Real Business

I’ve just received a Tweet from Dan, my operations director, telling me not to bother coming to Internet World at Earls Court as some people have been queuing for four-and-a-half hours to attend the seminar I was hoping to “pop into if time allows”.

I now find myself reflecting on the irony of a totally sold-out exhibition and massively oversubscribed seminar series for the online industry. Video didn’t kill the radio star and the internet hasn’t seen off exhibitions.

At the Madejski Stadium in May, I facilitated a HEMP workshop for 60 CEOs from the Thames Valley. The audience was as interesting as it was diverse, with manufacturing, IT, high tech and service companies all represented.

Over coffee, I asked Carl Shuker, CEO of A-Plan Insurance, how his bricks-and-mortar store manages to compete with the meerkat, bulldog and opera singer, who claim to offer the best insurance deals online. His one-word answer? Relationships.

Carl explained that they are continuing to open new branches and their 60th in Salisbury has enjoyed the best start of any in A-Plan’s 40-year history. He highlighted that the comparison websites have actually been a huge help for his company, as they deliver a service which is as impersonal as it gets.

I reflected on my own recent investigation into car insurance, after my daughter added a third car to the family “fleet”. I was tempted by the excellent rate on Admiral’s multicar policy – but what a palaver it was to get the policy in place! It took me five phone calls, each lasting more than ten minutes. Now that was bad enough, but even more frustrating was having to listen to the same scripted nonsense each time I had to redial because I didn’t have a piece of random information to hand. I just kept hitting brick walls. Oh, how I wish I’d met Carl a week earlier.

As we come out of recession, I think many customers will become more demanding of a better service. Price will still be an important factor in consumer decision making, but not the only one. Many businesses that are struggling to compete at the moment might find that a value-based proposition, rather than a price-led one, will succeed in the end. I suggest they start reviewing their proposition now.

I represent an example of one such customer, fed up with sub-par service. Having said that, l’ve noticed that all my travel arrangements are being dealt with by a human being again, as is my banking. Perhaps even more significant is the realisation that I’m actually enjoying going shopping again.

My local bookshop in Wimbledon Village is now giving me a ten per cent discount (which actually makes them cheaper than Amazon on a single book purchase, as there are no delivery charges), and lent me several CDs of classical music when I last popped in and enquired what was playing. As you will know, this sort of thing just doesn’t happen online. In the past few weeks, I’ve tasted some interesting samples at Wimbledon Wines and had my hiking boots custom fitted at Cotswold Outdoor in Kingston-upon-Thames – an experience that led to buying more gear than can possibly be necessary for my charity climb up Mount Kilimanjaro later this year.

And nothing on any computer can possibly compare to the pleasure of seeing my friend’s three-year-old being indulged in Hamleys.

The pendulum has swung too far, I reckon, and the high street is fighting back. To quote Kevin Roberts of Saatchi & Saatchi: “ROI now stands for Return on Involvement. We are moving from rational to emotional; from delivery to delight; from transact to connect.”

And, let’s face it, these things are much more likely to be accomplished in person than on your PC.