I travel on American Airlines – one of the better experiences (if that’s possible on modern airlines), really due to their customer service phone lines. I recently headed to Europe for the first time in quite a while, and took notice of how many passengers had Bose Quiet Comfort headphones – as I do. They are a nice device and work well on aeroplanes (I got them after leaving TWO pairs of in ear noise-reduction headsets on aircraft inadvertently – never to be seen again).
But what made me like them – even at the premium price they command? AA hand them out to business class passengers to try. It’s obvious that once they are tried, people buy. Something over 25% of the business class passengers on the sector from San Francisco to Chicago (where they are not handed out by AA) were wearing Bose headsets. That’s an incredibly high percentage. There were also a reasonable number, five or so, in the economy section going to London.
I’ve written before about my Bose experience – others commented that they were not anywhere near as happy. But my experiences have been positive – both with the products, and with their service. And it is clear that if you can get customers to try – especially when corralled for a long time in a perfect trial environment – they will buy.
So how can we get our potential customers to trial our offer? That is the challenge for us in marketing, but thinking ‘outside the box’ as Bose did clearly works and works well.
I’d love to hear what you have done that worked.