Published January 13, 2015
What Works in New York City Only Works in New York City
(Please no emails about how great or how terrible NYC is)
By Jim Tompkins
CEO, Tompkins International
I did not do any research on this, but I think the first thing Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz said upon waking up in Oz was “I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore, Toto.” It is my view that if Dorothy had instead landed in New York City (NYC) she would have said they same thing. My point is that customer service is dependent based upon location. In fact, I recall:
- Writing a blog saying that NYC was not in Wyoming (and I did get emails from folks saying I should not be negative about Wyoming)
- Giving several speeches where I discussed the three types of customers;
- Customers who live in the Top 40 Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) live in major cities and make up 50% of US population
- Customers who live in the next 60 MSAs live in big cities that are 17% of the US population
- Customers who do not live in the top 100 MSAs that are small rural cities and make up 33% of the US population
The point is that I have recently discovered several articles about the “new on-demand customers” of NYC being impressed with eBay, Deliv, Uber, Amazon, etc. All I can conclude is the folks writing these articles do not live in New York City. I mean WOW! There are thousands of companies that offer same-day delivery and, even “instantaneous delivery” in NYC. Of course there are the flowers, gifts, wine, breakfast, lunch, groceries, books, camera, etc. folks who have done this way before e-commerce, but now there is nothing you can’t get in NYC “on-Demand.” So, the relevance of the NYC discussion about “instantaneous delivery” escapes me. Let me be clear, the population of the New York City MSA is over 20 million people, with over 8 million living in NYC – What happens in NYC or the NYC MSA has no impact on the rest of the US. So:
- If people desire “on-demand delivery” in NYC, then it has no impact on what is desired by other customers in the US
- If companies can be profitable doing “on-demand delivery” in NYC, then it has no impact on the economics of “instantaneous delivery” in the rest of the US
- Whether companies offer “On-Demand Delivery” in NYC or not has no impact on what these same companies do elsewhere in the US.
So, we need to be clear, NYC is not a relevant leading indicator of anything “on-demand driven.” New York City and the NYC MSA are unique and what works in NYC and what does not work in NYC has nothing to do with Kansas, Wyoming, Chicago, Oz, or anywhere else.
The bottom line is you need to be very careful when reading the articles that try to translate some aspect of business in NYC to business elsewhere. This did not work before e-commerce and it will not work after e-commerce. The strategy to be successful in business in NYC and in e-commerce in NYC is different than anywhere else and any attempt to translate “business lessons” from NYC to the rest of the US will not work. Dorothy would have understood this the minute she woke up in New York City. New York City is not in Kansas.
