Bringing the Zappos Culture to Your Branches

If you're going to learn, learn from the best!  

Zappos went from a struggling start-up in 2000 to being acquired by Amazon for $1.2 billion in 2009.  And the driver to their success?  An unmatched dedication to customer service fueled by a relentless focus on a positive corporate culture.

"If we get the culture right, then everything else, including 

the customer service, will fall into place."

Tony Hsieh, 

CEO, Zappos

Hsieh is a genius.  It works for Disney, it works for Ritz-Carlton and it will work for you!  Focus on the culture.  Your competition can copy products and beat your price.  They can build more branches or out-tech you.  But if your culture rocks, they cannot take that.

We need more retail strategy in banking and the bank or credit union in your market that differentiates on culture will win the market share.  Here's how the best in the biz has done it:

ZAPPOS FAMILY CORE VALUES
1. Deliver WOW through service: To WOW, you must differentiate yourself, which means doing something a little unconventional and innovative. You must do something that's above and beyond what's expected. And whatever you do must have an emotional impact on the receiver.
2. Embrace and drive change: If you are not prepared to deal with constant change, then you probably are not a good fit for the company.
3. Create fun and a little weirdness: We don't want to become one of those big companies that feels corporate and boring. We want to be able to laugh at ourselves. We look for both fun and humor in our daily work.
4. Be adventurous, creative and open-minded: Over time, we want everyone to develop his/her gut about business decisions. We want people to develop and improve their decision-making skills. We encourage people to make mistakes as long as they learn from them.
5. Pursue growth and learning: We believe that inside every employee is more potential than even the employee himself/herself realizes. Our goal is to help employees unlock that potential. 
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication: Strong, positive relationships that are open and honest are a big part of what differentiates Zappos from most other companies. Strong relationships allow us to accomplish much more than we would be able to otherwise.
7. Build a positive team and family spirit: The best leaders are those who lead by example and are both team followers as well as team leaders. We believe that, in general, the best ideas and decisions are made from the bottom up.
8. Do more with less: While we may be casual in our interactions with each other, we are focused and serious about the operations of our business. We believe in working hard and putting in the extra effort to get things done.
9. Be passionate and determined: We value passion, determination, perseverance, and the sense of urgency.
10. Be humble: We believe that no matter what happens we should always be respectful of everyone.

Think of the power and freedom of these values.  Every single employee understands what is expected of them, every day - in customer and internal interactions.  In recruiting and hiring, candidates and employers know if Zappos is the right fit.  If you want to wear a suit and tie, fill out TPS reports all day and disappear into the woodwork to pick up a weekly check ... Zappos is not for you.  


So it's easy, right?  Just add these 10 values to your employee manual and voilà, your world will change overnight.

No so much.  What makes the Zappos brand and culture so powerful is that you CAN NOT simply slap anyone's logo on it and make it work.  Are you prepared to shave the heads of your employees?  Are you ready to have a record-long 10 hour service phone call to get it right for the customer?  Will you hire a corporate life coach?  Will your culture support a daily photo game where staff match employee photos to names so they get to better know each other?  Zappos did!  The Family Core Values are not just words on paper, but demonstrated every single day.

When you sit down to define who you are, make sure that it is unique to you.  Something that defines who you are and aspirationaly what you want to be.  And above all, it needs to be centered around the people who walk into your doors, click your website and call you every day.


Folks, this stuff works!

Zappos list of awards:

• J.D. Powers Customer Service Champion, 2011
• WGSN Global Fashion Awards - Outstanding Customer Service, 2010
• CMG Vision Award, 2010
• Innovation All-Star, Fast Company, 2010
• NRF Innovator of the Year, 2009 & 2010

We bring these marketing philosophies to credit unions and community banks nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too. Contact us to see how.

With more than 265,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues. Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs about financial marketing.  

MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker. Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848

Follow me on Twitter @egagliano

Don't Begin Your Next Planning Session Until You Can Do This!

The Super-Duper Credit Union/Community Bank member/customer is family focused. She is a married woman with a good job, but (combined with her husband's income) making just enough to support her family's comfortable lifestyle. She has one or two young children and a husband who likely earns a little more than her. They live in a 2 bedroom home in a middle class neighborhood with lots of swing sets and have been there for 5-10 years.

Retirement seems like a pipe dream. Though they invest a little through their employers, it is not the focus. They are more concerned with meeting monthly bills and still squirreling away some savings for their children's future college bills - who's majority will ultimately be financed through student loans.

Her time is divided by maintaining a career that she is proud of, raising children that she loves dearly, supporting her kid's activities, volunteering for community groups, exercising 3-4 times per week, and trying to salvage a relationship with her husband, family and friends where she can find time. She has replaced time on the phone with her friends with frequent pictures and updates of the kids on Facebook.

Because her husband is "busy earning more," or because she's more responsible, she's in charge of most of the family finances. While she is technologically savvy, she received her first email account when she started her first real job, about 20 years ago. That said, she writes more checks than she probably should but is beginning to see the efficiency of online banking and starting to trust it more. She's certainly not an early adopter of technology - but she LOVES her i-Phone.

Though she and her husband each switch cars every 3-4 years, they do not lease. They want the look and amenities of a BMW or Mercedes without the hefty monthly payments.

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The off-site hotel is set and the golf reservations are made. You know how you'll entertain your Board and they are looking forward to a weekend together. Now, it's time to begin the REAL pre-work to your planning session.

As credit unions and community banks, everything we do is 

built around our members and customers ... EVERYTHING!  

You, of course need to be prepared to talk business: How will we decrease loan loss while still being open enough to grow the portfolio? How will the health care act effect us? How do we increase non-interest income without establishing big-bank fees? Are there new markets that we should look at? Do we want to merge (or be merged)? Are we over or under staffed?

This is all vital to discuss, but before you break into THAT agenda ... think about who you're doing it for.

Can you tell a story like the one above? You need to!

The days of being all things to all people is over. Your margins shrank years ago and have little promise of coming back any time soon. Your marketing budget isn't limitless. You need loans NOW and your 65 plus year old members simply aren't borrowing like you need.

So you need to focus! You need to determine who in your market(s) you are attracting now and who you WANT to attract. You need to understand your best customers and what makes them the best. Then learn everything you can about them. 

When you can tell a story about your customer: where they live, where they work, what they do for fun, what drives them, what they fear, what they care about ... then you can start making strategic decisions on your product suite, pricing, branching, tech investments, your website, and your marketing message.

Related Articles:
The Great Storyteller Gets the Audience
You'll Never Get Everyone to Love You
Mirror Mirror

We bring these marketing philosophies to credit unions and community banks nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too. Contact us to see how.

With more than 260,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues. Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs about financial marketing.  

MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker. Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848

Follow me on Twitter @egagliano

You DO NOT sell deposits and loans.

Human beings make emotional decisions 

and support them with logic and rationale.

It's a bit of a fault, but it's partially what makes us who we are.  It's one of the many beauties of humanity.

Think about some of your most recent purchases...

"I need that Fred Flintstone sized driver to hit the inch and half wide ball."

"The Louis Vuittons will be 100 times more comfortable and last 100 times longer."

Really?!?!

So, if we are emotional creatures, why does so much bank marketing revolve around "Free Checking!" and a big ol' rate?

The truth is that we do not sell checking accounts ... or loans ... or CDs.  People can get THOSE things anywhere!  Let the Wells Fargos and Bank of Americas of the world take the obvious route - they can afford to be lazy.

You, my credit union and community banker friend, are different ... better ... smarter.  You understand that every single  day - with every single branch and electronic interaction - we are dealing with people's money.  And aside from child care, what is more emotional than that?!?!

No, we do not sell products, we sell TRUST!  

Take a look in your lobby right now.  Those people aren't there for your free checking, and they likely past a competitor or two to get to your branch.  They are there because they trust you.  In their mind, you are the expert.

When you sit down to plan your next campaign or draw-up your next brochure, start your planning where your target audience starts it's decision making ... with emotion.  THEN, you can support it with logic and rationale.

Learn from this retail example.

We bring these marketing philosophies to credit unions and community banks nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too.  Contact us to see how.

With nearly 223,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues.  Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs about financial marketing.  

MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker.  Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848

Follow me on Twitter @egagliano

Mirror Mirror...

Mirror mirror on the wall...

     Who are the best customers of them all?

Many of our clients have "Customer/Member Growth" as a core objective for 2013 ... which is great!  But, as a true consultant - I'd like to make one MINOR edit.  Change that objective to:

Growth of THE RIGHT Customer/Member.

When you are focusing on the RIGHT customer, your universe shrinks and you can become more efficient with your budget.  As a marketing director and a leader on the management team, I would rather report to the Board that we grew our customer base with slightly fewer productive and profitable folks than tons of "riff-raff" (using technical, professional vernacular).

You can acquire the very best prospects through mirror modeling.  Focus your efforts on those people who "look like" your current best customers.

Identify Your Very Best Customers
Pretend, for a minute, that you could take one of your customers and stick them in a Xerox machine.  Who would you pick?  Someone with the highest deposits?  The most impressive loan balances?  The most services per household?  Would they have checking?  Would they religiously use their debit card?

Your answer may be different than the credit union's down the street or the community bank from across town.  You need to define exactly what kind of customer you want.

Once you've identified them, pull an address file of every one of your current customers who meet the criteria.

Birds of a Feather
Think of your neighborhood.  I'll bet most of your neighbors look a bit like you.  Maybe it's an area with a gaggle of young families with kids.  Or it's a flock of empty nesters.  The socio-economic law of averages says that birds of a feather tend to flock together.  And this can be a powerful tool for targeting.

By defining a narrow target and geo-focusing your marketing efforts to those zip+4s with the highest concentration of your best customers, you'll have a significantly better strategic effort than if you simply target those who live within 1-2 miles of your branch network.

You can also have a message with a laser focus.  Understand your best customers: What are their pain points?  Why did they choose you?  Why do they stay with you?  What life stages are they living through? What products are they most likely to have?  How are they most likely to use them?  Once you understand your best customers, you'll better understand how to communicate to your most desired prospects: What products they are most likely to need with you.  How they are most likely to use them.  What their key purchase criteria is.

With a little upfront homework and a mirror modeling strategy, you can retain your best customers through better understanding, you'll know where they live to find more of them and you'll know how to talk to them.  That is a powerful marketing formula that will make you the "fairest of them all."

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With nearly 185,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues.  Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs about financial marketing.  

We bring these marketing philosophies to credit unions and community banks nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too.  Contact us to see how.

MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker.  Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848

What Lies Within Us

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are 

tiny matters compared to what lies WITHIN us" 

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

As we dot the "i"s and cross the "t"s on our 2013 marketing plans, we've spent weeks analyzing our successes and failures from 2012, prioritizing our objectives for 2013, and determining the most impactful strategies and tactics to achieve those objectives next year.

This week's blog is a plea, dear marketers ... please don't forget your brand!

It's what lies WITHIN us that counts!

• What share-of-mind do you hold locally?
• What is the instant thought of your institution in the community?
• Is that perception different from customers/members and potential customers?
• Can your entire staff easily define what makes you different and better than the competition?
• Can your customers?!?!
• Heck, can your management and Board?!?!
• What processes do you have in place to assure a "wow" experience at EVERY touchpoint?
• What new processes will you implement next year?
• Is your front line staff focused on Meaningful Conversation or "sales?"
• Is there consistency of message and design in everything you do?
• Do your messages stand out in the crowd?
• Do you offer a product, or packaging/bundling, or knowledge/expertise, or simply an experience that would motivate me to make a change?
• Will I be treated like a guest in your home, or a customer?
• Are your branches warm and welcoming?
• What about your team?

This is an exciting time of year.  It's a reflective time of year.  It's a great time to look within your organization and soul search.

If you can't answer the questions above - or 

are unhappy with the answers, click here.

For a blog about our customer experience process and more tips, click here.

Click here for last week's blog: $#*! Bankers Say.

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With more than 157,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues.  Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs about financial marketing.  

We bring these marketing philosophies to community banks and credit unions nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too.  Contact us to see how.

MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker.  Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MarketMatch is a marketing firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community.  We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the right story that will generate the greatest  MOMENTUM and prove the best RESULTS with our written ROI Guarantee.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848

$#*! Bankers Say

This week, I had the privilege to, once again, conduct a customer experience analysis for a client.  This is one of my favorite activities as a consultant.  I get to walk into bank and credit union branches from all over the country and see the very best ... and, unfortunately, the very worst in what our industry has to offer.

Every time we conduct this exercise, I'm shocked by the stuff that comes our of banker's mouths.  We spend so much time training our staff on operational issues that, when they walk onstage with a customer or prospect, that's all they know to talk about.

Here are some examples of $#*! Bankers Say that we've heard when asking for information on checking accounts:

• "We don't have that phone scanning thing for checks, but I think Chase does."
• "We'll have to run you through Chexsystems.  And, if you qualify, we'll tell you what accounts you qualify for." (Not a great way to make a customer feel welcome)
• "We require two forms of ID." (So what)
• "It will cost you $50 to open an account." (They meant the minimum balance to open the account is $50)
• "We have a checking account for seniors." (To an obviously middle aged customer)
• "The brochures are over there." (They point and the conversation's over)
• "Tell me what you want."
• "We have the (XYZ) account, but the fee is..." (or any "But" statement!  Nothing good ever comes out of an employee's mouth after the word, "but.")
• "Our checking account pays interest, but the rate isn't very good." (See?)
• "They have a good online banking system." or "They can open the account." (Like the person doesn't actually work at the bank)
• "Is the checking account for you?" (No, it's a gift!)
• Any personal introduction after the conversation has ended and the customer is walking away.

And my personal favorite...

• "If you'd like to open an account, you can come back and talk to me. (Why not, right NOW?!?!)

To avoid this type of experience, follow a few simple guidelines:

• Find out what the customer needs before you start spewing information.  Ask: Where they bank now, what kind of account they have, how they use it, what they like and don't like about it.
• Make one or two product recommendations based on the customer's answers.
• Focus on benefits.  How will this account make their life easier based on what they said they want.
• Leave fees for the account opening.  Fee disclosure is a regulation, but doesn't need to be used to "sell" a product.
• Don't read the brochure to the customer ... know your products.  It sounds basic, but too many bankers seem to be learning the product while they read the brochure to sell it.  Better yet, every employee should have an account from your institution.
• "Conduct" operations ... don't "discuss" them.  In a restaurant you never hear, "We'll be happy to bring you that steak, but first someone will have to kill a cow."  

And most importantly...

• Treat every customer as if they are a guest in your home!  Don't point ... walk them over, make formal introductions and for goodness sake ...  SHOW SOME PERSONALITY!!!!

For a blog about our customer experience process and more tips, click here.

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With nearly 152,000 visits worldwide, we hope that you enjoy this blog.  If you find it helpful, please share it with your colleagues.  Also, check out our YouTube Channel for short video blogs about financial marketing.  

We bring these marketing philosophies to community banks and credit unions nationwide, and would love to bring them to your institution too.  Contact us to see how.

MarketMatch is also a nationally and internationally requested speaker.  Contact us to bring our marketing ideas to your next conference.

Here are the conferences where you can find MarketMatch.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MarketMatch is a marketing firm, dedicated to the credit union and community banking community.  We utilize knowledge-based strategies to help you FOCUS on the right story that will generate the greatest  MOMENTUM and prove the best RESULTS with our written ROI Guarantee.

See our story here. (click)

Chat with me LIVE! (click)

Or email me directly (click)

937-426-9848