In my last post I asked: When there is already more than enough of every product and service known to man, how do you create a customer? More to my point, how do you create a wildly enthusiastic customer?
I guess you could choose to continue doing battle in a bloody marketplace, saturated with parity products, staggering competition, excruciating price resistance and ever-escalating customer expectations. You could try to be a little better, faster, cheaper. But in that scenario, I’m thinking two things: 1) Any sort of appreciable success is unlikely, 2) Survival is probably a crapshoot. But there’s another approach to creating wildly enthusiastic customers:
Invent new satisfactions. Give them something they’ve never had and probably never even thought of.
A personal example: A decade ago, I took my son to Las Vegas to celebrate his 21st birthday. We went to see a show called Mystere at Treasure Island. It was one of the most remarkable experiences of my life. If you haven’t seen Mystere or one of the other Cirque du Soleil shows, there’s really no way mere words can do them justice. They’re an innovative, sensuous, curious amalgam of theatre, music, art, dance and athleticism. A cab driver once told me Mystere was like a circus on acid. Not a bad description.
The point is, I didn’t know I needed Cirque du Soleil until I first experienced Mystere. Cirque invented new satisfaction for me. I could never have conceived of the Cirque experience. Now, I can’t imagine missing any Cirque show I have an opportunity to see.
In my next post, I'll offer a couple of more examples – one of them in the most mundane of industries. Please come back ...
