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Trends for a Decade - Fibs, Fat Cheques and Fear

Phew, finally out of hibernation although being in the work addicted south-east of the UK, the state of hibernation does not include a long sleep. What we have been doing is looking at the things which are going to drive organisations in the next decade. Because we measure outcomes it allows us a unique insight in to how customers will think in the next few years. We know it is accurate because we have been measuring this way for the last eight years, and have seen so many trends we predicted come to life so for the first time we are sharing our predictions with you.

Trend One - Fibbers will be outed
Fibbing has been in vogue for many years, but what our work is showing is that it is getting very difficult to get away with it these days.   It is not just Fred Goodwin who proved that if you do stuff which is wrong you will get caught. The internet has given a home to customers keen to "out" wrong doers when they catch them, which is good, but this gives organisations something of a dilemma too.  Either they stick to the right way of doing things, which for some may be very tricky, and there are always different ways of seeing things as right or wrong, or they have a good honest investigation about what "right" looks like to their staff and their customers and then go to it.  For those organisations that are able to do this, the future is bright.  A key trend for the next decade is "open and honest", and not just in communication, it is the actions which will speak loudest here.  So look at your comms spend and think about diverting at least some of it into programmes with your staff and customers which create this open and honest dialogue in an actionable way. Then use it liberally to create a Halo which draws in the people you want to your organisation.

Trend Two - Fat cheques do not make your customers happy
At Halo we have been saying for a number of years that customers do not want to make their suppliers rich, they want the outcome they have paid for.  What this means is that the fat cheques some may be hoping for have to be hidden from customers ... oh no that doesn't fit with our first trend of openess and honesty, so what do organisations need to do?  We see a strong trend towards more sharing of profits.  Both major political parties are looking at retailers who have this philosophy at heart, and this is for a good reason.  There will be less money to be made, and those fat cheques will stand out and are going to be looked at very hard by customers, so organisations need to think very carefully before handing them out. If an organisation feels they must do this, then they need to know that their customers will find out so they have to be ready to talk about why they are required.  If the organisation's reasons are fair, so will their customers be, well some of them might, the rest will be talking about them loudly, in all the places and ways the organisation doesn't want.

Trend Three - Time to stop being frightened
There is no doubt that fear sells. It ensures that people are kept in line and doing what you want them to. But it has also been over used in the last ten years and there are signs of fear fatigue from consumers. What happens when something has been overused as a technique is that there is a backlash against it. Therefore instead of fear use positive messaging and the power of a united cheerful response. What is needed is more 'carrot' and less of the 'stick'. The outcome will be far better than if you are tempted to use anything remotely related to fear. Make people smile, feel better about themselves and your chances of getting them to hear your open and honest messages will be far greater.

Document: Trend Four - Command and Control (62 kb)

Put it into action
None of these trends will be difficult to put into action.  You and your team will be doing some of them already, and I bet you might have already thought of one or two of them.  However, we do have a tried and tested way of ensuring that organisations are able to focus on these areas and if you would like to hear how then please call us on 00 44 (0)1276 477445.