消费决定存在

    施拉格介绍了几家消费者转变企业的个案研究，并列出了它们策略中的共同元素。其一，它们投入时间和精力，培养消费者了解、使用他们的产品。折扣时装零售商Syms将这一策略变为营销口号：“受过教化的消费者是最好的消费者。”施拉格表示，谷歌（Google）培养了一代的搜索用户，让他们接受每页更少的搜索结果来获取更快的搜索返回速度，即使他们声称自己想要的正好相反（每页更多结果，而搜索速度更慢）。这种策略的立足点在于，这种培养最终能带来回报，因为更聪明的消费者最终也更有价值。

    以消费者为中心的企业还会确保自己的用户不必经过重重关卡才能实现改变。施拉格写道：“简洁比复杂更好。快比慢更好。有回应比抵制更好。简单比困难要好（得多）。”

    说的不错。但这种看法的基础是把购买者看作是粘土，只要产品足够闪亮，他们就就会心甘情愿接受塑造。史蒂夫•乔布斯就是这种态度的缩影。在《财富》杂志的一次参访中，乔布斯说：“苹果的关键之一是，我们打造真正令我们自己兴奋的产品。”焦点小组和市场调研都一边去，我们想要的才算数！然而消费者，至少美国消费者，认为自己是独立行动者。或许是我们天真，又或许是企业想要让我们保留这种自以为是智能体的幻想。然而，我们相信是自己选择了那杯咖啡，那辆车，那部智能手机，因为它们符合我们的需求。我们改变是因为自己想要改变，而不是因为某种利润中心让我们进入一种新的状态。

    成功的消费者-企业关系不仅仅在于企业想要自己的消费者成为什么样的人，也在于消费者愿意成为什么样的人，以及他们想要企业变成什么样。如果你培养消费者为邮寄DVD和流媒体电影支付固定费率，然后又突然拆分这两项业务，并要收更多钱，却不给消费者更多的好处，那你就会陷入麻烦。（没错，说的就是你，Netflix。）

    创造自己喜爱的产品很好，但最好能确定其他人也会喜欢，否则就只是在用公司的钱追求自己的爱好。虽然极少企业领导者不狂妄自大，但更少人拥有乔布斯那样的设计和营销水平。施拉格承认这点，警示道，并不是人人都能成为为自己而做（DIFY，即Do-It-For-Yourself）的创业家。他写道：“如果你不能成为自己最好的消费者……那么你就别无选择，只能更加以消费者为重，以消费者为中心，更有消费者意识。”

    值得赞扬的是，施拉格用相当多的篇幅论述了要求消费者改变所涉及的风险。麦当劳（McDonald）可能想通过让消费者升级自己所点的餐食来赚钱，但他们并没有完全准备好迎接其结果：体型升级的消费者。

    企业不能决定自己的消费者最终会变成什么样。但这一点从来没有阻止企业进行这种尝试。企业领导者喜欢想象自己拥有重大的责任，去指导自己消费者的生活道路。但这并不是说起来这么简单。谷歌、微软（Microsoft）和星巴克这样的巨头企业，改变了我们的行为，并进而改变了我们的生活方式。但无数其他的力量也让我们发生了改变，从宏观经济，到社交、政治，和艺术。最终，消费产品只是一大碗汤中漂着的几片菜叶。

    译者：余倩

    Schrage presents case studies of several customer-transforming companies and lays out common elements in their strategies. For one, they invest time and energy in training their customers to know and use their products. Discount fashion retailer Syms turned this strategy into a marketing slogan: "An Educated Consumer is Our Best Customer." And Google (GOOG), Schrage argues, trained a generation of searchers to accept fewer search results on each page in exchange for faster delivery, even if they claimed they wanted the opposite (more result on each page, albeit at a slower pace). The idea is that this training eventually pays off because smarter customers are ultimately more valuable customers.

    Customer-focused companies also make sure that their users don't have to jump through too many hoops in order to change. "Simpler is better than complicated," Schrage writes. "Faster is better than slower. Responsive is better than resistant. Easier is (much) better than harder."

    Fair enough. This sort of thinking assumes, however, that buyers are like clay, ready and willing to be molded if the product is shiny enough. Steve Jobs epitomized this attitude. In an interview with Fortune, Jobs said: "One of the keys to Apple is that we build products that really turn us on." Focus groups and market research be damned, it's about what we want! Yet customers, American ones anyway, like to think of themselves as independent actors. Maybe we're naïve, or maybe we retain the illusion of agency because the companies want us to. Still, we believe that we chose that cup of coffee, that car, that smartphone because they fit our needs. We change because we want to change, not because some profit center has engineered us into a new state.

    Successful customer-company relationships are not just about who companies want their customers to become, but also who customers are willing to become, and what they want companies to become. If you train us to pay one flat fee for DVDs-by-mail and streaming movies, then suddenly separate those two businesses and ask for more money with no additional benefits, you'll run into problems. (Here's looking at you, Netflix (NFLX)).

    It's great to create products that you love, but you'd better make sure that others will love them too, otherwise you're just pursuing a hobby on the company dime. (See under: Apple TV). And while few corporate leaders lack hubris, even fewer have Jobs-level design and marketing chops. Schrage admits this, warning that not everyone can be a DIFY (Do-It-For-Yourself) entrepreneur. He writes: "If you cannot be your own best customer … you have no choice but to become even more customer-focused, customer-centric, and customer-aware."

    To his credit, Schrage devotes considerable space to the risks involved in asking customers to change. McDonald's (MCD) may have wanted to make an easy buck by urging its customers to supersize their meals, but they didn't exactly prepare for the result: supersized customers.

    Companies can't determine what their customers ultimately become. That never stopped any company from trying, though. Business leaders like to imagine that they have the awesome responsibility of guiding their customers' life paths. (Coming soon: Holy Church of Apple?). It's not that simple, though. Behemoths like Google, Microsoft (MSFT), and Starbucks (SBUX) have changed our behavior and, in turn, the way we live. But so have myriad other forces, from the macroeconomic to the social, the political, and the artistic. In the end, consumer products are just stray vegetables in a very large bowl of soup.

    It's great to create products that you love, but you'd better make sure that others will love them too, otherwise you're just pursuing a hobby on the company dime. (See under: Apple TV). And while few corporate leaders lack hubris, even fewer have Jobs-level design and marketing chops. Schrage admits this, warning that not everyone can be a DIFY (Do-It-For-Yourself) entrepreneur. He writes: "If you cannot be your own best customer … you have no choice but to become even more customer-focused, customer-centric, and customer-aware."