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‘Sphere Tidbits

February 8, 2007 By 2 Comments

global-hello.jpgTime for another quick look through the ‘sphere.  Here are some tidbits I am watching.

Neiman-Marcus Pseudo-Blog

Thanks to Kevin Hillstrom at MineThatData for highlighting this fashion development!  Neiman-Marcus is helping its customers experience Fashion Week in New York.  As Kevin points out, most of us will never attend an event such as this.  However, through this pseudo-blog, customers can look through Ken Downing’s eyes and catch a glimpse of the excitement.  This is great lifestyle marketing, playing off the feel of a blog.  I say the feel of a blog as we can read Ken’s posts, but we can’t comment; plus, it is in the middle of the Neiman-Marcus website.  I like what Kevin says here:

Downing is channeling Fashion Week to loyal customers, who will spend more than a thousand dollars in a heartbeat based on Ken’s writing.To heck with the ROI of blogging, the IT infrastructure needed to do this, the public relations nightmares that can occur. In fact, to heck with blogging. Why not simply romance your customers for once?

I completely agree with you, Kevin. 

San Diego Zoo Blog

Our family recently became members of the San Diego Zoo, one of the world’s best zoos!  As a member, I have been receiving a monthly email newsletter, and this month, I noticed the zoo has a blog!  No, it is not written by a bunch of monkeys, nor is it written by marketing.  It is written by the people working with the animals.  Animal lovers get a great perspective on not only the behind-the-scenes view of the zoo, but they also get to see what other zookeepers are doing around the world through the comments.  I also like that the categories are by animal, so it is easy to look in on those critters you like the most.  Plus it is written for those who are new to blogs, as it suggests you click on a category to narrow the blog to your interests.  This blog is a great way to pull zoo members into the life of the zoo and its inhabitants, a key for getting members to care enough to renew their memberships.  Where there is interest, there is engagement.

Blog Buzz

Ron McDaniel over at Buzzoodle put together some excellent ideas for buzz marketing in his book.  Ben Yoskovitz over at Instigator Blog started something by taking a buzz marketing challenge project to work through those ideas in only a few weeks’ time (check in with his blog to see how he is doing on it).  Then my friend Jordan Behan at TellTenFriends took up the challenge, and I have decided to join him.  

I am attaching the list of activities, and I will be updating it as I work my way through it.   When it is crossed off, I have done it, and I will let you know what I did.  I don’t plan to do them all in a few weeks as Ben did, but I will do one per day and see how far I can get!  As Jordan states, most of these activities are just good ‘ole conversation starting and web marketing.  Since my blog is still pretty new, I am hoping it will help me build on the momentum started with Mack Collier’s Z-list!  Let me know if you want to join us in building buzz.

  1. Email an Old Friend or Acquaintance
  2. Contact a Stale Connection
  3. Email Extended Family
  4. Call Someone You Have Never Talked To
  5. Congratulations Call or Note
  6. Send a Surprise Letter
  7. Any Day Card
  8. Mail a News Clipping
  9. Social Networking
  10. Online Directory
  11. Squidoo Expert Lens
  12. Tag Your Website or Blog (daily!)
  13. Blog/Message Board Comment (I try and do this daily, too)
  14. Join/Participate in an Online Group
  15. Talk to a New Person in Person
  16. Contact a Reporter or Writer
  17. Contact an Old Employer/Employee
  18. Customer Follow-up
  19. Call/Email a Person You Respect
  20. Mini Announcements
  21. Digg Your Site
  22. Flickr Fun
  23. Personal Success Email List
  24. Did You Know? – Trivia
  25. Instant Messaging
  26. Text Messaging
  27. Email a Useful Link to Someone
  28. Testimonials
  29. Celebrate Success
  30. Write a Blog  :-)
  31. Have a “Get To Know You” Meal
  32. Host a Dinner Party  (for my husband’s team from work)
  33. Arrange a Networking Lunch
  34. Publish an Article  (submitted for publication later this month)
  35. Meet More Neighbors
  36. Send a Press Release
  37. Give a Speech
  38. Volunteer  (helped at a Salvation Army shelter)
  39. Online Interview/Podcast
  40. Conduct a Survey
  41. Local Government Involvement
  42. Open House
  43. Interview a Leader
  44. YouTube.com
  45. Meet Business Neighbors
  46. eNewsletter or Newsletter

Filed Under: Customer experience, Customer loyalty, Marketing Blogs

Customer Apologies and Forgiveness

February 6, 2007 By 6 Comments

sorry-bear.jpgAs I mentioned in one of my recent posts, the words we use with customers do make a difference.  This is never truer than when an apology is in order!  When a customer is upset, it is easy to try and place the blame somewhere else.  However, the customer isn’t really interested in who is to blame.  The customer just wants us to right the wrong so they can go about their business.

Seth Godin shares a great post based on material originally written by Yehuda about how to apologize to a customer.   In it, Yehuda walks through a scale of “so-so” apologies to a very good apology to a “best practice” apology.  The last one is as follows:

“We’re so sorry that we caused this problem; we are really distressed over this. Please know that we take this very seriously. This is a huge oversight on our part. I will immediately notify my supervisor, and we will review our procedures to ensure that this cannot happen again. In the meantime, that is no consolation to you for our lack of service! What can we do to regain your trust? We will be sending you a little surprise as a token of our appreciation of having you as a customer.”

This apology is great in that it takes responsibility for the mistake, acknowledges a need for a change in the future, and looks to compensate the customer in some way (this need not be monetary).  Note, this type of apology only works if the company is sincere.  In addition, the company needs to actually follow-through on sending the surprise token of appreciation.  Good intentions are not enough, especially once customer expectations have been set!  The follow-through may turn out to be difficult if the company culture (and accompanying metrics) do not reward customer-focused behaviors.

During our recent visit to Disneyland, my oldest son had fruit salad for lunch (yes, you heard that right!) at one of their counter-service restaurants.  Part way through, he discovered some of the grapes were moldy (eew!).  I walked with him as we took it back to the cashier where we had purchased it.  Although lines were long, she immediately recognized him and brought him over to the manager.  His apology sounded very much like the one listed in Seth’s blog above.

“I am so sorry this happened to you.  Are you all right?  Let me check the date on this salad here; hmm, it looks OK.  I will go back and make sure the other fruit salads are fresh.  Again, I am so sorry this happened to you.    I am sure this wasn’t very much fun!  What can I do for you?  Would you like another salad, or would you prefer a refund?”

We ended up taking the refund, as my son had lost his appetite by then.  The manager didn’t offer to send a surprise to us, but that was fine.  It was a great lesson for my son on how to run a business and take care of customers.

The flip side of the coin is forgiveness.   Drew McLellan writes about the grace we need when our customers/clients wrong us.  Drew defines this as offering support and forgiveness, whether they deserve it or not.  I completely agree, Drew!

We don’t always know the situation that a person is living in on any given day.  What may look like a major issue to us may in fact be merely an oversight.  When we model grace and forgiveness to our customers, we show them not only our compassionate side, but we also show them they can trust us to do what is right.  And hopefully, if we ever make a mistake against them, they will forgive us in turn.

I would also like to challenge the Customers Rock! community to think about grace when having a bad customer service experience.  It may be the customer service rep is having a bad day.  It may be poor company policies or short-sighted metrics that force a rep to try and get through as many transactions as possible.

Regardless, I always find that a smile (yes, you can even hear a smile over the phone!)  and a little grace goes a long way.

(Stockxpert.com photo uploaded by Foxie)

Filed Under: B2B Marketing, Customer experience, Customer service, Marketing Blogs

Carnivale of Customer Service: The Marketing Edition

February 5, 2007 By 7 Comments

carousel-horses.jpgWelcome to this week’s edition of the Carnivale of Customer Service.  A big thank-you to Maria Palma at CustomersAreAlways for having me host this week.  My topic, Marketing Through Customer Service, was a challenging one.  Where is the intersection of marketing and customer service?    Read the links below for some thoughts.

Meikah Delid of CustServ gives us Building Customer Loyalty is also Basic Marketing, which discusses the importance of building relationships with existing customers.

Doug Hanna of ServiceUntitled shares Be Insistent, his story of the fine line between being persistent and being rude.

Glenn Ross of Customer Service Experience reminds us of his post, Word of Mouth Advertising Increases Your Customer Service Experiences, and the intersection of positive Word of Mouth and customer service.

Tom Vander Well of QAQnA tells us about one of his pet peeves, the use of a customer’s name, in his post When Marketing and Customer Service Collide.  Get it right, and we are more likely to trust you with more!

The intersection of marketing and customer service is all around us.  It involves every customer service touch point: loyalty marketing, face-to-face customer service, phone, email, and even word of mouth.  Just like the carousel horses in the picture above, it works out best when marketing and customer service work together.

Thanks to everyone for participating; it was fun!  If you are interested in hosting a future Carnivale of Customer Service, please email Maria Palma at CustomersAreAlways.

Filed Under: Carnivale of Customer Service, Customer experience, Marketing Blogs

How to Earn Business

February 1, 2007 By Leave a Comment

keyboard-love.jpgWe are in the run up to the Superbowl here in the USA, and, unlike Mack Collier, I don’t have advertisers knocking on my (virtual) door to have me blog about their upcoming ads.  Mack wrote a great post today on the lazy, ineffective emails he has been receiving this week from companies (and their PR firms) to try and pitch him on blogging about their ads.  Annoyances ranged from companies using the wrong name for him to asking him to annoy his blogging friends.

One of the main ideas that struck me while reading the post was how similar this is to companies who execute poor email /direct mail marketing.  Problems we are probably all familiar with include the following:

  • Lack of, or incorrect, personalization (ex: the wrong name is used, it is misspelled, or “Mr.” is used when it should have been “Mrs.”)
  • There is an assumed trust relationship that hasn’t yet been built (ex: asking for referrals)
  • The communication is so generic it is painful (ex: my Coldwater Creek example from their customer service team
  • There is little to no knowledge of the customer and their needs (ex: Drew McLellan’s post on charity mailing labels)

Some of the “problems” mentioned above might seem small from the company’s perspective.  They are huge from the customer’s perspective! 

Of course, there are great examples of how one should communicate with customers.  Mack’s brilliant observations continue as he remembers an effective pitch from the past.  He sums it up as follows:

She looked at the pitch from MY point of view. As a result, I posted about every ad she emailed me about. In fact the methods she used stood out so much from the others that I started emailing HER to ask if she had any additional client initiatives that I could promote! 

At the end of the day, this is all about people.  Customers want to be noticed and treated with respect.  Show me you have learned something, anything, from my past interactions with you.  If you know something about me, use it appropriately to make buying from you more convenient.   Make me feel like I matter to you (if I do).  If I don’t really matter, don’t try and make it look like I do; it feels insincere.  Send me the kind of communications you would want to receive, and you will most likely stand out from your competitors. 

Do it right, and you have my business.  And maybe even the business of my friends.

Filed Under: Marketing Blogs
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