InformationWeek

February 12, 2001

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My Value "Is" The Value-Add

By Lou Bertin (Lou.Bertin@gte.net)

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fter the spectacle of hearing one who certainly should have known better sparring with questioners as to what, exactly, the "definition of 'is' is," I sit here a touch befuddled, having just heard an ad for a local agency promising a "value-added real estate experience."

I've got a pretty good idea as to what "is" means, but I'm scratching my head as to what constitutes a value-added real estate experience.

Does that suburban Virginia Realtor intend to convey that a transaction will be handled as painlessly as is possible in an environment where contracts still are written in Elizabethan English and require raised governmental seals? Did the agent hope to sell me on an experience where I'll actually have more than a passing idea as to why I'll be writing each of the two dozen checks on the day when the title to real property actually changes hands? Is the agency's definition of value-add one that drops to my personal bottom line and indicates that the agent will be a bare-knuckles negotiator on my behalf?

I haven't the slightest notion as to how the agent defines value-add. And that is precisely as it should be, because the agent's definition of value-add doesn't matter a whit. The only definition that matters is my own. Such is the reality in the customer economy, where we've all been conditioned to expect that we'll be treated (with wildly varying degrees of satisfaction) as that potent, elusive, often-undesirable "market of one."

Where that Realtor (or my dry cleaner, or my car dealer, or the local cobbler) is concerned, I am large and in charge and don't I feel grand as a result? Well, not much and not lately, customer economy or no customer economy.

What that real estate agent's ad does is reduce to manageable size what I, at least, have come to view as the ultimate fly in the New-Economy, customer-economy ointment, which is to say confusion. Confusion, in this case, is defined as almost complete confusion as to how organizations ought to behave in these brave new economic times.

No doubt the Realtor I cite came to be convinced--after being bombarded with blandishments from like-minded "value-added" members of its own value chain--that it, too, needs to be perceived as a full-fledged value-added service provider. The trouble is that I, that agency's most important prospect, as I've been conditioned to think of myself, have no idea as to how that agency credentials itself as my value-added partner. I haven't yet submitted my personal standards to ANSI on that matter, so how can I possibly determine if the Realtor's performance qualifies it for inclusion on my real estate provider schedule?

Ah, the joys of being the customer in the customer economy. The dealer who leased me the car whose radio has suddenly lost the ability to bring in even static on the AM band put me through a three-day exercise in lease interpretation before informing me that somehow, the radio that was in the car on the day it was steered away from the dealership isn't part of the automobile and, as such, isn't covered. And, by the way, the dealer informs me I'm due for a 30,000-mile service and my free-servicing plan ran out after two years and 20,000 miles. I felt great warmth and partnership after that particular experience, which no doubt felt like value-add to the dealer, but left me feeling not a bit enriched.

What, then, are organizations that wish to define themselves as customer-driven to do, apart from bombarding us with the sorts of intrusive marketing techniques we've all come to despise?

Although it may seem counterintuitive to my fellow frequent flyers, an airline comes to mind as the "universal donor" example of what would be welcome to this customer. Delta Air Lines provides a simple, elegant, straightforward example of what can be done to provide true value-add. At most of its gates in North America, Delta has displays that tell us when the plane is due, at precisely what time it will begin boarding a particular flight, what seats are still available, how long the flight will take, and what the weather is like at the city where we'll be arriving.

Delta decided to forego the bells and whistles and instead gives me what I crave most at an airport: detailed, up-to-the-minute, and (one dreams) accurate information about how things are going for my specific flight. That's it. And that's everything, as far as I'm concerned. The food won't taste any better, but that doesn't matter to me, and I'm the one in charge here, remember?

The only lesson here is that there are as many definitions of value-add as there are consumers, and any definition that's intended to appeal to all will fall miserably short of its goal. For any organization doing business in any sector of this customer economy, information is king, queen, and emperor all rolled into one. Tell me what you do; tell me how you do it; and tell me how you will (or, occasionally, won't) take care of me and you're more than halfway there.

Oh, and don't even think about lumping me in with those impostors who think they're the center of your market universe.

Lou Bertin is a contributor to InformationWeek Online and is a principal at Bertin & Co., an organization he founded in 1999. He formerly was managing editor/industry at InformationWeek, a founding editor at Computer Reseller News, and a senior vice president at Fleishman-Hillard in Washington, D.C., where he led government relations efforts on behalf of a variety of technology companies and consortia. He also was a vice-president at Burson-Marsteller in New York. He is a frequent speaker at industry events and is a commentator on CMP Media's TechWeb multimedia online service. He can be reached at lou.bertin@gte.net.


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