Buyers for major retailing chains show up for a meeting with
Boaz Shonfeld expecting to be sold discount gourmet food items,
such as gift baskets loaded with coffee, teas, fruits and spices.
Instead, they're sold an experience.
The South Hackensack, New Jersey, founder of 30-person
Shonfeld's USA Inc. doesn't start by showing prospects the
products he has for sale. Instead, he presents a slide show
detailing how he will work with the retailer to decide which
product will sell the best, for the highest margin, to that
particular store's shoppers.
It's far more involved than a simple take it or leave it,
says Shonfeld, 31. The process of research, analysis, design and
revision of product plans with a typical large retailer may take
months. Why so long? Shonfeld doesn't just provide products; he
helps his clients revamp their businesses by introducing new and
aesthetically pleasing items, thus enhancing their shoppers'
in-store experiences. This process can involve the consideration of
details as fine as the colors most likely used to decorate
customers' kitchens. Not infrequently, retailers learn a lot
about their own businesses, Shonfeld says.
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After all that, making the actual purchase is almost an
afterthought for many buyers, a fact which Shonfeld credits as much
to the power of the experience as to the appeal of his products.
"We create an experience from A to Z," he says. The
customer is constantly involved while we work together to create
the best merchandise. From the very beginning, we make it very
different."
The trick of turning business interactions into memorable
experiences might reshape business as significantly as quality
management or reengineering, say experts like Bernd Schmitt, a
Columbia University business professor and author of Experiential
Marketing (The Free Press). Small businesses can take a cue from
companies such as Gillette, MasterCard and Coca-Cola, which have
recently recognized the central importance of customer experience
in marketing their products.
Spurring interest is a conviction that when firms go beyond
merely selling products and services, and offer distinctive and
positive experiences, it creates fanatically loyal customers.
"When you engineer experiences," says Lewis Carbone,
president and CEO of Minneapolis management systems firm Experience
Engineering Inc., "customers say things like `I'm not sure
exactly why, but this is the best experience I've had in your
industry, and I sure hope it's like this next
time.' "
Mark Henricks is an Austin, Texas, writer who specializes in
business topics and has written for Entrepreneur for nine
years.
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