I recently turned down an SUV "upgrade" and surprised the heck out of Hertz.

I think this change in the economy is going to require deep, deep knowledge of your customer base and exactly what they need to solve their problems. Close isn't going to cut it any more. This is going to require a lot of very good asking questions and genuinely listening to responses.

If rental car companies were listening, they'd realize a prius would be a better upgrade than an SUV. The company that figures that out first will be a winner.

Leigh, with the very real prospect of $200 oil, marketers of all stripes will need to position for value and start getting aggressive on pricing. In order to keep margins stable, businesses are going to need to get real aggressive on operational efficiencies (where I believe there's still some fat to burn).

Hang on tight, it's going to be a real bumpy 24 months...

Paul,

I'm right there with you, Paul. I've been inside these companies and have seen the fat. Unfortunately - especially in marketing organizations. Unfortunately, I think many execs make "operational improvements" that seem obvious but often shortchange the customer...in the long-run. It's going to be a painful time, for sure....

Leigh,

We recently encountered the "upgrade" from a well-known rent-a-car service at SeaTac airport. The kind customer service woman covertly tried three times to "upgrade" us to an SUV with no success. She did, however, manage to sneak in an extra driver surcharge ($6 per day) once we were thoroughly frustrated with three contract changes and thirty minutes of asking for the car we contracted. I won't soon forget them and their practices...

$6 Starbucks may give way to cheaper alternatives from McDonalds or Dunkin.

Just as Wholefoods shoppers will likely spend more time at Trader Joe's. Etc.

These are obvious substitutes, but renting a car for a road trip, thats something else.

And I think this is where some great ideas will come from, as products and services are repositioned around a new cost reality of moving atoms around.

Will local food make more sense than imports? Will repair services make more sense than new purchases? Will rental make more sense than ownership?

I think there are opportunities to rethink how business is conducted.

And that means walking the talk on going green. Some organizations have green policies, yet when employees ask to work from home part of the week (to avoid long commutes), employers need to show some flexibility. I heard of a story this week of a large university with a reputation for sustainability. A colleague asked his supervisor for flex work time and was told that different departments have different policies on this issue. Yikes.

In major cities across the, even in Cleveland as of 2007, cars can now be rented by the hour without having to deal with the "person at the counter" any longer. City Car, etc. is the way to go. My son (in DC) rents a MiniCooper to drive to meet us in Woodstock NY, for an hourly rate of $9. The cars come in a variety of sizes and are parked all around his neighborhood. He decides if he wants small ($7), truck ($10)or sport and goes online as a pre-registered user, arranging to pick up his car with a security code he uses to get the keys from a lockbox. The car is tracked with GPS and his account is billed when he logs back in.

Your insights (Leigh Duncan-Hurst) about improving the customer experience is something I am personally working on at Media TV. However, trying to connect communities and businesses affordably, efficiently, profitably, measurably in a new way isn't as fun as you might think...even when it works.

Jim,

My niece did the same thing in DC - just having graduated from GW...she used Zipcar. Highly convenient.

I'm more than familiar with the intricacies of creating and managing customer experience, having been in the trenches for about 20 years... The primary challenge I found was that often the right operational efficiencies and systems (people, process, technology) were not in place, working to subvert customer experience as well as measurement and working more cost-efficiently.

Another part of the problem is that people try to make this about "marketing" when it's really about the enterprise -- which (in larger organizations) has been organized into silos and departments for years... designed to produce stuff but not engineered around the customer. Until we better coordinate the "organism" that is our enterprise so that it handles customers properly... this will be an ongoing challenge. ;-)

Thanks for your feedback!

Shaun,

Great thoughts, thanks!

Elaine - I think there's a lot of hype around going green. My problem is that a good portion of it IS hype.

As a former Oregonian, some of us have been recycling and living greener for years... The hype and green campaigns and bandwagon behavior -- while pointing in a positive direction, are often joined by a gaggle of real hypocrites.

Best not to get me started on the subject... Sufficed to say, many companies are busy launching "GREEN" campaigns that may actually cost more in terms of energy, resources, etc... than they save. And that 'aint green!

Further, on an individual level, I'm somewhat uncomfortable a few of my green friends... who this week are standing in line, frothing at the mouth over their new iPhone G3's....when they have perfectly good phones already. That's not green thinking... some people recycle today but the truth is, our technology is filling up landfills all over the world.

I guess in general, I'd like to see less hypocrisy (and posing) and more COMMON SENSE. Let's really fix what's broken, get back to true innovation, embrace the concept of "right and wrong" and display some ethics... and let's build solid, customer centric businesses based on smart thinking and long-term investment... (as opposed to short-term quarterly thinking that is screwing up companies left and right).

But I digress. :-) Thank you, Elaine. I do agree with you that companies have got to figure out what their policies are for remote workers...This is both a green benefit as well as a benefit to the employee in terms of cost-savings. It does seem like many companies are trying to catch up in that arena....

Thanks again guys!

Beleive it or not, apart from the financial carnage and short term losses, economic downturns can be a good thing. They clean out the silliness in the economy (how many pairs of shoes can a person *really* use?), lesser comptitors and weak products go away. As companies refocus, consumers are better off in the long run.

It's a good thing to remember that this is part of an economic cycle, not our life forever. I hope that as a result of the subprime debacle, and the excesses of consumerism, that more people study economics and learn how money really works.

Thanks Karen,

I agree with what youv'e said. I do think it's time to take our medicine...

At the same time, I think that many people that don't understand economics will not properly adjust their sails and be surprised when the rug is pulled from underneath them.

Leigh, I agree with your point of view. more, I believe that we are at a turning point of the economic history. Too much signs that this world is sick and we cannot only wait for the crisis to pass by. The world is not without limit: economy cannot be base on the assumption of a neverending growth.
Quarterly reports support only the greed: we have to go away from a system where are people living only on stocks performance, pushing and investing against the rest of the world to get more money.
Better is better than more: increase the production or devastate alaska to have more gas today is not the answer. We have to produce better and be more responsible for what we have now.

Leigh,

This is a great post and I especially appreciate your comment about keeping our best asset. I think there is a huge challenge in how to engage and excite a team in light of all of the meteoric speed of change today.

Any thoughts on that?

Thanks for your comments, Gianandrea.

Marjorie - I wish I had a magic answer on that question. Starting with keeping up on rapid change. Some of the smarter clients I work work to stay on top of change by:

- At a department level, having specialists come and speak on various topics once a month

- Assigning employees responsiblity to keep up on new technologies or developments in specific areas and provide reports in staff meetings. Note: these are made most effective if the employee is tasked with defining HOW this technology or development will impact the end customer and/or the business within a specific time frame... and to make recommendations about what to do based on that learning.

- Keeping corporate learning in a common, easily accessed repository for articles, information, trends, etc. Pushing that information (links) via email to employees.

- Doing Corporate Wide brownbags, luncheons, meetings covering market changes, dynamics, customer trends and technology advancement.

In terms of KEEPING the best assets - your good people - there are so many variables at play. Pay, benefits, demands/responsibilities, management culture hours, culture, tasks, age, gender, diversity, market dynamics, economic factors all play in...

I know that many managers are struggling with how to manage based on generation, today. What motivates a baby boomer isn't what motivates Generation Xers... and the same for Generation Y. That is certainly complicated.

On a more general note, I do assert that we need to stop reorganizing people every six months! Start with the processes around which a product is brought to a customer and begin to organize people around those processes. This is more efficient than restructuring "silo" departments that have a tendency to compete more than work together.

In terms of attrition - I may sound like the ultimate pessimist but my grandmother, who cared for her 5 brothers and sisters in the Great Depression used to say "I never thought once about whether or not I should get a 'better' job. I was just blessed to have one!"

If we're heading into the same dire straights, perhaps that will be one factor that will reduce attrition. When you need a job to eat you'll certainly be willing to put up with a lot more than you would if jobs were in ample supply.

The ideas here are a bit fragmented - I started this while on a deadline for something else. Feel free to contact me (www.livepath.net/contact) if you'd like to chat.