KQ Article

When her daughter was first learning to write, a mother frequently stopped the girl during practice to tell her she was writing the letter “s” backwards. The girl simply shrugged and continued, as if her mother was not grasping a larger point.

The backward characters continued, and the mother’s loving corrections grew a bit firmer over time. After hearing her mother’s appeal one afternoon, the girl calmly set down her pencil, looked her mom in the eye and said, “It’s still an ‘s’, you know.”

When the mother asked for clarification, the girl precociously replied, “Let’s say one of our dining room chairs tips on its side. Isn’t it still a chair?”

A COMMON OVERSIGHT
In business, it’s astounding how many different perspectives the same issue can generate among individuals sitting around a table. Yet we often dilute these diverging points of view into a single, safe consensus in the name of efficiency and caution.

Perhaps we should take a lesson here from the youngsters in our lives. Unlike most adults, children possess a natural capacity to follow their own unique perspectives, often yielding incredible feats in creative thinking. It might serve us all well to rediscover this latent gift every so often, and to apply this way of thinking toward differentiating our brands in the marketplace.

For example, many banks and credit unions go to brilliant lengths to make their customers feel at home in their branches — cozy couches, fancy TVs, wireless Internet, play areas for children. But all too often, financial institutions become overly wedded to their success during this first  leg of creating a memorable customer experience, neglecting to continue pursuing the original thinking that will propel them into the next phase of differentiation.

DARE TO GET CREATIVE
The most successful banks and credit unions will be those with the discipline to continue seeking out the next perspective whenever they uncover a great idea. If all your ideas originate from the same corner of the room, ideas that follow will likely become decreasingly unique and innovative, because they all originate from the same individual. To counter this creative dead end, require input from everybody on your team. Revisit those concepts you thought couldn’t possibly work. Explore ideas that sound a bit outlandish at first blush.

And perhaps most important, dare to venture outside your own creative resources — and your own orgnanization, for that matter. Don’t be afraid to reach out to your customers, or to look to other industries for inspiration. Also be sure to examine your business from every possible customer touch point. For example, those comfortable branches may do much for customers and members who visit you in person, but what have you done to deepen the experience for those who visit you exclusively online? Maybe it requires creating fun, user-friendly online educational tools, or offering an interactive virtual environment that allows online customers to feel welcome in a comparable way to the branch experience. Whatever the solution may be, you won’t find it by resting on your laurels, or by following those well-worn creative paths that everyone else impulsively follows.

So during your next brainstorming session, encourage your team members to approach the same old branding and customer retention issues from an entirely new perspective. That next backward “s” might lead to some seriously forward thinking.

_{© 2012 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc.}