work for the company.”
What is social capital? The book quotes a Harvard political scientist, Robert Putnam: “Social capital refers to features of social organizations such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.”
Long gone were the days when labor was a mere cog in a money-making enterprise. Henry Ford, credited for the popularization of the assembly line, belonged to that age when we had a mechanistic view of organizations. His lament, however, hinted at the need to revise such mechanistic mindset, when he said: “Why is it that when I buy a pair of hands, I always get a human being as well?”
This book is all about humans inside and outside the organization, how they relate to, support, trust and work with one another. It traces the origin of the idea of social capital from 1916 to the 21st century when the primacy of people and societies have been underscored – proving once again John Naisbitt’s famous declaration that “in the midst of hi-tech, humanity asserts itself with hi-touch.”
What is the contribution of this book? The book gives us a new lens by which we can truly comprehend what we had earlier attempted to explain about the primacy of people in organizations. With several studies on organizations and economies that succeeded – and failed – the authors have the same conclusion: Leaders and executives who invested in social capital fared much better.
The book also provides an in-depth discussion on the emergence of networks as compared to communities. It would benefit the readers to apply their own experiences to this discussion – and see greater potential for nurturing such networks for present and future use.
The emergence of social capital as a force for corporate growth follows a positive trend toward emphasizing the value of people. First, we successfully elevated human resources management as a fitting tribute to “corporate heroes” – who else? And then, we advocated the evolution of a “corporate culture” – placing people within the context social relationships.
And then, in this century, the term “social capital” comes in to take the place of – but includes – human resources and corporate culture to effectively deliver one central message: Every organization must invest in social capital – as it invests in land, equipment and technology.
Words have their way of illuminating truths that were hitherto hidden in corners or overshadowed by earlier concepts. “Social capital” – by the phrase alone – prompts our minds to reassess such intangibles as trust, community, connection, conversation and loyalty. On trust, Peter Drucker has this to say: “Organizations are no longer built on force but on trust.”
And, as this book has shown, it truly makes good business sense to nurture such social capital elements to make work meaningful – and thus to release tremendous human energies. Herein lies the harmony between humanity and business.
Don Cohen & Laurence Prusak
Harvard Business School Press, 2001
When two people chat by the water cooler on company premises, is that a productive use of company time? When a group shares lunch and exchanges gossip at the cafeteria, is that an activity that achieves company goals?
When an executive resists laying off people even if his factory is burned down, is that needlessly sentimental or plain good business sense?
Our answers could be predictable: A chat by the water cooler is relaxing all right but by no means “productive.” Gossip only feeds the rumor mill – and thus hinders, not promotes, company objectives. And that executive is so sentimental he is not needed in a no-nonsense factory.
But, surprise! The book, “In Good Company,” says a relaxing time by the cooler is an investment in “social capital.” And a casual swap of stories over lunch deepens a relationship, builds trust and strengthens the ties that bind employees.
And that executive is a real-life one: He is CEO Aaron Feuersten of Malden Mills whose factory was destroyed by fire in December 1995. Facilities and equipment that produced the company’s popular polar fleece cold-weather fabrics went up in smoke. And suddenly, 3,000 workers had no work to do.
But Mr. Feuersten decided to keep them and to pay their salaries while the company began building a new factory. Was he ridiculed? No. Media hailed him as a heroic and humane business leader, earning him an invitation to the White House.
The authors of “In Good Company” say:
“That the public and business world would consider Feuersten’s action so extraordinary and apparently ‘unbusinesslike’ suggests that many people do not yet understand the value of social capital in organizations.
“It takes nothing away from the humaneness of Feuersten’s behavior to say that his decision made good business sense… By being loyal to his people, he ensured their even greater commitment to doing good work for the company.”
What is social capital? The book quotes a Harvard political scientist, Robert Putnam: “Social capital refers to features of social organizations such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefit.”
Long gone were the days when labor was a mere cog in a money-making enterprise. Henry Ford, credited for the popularization of the assembly line, belonged to that age when we had a mechanistic view of organizations. His lament, however, hinted at the need to revise such mechanistic mindset, when he said: “Why is it that when I buy a pair of hands, I always get a human being as well?”
This book is all about humans inside and outside the organization, how they relate to, support, trust and work with one another. It traces the origin of the idea of social capital from 1916 to the 21st century when the primacy of people and societies have been underscored – proving once again John Naisbitt’s famous declaration that “in the midst of hi-tech, humanity asserts itself with hi-touch.”
What is the contribution of this book? The book gives us a new lens by which we can truly comprehend what we had earlier attempted to explain about the primacy of people in organizations. With several studies on organizations and economies that succeeded – and failed – the authors have the same conclusion: Leaders and executives who invested in social capital fared much better.
The book also provides an in-depth discussion on the emergence of networks as compared to communities. It would benefit the readers to apply their own experiences to this discussion – and see greater potential for nurturing such networks for present and future use.
The emergence of social capital as a force for corporate growth follows a positive trend toward emphasizing the value of people. First, we successfully elevated human resources management as a fitting tribute to “corporate heroes” – who else? And then, we advocated the evolution of a “corporate culture” – placing people within the context social relationships.
And then, in this century, the term “social capital” comes in to take the place of – but includes – human resources and corporate culture to effectively deliver one central message: Every organization must invest in social capital – as it invests in land, equipment and technology.
Words have their way of illuminating truths that were hitherto hidden in corners or overshadowed by earlier concepts. “Social capital” – by the phrase alone – prompts our minds to reassess such intangibles as trust, community, connection, conversation and loyalty. On trust, Peter Drucker has this to say: “Organizations are no longer built on force but on trust.”
And, as this book has shown, it truly makes good business sense to nurture such social capital elements to make work meaningful – and thus to release tremendous human energies. Herein lies the harmony between humanity and business.
Sunday, May 06, 2001
Move Over, Customer Satisfaction; enter emotional 'Touchpoints'
“Emotion Marketing”
Scott Robinette and Claire Brand
McGraw-Hill, 2001
You stride into a bookstore looking for a greeting card. You don’t look for just any card – you have a Hallmark or a Unicef card in mind. You want to discuss business over a cup of coffee, you instinctively tell your associate to meet you at Café Figaro or Starbucks, ruling out all other options. Your friend asks you to switch to another t-shirt brand, cheaper but of the same quality, but you resist any and all enticements and say: “No, I will stick to Polo or Lacoste.”
Are you a case of a satisfied customer, intelligent buyer or brand loyalist? Customer satisfaction does not explain insistence on a product any time and any place. Intelligent buying cannot comprehend near blind attachment to a brand, glossing over such rational product attributes as price and quality. And brand loyalty is so one-sidedly focused on the brand that it fails to see the strong emotional relationship between seller and buyer – where even the lines between them vanish.
There must be a way to interpret this bond between product and customer beyond the confining concepts and jargon of marketing – where points of view have to shift: Are we product- or customer-oriented? The book, “Emotion Marketing,” provides the answer: A company or product can actually establish an “emotional connection” with customers – which the book calls “touchpoints.”
We have actually gone a long long way in our search for the best strategy to build loyalty among our customers. First, we were content with achieving customer satisfaction. Then, we improved on it and we said, we should “exceed customer satisfaction.”
Thenceforth came along the concept of the firm being “customer-driven” where even complaints are not only welcome but are sought as a matter of policy. Then, the brand gurus insisted that it is all about “brands.” From “brand awareness,” the marketing objective deepened to “brand loyalty”. And, from that level, it further acquired depth and breadth in “brand equity” – a concept where the brand has pre-eminence over all other brands and prior claim to the customer’s mindset.
And here comes Emotion Marketing, a phrase that actually does not capture the concept of “connecting emotionally” with one’s customers, where the line between company and customer blurs and where a business relationship rises to the level of a long-term friendship, for lack of any better term – to describe the “caring” by one and “loyalty” by the other.
Hallmark, the main focus of this book – but occasionally shared by Harley Davidson, Carlton Hotel, Hertz Rent-a-Car – conducted a study how four variables can help predict customer loyalty. The four variables are: Caring, Trust, Length of Patronage and Overall Satisfaction. The study’s findings: Caring is twice as important as any of the other three variables.
These words do not seem to describe a business partnership, but it does for Hallmark: “The more a company shows it cares, the more loyal customers appear to be. Just as in friendships, consistent demonstrations of caring build trust, encourage comfort, and eliminate the need for defenses, allowing a relationship to take place.”
“Genuine caring produces the deep, fertile ground that allows a relationship to put down roots,” the authors point out, seemingly speaking of something deeper than business. And then, back to business, they theorize: “Caring is that bridge between satisfaction and loyalty.”
The authors explain the firm’s Emotion Marketing with “The Hallmark Value Star” – which is made up of five elements: the rational side – Product (quality) and Money (price); and the emotional side – Equity (trust), Experience (relationship) and Energy (convenience). All five elements delve deeper into how Hallmark builds loyalty and, chances are, our companies in the Philippines have been using such elements in varying degrees.
One interesting discussion is the element of Energy in Hallmark’s Value Star which is summed up thus: “Conserving people’s energy also sends the message that a company values its customers. Wasting their time, on the other hand, says a company does not care.”
The book illustrates this point on how Hertz’s Gold Program has made it easy on car renters to pick up and return their cars – not only saving their time but, as a result of processing speed, leave the customers more time for what they love to do: hit the road. This should be instructive to businesses here which seem to be wasting people’s time waiting in long queues to buy a merchandise, to retrieve an equipment for repair, or even to get an update on your credit card balance! So much emotional energy is spent when tempers rise, you know.
This book introduces a concept that has worked for Hallmark whose Gold Crown Card Program is the largest loyalty program the world over: 12 million active members! You may adopt other slogans, but if you are somewhere near believing – “When you care enough to send the very best” – you will be another success story. Hallmark that.
Scott Robinette and Claire Brand
McGraw-Hill, 2001
You stride into a bookstore looking for a greeting card. You don’t look for just any card – you have a Hallmark or a Unicef card in mind. You want to discuss business over a cup of coffee, you instinctively tell your associate to meet you at Café Figaro or Starbucks, ruling out all other options. Your friend asks you to switch to another t-shirt brand, cheaper but of the same quality, but you resist any and all enticements and say: “No, I will stick to Polo or Lacoste.”
Are you a case of a satisfied customer, intelligent buyer or brand loyalist? Customer satisfaction does not explain insistence on a product any time and any place. Intelligent buying cannot comprehend near blind attachment to a brand, glossing over such rational product attributes as price and quality. And brand loyalty is so one-sidedly focused on the brand that it fails to see the strong emotional relationship between seller and buyer – where even the lines between them vanish.
There must be a way to interpret this bond between product and customer beyond the confining concepts and jargon of marketing – where points of view have to shift: Are we product- or customer-oriented? The book, “Emotion Marketing,” provides the answer: A company or product can actually establish an “emotional connection” with customers – which the book calls “touchpoints.”
We have actually gone a long long way in our search for the best strategy to build loyalty among our customers. First, we were content with achieving customer satisfaction. Then, we improved on it and we said, we should “exceed customer satisfaction.”
Thenceforth came along the concept of the firm being “customer-driven” where even complaints are not only welcome but are sought as a matter of policy. Then, the brand gurus insisted that it is all about “brands.” From “brand awareness,” the marketing objective deepened to “brand loyalty”. And, from that level, it further acquired depth and breadth in “brand equity” – a concept where the brand has pre-eminence over all other brands and prior claim to the customer’s mindset.
And here comes Emotion Marketing, a phrase that actually does not capture the concept of “connecting emotionally” with one’s customers, where the line between company and customer blurs and where a business relationship rises to the level of a long-term friendship, for lack of any better term – to describe the “caring” by one and “loyalty” by the other.
Hallmark, the main focus of this book – but occasionally shared by Harley Davidson, Carlton Hotel, Hertz Rent-a-Car – conducted a study how four variables can help predict customer loyalty. The four variables are: Caring, Trust, Length of Patronage and Overall Satisfaction. The study’s findings: Caring is twice as important as any of the other three variables.
These words do not seem to describe a business partnership, but it does for Hallmark: “The more a company shows it cares, the more loyal customers appear to be. Just as in friendships, consistent demonstrations of caring build trust, encourage comfort, and eliminate the need for defenses, allowing a relationship to take place.”
“Genuine caring produces the deep, fertile ground that allows a relationship to put down roots,” the authors point out, seemingly speaking of something deeper than business. And then, back to business, they theorize: “Caring is that bridge between satisfaction and loyalty.”
The authors explain the firm’s Emotion Marketing with “The Hallmark Value Star” – which is made up of five elements: the rational side – Product (quality) and Money (price); and the emotional side – Equity (trust), Experience (relationship) and Energy (convenience). All five elements delve deeper into how Hallmark builds loyalty and, chances are, our companies in the Philippines have been using such elements in varying degrees.
One interesting discussion is the element of Energy in Hallmark’s Value Star which is summed up thus: “Conserving people’s energy also sends the message that a company values its customers. Wasting their time, on the other hand, says a company does not care.”
The book illustrates this point on how Hertz’s Gold Program has made it easy on car renters to pick up and return their cars – not only saving their time but, as a result of processing speed, leave the customers more time for what they love to do: hit the road. This should be instructive to businesses here which seem to be wasting people’s time waiting in long queues to buy a merchandise, to retrieve an equipment for repair, or even to get an update on your credit card balance! So much emotional energy is spent when tempers rise, you know.
This book introduces a concept that has worked for Hallmark whose Gold Crown Card Program is the largest loyalty program the world over: 12 million active members! You may adopt other slogans, but if you are somewhere near believing – “When you care enough to send the very best” – you will be another success story. Hallmark that.
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