Which would you rather have?

When a customer wants to know how a product will make his or her life better, time is almost always included as a factor in that question. Will this product organize my/save me/give me time? Money comes and goes, but time is something no one gets back. As such, there is an implied value of time in our lives. Often we feel that we need to take advantage of it as much as possible. (If you have kids, you definitely know this.)

In a recent Stanford study, authors Jennifer Aaker, the General Atlantic Professor of Marketing at Stanford Graduate School of Business, and Cassie Mogilner discovered that, “…referring to time typically leads to more favorable attitudes—and to more purchases.” In one case study, they found that advertising stressing time (“Spend a little time and enjoy C&D’s lemonade”) was more attractive to customers than advertising that stressed money (“Spend a little money, and enjoy C&D’s lemonade”).

Understanding the connection between a customer and a product helps you build better advertising. If the advertisement conveys time as a benefit to the customer when using the product, the customer may take the next steps on the path to purchase. In a market downturn where price is already the hot topic, this may be that extra incentive in a customer’s path to purchase.

You can download the fascinating research paper here.

"Hello. Your satisfaction is our number one goal. Honest. Really."

In 2006, an executive with Best Buy sent a memorandum to all Best Buy store employees. It explained that the only content allowed on screens in the store was content approved by corporate. It was to be followed for several reasons, most notably that the “6-60″ demographic might not take kindly to the latest R-rated movie release playing in its entirety, or that the big game be broadcast in the store, and along with it the competitor’s advertising during the breaks.

To my knowledge, not a single employee read the memo. To this day, I still see this activity going on. Does that make it wrong?

Store employees want programming that does three things for them. Depending on your situation, these may have a different order of importance:

Sell the product.
Energize the employee.
Speak to the customer.

Recently I wrote about a department full of blank screens. Some comments and e-mails concerned the apparent apathy of the employee I spoke with. Sadly, the apathy was real. The employee didn’t care any more about those screens than he cared to answer my questions. I kept thinking, “These have been out for a week. Did anyone call corporate? How about the manager or GM? Did anyone care?”

Instead of trying to figure out why the employee doesn’t care, I see an opportunity. The challenge is to provide the employee with a vested interest that will foster care for the program and a proactive attitude, especially when situations like blank screens occur. Below are four plans that can help engage the employee in the broadcast of your environment’s program.

YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING?
Employees see the program every day, all day, and they see what customers like and don’t like. Create an email address every single employee has access to and solicit feedback. When you get the feedback, read it and respond to it. In some cases, just being heard is a huge win for the employee.

It was a suggestion from a store employee to me that helped support my desire for Closed Captioning on the HD Program in all Best Buy stores in United States. To this day, Best Buy remains the only retailer in the world with Closed Captioning on an in-store closed-circuit program.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION
If employees have a hand in the production, they will have pride in the broadcast. There are three ways to give them ownership:

1. Ask them what would be good for the program. Is there a big, burning question that all customers have about a product? Can it be answered in about five words? If so, then make a piece of content that answers that question. Then, give them credit for providing you the details needed to create the content.

2. Have them help you write the playlist. A little more underwater footage for the HD program? A little more Tiger Woods golfing for the gaming department? Let them help you think about what works.

3. Perhaps one of the strongest methods of employee engagement is user-generated content. With technology zooming at full speed, employees are now capable of creating content as easily as the big shots on Madison Avenue (and sometimes just as good). Present to your employees the opportunity to submit content for the network. Give them guidelines and have them to fire up the camcorder. The pride an employee will take in seeing her stuff on the store’s program for a few days or weeks can be immeasurable.

TEACH OUT
A terrific way to maintain the relationship of “were all in this together” between corporate and retail is to show the store employee the numbers. Invite them into the corporate strategy and show them the reason behind what you put on the screen. If you can explain that broadcasting a certain ad at specific times results in sales lift, they will understand the strategy instead of looking at the screen and asking, “Why is that on the TV?”

After building a playlist, distribute it to the employees before the program goes live, and allow access to the playlist during the broadcast. Just knowing what is coming can give the employee the advantage to start and build a relationship with the customer.

For example, if a customer is shopping for a new food mixer, the employee may know of content on a program that speaks directly to the particular line of products the customer is interested in. Those moments where the employee and customer spend more time together, talking and possibly waiting, will help foster the relationship.

It can also provide benefits when you program a spot that may not be right for the environment, and it gives opportunity to the employee to notice this and suggest it be questioned before anyone sees it.

COMMON GROUND
The right content at the right place and the right time means optimal customer engagement. We know this.

The same can be said for the employee engagement. If you’re targeting a certain demographic, there’s a chance you have staffed your department to cater to that demographic as well. Program segmentation (dayparting, geography, departmental, to name a few), if technically feasible, will create a discussion point if both the employee and the customer have something in common with it.

Too many times I have seen content produced and deployed where one of the two parties has no comprehension of the subject. It creates an awkward situation.

By no means should these guidelines exhaustive. In my experience, they are tried and true methods of employee engagement that can make a huge difference between creating an optimal customer experience, or wandering through a department of blank TV screens.

What else works in customer engagement?

During a trip to visit friends, I tried to pack light. Since I can grow a beard in about three hours, I left my contractor-sized shave cream can at home and opted to buy a small travel canister at the airport. Apparently, manufacturers and retailers have not yet received the memo about the three-ounce size limit at airport security. I bought the smallest size sold, a four-ounce canister, and five minutes later had it promptly confiscated by security because it was too large.

That led me to a familiar needs-based store after my flight. Yet my compulsion to see how the store treats digital signage easily overcame my need to mow the hair off my face. I headed to the home theater department and saw this:

Could it be that the store did not switch to digital?

I had to ask the twenty-something employee manning the deserted department. (For aural sound effects in your head, please add the “DUN DUN” from Law and Order here.)

Me: I see all your TVs are out.
Emp: Yeah, they’ve been out out for a while.
Me: How long?
Emp: Umm, about a week.
Me: A week? Have you seen any change in traffic through the department?
Emp: Actually, not really. It kinda comes and goes.
Me: Have you seen a change in TV purchases?
Emp: Oh yeah. We haven’t sold any TVs in a while.

That’s all I needed to hear.

Empty. That’s how the department felt. Empty. And that’s how any environment feels when a screen utilized for digital signage is not working. It feels like a massive chunk of the experience is missing. And that is bad. Bad. Bad.

After justification for everything I have been doing in this industry came to bear, I took my pride to the man-shave-area to pick up a small canister of my favorite shave cream.

They were out of stock.

(DUN DUN)