Naming customer by name

It is common in many countries, mainly due to culture and language predisposition to call people, even stranger by their name or You, instead of Sir/Madam, Mr/Mrs...

However, in countries of Eastern Europe it is still unusual to be so direct. Therefore, we still call our teachers, professors by their academic degree... Dear Professor, Dear Doctor, Dear Master etc.

Therefore, it was very unusual for me to learn some time ago that one of the biggest books&music&stationery brand in Poland, decided that their staff at tills would call customers by name after reading it from credit card. Although, I lived in Germany, Spain, UK for some time and was around such direct communication, while being in Poland and experiencing it, was kind of a shock.

After recent observation it seems that they stopped this courtesy, as I suppose people responded negatively to it.

Lesson learnt by the company? Each business wants to build closer connection with their clients. However I believe it is about creating opportunity for customer to get involved in the conversation by enabling such option. This can be done by supporting small initiatives (for example Fan Clubs of Music groups grew thanks to support of the Bands and are important part of their success), organizing events, competitions where people can share their opinions, feelings and ideas for the they love - for example:

• IdeaStorm by Dell, where people can submit their ideas that are voted and commented, and eventually implemented: http://www.ideastorm.com
• Social media - i.e. Facebook Page where people can get involved in activities moderated by the brand
• Live events such as conferences or flash mobs - like T-Mobile great campaign: Sing along on Trafalgar square in London: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGiqKYIgAp4

Don't push too hard on customer. Now the shops management has made all their security guards to say Good Morning or Good Bye while entering/leaving the shop. It seems like a smart move, and their learnt their business culture lesson - it's not Hi/Hello/Bye.

Cloths labelling

Did you noticed that cloths labels get longer and longer from some time? Also, their position is more and more inconvenient - today I found 7 cm long label under the shoulder inside the regular t-shirt.

I wondered what's the reasoning and I came up with quite decent explanation: this makes the customer cut the label after one or two uses. This results in product that can not be returned! So if the product is corrupted, destroyed or you find an error in it... it's too late for return, as the customer already cut the part of it off!

Each company analyse their business and looks for a ways to cut costs, and that was probably a trigger that allowed one team to come up with this solution, that decreases number of product returns globally! Moreover, it is cheap and label must be added to the product anyhow.

Finding at products and services you provide from different perspective, can result in interesting change.

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"To be understood, write a blog. To be ignored, write a business plan." @dharmesh (twitter)