Mar 07
28
Experience over Taste
I had an experience (or technically the lack of one) the other day at Lick’s Homeburgers (A small/medium Canadian burger chain) that I thought was worth writing about.
I went to my first Lick’s when I was a teenager and the experience made a huge impression on me. The place looked different from the other burger joints, (sort of like a cross between a 50s diner and a county fair), the burgers tasted great, and the people behind the counter sang songs and made a big fuss interacting with customers. It was a unique, personal and tasty experience – my friends and I used to go all the time before we discovered more troublesome pursuits. I hadn’t been back in a long time, but the memory and the brand experience has always been a positive one for me.
On my way to an event last week, I happened to pass by a Lick’s and feeling a tad nogalstic and peckish I stopped in for a burger, fries and a side of guk (a delicious mayonaise and who-knows-what mixture for dipping fries). I was actually quite excited about stepping inside to hear the burger flippers singing and was thinking that sometime I should bring my daughter in for the experience.
The food was largely as I remembered it, but the experience just wasn’t the same. There were no songs, the burger flippers didn’t seem to be having any fun like they used to and I didn’t get any of the anticipated fuss made over me that I remembered from when I was younger.
No question I am a little older now, alot more critical of things, and perhaps my memories of Lick’s weren’t all that accurate. However driving in the car, I actually felt like one of the few happy parts of my adolesence was taken from me and realized that I wasn’t really there for the burger at all, but really just wanted to hear them singing like I had remembered. I have no doubt that in today’s age, finding kids willing to act happy, sing while flipping burgers, while making minimum wage is no easy task.
For marketers, this story is intended to illustrate a few points:
- The customer service department is now the messaging/media department – the experience I get from the people who serve me largely defines the tone of this blog post, my willingness to take my family and my general brand impression. So if you want positive word-of-mouth, consider diverting a chunk of your media spend into HR, CSR salaries, customer satisfaction incentives and other ways of keeping the front line as happy as possible.
- When you make your bed, you have to lie in it – 20 years ago my future expecations of the brand were set when I heard joyful singing by burger flippers. So that is what I expected to hear when I went back much later. Similar situations happen when one expects 0% financing on a new car every winter or that my coffee loyalty card program won’t just collapse. Sure things change and programs get cancelled, but there can be big ramifications within the minds of individuals when policies change, products drop in quality and experiences atrophy.
- A brand is all in your my head – The brand manager does not define the brand, the individual does. Try as marketers may to control and change perceptions it comes down to what one person thinks and those thoughts may be correct, off-base or completely lunatic fringe. The customer’s brand perception is always right – even when it is totally wrong.
To the folks at Lick’s I am happy to tell you that your product is as good as I remembered, but the experience didn’t live up to my memories. So while I walked in thinking that Lick’s would be a fun and happy place to take my daughter, I left realizing that what drew me in the door doesn’t live there anymore.
[tags]Lick’s, Homeburgers, Word of Mouth, Experience marketing[/tags]
