KQ Article

Banks and credit unions frantically search for that single attribute that will grab and keep customers. We pace the halls and wring our hands trying to “think outside the box” and stumble upon that game-changing “wow factor.” It seems almost impossible to compete without one. 

But why do wowing and outside-the-box thinking have to go together? There may have been a time when they always did, but that no longer seems to be the case anymore. In fact, it seems like just the opposite is true today.

If you want to wow customers, you should start thinking inside the box. Right away.

By all means innovate and improve, but do so while focusing on meeting the basic expectations of your customers far better than any of the competition. Look at how customer loyalty magnet Amazon.com wows with selection and price. Or how Zappos.com does it with fast delivery, free shipping and a great return policy. Want to know how In-And-Out Burgers creates such raving fans? With really good hamburgers and sparkling-clean restrooms, of all things.

All of these differentiators illustrate excellent inside-the-box thinking, and businesses are rising to the top of their industries because of it.

And there’s your wow factor, hidden in plain sight.

Are you better than your competition at the basics? If so, you win. Why? Because it’s the ultimate way to wow. Do what you do extremely well, every single time, with every customer and member. Relentless, attention-getting, differentiating consistency of performance. It takes work and commitment to be the best at the basics. But in these times, it is a powerful way to sustain market leadership.

Resist the gimmicks
Okay, you say, but everybody does a good job on the basics.

No they don’t, and that’s precisely the point. Very few companies do a consistently good job in this regard. In banking, the basics entails everything from keeping branch lines moving, to helping small business customers grow, to opening accounts the way the customer or member wants it done, not you.

It’s likely illusion or even self-deception to say, “We’re great at the basics, so let’s look to more fertile ground for something completely new or novel.” First, don’t be so sure that you’re so good at the basics. That assumption can put you out of business. Second, if you can improve your performance in delivering on basic customer expectations by 10% or even 20%, it may be the biggest return on any investment you’ve ever made.

Many companies get so distracted by their far-flung search for the wow factor that they take their eye off the ball. The ball, of course, being the foundational elements of your business — those rudimentary things that customers expect from you. It’s easy to find yourself in search of what amounts to a gimmick instead of the more mundane task of performing your job consistently and exceptionally well. You end up on a wild goose chase, and your customer ends up taking her business elsewhere because you forgot to deliver on her most basic of expectations.

The unbeatable, uneatable salad
My wife had lunch the other day with a friend at a casual restaurant. She ordered a salad as her entrée. When the waiter delivered her salad, she literally said, “Wow.” It was the most vertically ambitious edible structure she had ever seen.

On the table in front of her stood a lettuce-based salad that went straight up — a tower. My wife had never seen a salad like it. She said to the waiter, “That’s the tallest salad I’ve ever seen.” The waiter replied, “That’s our wow factor.”

As the waiter left the table my wife thought, “No. That’s your ‘wow, what a stupid way to serve a salad’ factor.” She told me later that the salad was practically impossible to eat. You just couldn’t get to it without making a mess. But somebody, somewhere in that restaurant company, had decided that just being different would be a positive differentiator. Sometimes being different ends up being just plain goofy.

The takeaway? If you’re in the business of providing salads, make ones that people can actually eat. Forget the gimmicks and focus on good food.

And if you’re in the business of providing financial services, be an amazingly solid and dependable bank. Be an extraordinarily consistent credit union. If you focus on delivering what your customers want and need, and do it every single time with every single customer, you will have differentiated beyond what any gimmicky wow factor could ever do for you.

_{© 2010 Joe Calloway}

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