Sour Cream & the Metagame
To thrive in business, look beyond your game.
We can reasonably describe business as a game.
There are certainly winners and losers.
Gaming is an important analogy.
These days, it’s not enough to merely play the game.
Because chances are, your customers are playing the metagame.
What’s the Metagame?
The metagame comprises all out-of-game elements that affect in-game decisions.
You’re playing the metagame if:
- Having learnt from past poker nights that I’m a bluffer, you ‘see’ me more often.
- Having read that tanks are popular with wargamers, you proactively build anti-tank guns.
So what’s this got to do with business?
Creamed
I needed sour cream.
Out of sympathy, I went to the lady grocer being crushed by the new kid on our block.
She had cream, but it was a day past use-by.
I asked what became of post-use-by food.
She said she threw it away.
Given use-by dates’ error margin, I considered this a waste and a missed recycling opportunity.
So I asked if, since the cream had zero value to her, I could have it.
She said I could, if I paid for it.
Here the game ended, and the metagame began.
Game On
The grocer’s reply was understandable in the context of her business.
But not in the context of looming competitors and pedantic greenies (the metagame).
She alienated me by:
- Offering to sell a technically worthless item.
- Preferring to trash food rather than generate goodwill with a regular customer.
From wanting to support her, I couldn’t wait to cross the street to her rival.
Not Just Me
This thing scales.
When big retailers ran full-page ads demanding GST for online shopping, they ignored the metagame.
Instead of convincing government, they alienated their customers and drew even more attention to online shopping.
Tiny, seemingly insignificant decisions can lose you customers for life.
I grant that I’m a twitchy case. But in these tricky times, I don’t think any of us can relax in the comfort of our long-cherished (yet possibly quite perilous) perceptions.
The Tribe Speaks
What elements (if any) comprise your metagame?
Do your customers play it?
Do you?
Have you ever ditched a supplier (or lost a client) due to something way out of left field?
Tell us about it.
We love hearing your thoughts and stories.
Survivors ready!
…
GO!
Paul Hassing, Founder & Senior Writer, The Feisty Empire
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Hope this story counts and it was certainly a lesson to us. We ran a groupon style campaign at an employer client recently where we set a target of 100 employees joining MyCarBudget (by a certain date) and we would give them all $20 in free fuel as a prize.
The campaign started slowly but as the date neared it really picked up. What made it work was employees urging their fellow employees to join MyCarBudget so that they could all win the $20 in fuel.
We reached 97 and failed.
Opinion as to whether we should just give the prize anyway given we were so close varied amongst our team. Employees at this employer certainly felt they had given it their best shot and deserved the prize.
In the end rules are rules and we didn’t pass on the prize.
We also recently launched our new fun and viral video at this employer site and whilst it was also received well, some employees refused to even open the email (to view the video) because they felt cheated about the $20 fuel voucher.
Sometimes bending your own rules can work in your favour.
Oh boy, MCB. I can’t describe how much your story counts!
Frank, topical and gripping. You really have gone beyond the call this time.
Thank you so much for baring your corporate soul for our edification.
I’d like to add one more point that came to me after finishing this post.
Once people started tearing chunks out of retailers who participated in the anti-online campaign, we began to hear about ‘billionaires ripping off ordinary Aussies’.
I know many wealthy entrepreneurs make their fortunes via decades of hard yakka. But our country is famous for its ‘tall poppy’ syndrome. With economic conditions biting, the rich vs poor divide was thrown into high relief.
I certainly didn’t see this coming. Nor, I imagine, did retailers. Sometimes you don’t realise something’s part of your metagame until it bites you on the bum.
Paul – I wish I could send this post to about 100 or so retailers, restaurants and businesses that I’ve dealt with in the past and have sworn to ‘never go back there again’!
Isn’t it funny how ‘company policy’ that was (we assume!) created to provide the business framework for serving their clients can be the very same thing that loses them? How many times have you been served an incredible meal at a restaurant, but left with a bad taste in your mouth because ‘it’s restaurant policy’ to charge you for water/extra bread/to split the bill. I always wonder who decided it was worth ticking me off and losing my custom for good, all for the $6 water charge…
Thanks for yet another brilliant post, Paul!
Emma =)
Hi, Emma. I hear you!
You’re so right. Policies meant to help can often hinder.
It’s so rare for businesses to get this right, it’s triply impressive when one actually does.
Don’t get me started on bread …
G’Day Paul,
Youse ex-HR types really are a bit tetchy aren’t you? Some 40 years ago when I was a Personnel Manager with Target, I had an absolute gem of an example of one of your megathingos. It’d take too long to relate here. But when you’ve run a business for as long as I have you accumulate lots of “stories of arrant business stupidity for all occasions.”
Rather than trot one of those out, there is something important underlying all this.
I believe that about the most important thing that any business manager or owner needs is an absolutely crystal clear business focus and an equally absolutely clear narrow target market.
When you’re not 100% certain about both these matters you have perfect conditions for all sorts of stuffups including your metagame.
You see, your little old cream lady probably figured that you were simply trying to rip her off. She didn’t see you as a customer that she could ill afford to lose. She’s almost certainly never heard of lifetime value of a client.
I wonder what you would have said had she said, “Paul, I could lose my milk licence just for giving that to you because the ‘use by’ date has past. I know you don’t want that. Nor do I. So you pay me for the cream,and you can have any thing else in the shop of the same value free; even another bottle of cream if you like”
Incidentally, I agree that MyCar Budget didn’t pass on the prize. But I think that they should have moved heaven and earth to ensure that they got their 100 takers and not risk alienating an important client.
Always consider the consequences. Having said that, I accept that some of you readers may think that I’m nuts
Regards
Leon
Hi, Leon! In my experience, the only thing tetchier than an ex-HR type is a current HR type!
I’m so glad you mentioned lifetime value. I thought our Malcolm might beat you to the punch there.
What an elegant solution you described for the grocer! I would’ve gone for that in a heartbeat.
If you’re nuts, I’m crackers. Any time you want to lay that gem on us, you can be my guest!
The big question… why does sour cream have a use by date?
Good point, Winston!
I’ve even seen a use-by date on bottled water!
I think that’s overdoing it a bit.
This reminds me of your power seller debacle on ebay Paul pity they don’t have a worthy competitor.
My reasons for choosing one business over another are so subtle and ridiculous that sometimes I don’t even understand them. For instance, I shop at coles before woolworths wherever I can, and am even an evangelist for coles. This is a bad example because I don’t know why I don’t like woolworths, I just don’t. Maybe it’s a good example though, because it shows how subtle and silly people’s reasons for doing things can be, and why it’s critical for businesses to always have their customers best interest in mind.
Nice post!
Cheers
Dan
Thanks for another beaut comment, Dan. I always look forward to your take.
That is interesting about your mystery Coles allegiance. I used to ask people why they preferred Holdens to Fords, or St Kilda to Essendon. In all my years of research, I never heard a single cogent reason.
That’s how flighty our minds are. I pity the retailers trying to garner loyalty in this climate.
It is REALLY interesting.. It’s one of those things I’d love to pour some money into researching, in the future when i’m unreasonably wealthy
I’ve often tried to determine why I like Coles more, and have come up with the following:
Firstly, my reason for liking Coles probably lies in the subconscious, and there are most likely two factors that would have placed it there:
A) Some very little thing when I first started grocery shopping for myself, for example a hot checkout chick at coles who I enjoyed going to see, or a moody one a woolworths that turned me the other way. Whatever it was would’ve most likely been quite insignificant since I can’t remember any more.
B) The need to be loyal to something. I think everyone likes to have loyalty to something, it gives them comfort and direction. But since the competitors for your loyalty can be so similar, we rely on silly little things like a hot checkout chick to determine our direction.
Daniel – I’m glad I’m not the only one! I once boycotted a regular coffee haunt for the best part of a year, just because they changed their take away cups from red to brown. I didn’t care for brown
Though just to be really controversial – I’m on Team Woolworths. I think it’s because my Mum used to shop at Woolies as a kid, so I associate it with almost that same warm fuzzy feeling that you get when you return to the town you grew up in. I’ve never, ever had a bad experience at Coles, and yet, it still seems like the big evil corporation.
With increasing competition and the ridiculous, flighty decision making of consumers like us…it does pose a really great question for businesses. How the hell DO you get (and keep!) loyalty?
wow – the poor barista has probably been tampering with his method ever since, trying to figure out what he did wrong.. When the fact of the matter is it’s his bosses fault for switching from red to brown because he saved 1c per cup.
I think this exemplifies the problem really well – many businesses waste a tonne of money trying different things to make customers happy when the answer is really quite simple: Ask them what they want. Everyone’s going to want different things, and if you can’t cater for two groups then you have to decide which one you want to hold onto.
In your coffee shop example, maybe they lost 6 regular customers because of the cup colour change, but maybe they changed because they had 10 customers complain about the red cups.. Tough game huh? So how to keep all 16 customers? It’s all about opening up communications – maybe if they had a twitter or facebook page where they encourage their customers to give feedback (good or bad) they would have discovered some like red and some like brown – then maybe they could have started offering both colours!
Sorry to hear you’re with Woolworths (haha sounds like footy teams) – can totally relate to your going there due to the warm fuzzy feeling though. Reminds me of an analogy from Zig Ziglar where a wife cuts the ends off her hams and her husband asks her why, she says “because my Mum did”. So they ask her Mum why she did and she says “cause my Mum always did”. So they call the grandmother and ask her. Her response “because my oven was too small so I had to cut the end off to fit it in”. Adds a whole new scary element to this debacle, flighty decision making by inheritance!
An add on to the communication thing – simply making the effort to open up two way communications with clients/customers builds loyalty in itself. It shows you care and are interested to hear what they have to say, who doesn’t love that?
Imagine if Coles and Woolworths had someone who sat at the front of each store and their only purpose was to chat to people about how they could serve them better – and even offer gift vouchers for really good suggestions. Wouldn’t be the funnest job in the world but they’d certainly learn a thing or two..
Great comments, Dan. You could get on the radio with this sort of stuff!
Checkout chicks can certainly make or break one’s supermarket experience. There’s such a world of difference between the human and the robotic version of: ‘How are you today?’
Receptionists are another stumbling block. How many times have you entered a billion-dollar skyscraper, with million dollar views, and half-million-dollar execs, only to be burnt to a cinder by the $38K person on reception who hates the world and everything it in?
Excellent analogy – or how about a hot date with bad breath. Spent $400 on the outfit but didn’t spend $3 on the toothpaste
I’ll pay that one too, Dan. You sure have plenty of ideas!
G’Day Paul,
Y’know, if Daniel wasn’t a Colllingwood supporter, the Woolies people would be much nicer to him.
Now that I’ve said the important thing….
Did you ever want a better example about how important it is to be “first in the mind” as Ries and Trout put it, than Emma’s example of why she shops at Woolworths?
Here’s an idea for you and Naomi. Conduct a survey of your SBO clients to find out how many of them are still using a product of service they’ve used for over a decade.
For instance, my family’s association with THe Mighty Bombers go back to the 1880s. In Julie’s house and in mine as we grew up,we only had Rosella tomato sauce. We’ve been married for over 40 years. Guess what tomato sauce we use? We became, as they say, a Mac business over 25 years ago because they were so much easier to learn to use than a conventional PC. Guess what we’re still using?
Marketing occurs in the mind say Al and Jack. Look in your bathroom and your kitchen cupboards if you want proof.
Congratulate Emma for such a brilliant idea.
Avagoodweegend
Regards
Leon
Hi, Leon. Each time I encounter the supporters of Woolies in Collingwood, I’m tempted to switch to Aldi in Helsinki!
I used to cleave to brands. But as each one lets me down with slipping standards, I try others. As a result, our peas, corn and orange juice now cost around a third of what they used to. Yet they taste the same.
Loyalty be damned. If it ain’t earned, I’d rather pay my pennies off the home loan!
Many thanks for your thoughts.
A topical piece from Michael Pascoe:
http://www.theage.com.au/business/retail-war-zahra-v-zara-zara-winning-20110715-1hhak.html
I’ve been keeping a very keen eye on the arrival of Zara – and not because I want to purchase 99.9% of their stock… =)
Michael Pascoe is absolutely right here – Zara aren’t trying very hard here in Australia. They’re just doing the bare minimum to stay ahead of local competition.
Personally, I think they’re riding on their reputation and their emotional associations (the old Coles vs Woolies debate we’ve been tossing around on the next post for the last day or so). Zara has (at least for me and pretty much every woman I know) always been the treat for going overseas – if you got to travel to Singapore or Europe, you were rewarded by being able to shop in Zara. Anytime someone from my previous work place would head overseas, we’d all madly pick a few items and transfer money so they could do a little shop on our behalf. Zara, for Australian women, is associated with exotic holidays and trips overseas.
And now, they’ve brought that ‘experience’ to our doorstep.
We all lined up in the cold, squealing with excitement, on Opening Day, bought as much as our poor credit cards could cope with, and excitedly shared news of our purchases with family and friends.
Their clothes are great – but he’s right. They’re the European Sportsgirl. Not really much to write home about. We were ‘buying into the experience’, not necessarily the actual item.
So for the big question. Once the gloss of being able to buy Zara whenever we like wears off (which I really think will come), will Zara be able to get away with just doing the bare minimum to stay ahead of the local retail landscape? Do they have a Plan B?
Personally, I think they’ll need one.
Fab analysis, Emma! You seem the perfect combo of businessperson and girly girl. Sort of like that lady terminator. I sure wouldn’t want to meet you across a crowded bargain table!