With Amazon Prime, we receive free two-day shipping on anything sold by Amazon and a slew of their affiliate retailers.

Old Amazon shopping habits – Bundle items together and place an order when we had enough items to surpass the “free shipping” threshold ($100).  Many times we’d want something but just go out and pick it up somewhere rather than ordering via Amazon.  Because of that, we’d often compare prices and factor shipping costs into our decision, if we didn’t have other purchases planned.

New Amazon shopping habits – Whenever we “need” something, pull it up on Amazon, make sure it’s “Prime Eligible” and order it.  We feel bad about potential waste in shipping and packaging, but not bad enough to enter the hell that is Target at Atlantic Center.  Here are three things ordered on Amazon that never would have been beforehand, and the thought process.

1. Broom combo set – I just want something that simple and I don’t want to look through 60,000 square feet of store to find it.
2. Organic Malted Milk Powder – Where am I going to find that anyway?
3. Eton Crank Powered Radio – If another hurricane happens, I can have my kids crank this all day long.  Who stocks this type of stuff?  Maybe Target? Maybe a camping store?

The brilliance by Amazon – I have no idea if I paid more or less than going to a retailer for these items.  I guess I don’t really care.  Saving time and aggravation seems like a huge win for me.

Fast forward six years and dozens of junk mail offers and I receive a strangely thick letter from them.  It’s a survey of the agent assigned to me.  Wow, that’s surprising.

This agent has never called me.  She’s never emailed me. She only sends me invoices and junk mail. What do you think I’ll say when asked about the agent’s proactive nature and outreach to me and my family?

When soliciting customer information, consider only reaching out to customers that you don’t have a good guess on their opinions.  This can be automated; perhaps suppress the survey for customers with no client activity in the CRM system.

I am sure this happens to you.  In these cases, someone sent me an email.  2-4 weeks later, that person forwarded the exact same message without additional text.

How does that come off to the recipient?  In my case, not well.  If the sender can’t take the time to recraft the message, or at least copy/paste the body into a fresh email, then it speaks to a lack of consideration.

As much as anybody, I notice when someone doesn’t reply to me.  But a no-reply shouldn’t turn into a rude move. Whatever your cause or need, re-forwarding emails will not help.

Pretty creative idea; I wonder how many people will aspire to be high “street cred” walkers.  I have no doubt that companies – from search engines to restaurants – would consider the service.

Well, I’ve been flying United Airlines (to/from Chicago) weekly for two months.  As the plane readies to leave the gate and proceed to the runway, the little monitors lower and a message comes from the United Continental CEO, Jeff Smisek.  He’s smiling and well-coiffed.

Midway through his speech about how great the merger is, he says, “Our aligned airlines will offer enhanced products and services.”  Does that mean anything to a customer? Aligned?  Enhanced?  Services? And he’s saying it to a whole lot of people; United flies 5,800 flights per day!  Maybe 5 people actually listen to the video, that’s 29,000 people daily who think what the heck is this guy talking about?

Speeches like that should be direct, honest and precise. He could say, “When we’re fully merged, we’ll expect to lose 25% fewer bags and we think we’ll on time 30% more.  You’ll benefit from this tremendously.”  Something like that would catch attention.  It wouldn’t be saying nothing at all.

Megan the Marketing Manager:  Can we leverage existing technology capabilities on the back-end to provide this customer experience?

Translation:  Hey, we have an idea over here in Marketing, but we have no money to really spend on it.

Steve the Sales Manager: We plan to leverage our current sales process to discuss the new product with our top-50 clients.

Translation:  We don’t have time or interest in training on this new thing, so we’ll just slip it in to our day-to-day when eve we remember to.

Next time you hear leverage; see if the use fits the definition above.  Either way, let me know.   Great Web site to test out leverage and other words – UNSUCK IT.

How terrible is the clamshell?  You buy a $25 electronic and then risk limb opening it.  I used scissors, pliers, and then brute force.  At the end, I was intact but had razor-sharp plastic shards around my home office floor.  The manual (I think) was in shreds and I was nearly sweating.  Complete frustration!

Well, over the past few years, Amazon’s inventory of frustration-free packaged items has increased considerably.  If you haven’t received anything in this packaging, take a look here.   It’s simple, brilliant, and makes life easier.  You get your kid a toy and in 1 minute, they’re playing with the toy.

Recently, I had to purchase new headphones and went through the Amazon search filter and noticed ‘frustration-free’ as an option.  While not as important (to me) as price and customer reviews, it probably ranks third.  If that’s true for others, hopefully Amazon shares (in sum, my mine specifically) search patterns with the manufactures as a way to convince them to MOVE BEYOND THE CLAMSHELL.

Aquafresh solved a simple problem with a simple and not-so-innovative solution. Here’s how…Over the years, we’ve tried all sorts of toothpastes from salt (disgusting) to baking soda (odd) to standard (predictable).

So long as they’re minty, I’m fine.  But I hate toothpaste tubes. Either they leave a mess on the counter or sit awkwardly behind the mirror (and then fall out when I open the mirror).  I got to believe many other people find the tube to be a central issue when buying toothpaste.

Enter the Aquafresh solution.  It’s a canister with a simple release mechanism for dispensing the tooth gel.  I saw a TV advertisement for it on a Thursday. I happened through a larger grocery store on Friday and went to find it.  With no concern for price, I bought a canister and am really pleased with it.

Interesting enough – the Web marketing gives you very little information on the canister, where I felt like the TV ad featured the canister-design.

I have one takeaway.  Senior citizens want it both ways.  They want to be able to experience and use new technologies.  They don’t want to have to learn how to experience and use these technologies.

Television sets are a good example.  Though both my parents and in-laws have LCD televisions (with cable), they could not figure out how to use my set of remotes.  Simply by having different brands, the seniors were rendered helpless and in turn frustrated.  “Can you help change the channel to CNBC?”

When I read about apps coming to next-generation televisions (WSJ; registration required), I thought go against the grain?

Make televisions with the highest-resolution and best sound fidelity.  But make them simple.  No wi-fi connection.  No apps.  No embedded blu-ray.  Reduce the number of buttons for the remote.  And make the look/feel modern, not geriatric.  Maybe Sony or Samsung has already analyzed this, but if not, I think there’s money there.

There’s money to made in simplifying an increasingly complicated world.

I appreciate the simplicity of the system.  I imagine marketers all over the world are thinking “you could add ratings” or “you could do partnerships for micro-coupons” or other features and benefits.  To date, Groupon has kept it simple – if we get enough of a group, you all get a discount.

A hidden benefit from simplicity: promotion.  I imagine that the simpler a product is, the easier it is for prospects to learn about it AND the easier viral marketing becomes, therefore leading to greater total acceptance.