How can we “ultrasimplify” the business?

Thursday, March 20, 2008  by Lynn Wendyger
Category: simplicity, transformation, customer experience, ultrasimplicity

In my previous post, Do You Wii?, I asked for ideas on how to simplify the business.

After all, the brilliance of the Wii is that features were subtracted, not added. 

And as Forrester Research, Inc. reported, “ultrasimplicity”, or eliminating features to better meet the needs of customers, is one of the five disruptive customer experience strategies used by companies to change the status quo in their industries.

Here are some examples of your comments: 

* The personalized websites need a simplistic adjustment. Instead of having 4 different web addresses, simplify into one address. --Josh

* Excellent transformation topic! Wii, iPOD are great testimonials on SIMPLICITY. I believe our Ribbon program is very close to this stage of "ultrasimplicity”.

--Sivaram

 

As Sivaram said, this is great transformation topic. So tell us more. In your business, where would less be more?  

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Comments

# Jeffrey said on March 20, 2008 6:24 PM:

Simplify the receipt features by eliminating the restrictions on case lot pricing so we can sell eaches and only being able to make receipts for registered customers. Also the company needs to make the personal websites one address that is a customizable "front door" to the main site.

# rdknyvr said on March 20, 2008 6:56 PM:

Lynn, Bruce Tempkin (Forrster Research) has a blog at this link where he discusses the topic briefly, including designing a disruptive strategy. http://experiencematters.wordpress.com/category/disruptive-strategies/

# eleanor said on March 21, 2008 2:51 PM:

I personally like having at least the ribbon albums on its own site address.  It is scary for me to think that my corporate clients would possibly see me as selling every thing under the sun instead of being what I tell them a gift and incentive specialist.  Yes having one address would 'simplify' and I think It would relegate me into the background instead of standing out.  I would stop promoting the personal website as a tool for them.

# Eleanor said on March 21, 2008 2:59 PM:

My suggestions for simplificiation:

It would be much simpler if I didn't have to worry about an order day and delivery day.  It is so antiquated to try and explain order day/ship day to new customers and new clients.  

# Lynn Wendyger said on March 22, 2008 10:36 AM:

Agreed on the Personal Websites. I have not heard an update on these lately, but I know this concern has been raised by others. And, others have voiced as well that B2B Ribbon has different needs. Thanks for adding your voices to this discussion. We need to keep Personal Websites simple if they are to be useful to you.  

# Lynn Wendyger said on March 22, 2008 9:36 PM:

Question for Eleanor and others.

What if we stopped providing ship day info?

What if the choices were simply lowest cost/longer shipping time versus higher costs/shorter shipping times? Would this be easier?  

# pedro said on March 22, 2008 10:02 PM:

There are other website simplification options for IBOs. GoDaddy.com has .com domains for $1.99/year. If Q* can't provide this feature for IBOs then they should simply look for other places that will give them what they want. Support groups within Q* already discovered this option. I'm not certain, but I would like to know if there are additional rules, fees, or regulations for an individual IBO to have a website apart from Q*. This would allow IBOs to sell Q* products under the blanket of "their own business" in a very professional and simplified manner. It's hard enough that I have to try to remember an web address such as www.qhealthzone123/789__456.quixtar.biz, but to ask a customer to remember that is absurd! A thank you would be in order, but you can forget about asking them to come again!

# Jeffrey said on March 22, 2008 11:49 PM:

How about less large bonuses for the 0.000012% that are Diamonds and Crowns and absorbing some of the cost of shipping (instead of raising the rates every year) and let us order any day we want? Do the shipping like some of the Partner Stores: A flat $5.95 on orders up to $50.00, then free over that for both IBOs and Customers? That would REWARD people for placing larger orders instead of penalizing them. As far as cycle delivery goes: My order night is Sunday and it is supposed to be here Tuesday or Wednesday, but it seldom ever is. It is usually Thursday or Friday. The only bad thing about UPS is that (esp. in an apt.), if we aren't home, they won't leave it but the truck driver (cycle delivery) will. I know that gas is going through the roof, but people still want low cost or free shipping and they will shop with the companies that provide it and won't shop from the ones that don't, or at least will place smaller orders to save on shipping. Also, don't delete info: it's vague enough as it is. Customers can't even access their order/ship day info as far as I can tell. People get upset if they miss their order day by one day and have to wait an extra week. Some of them can't figure it out and then never order because they just think that its always going to be like that. Deleting info does not make things easier. It makes it more complicated. I still wish it was a requirement for Q/A employees to be IBOs for 6 months. I think quite a few things would change quickly.

# YankeeIBO said on March 23, 2008 8:37 PM:

Hi, Lynn!

I posted a comment that seems not to have shown up here, yet--could you check on it?

As far as the shipping info goes, changing over to the standard, express, and overnite options without set ship days would be great--as long as there are real changes reflected in the shipping schedules to match. Keeping the same ship-day schedule but just not publishing it would not be an improvement. These days, no one wants to wait 10 days for their product to arrive when they can get it somewhere else, faster.

# Chad said on March 24, 2008 12:13 AM:

The 3 month FREE shipping deal for new IBOs who purchase a product intro pack is really wimpy and confusing.  Why can't Quixtar offer free shipping to all IBOs...perhaps drop the $750.00 qualification to something reasonable like $250.00  Quixtar shipping costs are extremely high and continue to increase.  I understand delivery costs are on the rise, but the competitor shopping sites are investing their dollars in this area and Quixtar should do the same.

# Lynn Wendyger said on March 24, 2008 9:46 AM:

Yankee IBO: I did publish one of your comments to the Do You CSA? blog. Is that the one?  

Pedro: At one point, Quixar was allowing IBOs to have their own domain and redirect to a Quixtar Personal Website. Check with the Rules Dept. if that is still OK. The number one complaint we have about Personal Websites are the domains, and this is being looked in to. For those who have not set up their own free Personal Websites, here are links to two of mine:

lwendyger.qhealthzone.com

lwendyger.ordermygift.com

# josh said on March 24, 2008 11:53 AM:

Lynn,

I have to agree with Jeffrey and Chad regarding the shipping costs for IBOs.  $750 dollars is a lot of dollars to get free shipping.  As I understand it, this goes back to the old Amway business.  Product pickup...etc.  It would help to make this more reasonable.  However, $15-25 isn't that bad either.

eleanor,

I can see your point regarding the websites.  Something I didn't think of.  I believe they could setup the sites to accommodate both our ideas.  If you wish for people to go the Ribbon site directly,  you can send them there.  At the same time, for friends and family and general customers have the front page as I described.  

The godaddy.com idea is also good, if it is within the rules.

# Jeffrey said on March 24, 2008 3:11 PM:

Not to monopolize the conversation, but another couople of ideas I advocate are the customizable personal websites that are a "front door" to the main site. If someone wants to promote the entire site, it is just a click away. If others want to specialize, they could put a link on their home page. Customization is nice because we could upload a picture of ourselves, write a personal message, show our favorite products or have a product-of-the-month, etc. Check out the Shaklee Distributors personal home pages. They are really nice. Also, besides the high shipping costs, the other thing the company needs to do right away (this sounds like a broken record) is break down the case lots. We've talked about it so much, but the new PerfectWater is another example. Buying a case will simply scare off hundreds of people that would have bought a 4- or 6-pack. Yes, it costs more in materials. Oh, well. People WILL buy the smaller packages. I could move many more cases of Meal Replacement Shakes if they were in a 4- or 6-pack. I don't understand why the company is so adamantly against giving us what we want and what customers want. I'd be willing to bet that user-unfriendly packaging/selling units was the death of SA8 Tablets and the Active 8 Fruit Squeeze Juice Boxes. Please, please, please break these case lots down.

# NormaConnlly said on March 25, 2008 2:23 PM:

It seems to me that as a global business perhaps we could offer cusomers  a lower price? This is the main objection I have faced.

# NormaConnlly said on March 25, 2008 2:51 PM:

before i sold quixtar products i was in real easte, i own some stocks  and it always seems to be about price The folks at cmbc are talking about how walmart is lowering prices because of the high price of gas.   i know we have a superior product but at the end of the day  everyone is comparing prices.

# CJ said on March 25, 2008 5:45 PM:

I agree with Jeffery/Josh/and Chad and I have one more area to add to. Since one of the goals of the "transformation" is for the business to move into a more customer friendly/retail environment, then the corporation is also going to have to start offering more variety in the homecare/body area. For years, the corporation has "marketed" to only IBOs because they are probably the largest consumer of these products. Plus it's almost like "if you don't buy these, where else are you going to get PV/BV?". Now that the corporation is moving to generating more retail customers outside of IBOs, customers outside of Quixtar/Amway are used to having variety at a price that's reasonable. Unless a product has a value/story or unique feature, it doesn't equate to being (1) buyable and usable from the IBO standpoint and then (2) being sellable to a customer since these two experiences go hand-in-hand. For instance the SA8 laundry powder is great, wonderful concentration per use story, but couldn't they offer other bold scents like the other brands? Another is Glister toothpaste-how about other flavors so we can compete? The two examples I point at the most is the 6pack body series bar-soap for 12.99 retail and the body series deodorant that retails at almost $5-where's the value/story for these that can justify the high pricing? Where's the variety in scents? And why would the average or slightly-above customer spend $12.99 for a 6 pack of soap just because it has a soap saver feature on it-a person can buy antibacterial bar soap from anywhere and more bars at cheaper prices. I admit and proud that the coorporation has provided variety in the other core areas such as health/wellness (XS-8 flavors, food bars-4 flavors, etc.) and skincare/cosmetics. But the other core area such as homecare/body needs to be addressed so that consumers on the outside of IBOs who are used to variety will appreciate our products along with a good value/price story. Although people will continue to bath and use cleaning supplies even in a bad economy, unless there is a good value/price to the item as well, it won't make sense for them to buy premium products-throw on top of that exorbant shipping charges and limiting the customer to receiving the product in product pick-up fashion as Amway distributors did a long time ago when they were the distribution/logistical system. And no, I'm not suggesting for us to compete with the Walmart consumers, but a fair market price is a fair market price for an average product. You and Susan should do some cross talking since this is also a good topic for Salesspeak. Thanks Lynn for the opportunity!

# Tom Busby said on March 25, 2008 10:01 PM:

Product costs are rising in the supermarket and elsehwere including WalMart. Customers are looking for noticable diferences to attract them to change there shopping and buying habits. If Q/AmwayGlobal invested in noticably lower prices on exclusive products and offered FREE Frieght for everyone then they would make up the diference in one day for all of the new volume the new customers and IBO orders that it would draw. In this world the Rich Get Richer. How far would one Diamond bonus of $250,000.00 go to covering lower prices and free frieght. Give me that and I will live with order day/deliver day. Or maybe you offer FREE Frieght for everyone that has at least 1 $75.00 DITTO order every month . Thanks for listening!

# Solomon Liston said on March 26, 2008 12:57 PM:

It has been a while since I have logged onto this site. I love this topic. I just played Wii for the first time with some customers of mine last month. haha Too much fun!

Here are my thoughts & suggestions...Anything that helps our customers THINK less is better. Helping my customers think has been one of the most important services I have been providing. The more thinking my site(s) and myself can do for customer, the better. That is why ditto has been such a big hit & the new make over on the website is huge improvement for the same reason...it helps people do less thinking. Suggestion: Maybe a group of bundle called Customer's favorites? Or a format that allows us(IBO) to create our own special bundles (a personal specials page) that we can market to our customers. And when we need customer (New IBOs) to think out of their routine, we offer incentives. The  free shipping to customers has been a WONDERFUL incentive & has definitely improved my person customer volume! I would love to see a greater shipping incentives for IBOs. The first 3 months is good and i would love to see something greater. Another suggestion: is allowing me to designate a $ amount to be discounted of a customer's or IBOs next order as an incentive to order online (utilizing eCelerate).  A tool that would allow me create additional incentive on my own.

I hope these suggestions are helpful to you Lynn.

All my best,

Solomon

# Donald Holmes said on March 26, 2008 11:09 PM:

Is it possible, or practical, to have a link on the OZ site to click on and end up at quixtar.com?

(I have found the link from quixtar.com to OZ a simple time-saver, so believe this would, too.)

# Eleanor said on March 27, 2008 4:26 PM:

So I was just out for a walk and I think I crystallized my thoughts to a shorter statement.

I think it's about remaining competitive.  If our partner stores can offer inexpensive! easy to understand shipping why can't we?

# Eleanor said on March 29, 2008 8:31 AM:

I had a thought about simplifying for Ribbon:  Sales speak has mentioned that the RIbbon promotional CD will have a few commercials that help to illustrate and create an emotional link to how the Ribbon program works.  Could those be intros for the Ribbon personalized websites?  Skippable of course for those who are repeat visitors.  But that would simplify by allowing the promotion and subsequent visit to the website create a view of those commercials even when a face to face meeting is hard to schedule with the consumer.  We've all had people who are willing to go look at the website but dont want to sit down with you.  That way they are still exposed to that explanation and the emotional connection.

# Lynn Wendyger said on March 29, 2008 11:13 AM:

Great idea on the Ribbon ads, Eleanor. All the commments on personal websites will be sent to that team.

Also, all the comments on shipping and delivery fees have been provided to that team. We know these are both hot topics. As we learn to become more consumer focused, we will also learn how to provide you more effective tools to use with customers. We have a lot to learn in this area, but are making internal changes to help us focus. That is why your input is invaluable. You are the ones interfacing with customers on a daily basis. We have a lot to learn from you, so keep it coming.  

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