Setting a new standard

In an industry that is perceived by most consumers as a commodity market, how does a company distinguish itself from its competitors? Research found that the customers of business forms giant Standard Register had a simple, one word answer to that question: service.

Through customer focus groups, Standard Register, which supplies a full line of forms, forms programs and equipment to business, industry, institutions, and governments, learned that more than any other attribute, service was most important. As a result, the company has released an ad campaign to carry the message to targeted markets and implemented a company-wide commitment to service.

Prior to the focus groups with Standard Register customers, focus groups of another sort were conducted with the company’s management by its ad agency, the Martin Agency , Richmond , Va.

As a part of a technique it calls “benefit testing,” the Martin Agency sat down with Standard Register representatives to determine what they saw as the company’s strengths and main selling points.

“(Benefit testing) allows us to distill from a variety of sources within an advertiser’s organization, all of whom have their own points of view, how a company feels its products or services ought to be advertised. It enables the people within an organization to lay their ideas on the table, to say, for example, ‘We ought to market ourselves on the basis of price,’ or ‘We ought to market ourselves on the basis of functional superiority,’” says John Adams, executive vice president of the Martin Agency.

These ideas are then converted into selling propositions and placed on “benefit boards,” which are presented to the company’s clients in a focus group setting. The most important selling points identified by Standard Register management were the company’s size and stature within the industry, its blue chip client base and its product excellence.

16 sessions

The customer focus groups were held in Chicago , Denver , Philadelphia , and Atlanta in 16 sessions, four sessions in each of four key market segments: health care, financial, hospitality/travel industry, and manufacturing. The participants were representatives of large and medium-sized companies who were involved in forms purchasing/management for their respective companies.

The respondents weren’t initially told who was sponsoring the groups. The respondents were asked traditional questions about what they look for in a forms manufacturer. They were also questioned about their thoughts on Standard Register and its key competitors to help gauge how they were predisposed.

Once it was revealed who was sponsoring the group, the respondents were shown 12 boards, each of which featured one selling point pertaining to products, service, company attitude, company size, client list, cost savings, sales staff training, etc. presented in a manner similar to an advertisement, with graphics, images, and clearly stated copy.

For example, one board promoted the idea that companies should do business with Standard Register because it is the largest manufacturer of forms in the U.S. Another cited Standard Register’s list of Fortune 500 clients.

Adams says that the result of the groups is a specific rank order of the benefits that are most meaningful to respondents.

“You often find that within the first few groups that you do, you begin to pick up the threads. By the time you’ve done your tenth focus group you’re confirming what you heard in your first three. While it is not and doesn’t pretend to be quantifiable research it is nevertheless highly predictive and highly dependable in our experience,” Adams says.

Little difference

The respondents said repeatedly that whether or not the business forms manufacturers chose to accept it, they saw little difference between the major competitors.

“When we did the groups and presented different selling ideas, the message that came out loud and clear was that the business forms industry was a commodity business. And in a business where everybody was perceived as being the same, the only differentiator that was meaningful to the customers was service. The respondents said ‘What I can’t deal with is when I can’t get the forms on time, when I run out of them and you have promised that you would maintain my inventory for me,’” Adams says.

Further, the focus group participants provided a definition of what service meant to them, what components it had to have to meet their needs. To them, service included things like knowledgeable, personable sales representatives and attention to a client’s particular needs.

Kip Brown, vice president of the Martin Agency , says five adjectives describing the necessary attributes of a service-oriented company staff emerged repeatedly from the responses to the boards: honest, competent, smart, responsive, and insightful.

“(The respondents) said to us, ‘You give me a person like that, that’s looking out for my needs, and I’m going to deal with that company,’” Brown says.

Helps creative process

Brown says the benefit testing technique helps the creative process because it functions like a pre-test of advertising concepts. Since the messages on the boards are presented in a manner similar to ads they elicit responses to execution as well as content.

“It allows us to get people focused on single ideas to determine how those ideas are going to play in the marketplace. We get a reaction to not only the idea, but also to executional themes as well. Compared to creative testing, where you present a completed ad to someone, this is far better, because you understand before you go into the creative process exactly what’s going to work and what isn’t going to work. It allows us to make sure that the work we do is keenly focused on where the market is.”

Obtaining a clear definition of service from the respondents was critical, Brown says, because it provided the Martin Agency with a unifying attitude to emphasize in the ads.

Currently running in trade publications in the health care, financial, and hospitality/travel industries, the ads (often humorously) emphasize that Standard Register is prepared to do whatever it takes to meet its customers’ needs, from donning tennis shoes to go the extra mile, to intercepting a shipment of forms at the airport to speed delivery.

“There’s an honesty in those ads, an admittance that, anyone can talk about service, but we’re committed to it and we’re going to work hard. That tone came right out of what we learned in the research. We had to find an attitude to project. You can’t just say, ‘We’re a service company,’ and make it work. You have to back it up with action.” Brown says.

Service emphasis attractive

From a positioning standpoint, the service emphasis was attractive because no other company in the industry had adopted that emphasis in its marketing.

“We wanted to offer something that nobody else was associated with. The service emphasis was unique in the industry and it provided us with an opportunity to not only say something that people wanted to hear, but also to capitalize on it and own it,” Brown says.

“Mission Service”

Standard Register has taken the research to heart, introducing a company-wide program called “Mission Service” which will be a permanent part of the firm’s operations.

“If you’re going to advertise that service is your focus, you have to be certain that your organization is structured properly to produce that service. Based on that, we’ve begun a very aggressive internal program,” says Jerry Chadwick, vice president of marketing, Standard Register.

The program includes, for example, training seminars for the sales staff to keep them well-informed and up-to-date on the trends and needs of the industries they serve. In addition to applications outside the company, Mission Service is also designed to develop the service concept inside Standard Register, emphasizing that an employee’s next “customer” might be someone within the company.

“This isn’t just a slogan. If you say you’re going to provide service, you better deliver. The Japanese have said they think that the United States has forgotten about the customer. We don’t plan to do that,” Chadwick says.