This weekend, my husband and I decided to finally replace our very old washer and dryer. After doing all the requisite research, shopping, reading reviews, etc, we decided that we should get one of the new machines that use very little water. As we were placing the order with the appliance company, we were reading some information that suggested we use a low-sudsing laundry soap. No problem, we thought, that makes sense.
Well, the manufacturer suggested a brand of laundry soap that we don't see very often in our local grocery store, so we thought we'd just find another. Well, after looking around, we found some that say they are HE. Looking into that a little more, we learned that HE is for High Efficiency machines. This is probably what we need to use, but I found it odd that nowhere on the HE package did it indicate that this was a low sudsing detergent. This got me a little miffed. After reading all the information, I concluded that we are probably making the right choice, but why couldn't the detergent manufacturer and the machine manufacturer simply use the same terms? Why is it that the consumer is left with the job of doing the math and making the connection?
I'm sure that both companies were trying to do what they felt was easiest for the consumer. The machine manufacturer is trying to describe the detergent (low sudsing), and the detergent manufacturer is trying to describe the machine (high efficiency). What is easiest for the consumer, however, is consistency. The consumer needs for these companies to talk to each other, to create a consistent consumer experience. They should support each other, and not behave as they would toward a competitor.
Think about your company. How often do you encourage others to look beyond their immediate sphere of influence to think holistically about the consumer experience? What people, groups, or companies should you be working with that do not live inside your company, yet are trying to improve your consumers' experience?
re: your new machine
HE refers to both the soap and the machine. The detergent is high efficiency because it cleans with minimal sudsing and rinses out more easily, which allows the machine to use (a lot) less water, less energy, etc.
Like the Windows compatibility logomarks, the appliance makers created the HE logo to indicate detergents that were designed to work with these types of machines. You should only use HE-marked detergent in your machine, or you will have soap left in your clothes (even after repeated rinsing) and you’ll likely also have problems with mold, mildew and smell. You can get away with using non-HE soap on occasion (if you have some old soap that you can’t another home to donate to), but only in minimal amounts — you’re really better using HE exclusively. If the soap you’ve found doesn’t say HE on the box, it isn’t HE and you probably shouldn’t use it.
For many years, it was very hard to find HE soaps — nobody carried them because there wasn’t much demand. But now I’ve found that places like Costco and Walmart carry a few different name brands (Tide, or Woolite, for example) although regular grocery stores still rarely do.
Although the implementation of this system (e.g. ensuring availability of soap when the machines began to be sold over a decade ago) left a lot to be desired, it was intended to help consumers choose the right matching products.
re: holistic consumer experience.
In general, my consumer experiences with big American businesses have been increasingly awful over the past 10-15 years. It almost doesn’t matter who they are – if they’re big, they stink.
It’s so bad that I am actually surprised when the experience is good and/or matches my expectations, and I go out of my way to praise it. Unfortunately, it is too often dependent on individuals who go out of their way to do the right thing, because the companies have engineered good service out of their business models, from the top down.
After all, it costs a few pennies extra to build or design a product right, and a few more to provide exemplary service, and that is highly measurable. But most companies haven’t got any way to measure the cost of annoyed customers telling all their friends negative stories (or of happy customers telling good stories).
Sales lost are hard to identify, and the salespeople have too much to win by keeping the credit to themselves if someone says they’re buying because of a friend’s recommendation. In that scenario, middle managers will always opt for short term optimization at the expense of long term loyalty, lost sales and declining profitability and poor service. It takes a visionary CEO to insist upon better, and we probably require a balanced scorecard approach identifying a number of metrics that are shown to correlate strongly to long term corporate health.
For the above reasons, I see the holistic approaches you describe almost exclusively in small to mid-size companies, especially those still run by their founder(s).
Good luck with your new machine. If you’re interested in a washing machine story that illustrates the most egregious extreme in companies not getting it, check this out: http://www.anti-marketer.com/2006/10/brand_mismanage.html