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"Like when I'm in the bathroom looking at my toilet paper, I'm like 'Wow! That's toilet paper?' I don't know if we appreciate how much we have."
I'm pretty sure that we don't appreciate how much we have. And I'm certain that we're not satisfied with it all. We want more, better, faster, cheaper, truer, funnier, groovier, kinder, prettier, wittier, livelier. Expectations are at an all-time high, and they're headed nowhere but up!
The Death of Wow!
And because of these rising expectations and the explosion in entrepreneurial endeavors, I herein predict the end of Wow! as we have come to know it. What "Wow!" am I referring to? This kind from Tom Peters, the prince of Wow!:
“I hate ‘exceeds customer expectations.’ Promise never to use it. ‘Exceeds expectations’ is the most pitiful pair of words uttered in the English language. Our aspirations are too low. The LA Times said of Frank Gehry the architect’s latest concert hall that it is ‘a powerful and madly exuberant work.’ Now, THAT’s the kind of thing you should be aiming for in your customer service! Aim to put a shiver up your customers’ spines. That’s what you should be trying to do with your call centers even. It’s about attitude.”
I love having my spine tingled as much as the next guy, but c'mon. Spine tingling call centers? Pah-lease. Now don't get me wrong, I love Tom Peters as much as the next rabble-rouser. But that kind of post-sale Wow! is pure hyperbole. To Wow! someone with a call center interaction after they've made the decision to do business with you implies only one thing:
The quality of their experience with you before their decision to engage with you was, at best, average. And thus, their expectations weren't very high to begin with. Right?
The Shifting of Wow!
I was perusing my July issue of BtoB magazine this past weekend, and I almost choked on my beer when I read this line in the Chasers column:
"A company's advertising represents the best opportunity it has to portray its personality."
After I cleared my throat and wiped my chin I began to consider those words - and my reaction to them - a little more critically. "Perhaps that's right," I thought. "Maybe we've reached a a point where the quality of the initial point of customer contact - be it an advertisement, sales presentation, webinar, direct mail piece, blog, concert hall, etc. - is the new competitive high bar? Maybe what we're experiencing today is the shifting of Wow! emphasis from post-sale to pre-sale? From customers to prospects?"
Today, when prospects experience any form of marketing communication, they're searching (albeit subconsciously) for two things: relevance and uniqueness. They're unimpressed with "me too" offerings and they see right through the old school, mass marketing b.s. and bribes. Even "new" doesn't mean jack to them. They're "newed" out. So they tune-out most attempts to pull them in for a later Wow! Instead, they must be strategically Wowed!, starting with the very first impression.
People are looking for meaning and life enrichment, and they're looking for it in your company's essence. But it's the personality that draws them in and entices them to dig deeper. It's the look and feel of the package. The attitude of the direct mail piece. The design of the website. The intelligence, empathy and confidence of the salesperson.
It's All Transactional Now
In his new book, Don't Just Relate - Advocate: A Blueprint for Profit in the Era of Customer Power, Professor Glen Urban implores marketers:
"Do not build expectations unless you can meet them. Trust is difficult to earn and easy to lose."
Today's marketplace demands constant innovation for the benefit of the customer. We expect it: "What have you done for me lately?" It also requires an endless flow of creative communication. We desire it: "Is it stimulating? Is it fun? 'Cause Heaven knows I could use a little fun." You can forget about "retaining customers," because they were never yours to hold onto in the first place. Start working on continuously attracting them.
Wow! the World
Leonardo Da Vinci once wrote:
"Once you've flown, you will walk the Earth with your eyes turned skyward; for there you have been, there you long to return."
The landscape has changed. The bar has been permanently raised. Fosbury flop? Old school. Think outside the box? Cliche. Wow the customer? Ditto! From here on out, it's Wow! the world.
P.S. I'm off to Europe to give a branding thinkshop this week. I won't miss the oppressive heat and humidity, but I will certainly miss you.
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» Consumer Expectations are Skyrocketing from New Persuasion
One of the categories we cover here at newpersuasion is Changing Expectations.Consumer expectations have been transformed. We want control, we want quality, we want customization - and that's only the beginning. Tom Asacker over at acleareye.com has a ... [Read More]
» Al Qaeda's Quest to Wow You from tdaxp
"Peter Nivio Zarlenga on Wow!," by Tom Asacker, A Clear Eye, 15 July 2005, http://www.acleareye.com/sandbox_wisdom/2005/07/i_ha.html (from Orbit Now!, also at New Persuasion). Tom Asacker has an interesting blog post on brands and business which has o... [Read More]
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Tom is timely, thought provoking and all about the new brand vision packaged as a Seinfeld stand up. I went to school on his ideas.
Jeff Taylor, Founder, Monster.com and CEO, Eons.
"The quality of their experience with you before their decision to engage with you was, at best, average. And thus, their expectations weren't very high to begin with. Right?"
True. But it is their expectation with customer service in general and not your customer service in specific. We are trained to have low expectation of customer service from our experience.
Posted by: Tim | July 19, 2005 at 03:57 PM
I don´t know if Wow is in decline but this post is extraordinary.
I think that when Tom uses Wow to refer to a project does not only refer to the expectation moment. I think he intends to say that many corporate decisions are conditioned by previos assumptions such us "It´s not worth the effort" or "we have already tried that". I think Tom´s Wow wants to break with all that rhetoric.
On the other side, i don´t think´this is the first time you talk us about the presale stage of marketing. And i find it highly interesting. The only purpose of advertising is to generate expectations, that´s an important statement as i see it. Yesterday i was thinking on this. I was alone and thought what had to be a good marketing strategy, to generate outstanding expectations and assume the responsability if the customers feel disappointed at the end of the process or to be more modest in the expectations. I know the "good answer" would be to generate big expectations and fulfill them, but that does not happen all the times.
Human soul is a wishing muscle, it takes us to the peaks as well as to the vales. That´s why i think expectations are a subtle fabric. And sometimes advertising and marketing are not very aware of it.
Posted by: felix gerena | July 19, 2005 at 06:07 PM
Wow the world? I was expecting something more, dare I say, revolutionary. This is an excellent post with many excellent points. We, particularly Americans, don't appreciate what we have. Expectations do change. People are looking for meaning and life enrichment. The marketplace demands constant innovation. It's all transactional now.
It’s all transactional now. This, I think, is the most profound statement of this post. This is the real message.
We don’t appreciate what we have, because what we have is not precisely what we want for a particular transaction, or action, event, use. Our expectations change depending on any number of variables specific to a particular transaction. The global marketplace demands constant innovation, because of the infinite expectations begot by transactional choices.
In a global marketplace driven by transactional choices, WOW no longer suffices, because the premise of WOW is that a delighted customer will continue to choose the WOW product, service or experience, again and again. This is not the case. Previous performance is not a factor in the Transaction Economy. At a minimum, the previous performance factor does not weigh as heavily in the Transaction Economy as it did in previous economies.
If WOW no longer suffices, what does? Whatever it is, it must transcend any one given transaction.
Posted by: Troy Worman | July 19, 2005 at 11:55 PM
europe will bring you back to earth, tom.
the end of WOW! ?
i like that.
so are the changing tides of culture...
but don't you worry. WOW! is going to come back.
in the meantime - check my COOL web design... that IS the end of WOW!
... good to be apprechiated in the states.
regards,
Posted by: jens | July 20, 2005 at 03:58 PM
This is an excellent post with many excellent points. But I do not agree on you saying goodbye to WOW! In my opinion WOW! has to do with your inner feelings towards a special service or product. For me WOW! is not dead. For me WOW! is very much alive.
Posted by: Roy Dahl | July 21, 2005 at 09:41 AM
one of the great german sociologists of our time - gerhard schulze - said, that the nature of experience (erlebnis) is that it can hardly be planned, hardly be repeated, hardly be purchased.
experience - WOW! - by nature is a side product. you will not get it by aiming at it. you get the WOW! by aiming at something else.
when you aim at WOW! it shifts.
and you get: nothing...
so what you have to do - just like in snooker - you have to play your ball via a side wall.
there is no escaping from the WOW!-society. that is the dilemma.
if you want your WOW! back - if yo want to create WOW! - you have to ignore it.
it by nature is a side-product!
and the everchanging tides of culture will keep it that way. and they will bring WOW! back to you just when you miss it the most. they will bring it back to you in a way least expected.
...
ps: follow the nervous and playfully changing face of contemporary art... it will teach you all about that.
Posted by: jens | July 22, 2005 at 06:49 AM
seriously.
no permanent focussing ever created a WOW!
(at least that is what i think/feel/believe) unless proven wrong.
focus, focus, focus - releeeeaaaase - and then - magically and unintentionally focus again...
Posted by: jens | July 22, 2005 at 02:40 PM