- Customers have never had more power.
Consider that they can go into a store,
look at a product, and find out what
price it's being sold for at a number of stores,
online or elsewhere in the city.
They can find out what customers think about the product.
They can have that product delivered
to them that same day to their home
or office if they wish.
You might say that all this power
in the palm of their hands through
their digital devices has gone to their heads.
Well that's the new reality, so what
are you going to do about it?
Let me give you an example
of one of the leading digital companies in the world.
It's been one of the best performing stocks
in the United States this decade.
That fact alone probably has you thinking
I'm referring to Amazon, Apple, Google,
or maybe Facebook.
No, this company has outperformed each
of them since 2010.
I'm referring to Domino's Pizza.
Domino's, you may ask?
I thought you said this was a leading digital company.
Stay with me a second.
Domino's was a juggernaut of a company
through it's first several decades
since its founding in the 1960s.
A lot of that was due to enhanced
customer experience, as it was one
of the companies that revolutionized
home delivery of pizza.
By the second half of the 2000s,
the company hit hard times.
The core product, the pizza, wasn't
as good as it once was, and unfortunately
for the company, with the power of social media,
this fact was amplified.
Finally, their CEO Patrick Doyle,
filmed an ad in which he said, "We're sorry for sucking."
They reinvented the core product,
but they also elected to position themselves
to better leverage the medium that it caused
their issues to be exacerbated.
They transformed themselves digitally.
First, they invested in technology talent.
They developed an iterative approach
to developing technology, especially
the technology that would be customer-facing.
They also retired old antiquated systems
and ushered in a modern architecture and infrastructure.
Domino's Pizza extended their lead
in online sales with industry-first mobile ordering,
redefining expectations.
They introduced pizza profiles, enabling
easy, repeat online ordering.
Perhaps most progressively, they launched
the Anywhere suite of ordering technology.
Now you could tweet or text an order.
You could do so using Amazon Echo.
You could track that order, no matter
the device you use.
Rather than dictate how you as the customer
needed to interact with Dominoes,
Dominoes was flexible enough to let you choose.
This eventually extended to addressless delivery,
say to a park, where you were with friends,
as drivers could find you via your mobile device.
All of a sudden, Domino's had gotten
its mojo back in a big way.
As Domino's reputation for being
a digital leader has grown, it's had
an easier time attracting great talent,
which was the source of this gain in the first place,
creating a virtuous cycle of sorts.
The results have been great, online
sales have grown to over 60% of total,
meaning multiple billions of dollars in revenue,
and dominoes is now the largest pizza chain
in the US by revenue.
When you hear stories about what Amazon
or Google are doing digitally, you may
think to yourself, I could do the same
if I had their technology budget,
but is your company so much less technologically
savvy than Domino's was at the beginning of their journey?
If they could do this, so can you.
Identify the various ways in which your customers
like to use technology, and start experimenting.
I bet you'll find that the process
will energize your relationship with your customers,
but it will also motivate your employees at the same time.
That's the virtuous cycle you should seek.