(Time to read this Blog is about 4 minutes)

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:

1. My Biz Quote of the week:
   “Perfection is the enemy of completion!”
   …Donald Cooper.
     
2. Quick Biz Tip:
   Do you deliver what you promise?
    
   Check out this photo of what was ordered from 1-800-flowers.com…and what was received. 
    
   How often have you been disappointed by a product or service you received, and did you say to yourself, “Do we ever disappoint our customers in a similar way …and how will we stop that immediately?”   Remember, life is free research when you’re paying attention.
    
   I found the ‘What We Ordered’ and ‘What We Received’ photos online, and there’s another important point.  When we screw up or disappoint our customers, they now have the ability to tell the world, online …and that’s very bad for your Brand.
    
3. Fun facts: Summer is travel time for many folks in the Northern Hemisphere. Here are 3 styles of footwear you should never wear on a flight, according to travel experts: flip-flops, high heels and Crocs.  Instead, it’s important to wear supportive, closed-toe shoes with a roomy toe box that accommodates natural swelling that occurs during long flights.
    
4. Beware of wolves in Denmark.  I was interested to read, this week, that wolves have returned to Denmark, after a nearly 200-year absence.  I also read that Copenhagen, Denmark’s capitol, has been named the world’s most livable city (followed by Vienna and Melbourne, Australia).  This is either a coincidence, or wolves have become very discerning in choosing their place of residence.
    
   According to this ‘wolf update article, the wolf population has grown to the point that some Danish municipalities are distributing flyers explaining what to do if people encounter a wolf.  But, then I read that this ‘wolf emergency’ amounts to an estimated 49 wolves in the entire country. 
    
   That’s nothing!  We have an estimated 2,000 – 3,000 coyotes (evolutionary cousins of the wolf) in the Greater Toronto Area. One coyote den was found in a ravine near us with 27 cat collars nearby.  Many of the collars had bells attached. Apparently, the bells help the coyotes track the cats.

Now, to this week’s important topic:

How well do you understand your Target Customers?

“You can’t have a relationship with people you don’t know a lot about.”

Much of my work over the years has been in helping businesses get the customer experience right.  We can’t do that without, first, understanding our target customers as a group and, more and more, our target customers as individuals.

How much time do you spend thinking and feeling what it’s like to be one of your target customers?

1. Who are they?
2. Why do they buy?
3. What might prevent them from buying?
4. What is life really like for them?
5. What do they really value?
6. What do they strongly dislike?
7. What do they fear?

When it comes to understanding what life is really like for your target customers, check out the ‘Kent & Medway Wheelchair Service Dept.’ in the photo.  It’s a 15-step climb to service your wheelchair.  What were they thinking?

Years ago, when I ‘accidently’ got into the ladies’ retail fashion business, I had absolutely no experience with selling ladies’ fashions.  So, I sat down, quietly, and thought and felt what it was like to be a woman buying clothing.  I got in touch with my ‘feminine side’.  I asked myself the 7 questions above…and created the ‘almost famous’, 13,000 sq. ft (1,200 sq metres) Alive & Well Warehouse Boutique.  Specifically, here’s some of what we had the creativity and the courage to create:

1. While every competitor greeted customers with signs on their front door demanding “No food or beverages!”, we built a beautiful mahogany Drink Bar offering a choice of 6 kinds of tea, 2 kinds of coffee, 2 flavours of fruit drink, or just plain spring water. We’re all in the ‘Hospitality Business’.
    
2. While every competitor offended and frustrated customers with their signs that demanded, “Limit 3 items in the change room!”, our signs invited customers to, ‘Please take as many items in the Change Room as you wish!’  (We put a security tag on everything.  We were nice, not stupid).
    
3. We had 50 oversized change rooms, complete with 4 hooks, a stool, a shelf and a mirror in each.
    
4. For mothers with babies, our Customer Washrooms had Change Tables with 3 sizes of free diapers, diapers wipes and cream…no charge.
    
5. For husbands and boyfriends, we had electric, reclining massage chairs and a good variety of current, interesting magazines.
    
6. For kids, we spent $54,000 to build a 34 ft Pirate Ship play area and pirate tree fort lookout. A mother cannot try on a pair of pants in a Change Room with a child laminated to her leg, screaming to go home.  So, we spent $34,000 to get the kid off the leg!  I walked by the ‘Pirate Ship’ one day and heard a 5-year-old ask his mother, “Mommy can we live here?”  Do your customers want to ‘live’ with you?
    
7. We had umbrellas at the front door. If a customer was leaving during a rain storm, one of our staff would use an umbrella to walk her to her car.
    
8. We had 8 top-of-the-line strollers waiting inside our front door so that mothers did not have to wrestle with their own stroller to get it out of the car.
    
9. We had no Credit Notes. Women hate them!  If you brought something back to Alive & Well, you got a replacement, or your money back…your choice.
    
10. We did not ‘mark up to mark down’ (the retail term for phony and deceptive off-price Sales). We had no false advertising.  We played it straight.  Our commitment was, ‘No Games…No Tricks…No Lies!’
     
11. Also, right inside the front door, we had a big sign that said, “Our staff are not on Commission. They treat you this well because they love what they do!”  Women hate pushy commissioned sales staff…so we didn’t have them.
     
12. Each year we created several month-long themed festivals like ‘Springtime In Paris’ and ‘The Fabulous 50s’ to create joy and make shopping fun. We should all be in the ‘Joy’ business!
     
13. We wrapped it all up with ‘The world’s most unusual guarantee’, “We’re so sure you’ll love our store that if you show up and think we’re ‘for the birds’, we’ll pay your gas mileage!”  That guarantee cost us less than $300 in 11 years.

For all of this, we were voted ‘Canada’s Outstanding Innovative Retailer’ by The Retail Council of Canada…and that made us even more famous.  Women drove up to 3 hours to shop at Alive & Well and we achieved sales 3 times the national average.

So, when will you sit down, for one hour, with some of the best minds and hearts in your business, to think and feel what it’s really like to be one of your target customers and how you can use these insights to create and proactively deliver compelling customer experiences at every touch-point?  

That’s it for this week…

Live brilliantly and be kind to each other!       

Donald Cooper 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.