lucasatboston - Tumblr blog

[lucasatboston]

How great brands inspire customers

undefined

I find this Ted talk inspiring and is very applicable to branding as well.

Every organization knows what they do, most of them know how they do it but very few companies know why they do it - what're their beliefs, causes and why they exist. As a result, most companies start the communication with what, then how and lastly why.

One of the powerful insights is that people don't buy what you do but why you do it. If people get inspired by what you believe in, they will be emotionally connected to your brand. Thes emotions can drive behaviors and generate so-called gut-feelings about what they want. The people can use the what and how to rationalize what they already decided.

Thus, by reversing the order of communication and starting from “why”, brands can speak to a wider audience who resonate with companies’ missions and purposes, who may not need your products or have clear preferences. As an example, Apple’s branding message emphasizes on being innovative and always challenging the status quo - people do business with Apple because this is what they believe in.

[lucasatboston]

Nine Principles for Consumer-Centered Telehealth Design

Below is the summary of the paper I read here. For telehealth to succeed, we have to put the users in the center of the entire design across different touchpoints. Below are 9 principles to guide the design of a telehealth platform

1. There cannot be friction for the user

The UI should be intuitive and easy to use, without much learning effort

2. Team-based care must include smart triggers

There could be new ways of interactions between patients and the care team, for example, through social media platforms

3. Real world and online world must converge

The data generated in the telehealth should be integrated with offline visit data so that patients have a seamless experience online and offline

4. We must be sensitive to data overload

Do not present too much information to users. Be smart about what data to show based on user preferences, machine intelligence, etc 

5. Consumers are the hubs of their own healthcare data

Consumers should be in control of the healthcare data and the privacy settings. They can choose to share specific information with specific healthcare players

6. Converge data for interactions to be safe & meaningful

Data from different sources should be stored in a single source, without creating data silos and inconvenience for user data access

7. Expand role for care team based on new data triggers

With mobile phones and wearables, new contextual data could be collected to inform providers and improve treatment experiences. For example, live heart rates from wearable devices could be recorded to inform preventive care and healthcare treatment

8. Integrate technology & human interaction in the physical world 

The interactions with both human and technology should be flawlessly integrated. A more intelligent workflow can be designed to leverage the advantages of both channels

9. Increase focus on patient data security

As more patient-provider interactions goes digital, it is important to ensure that patients’ confidential information is not disclosed to irrelevant parties. In addition, the identities of providers need to be validated before any interactions.

[lucasatboston]

Building on tradition and embrace new possibilities

Here is how people traditionally view the Burburry brand. We see people view it as an expensive British brand with classic styles (but sometimes can be boring)

However the brand is now going through a lot of innovations by embracing new customer segments with audacity.

Contemporary Burberry ad, Spring 2018 Campaign

As the middle class grows, especially in emerging markets such as India and China, the target customers’ profiles are changing from mid-aged professionals to more younger generations who aspire high quality life and more energy. Thus the brand can add more elements to cater for these younger customers. Also the proliferation of digital channels is really changing how the brand communicates to people. In this way, Burberry is changing its outdated image to be more modern, fun and dynamic.

[lucasatboston]

A letter from Alvin Tan to SIA on FB

I felt deeply touched by this letter I read on Facebook. How do we define the boundary of customer service and how far we can go to delight customers? The other company that’s renowed for its customer service is Ritz Carlton. People care about the whole experience of staying at a hotel or airplane so going extra miles would add a lot of value to impress and keep customers in the longer term.

——————————————————

Dear Singapore Airlines,

My wife and I just got married, and our honeymoon did not get off to a good start. Due to some unexpected complications, we were only able to book our tickets 2 months in advance of our trip, leaving us with less than ideal seats, especially on the way back from Melbourne to Singapore (where we would have to sit apart for the whole duration of the flight - not exactly honeymoon material).

On the date of our departure, we tried to no avail with your ashen-faced counter staff for a change of seats (or even, dare we say, our first upgrade ever to business class?). It appears that our charm offensive was just that - offensive.

Anyhoo, we tried to do as they say, make orange juice out of lemonade, and our flight aboard SQ217 continued as per normal. OR SO WE THOUGHT.

Midway through the flight, we were pleasantly interrupted by your cabin crew leader, Elise, who told us that we will be getting served cake and two Singapore Slings for our honeymoon trip! Now it ain't the famous Lobster Thermidor being served 20 rows ahead of us that we had hoped for, but we were smiling like idiots.

It was, however, what happened next that truly made our day. Immediately after making known the lovely surprise, Elise was alerted to troubles a passenger immediately behind us was having. We concluded that it was likely a case of deep vein thrombosis.

Elise and her team, in particular, Catherine, handled the situation with effortless grace and impeccable service. Within minutes, Elise had calmed the passenger down and even went to the extent of massaging her feet.

Moments later, my wife and I were served the delightful cake and Singapore Slings AND a lovely mini bouquet expertly put together by Elise earlier in the Galley.

We would love very much if the fantastic handling of the matter, the epitome of exemplary service known to Singapore Airlines, both personified by Elise and her team, are made known to you.

While we still dread the return trip in a few days' time, we would like to extend our gratitude and heartiest congratulations to Singapore Airlines for your exemplary service.

[lucasatboston]

Thoughts on Innovation Diffusion - Case study on PDA (personal digital assistant)

For a long time, my framework for analyzing innovation diffusion has been focused on segmenting the adopters into early adopters, early majorities, later majorities, and laggards. However, this grouping has pitfalls as it assumes everyone will eventually adopt a certain product or service, given enough time. I would argue that some innovations may only live through early adopters stage and then fail to attract new users, leading to eventual failure. Or a product may fail to penetrate the target users before the new generation of products come to market. For example, the PDA (personal digital assistant) never became mainstream and then the smartphones took over and replace the product.

To further understand what factors help a product to better penetrate its target users, Roger’s five factors come into play. It provides a solid framework for analyzing innovations across a few product dimensions. In this way, we can predict the relative speed of innovation diffusion for various products. Take PDA for example

Relative Advantage: the cost of the PDA is so much higher than the simple alternative - notebooks and calendars. At the same time, the perceived benefits fail to justify the high price as it has limited functionalities, requires frequent charging and is not very easy to use.

Compatability: it is a new product category and there wasn’t anything similar before. 

Complexity: it is one of the biggest obstacles to adoption as most people using notebooks and calendars to organize their daily life may not have sufficient technical expertise or passion. The product is not intuitive to use and the operating systems (Windows CE and Palm OS) are very primitive compared to iOS today.

Trialability: although it is possible to try the product, the channel is very limited. As it is relatively new and expensive, only the big and specialized electronics stores may carry them.

Observability: in some way, the novel gadget does attract people’s attention. However, it does not arouse strong emotions and purchasing interest, given the high cost, limited trial channel and complexity to use. Besides, some people may perceive carrying around a tiny screen with a sticker as geeky and not cool.

Lastly, all the metrics above should be viewed as relative to other competitor products and services. The competitors’ dynamics will eventually determine the winner.

[lucasatboston]

Keep it simple, stupid