Servicing the Customer

I survived the latest Storm of the Century in March by escaping to Chicago earlier than originally planned. You remember that storm, the one that was predicted to be the worst in three decades, the one that was going to dump anywhere from one to three feet across the entire Northeast — the one that proved to be little more than a two-day inconvenience for most of the region.

Chalk up another one to “the media,” which had airports, schools, and businesses worriedly shutting down before the snow even began to fall. Add it to the growing list of journalistic transgressions against society — right underneath “tried to start a recession,” which I guess is our fault, too.

I, for one, am glad the media got a little carried away with itself on the storm. Otherwise, I may very well have missed Update 2001, a fate some of my East Coast brethren unfortunately suffered this year. And there is always plenty of food for thought at the Promotion Marketing Association’s big event.

One thought that’s still gnawing at me is a comment made by McDonald’s senior vp Larry Zwain, who recently relinquished his duties as head of U.S. marketing to take a post in the Asia/Pacific region (See our People page for more details.) During his keynote speech, Zwain offered a number of great tips on “Giving Asset Value to Your Brand.” (Past PMA chairman John Zamoiski says he can’t remember the last time he “actually took notes” during a conference presentation.) And he brought along three decades worth of image advertising proving how successful the company has been in establishing not only one of the world’s best-known brands, but one of the most-loved as well.

Zwain made one comment, however, that stuck in my craw like an overcooked Big Mac: In discussing the company’s attributes, he cited employees as a key to the company’s success — you know, the employees who never smile, who recite pleasantries in tones befitting the manager-mandated niceties that they are, and who, if the circumstances are right, will occasionally take your order accurately.

This, of course, is not just Zwain’s opinion but one of McDonald’s corporate mantras. In fact, Update 2000 featured a McDonald’s executive gushing about the “brand ambassadors” who served as the frontline of the company’s marketing strategy. The frontline? Does that make the brand attributes surliness and inattention?

To be sure, there are areas of the world in which the “We Love to See You Smile” tagline is followed as much behind the counter as it is in marketing meetings; when Zwain utters those words at a Tokyo marketing conference, for instance, he’ll probably be a lot closer to the truth. (Unless things have changed dramatically in the last 10 years, McDonald’s order-takers in Japan are still the friendliest in the QSR business.)

Here in the U.S., those words can’t sound anything but disingenuous. Most of the McDonald’s employees I’ve en-countered act as if they’d rather see me bleed than smile. (And not that I blame them. Pay me minimum wage to stand behind a counter taking orders from ungrateful consumers and I wouldn’t be winning any congeniality awards, either).

“Customer service” is becoming synonymous with marketing. The Internet Rush was built on it: Here, finally, was a medium that would let consumers get everything they wanted immediately. Course, most Internet-based operations didn’t have the infrastructure to back up the promise. Traditional retailers know it, too: Speaking at last fall’s PROMO Expo in Chicago, Toys “R” Us marketing chief Warren Kornblum was a little franker than the McDonald’s folks, admitting that his chain’s in-store service left a little something to be desired and promising that TRU was addressing the issue.

The great marketers of the next millennium will be the ones who implement strategies using service as the core and promotion as the grease to keep the wheels of customer interaction humming. Advertising will still be used to build image, which in most cases will entail conveying the brand’s service promise. In a business world like that, “We Love to See You Smile” will make a nice tagline.

But there’s going to have to be some truth to it.

Still Waiting

Last November, I mailed in a reply card to Direct Merchandising, Inc., Carrolton, TX, which had informed me through a Madison Direct mailer that I had won “a 35-millimeter quickshot camera” and a bevy of accessories (December 2000 PROMO).

Since I obviously was looking to cast some aspersions on what seemed like a hokey deal, I thought it only fair to inform readers that I received a postcard from the company in early March. Seems they never received my reply, but are holding my gift for a little while longer to give me more time. So here we go again.