In an attention economy, you have to figure out how to turn every possible customer touchpoint (both online and offline) into a Remarkable, word-of-mouth worthy experience.
For a long time, I’ve used business cards and invoices as examples of “basics” which can be flipped.
You’ve seen my invoice where I wrote in payment terms “whenever the hell you want”, but now the Dashboard Group has set a new standard.
They say “WHATEVER the hell you want.”
On their invoice, they have a standard “fee for services” amount.
Then, they have a “customer satisfaction” percentage fill in the blank section.
The client gets to choose a satisfaction percentage and then pay what they feel is right.
Dave Ramos, CEO, says:
To me, this is the ultimate “put your money where your mouth is” customer satisfaction process. We joke with our clients that they are free to fill in a customer satisfaction percentage higher than 100% … and some have done just that! (ie, they paid us more than we billed them.)
This came to me via Todd Newfield Award Winner Paul Farrell and his colleague, Alyssa Woods, who asked Dave the obvious question:
“Has anyone ever paid you less?”
Dave’s response:
Since we started this three years ago, just one client dinged us on one invoice. We probably deserved it. We worked our butts off to make things right, and the next month, they paid us more than we invoiced them. This client is still with us, and has become our greatest source of referrals.
There are so many good marketing lessons in here, I can barely keep my head on with excitement. Here are just a few that come to mind.
- Maya Angelou Marketing: It’s how you make them feel. When you get an invoice like this, you feel empowered AND you feel like you have a choice.
- Remarkable: Obviously, since Paul (the client) sent this to me. That makes the invoice WOM-worthy
- Focusing on every touchpoint
- And, also “feel” vs. look (per Dandelion Marketing). Let’s be honest…this is not the most graphically sophisticated invoice. Anyone of you can do this in 5 minutes in Word. But, the FEEL of the invoice so obliterates any shortcomings in the Look, that it doesn’t matter.
This is how brands are built. Well done, Tom and team.
