Automated Phone Answering Systems - Worst Possible Way to Communicate with Your Customers

Why have virtually all of America's larger companies adopted these absolutely horrible and hugely frustrating automated phone answering systems to deal with their customers when they call?

I don't know a single person who likes to deal with those stupid automated systems.

When you call a company with a question or a concern or an issue of any sort, YOU WANT TO TALK TO A REAL PERSON. Yet, you're forced to go through a long and usually frustrating list of "menu options" before you finally navigate your way to a real live human being. The message being sent is "We really don't want to talk to you. Please go away." Is this smart marketing?

I don't believe in these systems for any company, but companies that are in any kind of customer service business are really shooting themselves in the foot when they adopt these systems. The phone is still an important customer contact tool. It always will be. Why lose the opportunity to personalize this point of contact and use it to differentiate your service and make your company stand out? Automated phone systems are dehumanizing and impersonal. Are those attributes desirable ones for your brand?

I once worked with a mobile phone company that wanted to differentiate itself. At the time, all the competitors were dong "me too" advertising featuring the latest hot rate package (this many minutes for this much money). We did some research and consumers told us that the single biggest thing that this company could do to differentiate their service was to have "live" operators instead of an automated system. You'd think this would be a no-brainer for a phone company. NOT! They ignored the research results and adopted another differentiation strategy instead.

This opportunity remains low hanging fruit for any service oriented company. When people call you, have a real person answer the phone. Train your people to deliver consistently pleasant "on strategy" brand and service experiences to these callers. Your own people can be your most powerful marketing tools and they can make a strongly positive first impression if you let them. Don't let "operational efficiency" mislead you into making a foolish marketing mistake.

General (Government) Motors - A No Win Situation

As GM reorganizes and survives on bailout money, they are faced with the marketing challenge of how best to support the brands that will be the future of the company.

One brand that is receiving relatively heavy marketing support right now is Cadillac. They're launching a new model, called the CTS Sport Wagon. It's basically a station wagon.

There are three things fundamentally wrong with this. All of these are symptomatic of why GM is in trouble in the first place.

1. Their timing is awful: Launching a new model NOW? Right in the teeth of all the negative publicity they are receiving related to going bankrupt? Tell me how this makes any sense.

2. The new model is a STATION WAGON! Station wagons haven't been popular since SUV's took over that market niche. After working pretty successfully for years to modernize the Cadillac image and make the brand younger, they decide to go retro with a station wagon? You've got to be kidding.

3. The splashy spending is no longer perceived as GM's marketing investment but as a wasteful use of taxpayer bailout money. Our tax dollars are being spent by GM to advertise an ill-advised new model being launched at the worst possible time. A really bad way to spend our money (it's not their money anymore.)

Cadillac should probably never have conceived and launched this model in the first place. I'll be amazed if it succeeds. Cadillac and all the other GM divisions should not be doing splashy big money marketing right now. They should be using PR tactics, not advertising, to set the stage for the relaunch of the entire company once the reorganization is complete. That's when they'll need to stun us with great new advertising that makes us truly believe that there is indeed a new smarter and better General Motors.

What they're doing now just looks like "same old same old." In fact, it strikes me as even stupider than some of the moves that got them to bankruptcy court in the first place.

How'd You Like to Have Any of These Marketing Challenges?

Think your job is tough? What would you do if you were the top marketing person responsible for any of the following - all of which would be contenders for "toughest marketing jobs of 2009- 2010."

1. Chinese Hummers

Not only are Hummers suffering from the double whammy of being gas guzzlers (swimming upstream against both the Green Movement AND higher gas prices) and being built by now bankrupt General Motors, but Hummer is now owned by a Chinese company that has never built cars and that nobody in our country has ever heard of.

2. Un-fried Chicken at Kentucky Fried Chicken

Here's a brand that's been selling "Fried" to America for about the last 50 years. Now they're trying to get people to overlook that and drop in for grilled chicken. You know things are bad when you have to ask consumers to ignore your name as part of your ad message.

3. General Motors Cars

Bankrupt company being run by the government asking consumers to trust them and still buy their cars. My hunch is that most of us are taking a wait and see attitude about GM and its cars right now. They've got a big opportunity to re-invent the company, but will they? And even if they do, will we believe that they have? How can they convince us?

4. Playboy Magazine

Hugh Hefner is now like 100 years old and is no longer an icon for the brand. He's a joke. The Internet has completely filled the "need" for the cheesecake that once drove the brand. Magazines, in general, are in trouble. What was once "cutting edge" and "cool" (at least to guys) is now hopelessly "old fashioned" and very "uncool."

5. Arnold Schwarzenegger

California's economy and state budget are a disaster. The former Mr. Universe is looking more like Mr. Whimpy. He's a Republican in an Obama Democratic dominated political landscape. The Terminator is almost certainly going to get terminated when he's up for re-election. He's too old to go back to being a movie hunk. Senator Schwarzenegger? Not likely. Talk show host? Who can understand that accent?

6. Blockbuster

Going to a brick and mortar store to rent a movie or video game is now completely unnecessary. Technology and the Internet and NetFlix have made the movie rental retail store concept obsolete. Blockbusters customers are gradually deserting them for these more convenient and more immediate options. What can they do to reverse this trend? How can they re-invent themselves?


Every job has its challenges, but these are a few of the marketing challenges that may all border on the impossible. But it's going to be fun to see what happens. It will take some very shrewd marketing (and probably some good old fashioned luck) to turn these lemons into lemonade.