Mike Stopforth

I’m damn slow sometimes. I seem disproportionately slow when it matters most.

I’ve been speaking about a concept in my various presentations to various clients and brands for some time now that has gone unnamed until the recent Nomadic Marketing course we held for FNB and partners here in Jozi. I had finally named the concept a few days before and even started working on a paper about it (yeah, I think it’s pretty cool), when I mentioned it in my presentation and forgot that the quickest damn thinker / blogger / innovator in the Land was sitting in the same room - my bud Dave Duarte.

Dave seemed to like the concept and wasted no time in blogging about it on his site. He was kind enough to credit the term to me in his post, but I’m going to try and elaborate on it because I think he may have misunderstood what I was getting at, just a bit.

You see, Guerrilla Kindness is NOT ABOUT BEING SURPRISINGLY NICE TO CUSTOMERS… it’s about BEING SURPRISINGLY NICE TO COMPETITORS, and is best illustrated as follows:

Some time ago Nedbank got a bit tense with me because I used their name in a Citizen column about my frustrations with the red tape and admin involved in simple banking processes. This happens to big brands all the time - people have a bit of a rant online on their blogs, forums or consumer sites like HelloPeter.com.

The thing is, customers aren’t always right (despite the old adage). The customer IS king, but not always right. Kind of like my wife. She’s the most important person in my life, but that doesn’t automatically mean she’s always right (99%, but not always, ok…)

Guerilla Kindness is the act of acting as a representative of the industry you are in, even when the opportunity to act is not in response to a mention of your own brand.

Imagine if you will, what might have happened if FNB or Standard Bank had been the first to respond publicly and personally on my site even when I was talking about my own bank, Nedbank, and not theirs.

In terms of how we understand traditional marketing, branding and corporate best practice to work, this would be a ridiculous notion. Banks compete heavily for customer attention and loyalty - why would any bank in it’s right mind defend a competitor while acting as a representative for the industry in general?

I’ll tell you why - it’ll blow everyone’s minds and they wouldn’t need to do anything underhanded to achieve it.

Let us surmise using the real example of a blog post I wrote a while back about phishing. Here is an excerpt:

I’ve picked up a few patterns in phishing mails caught in my Gmail spam. Most conspicuously, Nedbank never features. Or at least not yet. I’m aware they’ve had phishing issues in the past, but I have never once seen a Nedbank phishing mail in my spam folder. FNB looks worst hit, and ABSA and Standard Bank have sporadic mentions. I’ve checked out some of these sites, and they are pretty convincing even to the trained eye.

In this case, only Nedbank remained ‘unscathed’ as I mentioned my concern about the volume of phishy mail in my spam folder. There was a response from Standard Bank to this post from Ross Linstrom (Head of Media Relations) but it was impersonal, generic and unhelpful in context of the post. It was simply some long arb text cut and pasted from a security warning or document on the Standard site. At least they responded though.

But what if Nedbank had been first to respond, with something along these lines:

Hey Mike

Thanks for the mention and for sticking with us all these years. I know you pointed out that we have managed to avoid the scourge of phishing ugliness happening all around us but the truth is that we battle with this worrying situation as much as Standard Bank, FNB and ABSA.

We’d like to be a bit presumptuous and speak on behalf of the industry in saying that this issue is of the highest priority to us all and that we’ll be doing our best to continue clamping down on offenders while constantly keeping our customers aware of the latest security information. We’d also like to ask that you - the people who are after all the target of this crime - to help us with your suggestions for how we can help prevent you being caught and keep your money safe in the process.

Keep up the blogging!

Jane Smith, Nedbank Client Care, jane @ nedbank etc. etc.

Let’s look at that response and think carefully about what it would mean.

1. Nedbank were never expected to respond (they weren’t being held ransom in the post) - they did so because they cared about getting in first and connecting with the customer before anyone else could.

2. They’ve actually defended their own competitors, and named them in the process. This is powerful because a. no bank ever speaks a positive word about another bank - they’d rather die a thousand deaths and b. they have not bowed down like a wet fish to the customer and said, “yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir”. Brown nosing gets you nowhere with modern digital prosumers. But respecting their intelligence and engaging in discussion will do so.

3. Let’s imagine I was a Standard Bank customer and Nedbank wrote the response above, without trying to ‘win me’ as a customer in the process - i.e. simply jumping in where Standard should be and seeking to engage in conversation and answer some questions. However, this needs to be done without bad-mouthing or undermining the competitor in question.

4. I’m blown away as a customer - here’s a brand that I have not asked to respond, that responds not just in their own interests but in the interest of the entire banking fraternity, all the while seeking to help me find a solution and caring enough to engage in personal, but public, conversation. It won’t take me long to switch loyalty to the kind of brand that does that.

In order to be a Kind Guerrilla you have to be:

1. Damn fast - you need to find out who’s talking about what and where quicker than anyone else so you have every opportunity to capitalise on the conversation.

2. Genuinely nice and honest… about your competitors - this will be your biggest challenge. Not to be funny, but you’re not exactly currently strategically aligned with niceness.

3. Willing NOT to sell to everyone, all of the time. Understand that you DON’T have to be selling something about your brand, service or product everytime you touch base with a customer. Rather aim to grow relationships, trust and loyalty and the conversions will come as a byproduct.

I think there’s something in this. It’s a bit speculative and whimsy now, but I hope to identify some case studies and elaborate on the idea. What are your thoughts? Help me solidify this.