Marketing Begins At Home

Poole town marketing dilemma

Poole has a problem. Town quay area is downmarket as is the shopping in the centre of town. But the yachties who show up in their big power boats and yachts don't want the same thing as the down market residents that were walking through the centre of town today. Pawn brokers and pound shops won't encourage the yachts but they only show up on weekends.

What does Poole do?

What does a tidy desk say?

My office is getting ready for an executive visit tomorrow. So the three line whip is out to clean up desks, get rid of junk, make the place look presentable.

Because I travel so much, I have very little junk. All my junk is on my laptop, so it isn't easily visible to anyone. I print very little because it is too heavy to carry.

But is a tidy work environment the sign of an organised or a sick mind?

My broken Kindle, still my friend

My Kindle broke yesterday. So not a good day. I sent an email first thing this morning, and got a phone call about 2 hours later. Lovely man with a soft Irish accent. Brilliant customer service. Asked a couple of questions, quickly got to the point where he decided to send out a replacement. Then asked a couple more questions and decided to give me a refund on my Kindle cover, which might have contributed to the problem I am having now. So a new Kindle will be on its way shortly, and I get to return the old one.

So I could be upset that I don't get to take my Kindle away for the easter weekend. But my complaint was handled so well that I don't mind. I am reassured. I know what to do when it arrives. I think that switching my content over will be straight forward.

Fantastic. Just what a brand that is invested in my long term future should do. They know I spend money with them. They know I have become very loyal to Amazon. And I feel it is the right choice. Bet Apple iPad owners don't feel this good when they speak to Apple.

My Kindle, my friend

Now if you go back far enough you will see a post where I dispute the effect of electronic books/pads on bookstores that Seth Godin prophesied. I still stand by that post, but I have now had a Kindle for 5 months and it has altered my behaviour.

I have over 70 books on my Kindle and have used about 15% of the space available. I have paid for most of them, although there are a few freebies in the mix. And it has become my primary reading device.

I like it because it can go with me anywhere and I can read on trains, planes, buses, and so on. I particularly like the screen quality. Still not quite used to a single page rather than two facing pages, but will eventually adapt.

And it has changed my purchase behaviour, partly because I don't need to find much more storage in my flat for books. I can store many more on my Kindle or my computer. And this is particularly true for books I might only read once.

The good news for publishers. I have bought a bunch of stuff that I already had in print because it was more convenient to re read in this form. The bad news is that I am still pretty upset about their pricing polices and want to do everything I can to return purchasing power to Amazon. Too many books are priced too high by the publishers.

20% VAT on electronic books is pretty nasty too. After all, what difference does the media make. Either make all books VAT rated or make them 0 rated. Don't discriminate by media, Mr Cameron.

So while my Kindle is my friend, I'm not sure its a friend for life.

The upgrade from hell - Windows 7

Its quite fashionable to bash Microsoft and normally I don't but in this case it is so easy. My wife has Vista on her machine, and when I got a new PC with Windows 7 it was so much better that I persuaded her to give it a try.

Problem 1 - Buying the software. She took 5 days to persuade Microsoft to give her a download location and send the disc out. We still don't have the disc, but yesterday I decided to give the download a try.

Problem 2 - Downloading the software. Yes we may not have the fastest BT connection in the world, but it took over 2 hours to download.

Problem 3 - Installing the software. This took over four hours to install and tied up the machine for an entire afternoon.

Problem 4 - Updates. The software that I downloaded required 51 updates. That means that Microsoft deliberately allowed me to download a significantly out of date piece of software. Because I had to remove my wireless driver (incompatible with Windows 7) I couldn't do this at the time the software was installed.

Problem 5 - failure to update. So far we have spend over 2 hours trying to get the software updates to download and install correctly. 

If I really costed my time correctly, it would have been cheaper and better to trash the current PC and go uy a new one with Windows 7 installed. Except then, I would have had to install all the applications on this PC all over again.

Shame on you Microsoft for creating such a poor experience and for not warning people BEFORE they buy that it is likely to take days. 

Last minute update - elapsed time of 17 hours (with a night's sleep included) and the computer appears to be working now. Phew. My credibility as the tech support manager for my household is in shreds, but it is finally working.

Silly Amazon Marketers

Amazon are a great organisation and I love their service. But their marketing people need to wake up.

I just bought two wonderful Kindles from the UK store. I paid £149 each for the 3G enabled ones. I should add that I also have been a UK resident for years, even though the email address I use for this stuff started in America.

So why p%$*s me off by sending me a promotional email for a US Kindle at $139????? I can do the conversion math between the two. It was so different, I had a further look. Turns out that I am comparing apples with oranges, because the $139 US model is the wifi only one. 

So because I bothered to do a little more fact checking I didn't feel that I had paid twice as much for my Kindle in the UK as my cousins in the USA did. 

You still charged me £15 or $25 for the privilege of being a UK resident. I don't feel so good about your brand now. 

But why put me through all that? Why send promo emails about your AMERICAN store to a BRITISH customer who has just BOUGHT two Kindles? All you do is p*&^s me off.

 

Terminal Five at Heathrow

Had my first experience of Terminal Five recently. The good news first. Checkin for the outbound flight was quick and easy. My bags arrived on the inbound flight and were waiting for me when I arrived at the baggage hall.

The bad news. Security was a nightmare to get through. Lots of staff, lots of lines, but incredibly slow and inefficient. The terminal itself is more than one terminal. We had to use a shuttle train to get to our gate, but that wasn't obvious because they were so busy getting you to shop and eat. The distances you have to walk are enormous. Fine for a fit person, but must be an absolute nightmare for anyone with a fractious child or an elderly person.

Even more bad news. With all of the space, they don't have enough gates, so having walked miles, you then get shunted onto a bus and driven to your airplane. Same on the return journey. They built a new terminal that doesn't have anything like enough space to park enough planes, but has tons of shopping. Oh, and don't even think of trying to connect to a different terminal at Heathrow from there. If you wanted to go from Terminal 5 to Terminal 4 you have to take a train to Terminal 1/2/3 and then wait for another train to Terminal 4. A nightmare. Avoid at all costs, even though they do seem to have sorted the baggage problem.

British Airways - the world's favourite charter airline

Flew to Baltimore recently from London on British Airways. They now charge for more than one bag but allow a bag and a laptop/purse into the cabin. So now people try and jam oversized luggage into lockers. They charge even their frequent flyer members to book a seat online more than 24 hours in advance, so I feel really special about their programme.

 

On the way out the plane was dirty, tired and with the seat back coming apart because the velcro wasn't working properly. On the way back we were told that the lighting in our seats wasn't working, so my wife changed her seat. When she got on the plane she found that her new seat didn't have a working light either. I'm not sure I want to fly an airline with maintenance standards that low. After all, how well are they looking after the important electrics and the engines?

Summary Care Records - Opt in or Opt out?

Its perhaps not surprising that our government organisations adopt the do what I say, not do what I do attitude. In this particular case, I received a very nice letter and leaflet telling me that the NHS are creating electronic Summary Care Records over the next 18 months or so.

Now best practice would indicate that consumers should be specifically asked to opt in for programmes like this. But clearly the designers of the programme have read Nudge. They know that asking for opt in will make it much harder to get people signed up. So the nice leaflet gives you three different ways to opt out, buried at the back of the leaflet and mixed in with the rest of the text. There isn't a clear form with a nice check box and prepaid envelope to fill in.

In this case, I suspect the society good does outweigh the individual privacy concern. My problem is that we are asked, as commercial organisations, to take extraordinary care not to assume the right to contact or sign people up for programmes in an unfair way. New European legislation puts a big onus on organisations to prove they have the right to make contact with individuals and take actions based on opt ins.

Our government agencies seem to believe that none of this applies to them and their programmes.

Managing both inventory AND customer expectations

Recently I have spent a lot of time and effort hunting down a particular Samsung home cinema component. I've tried online, I've tried a variety of stores, I've even tried phoning Samsung themselves. When I get home I will have a shiny new toy to play with, but it was insanely difficult to get.

It seems that Samsung has run its inventory right down in the UK in anticipation of new product announcements and new stock. That is a pretty good trick if you can do it. But they have also decided to keep an embargo on what is coming and when.

There are a whole bunch of complex but boring reasons why I really wanted this specific component, and there isn't really a direct competitor. Now I am wondering if what I bought is going to be replaced by something better and cheaper in four weeks. So instead of being truly excited, I already have some buyer's remorse.

Buying any technology product runs some risk of obsolescence. But I will be really mad at Samsung if I have paid a premium for an end of line product. And given that there is already a Samsung laptop, Samsung monitor, Samsung large screen LCD screen and now a Samsung home cinema already in my small flat, and that I am about go to and buy a second laptop and second LCD screen, I may or may not stay a Samsung loyalist in the next two months. But all my fears could be groundles. More inventory of the same component ae just on a boat and taking a while to arrive. I sure hope so. But if that is truly the case, why not just say so. "We under forecast demand. The product was more popular than we dared hope. And we will have more inventory on XX date."