This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the pub- lisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional service. If legal advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Vice President and Publisher: Cynthia A. Zigmund Editorial Director: Donald J. Hull Acquisitions Editor: Mary B. Good Senior Project Editor: Trey Thoelcke Interior Design: Lucy Jenkins Cover Design: Jody Billert Typesetting: the dotted i © 2003 by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba Published by Dearborn Trade Publishing, a Kaplan Professional Company All rights reserved. The text of this publication, or any part thereof, may not be re- produced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America 03 04 05 10 987654321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data McConnell, Ben. Creating customer evangelists : how loyal customers become a volunteer sales force / Ben McConnell, Jackie Huba. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7931-5561-4 1. Customer relations. 2. Relationship marketing. I. Huba, Jackie. II. Title. HF5415.5 .M1834 2002 658.8—dc21 2002012221 Dearborn Trade books are available at special quantity discounts to use for sales promotions, employee premiums, or educational purposes. Please call our special sales department, to order or for more information, at 800-621-9621, ext. 4307, or write to Dearborn Financial Publishing, 30 South Wacker Drive, Suite 2500, Chicago, IL 60606-7481. dedication ❘ For our parents—Matt and Betty, John and Kass CONTENTS Foreword vii Acknowledgments ix 1. Customer Evangelism: A Manifesto 1 2. When Customers Believe 11 3. Customer Plus-Delta: Understanding the Love 21 4. Napsterize Your Knowledge: Give to Receive 35 5. Build the Buzz: Spreading the Word 41 6. Create Community: Bringing Customers Together 53 7. Bite-Size Chunks: From Sampling to Evangelism 63 8. Create a Cause: When Business Is Good 67 9. Hot Marketing Now: Krispy Kreme Doughnuts 79 10. The High-Flying Solutionman: SolutionPeople 91 11. The History Lessons of O’Reilly’s Wars: O’Reilly & Associates 109 12. The New Mavericks of Marketing: The Dallas Mavericks 123 13. A Bear Market for Retailing: Build-A-Bear Workshop 139 14. A Cause, Not Just an Airline: Southwest Airlines 155 15. The Billion-Dollar Cause: IBM 169 16. Customer Evangelism Workshop 179 Appendixes 185 Endnotes 197 References 206 Index 208 v FOREWORD After we launched the Macintosh in 1984, hundreds of Macintosh user groups sprang up around the world. They were gatherings of passion- ate believers who helped each other become better Mac users. They sus- tained Macintosh when Apple couldn’t—or wouldn’t. Don’t get me wrong: We didn’t know what we were doing. This stuff was just happening, and we did our best to keep “it” happening, where “it” = “Create unbelievably loyal customers and ignite a holy war between op- erating platforms.” After this experience, I wrote Selling the Dream to evangelize evangelism. But that was 1989, and it was a different marketing world. We didn’t have the Internet, 500 channels of cable TV, satellite radio, or cell phone spam. Now the entire world is drenched and debauched in content and ad- vertising, and we need evangelism even more. We sure don’t need more stinkin’ ads. We need more folks who spread the good news. This customer religion is built on great products and services. The next step is fueling the fire of customer love, and this is what this book explains. There are four reasons why the evangelistic customer approach is im- portant: (Some readers will know that I usually deliver such pronounce- ments in a top ten format, but considering that this is a foreword and space is limited, I’ll keep it short.) 1. It’s cheap. You don’t need to pay evangelists. Most of the time, you just need to get out of their way. 2. It’s effective. Think about the last significant purchase that you made: What was the biggest influence? Probably the word-of-mouth reputation of the product, not a Super Bowl commercial. vii viii ❘ Foreword 3. It’s fun. How much better can it get than working with people who love your product or service and want to help make the world a bet- ter place? 4. It will drive your competition crazy when they see hundreds or thou- sands of customers turn into raging thunderlizards for your prod- ucts and services. Those are some of the key lessons you’ll learn from Creating Customer Evangelists. I wish I had written this book, but I’m glad that I didn’t have to, because writing a good foreword is a lot easier than writing a great book. Guy Kawasaki CEO Garage Technology Ventures Palo Alto, California ACKNOWLEDGMENTS it takes a community Writing a book requires a tremendous level of collaboration from multiple sources, some of which are named in the chapters of this book. Others played behind-the-scenes, yet vital, roles. We are very grateful for the assistance of the leaders of our case story companies and their teams. They devoted many hours of what probably seemed an endless array of interviews, e-mails, phone calls, and fact check- ing. We are thankful to: Maxine Clark, Teresa Kroll, and Katy Hartrich of Build-A-Bear Workshop. Mark Cuban, Matt Fitzgerald, George Killebrew, and George Prokos of the Dallas Mavericks. Stan Parker, Ashley Neighbors, and Brooke Smith of Krispy Kreme Doughnuts. Tim O’Reilly, Mark Brokering, Catherine Brennan, Sara Winge, and Sandy Torre of O’Reilly & Associates. Gerald Haman of SolutionPeople. Jim Parker, Kevin Krone, Linda Rutherford, and Patty Kryscha of Southwest Airlines. The following people took the time to talk with us about many con- cepts in the book: Richard Alm, Jeffrey “Hemos” Bates, Chris Bontrager, Jeanne Cusick, Brian Erwin, Melissa Giovagnoli, Alex Johnston, Guy Kawasaki, Evelyn McClure, Ann McGee-Cooper, Rich Marcotte, Karen Mishra, Kevin Olsen, Emanuel Rosen, Heath Row, Liz Ryan, Tim Sanders, Jackie Sloane, Daryl Urquhart, and Todd Walley. ix x ❘ Acknowledgments We are extremely thankful to a stalwart group of friends and colleagues who reviewed our manuscript and made it more readable. Our thanks go to Lynn Barney, Nancy Cobb, Kevin Dowling, Betsy Harman, Kass Huba, John Huba, Dan Limbach, Matthew Lindenburg, Betty McConnell, Matthew McConnell, Lynne Marie Parson, and Simone Paddock. Their thoughts, ideas, and suggestions helped us tremendously; any errors or omissions rest solely with the authors. We’d also like to thank Victoria Rock and Tara Bonaventura of Victoria’s Transcription Service for their timely help. We are thankful to our editor, Mary B. Good, for taking a chance on first-time authors. We appreciate the support of Leslie Banks and Elizabeth Bacher of Dearborn Trade. Even though this section is becoming about as long as an Academy Awards speech, we want to publicly thank several other gracious friends who helped us and have evangelized our work to the world: Donna Itzoe, Greg Heaps, Liza Ewell, Lee Mann, Simone Paddock, Richard Landman, Todd Hassell, Tonja Rizai, Kathleen Peterson, Betsy Harman, and Melissa Giovagnoli. We also thank the accommodating staff of Starbucks Coffee at North Avenue and Wells in Chicago, where we spent several hundred hours writing and editing this work. We’d like to acknowledge two women who, over the last year, showed us what the power of evangelism is all about: Lynne Marie Parson and Stacey Wagoner. Thanks for your enthusiasm and support. Thanks to au- thors Emanuel Rosen and Dan Pink for their wisdom and guidance, and to Guy Kawasaki for being an inspiration. CHAPTER 1❘ CUSTOMER EVANGELISM a manifesto “We are encouraging our clients to fly Southwest Airlines. We are buying more stock . and we stand ready to do anything else to help. Count on our continuing support.” 1 —SOUTHWEST AIRLINES CUSTOMER ANN MCGEE-COOPER, in an October 2001 letter to Southwest President Colleen Barrett You are an evangelist. You tell others what movie to see, which computer to purchase, what restaurant to visit, which dentist you prefer, which cell phone to buy, which books to read, which clubs to join. Your recommendations are sincere. Passionate, perhaps. Perhaps you didn’t realize that you are an evangelist—a bringer of glad tidings—but your sphere of influence, made up of friends, family, col- leagues, and professional communities, realizes it. As our opening quote indicates, Ann McGee-Cooper is a Southwest Airlines customer who stands by a company she loves. After the September 11, 2001, attacks, which crippled and jeopardized airlines for months, McGee-Cooper wrote the company, informing it that she was persuading clients, friends, and family members to fly Southwest Airlines and was pur- chasing tickets on their behalf. She bought the company’s stock. Perhaps most tellingly, she included a $500 check with her letter, saying that the air- line needed the money “more than I do.” 2 She is more than a loyal customer; she is a customer evangelist. 1 2 ❘ Creating Customer Evangelists A loyal customer is often defined as one who buys from you on a regu- lar basis. If you’re an airline, loyal customers are usually defined as those who accumulate the most frequent-flyer miles. If you’re a grocery store, a flower shop, or a café, perhaps your loyal customers are those who live within walking or easy driving distance. Their loyalty to you may be driven by convenience or low prices. In effect, they are repeat customers, not nec- essarily loyal customers. A repeat customer who purchases on the basis of convenience or low cost can easily morph into a vigilante customer, one who spreads the word about your deplorable service to all who will listen.