THE NEW MARKETING LANDSCAPE: Perspective on two ideas changing marketing today.

AuthorShankman, Peter

Let me tell you a story about a guy in an airport. I was flying home from Dubai a few months ago, after a stressful week of nonstop meetings throughout the Middle East. Upon getting to the airport, there was a general sense of mass confusion, as there usually is at international airports. Flights were late, there were storms, people were unhappy. I saw a line a mile long at my airline's counter, and even the business class line was stretched from Dubai into what looked like neighboring Saudi Arabia.

As I stood there, wondering if it would be quicker to walk back to the United States, someone came up to me, having noticed a special tag on my luggage.

"Mr. Shankman," he asked.

"Yes," I said.

"Sir, please come with us. We have your tickets printed out, and we'll escort you through security and immigration."

Not five minutes later, I was sitting at the airline lounge with a drink in my hand, away from the nightmare that was airside of Dubai Airport. I boarded my plane with a lovely feeling of calm, and before I could blink, we'd taken off and I was being served dinner.

Do you really think I'm ever going to use another airline again?

Experience Matters

Welcome to the experiential economy. When all else is the same, the only thing that will save a company is the experience the client has with it. And yes, that applies to law firms, too.

See, back in the 1950s, change was hard. (Change is still hard now, but it's a heck of a lot easier than it ever was before.) Did you know that changing banks in the 1950s required no less than four visits to the bank? (if you were a woman, forget it --you had to come in with your husband.) today you can click on a button on your new bank's homepage that says, "Switch to us!" and it's done in five minutes.

More than cost, the relationship matters. Study after study is showing that if a client has a choice between two companies, firms or the like, when all else is equal, they'll go with the one that treats them like individuals. it's not rocket science; it's basic common sense: We all want to feel loved. But if that's the case, why is it so hard for companies to figure it out?

Here's a stat to start off: 88 percent of CEOs believe that their company has excellent customer service. However, only 8 percent of the customers of those companies believe the same thing. Tell me that's not a disconnect.

Think about that for a second. You've got some CEOs in their ivory towers, all happy and content because they're being...

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