What's happening to customer behavior? Comments on "Attack of the Customers: The Pampers Dry Max Crisis."

I personally find this article very interesting. What I take away from this article are basically two thoughts. Firstly, how customer behaviors changed with the advent and development of Internet and SNS. Secondly, how P&G dealt with this PR crisis that hadn’t happened before anywhere.

Personally I have never called a complaint number because it always related to an impression of long waiting time and annoying lines transferring. I like to write down my using experience and advice on a comment note or book. Unlike me, there are a lot people out there enjoying their efforts to the products they use. They called the 800 numbers and wrote mails to companies to report their using experiences. However, with the Internet becoming the most important communication tool, customers’ behaviors have been changed gradually. People started to interact with the companies by emails and companies’ website. It’s becoming easier for customers to get connections with companies and gain information more directly and accurately. Then there is social network website that customers can organize their own thoughts and share with friends. “The word of mouth” can be like a coin with two sides. On one hand, companies can use positive customers’ reviews as a marketing tool to promote their products. People tend to believe more on what their peers and friends told them than what company said. On the other hand, just like the problem that P&G met, customers’ reviews which were posted on Facebook had been used as a sword that threaded the reputation and sales of the product and the company. The Pamper Dry Max was the first time that customers’ review made to the broad publicity by social networks. It rapidly got attentions and gathered customers’ who had the same concerns.

This “customers’ review” behavior is the new behavior pattern that customer adopted with the advent of Internet and social network. Before making purchase decisions, customers will search online to see reviews that customers wrote after their using experiences. Facing this new customers’ behavior, companies started to adopt their strategy to it. Just like what P&G have learned from the crisis. It’s always too late to get in touch with the angry people. Companies should get to their customers before they get back to you. Internet is the right tool to use to achieve this goal. It shortens the distance between companies and customers. Companies open forums for customers to share their thoughts, open Facebook and Twitter for customers to follow and update customers’ reviews as feedbacks to observe market.

When it comes to how P&G dealt with this crisis, I will say that P&G did a pretty good job. The nature of its strategy on launching a new product would cause some problems, such as misunderstanding on its strategy and its value. What I think that P&G did the best was that it didn’t go after those inflammatory stories, but focused on child safety and well-being problems. It’s a very smart move. On one hand, P&G built its brand reputation by showing its social responsibility. On the other hand, P&G tutored customers on how to solve the problems, which really meet customers’ needs at that time. There is one thing that played a very important role in dealing this crisis. Besides the criticism, customers still have faith in the brand. With this winning card in hand and some really smart moves, P&G also adapted to the new customer behaviors, which led to a very good result.

 

Reference

Paul Gillin, Attack of the Customers: The Pampers Dry Max Crisis

http://gillin.com/blog/2012/08/attack-of-the-customers-the-pampers-dry-max-crisis/