doodledee

There's an article in last Sunday's Times that discusses the "wacky" stuff car dealers do in order to keep their customers happy while they're waiting for their cars to be built and delivered. And by "wacky" I mean koo-koo-crazy over the top stuff like "sending people t-shirts" or "a keychain" or maybe even "a postcard with an update". Whoa. Slow down.

Marketing doofs aside, the part of article that got me juiced up was how the car companies are only *now* starting to get that the internet can help us, the customer, help them, the vendor, help us, the customer, help... uhhh, hold on. Maybe an example.

Take Mini. They're featured extensively in the article for the cutting edge ubercool relationship they try and maintain with people who are waiting for their customized Minis to be built and shipped over from Jolly Old England. It all started back when The New Minis were first released and the waiting list was like 10 months long:

Shortly after the introduction in the United States, Mini created the "Where's My Baby?" program on the Internet, so customers could check on their cars' progress. But that didn't seem enough for what were shaping up to be rabidly enthusiastic Mini owners. "It was a little impersonal to just be able to know the basics," [some marketing doof] said.

You mean people wanted more than just an assembly status code? They wanted to form a - gasp! - community?! They wanted to bond with other Mini lovers all over the world and talk about awesome small English cars are? No doy!

Well then hey, let's harness the True Power of The Interweb:

So the company added online message boards, where owners can ask one another about maintenance and warranty issues or just swap stories about their cars. Owners, or soon-to-be-owners, can even write journals, some of which have become quite elaborate. The site has about 12,000 registered users.

And there you have it. 12,000 people writing blogs about their Minis. And not just while they wait for them to be delivered, either. They keep writing about them after they get them. And they write more after they drive them and after they get them fixed at the dealer and after the first time somebody calls their car "shagadellic" and they punch them in the face. That's a genuine grassroots goldmine. And it's open. And it's honest. And it's SO FRICKIN' OBVIOUS. And while sure, there are going to be people who are mad and post about how some part on their car broke or something, that just gives you, the company, another opportunity to look good. Observe: when said incident happens, simply a) fix the problem and b) sit back and watch the praise roll in. Fer duh.

Oddly, very few companies have this stuff in place. Instead it's just a free for all on other car websites or usenet or whatever. Why companies don't build their brand around the culture that their customers are actually building for them is beyond me. Loss of control, maybe? Job security? Laziness?

There's a non-subtle cluetrain tie-in here, too, but I think I'll skip it in favor of watching Conan's monologue.

What to Expect When You're Expecting a Mini-Cooper [NYT]