MAKING IT EASY—THE KEY TO BRANDING.

Today, November 3rd, is World Usability Day. Have you planned all of your celebrations for this memorable event? If you haven’t, you might want to celebrate something significant—like the fact that you figured out how to hot sync your Treo or that you finally were able to set the right ringtone on your cell phone or Blackberry. In short, it’s the day founded by the Usability Professionals Association (product designers, testers, etc.) to signal the need for improvements in making things we use every day more easy to function in our life (according to USA Today).

Having spent a lot of time in the consumer electronics industry, I am well aware that one of the biggest consumer needs from the retailer is HELP in not only picking out the right model and brand but also assistance on how to get that gizmo to work right from the start. A big part of the burden certainly has to go back to the manufacturers who want mass market appeal but who in fact make their products extremely difficult to figure out and even harder to operate the stuff that they make.

Several years ago while at Eckerd, we worked with Ken Dychtwald and the Age Wave organization in an effort to make our stores more “friendly” to the growing mature market as we looked realized that the baby boom generation was moving quickly past 50 and looking at their sixties in the next 10 years. Besides looking at merchandising that met this customer’s needs (from reading glasses to Metamucil), we also looked at ways to make our stores easier to shop for an aging customer. Better signing, automatic doors, eye-level shelf positioning, and blood pressure machines were just a few of the things we addressed to make it easier for the 76 million baby boomers to shop our stores. Unfortunately, we didn’t do much with our people in the stores to make the experience more relevant and more usable. We still had 16 year-old high school juniors working in the pharmacy counter talking to 67 year old customers who needed help with hemorrhoid medications, vitamins, diabetic needs, etc.—all things that the clerks neither knew anything about nor did they often know what they were used for.

Inspired by what we learned from Age Wave, I asked a lot of questions later when I joined Circuit City and I pushed for us to challenge the Sony’s and Panasonics of the world to make a VCR or television with dials and labels that a person with bi-focals could read and understand. That still hasn’t happened, obviously, according to the Usability Professionals Association, and it will only happen if retailers demand it. They probably won’t because their sales associates don’t get it either. Not only do the store associates need to know the features of the products, but they also need to be able to relate to the growing mass market of people (like me) who have the cash but maybe not all the savvy (or eyesight) to understand the latest technology and how to use it. This is a big opportunity for companies that are “customer centric” or who claim to have “just what I needed” to keep me up to the state of the art in electronics. The Wal-Mart’s and Costco’s are going to continue to grow their market share in these categories, but they are not likely to provide any more help than to assist in loading the items in the customer’s car. It ‘s the specialty stores who have a big opportunity (and their best defense) to provide people who can help explain how to use the products and determine the right item for each customer. That’s where the Geek Squads can help, but they are basically an after-the-sale swat team. What about before the customer buys?? The marketing opportunity is to have the right people (maybe they should be 47 instead of 17 years old) who can relate to the customers and at the same time provide feedback to the manufacturers on how to make their products more usable. Maybe then, we could have a “World Helpful Associates Day”.
Have a great day.
Ken