The Marketing Minute

Posted: 05 Feb 2009 10:37 PM PST

When I was a kid, I loved Highlights Magazine. My favorite feature was Goofus and Gallant.

If you're over 30, you remember that it was a side by side comparison of two boys and their behavior. So it might say....

Goofus gets up from the dinner table and goes into his room to listen to the radio. Gallant helps his mom clear the table before pursuing his hobbies. (remember, I was a kid a long, long time ago).

I had my own grown-up Goofus and Gallant experience this week.

Goofus: As part of a mystery shopping exercise for our regional bank client, I went into a local bank (not our client's) to open a checking account. I was in business attire, it was the middle of the afternoon and there were no other customers in the bank. I walked in and looked around for a brochure rack, so I could figure out what checking account to open. I'd been in the lobby a good 3-4 minutes before one of the bankers said hello.

I approached her and said I wanted to open a checking account. She handed me a form on a clipboard (like the doctor's office does) and told me to fill it out. (I was told to sit in the lobby) When I was done, I brought it back and she led me into her office. We spent the next 10-15 minutes with the printer popping out forms and me signing docs. During that time, she did not:

Ask my name
Introduce herself
Give me her business card
Tell me about the other features of the bank
Ask about my other banking needs
Get my e-mail address so they could stay in touch
Appear to give a rat's rear end about me, my business, my family or my finances

She did however, mention how much she hates the cold weather and was tired.

On the flip side of the coin.....

Gallant: I am volunteering for a local charity telethon in a couple weeks. I should have ordered the team t-shirts weeks ago but of course, I hadn't. The team I'm leading always wants screaming bright t-shirts, so I did a Google search and found CustomInk. I went to their site...found some vivid purple shirts, uploaded the charity's logo (paid for rush shipping because I am a moron for waiting so long) and voila, my order was done.

I got a call in the morning (of course, I ordered the shirts in the middle of the night) from one of their production artists, asking if we had the logo in a different format because they thought it would reproduce better. If not, they'd try to re-create it for us. (At no charge) I sent him the new format and thought we were all set.

Then, later that same day, I receive an e-mail from a one of their customer service folks (Laney) who says..."it looks like you have designed shirts for a charity event. If that's the case, CustomInk would love to make a small donation to your team or charity on your behalf."

Holy cow. I spent less than $200 on shirts and they want to make a donation? I sent her an e-mail to say thank you and shared the link so she could read about the telethon. Next thing I know...Laney's picked up the phone, spoken to one of the charity's employees and made a $20 donation. The e-mail telling me she'd done that...referenced the charity staff by name and was a bit apologetic that they could only donate $20. And, she shared with me a program where they'll take fifty cents off each shirt, if they can put their logo on the back of the shirt as a sponsor for any future orders we might have.

Wow.

If I had said to you...which business could profit more from me, over time, you'd guess the bank, true? If we'd guess who received more on the job training, odds are we'd guess the bank employee. If we wondered which business should be more prone to great customer service -- the local bank or the online t-shirt shop, I'm guessing we'd have said the bank.

Guess which business just got a raving fan and who is going to make a lot of money from me over time?

I wouldn't guess the bank, would you?

If you had to guess how a brand new customer would be treated by your staff -- would you think they're a Goofus or a Gallant? Are you sure?

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