In marketing, a "whole product" is a generic product (sometimes called the "core product") augmented by everything that is needed for the customer to have an truly superior experience. From the customer's standpoint, this means simplifying the process, wherever possible, to ensure that there is s sustainable reason to continue purchasing from the same company - hopefully a truly compelling reason to continue to purchase from the same company again and again.
The generic product is what is usually purchased at the store, or physically shipped to the customer. While the ‘whole product' is the family of support, service, training, relevant and timely user information, and any additional accessories or complementary additions which make that product stand out as a wonderful experience. It's really the "they've thought of everything" phenomenon. In some cases even a product failure or a service requirement can be used as a way of enhancing the relationship with the customer. "Batteries not included" is the antithesis of a whole product experience.
There are a number of great companies that can be cited as providing a wonderful "whole product experience". Apple and Lexus are two companies that come to mind immediately for me:
Ø Did you know that one of pledges that every Lexus employee makes is that they will treat all customers, as they would treat a guest in their home? Sounds bit silly, maybe, but walk into a Lexus dealership just to see how it works.
Ø Another great example of the Lexus commitment to quality, at the introduction of one of their cars several years ago, Lexus engineers realized that 3000 of their first cars had a minor mechanical problem. They sent a group of executives and a mechanic to EACH owner's house, and while the executives gave the owner a gift for the inconvenience, the mechanic repaired the car in the owner's driveway!
Ø Then there is Lexus' nationwide database. So wherever you travel, the local mechanic will be as up to date on your car as the mechanic who performed the last service himself.
Ø Rumor has it that one of Apple's measures of success is, one minute after they started to use it any new product, that the customer wants to call their friends and tell them "Guess what I just got!"
Jiffy Lube - is another example of smaller business (albeit a franchise) that has dedicated itself to providing superior service by meticulously engineering the customer's experience from the time you drive you car up to the store, and an employee hustles out to point you to the bay that will be vacated first, to the final inspection, to ensure that you know and understand everything that was done with your car, just before you drive away. In just a few short years Jiffy Lube has turned an activity that didn't seem to have much rhyme or reason to me (and the disdain of my ignorance of the automotive mechanisms that propelled my car down the road, was nothing that the mechanics felt any inclination to conceal - even though I was the schmuck paying their wages!). Somehow in the last several years Jiffy Lube (and other companies like them, maybe) have completely changed this experience.
In about twenty minutes and for less that $40, Jiffy Lube has a list of a couple of dozen things that they check each time that I go in for service. Some important things like liquid levels, belts, filters as well as a number of mechanically insignificant, but bothersome items, such as wiper blades, tire pressure and even the functioning of all of my lights. To make the experience a little nicer they even spiff-up my car by cleaning the windows and giving the inside a quick vacuum. Once it's all done they call me by name, (as I'm helping myself to some of their free popcorn and reading a magazine in their waiting room) and on a computer they walk me through each one of the items that they checked, and inform me if anything out of the normal was noticed, and what it might indicate. Then they show me any parts that they recommend that I consider replacing, walk me out to my car and physically run me through the list again, making sure that all of the caps are on correctly, that the car actually did have oil put into it, close the hood, clean off any oily marks that may have been left on the hood and even open my door for me. Somehow they do all of this without making me feel like a dork for not knowing all about these things already. They even give me a little sticker on the top inside corner of my window reminding me when I was last in, and when I should come back to visit them - something that I appreciate because as I get older the time just keeps going faster and faster, and I don't want my car to run dry of oil and shutter to a stop one day because I had other things on my mind. I consider this to be a great example of creating a "whole product experience" - and one that doesn't cost nearly as much as a Lexus. The point is that this process was obviously designed not to make the mechanic's job easier, or more convenient, but instead to look at each step of the process from the customer's standpoint and ask how it could be simplified, speed up or simplified to make our busy lives just a little bit easier. And I believe that they've done a wonderful job of it, and that's why they get my $40 every time that I look up at that tag on my window and realize that I'm already 500 or 1000 miles overdue for an oil change.
RELEVANCE TO YOUR BUSINESS? Even if you're not in the business of selling cars or changing oil, there are almost certainly ways that you can appreciably simplify your customers' experience to make it easier, faster or less expensive for them. If you can, I'll bet that they'll notice and appreciate your efforts. Keep thinking about things from your customers' standpoint and look for opportunities to make their lives easier. I'll bet your competitors are!
Chris Hawkes has been an HP market researcher for nearly the last dozen years and regularly blogs on his website at Market Research 101 and frequently guest regularly on the Product Development and Marketing Association website as well (http://blog.pdma.org/)
