Great talk. I’m totally behind the idea of the “give a fuck” economy.

Steve makes the point that companies have to spend 10 years and a hundred million dollars to associate a logo with a company in the customer’s mind. And this is the key thing that is overlooked in most discussions about logos. It’s there to create an association.

Paul Rand’s approach was not to provide different choices that could be judged on their aesthetics but “to solve a problem”. The logo serves a purpose, it is not there for its own sake. It is not there because it looks good or is visually witty or at least not only for these reasons.

Changing a company’s identity is a way to refresh its image, but it also leaves behind the associations that customers have with the company. Every time you change, you reset customer expectations. This was useful for Windscale which became associated with the word “disaster” but can be harmful if you want to preserve your image.

Redesigning your logo is rarely the answer to any problem. The logo is only the sign you hang on your reputation. If the sign is ugly it doesn’t make a terrible company. Conversely, a terrible company can’t change by hanging a new sign.

from flickr: Ryan Fanshaw Photography

This has been bothering me for a long time. I use eBay a lot, and recently it has become less fun, but I can’t put my finger on why exactly.

The site is flooded with generic, no-brand products, (at least in the categories I spend most of my time) being sold for razor thin profits (usually through inflated postage charges). Products have become commodities. There is no call for quality or good service. The opportunity for the home seller is drowned out in a the noise.

There are other subtler problems which are more about expectations. Customers assume that goods on eBay are cheap, but for many things you can find cheaper alternatives online. (Books are a particularly good example.) It’s also taken for granted that service will be unpolished. if you’re buying it online, from a stranger, often second-hand, it’s somehow implicit that you can’t expect to be treated well.

The main problem facing eBay is that it dominates online auctions. And it’s difficult for anyone to compete in that kind of venture without a very distinct service. When you hold that kind of power, it’s easy to be complacent.

So how do you solve these problems? I’m not sure what the best strategy would be, but here are some things I’ve been considering:

1. Separate auctions from fixed price.

It’s difficult to separate businesses from individuals, but easier to separate true auctions from fixed price sales. Commodity sellers don’t like fixed price because it represents too much risk. That’s why I like auctions, they give me an illusion that I might get a good deal.

2. Encourage better service.

Getting sellers, even people like you and me sitting at home, to think of themselves as service providers and giving them good advice on how to improve their customer service would improve the whole experience of the site. It could also lead to better differentiation between sellers. However, this might require that they…

3. Change the feedback system.

Feedback does a lot to punish and prevent scams. If a seller has pages of good reviews, you feel more confident parting with your money. But it’s more difficult to identify great service, something above and beyond. Perhaps a higher level of positive feedback is required. A new category which identifies the exceptional.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in terms of how I handle a sale on eBay and I’ve come up with a few ideas I’m going to try over the coming months. In a way, it’s a great environemnt to test customer service ideas.

First of all, when you’re small, you’re agile. You can change quicker than the big company. When an organisation grows it has a lot invested in its existence, and risks start to look less enticing. So it starts to play safe, it relies on what has worked in the past, it gets choked up in its own bureaucracy.

Secondly, you’ve got creativity. There will always be the new. Creativity is about difference, newness or even just rearranging. Maybe Google dominates search, but what if search changes? Auction sites might find it hard to supplant eBay, but how about changing the nature of online auctions?

I’m not giving you solutions, because the answers are far from easy. But a solution is always possible.

When someone decides that they no longer want your services, it’s usually too late to do anything about it. What you can do, is act professionally and make the process of switching suppliers uncomplicated and swift.

A bureaucratic, unhelpful attitude does not reverse a bad opinion, it confirms it.

It’s also worth remembering that when customers leave, it can be because of budget, location and just not being a great fit with you or your company. If you make their final experience a negative one, they’re much less likely to recommend you to someone who could be your customer.

The problem is, before you are a marketer, you’re a human being. And being human is all about ethics.

For economists the short answer is always “because that’s what people are prepared to pay”. But I wonder if Amazon have a smarter idea.

The proprietary format that Amazon uses creates a kind of scarcity. If you want to read a book on the Kindle, you have to get it from Amazon. So you’re stuck with the price they charge. This all changes when someone starts to provide an alternative service which seems like a pot of gold waiting to be plundered. Or so it would be, except customers wouldn’t be able to read your downloads on a Kindle. So anyone who wants to go into competition has to create their own hardware or rely on the existing offerings. Which are kind of underwhelming.

In a way it makes sense to take advantage of this, but what irks me is that if I was a Kindle user, I’d feel kind of cheated every time I downloaded a book. As a long-term strategy you could do better.