be a pleasure to do business with
Another highlight for me, has been to work alongside Murray Thom in his boutique music company. Thom Music specialise in productions aimed at the discerning high end of the market, and their goal is to produce great music that is exquisitely presented and get it into the hands of like minded people.
Again the “value statement” at Thom Music is the same, we are “a pleasure to do
business with”, and it drives everything that happens within the business, from their relationships with customers, suppliers and employees, to the quality of their products and the experience and pleasure they bring.
A few years back, in the early days of eCommerce, I was involved with one of Murray’s exciting new projects, it was called Together, and turned out to be one of those career highlights.
together – i love that word
Murray got Together, a “10 CD Collection, presented in a beautiful 102-page book of music, words and images to inspire and feed the soul”, in front of one of Oprah’s producers, as the result of a previous business relationship that he had developed.
A month later we heard from the Oprah show that they wanted to feature Together on their end of year “Favorite Things” show, and we had two months to prepare before the show went live.
My role was to design, create and implement a seamless eCommerce system to handle any orders that may be generated, and we had no idea what volume that might be.
The system needed to handle whatever was thrown at it. So we created a website that told the story, took the order, created the documentation, advised the store, dispatched product, tracked the shipment and communicated with the customer.
The day of the show arrived and we held our breath. There was no link from Oprah’s site to ours, so the customers who wanted to purchase had to “google” us. As I said, it was at the beginning of eCommerce.
Well Oprah held up Together, played a portion of two tracks, and called it “her favorite thing of the year” and tens of thousands of people found us, that resulted in a few millions of dollars of business in those first few days, it was amazing.
the real reward – customer loyalty
However, the most rewarding aspect of this project was that from the initial two minutes of “airtime” we built a dedicated and loyal group of customers who became promoters of Together, Thom Music and all of it’s products, referring us to family and friends.
This loyal customer base sustained a profitable business for many subsequent years, in an industry that historically survives from one new product release to the next and was increasingly being driven by
downloads. We developed a depth of relationship with some of those customers, that resulted in us visiting and staying with them, on subsequent trips to the States. This is a photo from one of those visits.
That’s what happens when your focus and goal is to be, “a pleasure to do business with”, anticipating your customers needs and exceeding their expectations. It’s a beautiful thing!!
