At the NACCM Customers 1st Conference today, we had the opportunity to listen to some fabulous keynotes as well as start to dig-in to the sessions. Along the way, we may have even gotten a little Goofy! Lots of nuggets, video, and photos, including Keith Ferrazzi, Joe Torre, and Peter Guber. Keep reading!

Inspiring Employees
The theme across all of the keynotes today was one of community, relationship building, and emotions.  (Customers Rock! note - many of these themes work very well with the social media tools that are available to connect with customers, and with each other.)

JoAnna Brandi kicked off the day with an energetic discussion of being leaders that inspire customers to be more engaged at work, which, in turn, leads to better customer engagement. As leaders, we need to use more positive emotion; this will affect our employees and our customers. Keep your employees out of the fear we are seeing, and start focusing on the positive. What is right? What is possible? What is the next solution we can find?

She also challenged attendees to stop focusing exclusively on customer satisfaction, as customers don’t want things that are just “satisfactory”. They want something better than that! While important, satisfaction is not the end game. The pot of gold at the other side of the rainbow is joy, happiness, Wow, and Magic.  We have to start creating emotional relationships with our customers. This is done by showing up at work with emotion, not checking it at the door!  It is the leader’s job to make sure everyone around them uses Magic – Make a Great Impression on the Customer.

Never Eat Alone

The first keynote was Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone.He turned this into a working session to give people a personal relationship action plan for the upcoming year. Who do you need to work with to get you where you want to go?  People are critical to your success, and relationships are the core. We discussed which words describe business relationships: Trust, human, feedback, fun, candor, collaborative. Which words add for most personal relationships? Laughter, love, listening, intimacy, reliable, trust, passion.

The shift – a business relationship is a personal relationship in a business environment.  Make it purposeful; strategically guide your relationships. It is not about waiting for someone else to start the relationship; it is about you being proactive with others.

If you have strong personal relationships, you will be more easily forgiven when you mess it up!

Video of Keith: you can’t get there alone.

Keith had the group go through a series of exercises to help crystallize thinking around this. Our job in this world is to create an environment around ourselves that invites people in to have a better relationship with us. It is all about what we do – it is our responsibility. Lower our guard, invite people in. As we talk to people, we ought to be having the following internal conversation:

-    Is there something I can care about with this person? A way to connect and remember?
-    Is there a way I can help? “How can I help you? Who can I introduce you to?” How powerful is that?!

Keith also discussed the “Fluffy” factor. This was referring to a phone conversation where the service rep could hear a dog barking in the background – ‘Fluffy’. “What is the name of your dog,” this rep might ask, as a way to connect with the other person and see them as a human being (not just an irritating caller). We need to show up as the human and empathetic individual they want to see. If all call center folks projected a wonderful positive outcome, in their own minds, it would begin to manifest itself.

How are your customer service people seeing your customers? As a pain, or as a real person with real issues?

Keith also shared about the importance of being real, authentic, and human to others. He stated that others can tell right away if we are not being truthful or transparent with them, even over the phone!  We need to have the following mindset, with customers or with those we want to build relationships with: We really care. We want to hear you (people need to be heard).  When we have this mindset, we begin to empathize.

I will wrap up this section on Keith with a video of him telling the story about someone who cared about another human being and how it changed lives.

Teamwork

We then had the pleasure of listening to Joe Torre, manager of the LA Dodgers, share nuggets from his many years in baseball. Here are some highlights:

• You only get better (at whatever you do) when you have to deal with setbacks. Tough times don’t last; tough people do.
• It’s the little things in a game that help you win. Concentrate on the little things; big things will happen.
• Be loyal to each other on the team, and have respect for that other guy who is out there, perhaps where you want to be.
• You can’t assume your customers are yours forever.
• What can I help us do to win today?
• Whatever line of work you are in, it is all about the people.

Making Connections Through Storytelling

The morning ended with a fascinating speech by Peter Guber, Chairman and Founder, Mandalay Entertainment. Peter has quite a line of Hollywood successes, including his role as producer for such films as Gorillas in the Mist, The Deep, The Color Purple, and Rain Man, to name a few.
Per Peter:

“Coping with failure in uncertain times is a necessity; it has always been a partner in my journey.”

He shared three navigational states for these times and how to get through them - fear, uncertainty, and change. Peter also shared that the game changer, the secret sauce, is the story we tell ourselves and the story we tell our customers and clients.

Oral storytelling. It is in all of us. We need to connect our story to the emotions of our customers and employees to help them propel themselves through all of this. We are all wired to do oral storytelling.  When we do it, it changes the word from “customer/client/patron” to “audience”. One thing to keep in mind about an audience: they expect experiences and to be engaged emotionally. They want to be moved.

Here is a video of Peter talking about how human beings are “wired” to tell oral stories.

Peter encouraged us to unleash our story for our benefit, and do it by MAGIC.

MAGIC – like a hand, each of the following concepts works independently, but they work better together.

Motivating your Audience to your Goal Interactively with great Content

Are you motivated about your story? Yes – you can craft a powerful story. You can tell, before someone says a word, whether they are authentic. Be calm; be coherent with it. Then tell it. Demonstrate you are authentic with your story. This engages people.

Audience – everybody you talk with (not to) is an audience. How do I get their attention? If it’s not a good time to do it, don’t tell your story! Know what is interesting. Try to be interested in them, create an emotional connection. The context makes the story different for everyone. What are they interested in? Find out then connect it to that. Aim for the heart, not the head. Feelings.  Often times a story, elegantly presented, can change the results.

Here is another video of Peter discussing how he convinced the head of the studio to let him make the film Gorillas in the Mist. In this video, Peter was just talking about how he had come to realize that he was not connecting with his audience (the studio head). So, he became a wounded gorilla in order to help explain why it was important to tell the story of saving gorillas:

Goal – specifically direct someone to a call to action.  We have to have authentic goals that are generous; then, we both win. Virally-advocated stories are authentic; they have to be real.

Interactively – it has to be a conversation. The more senses you engage in your story, the more likely you are to own it. They feel they are participating in the story – let your audience own it so they can tell it for you. It’s the way we are wired. Interactivity – think about it before you start. You have to surrender control. Why do you think you control the customer or your brand? When you relinquish control, it allows them to come forward and own the information in a unique way.

Content – The actual story is the Holy Grail. Look to your own experience – true story, inspired by story. Use observation – retell other people’s stories. Use them for emotional transportation. Look at history and use artifacts; make emotional connections today from it. Use metaphor and analogy; he became a gorilla for the studio head to get him to connect with the story and make the movie.

Think of your customers as an audience, interact with them with really great content, and enjoy the front row seat to your success.

Other Goodies

The afternoon consisted of 4 main tracks of sessions. I attended the session on Disney presented by Maritz and The Disney Institute. Bruce Kimbrell was again the presenter, along with Kathy Oughton from Maritz.

Bruce told a great story about how serious Disney is about surveying customers in the theme park. He shared that some days, the survey at the entrance gate to the park might only ask for your zip code. On other days, the conversation might go like this:

Disney: “Hi, do you have a some time to take our guest survey? We would need about 2 hours of your time.”

Guest: “Uh, no, that would take up a big chunk of my time here.”

Disney: “Well, how about if we take care of you for tomorrow?”

Guest: “No, I would have to change my flights, my hotel…”

Disney: “What if we took care of that? Would you be willing to give us your time?”

Now that is serious focus on getting the voice of the customer!

I also had the opportunity to sit in on JoAnna Brandi’s session/discussion about what makes people feel good at work. Here were some of the attendee responses -

- Liking the people I work with

- Harmony

- Making a difference

- Being recognized by others, especially when you find out about it later

JoAnna is trying to understand these motivators so she can help coach others on how to improve employee retention and loyalty.

There’s More!

Go check out the conference blog, flickr group, and my Tweets to see/hear more about the day. Last day - tomorrow!

I am blogging from the MarketingProfs Digital Mixer conference in Arizona, where I have had the opportunity to meet with some of today’s brightest leaders in social media marketing. Today I am continuing with my video series of innovative marketers and present to you Toby Bloomberg who blogs at Diva Marketing (or should I say, she divas at blog marketing!).  I have had the pleasure of hearing Toby speak on social media, as well as breaking bread with her.  Toby actually gave me the idea for this series, as she uses her Flip video camerato ask marketers what social media means to them.  She is one smart lady, and her blog is the place to go if you want to learn more about corporate blogging or blogger relations.

Watch Toby Bloomberg discuss joining the conversation with customers.

Part 1: Jim Kukral on happy customers.

Part 2: Frank Eliason on customer service.

“In this volatile business of ours, we can ill afford to rest on our laurels, even to pause in retrospect. Times and conditions change so rapidly that we must keep our aim constantly focused on the future.” — Walt Disney

I am very excited to be live-blogging the Customers 1st Conference, taking place at the Disneyland Resort from November 16-19!  This event will help companies figure out how to keep their aim constantly focused on the future - and how to keep their business growing based on a firm foundation of solid customer focus. I am looking forward to live-blogging the Customers 1st Conference for several reasons:

• There will be speakers from many customer-focused companies all in one place, including Disney Institute (of course), Cisco, FedEx, JetBlue, Xerox, the NBA, Hyatt Hotels, eBay, and Bath & Body Works (to name a few), as well as keynotes from gurus and luminaries (ex: Joe Torre, manager, LA Dodgers baseball team, and Keith Ferrazzi, author of Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time.
• I love the title of Monday’s keynote by Rob Maruster, SVP Customer Service, JetBlue Airways: “Bringing Humanity Back to Air Travel through Servant Leadership & Internal Championship”. Wow!  Bring it on!
• There will be experiential learning activities - I can go to Disney and still be part of the conference!  We can get outside of a conference room and learn.  This includes the Disney Service Challenge inside of California Adventure park and the Customer Experience Immersion Event in Disneyland park (called “Swarming the Magic Kingdom”).  I can’t wait to get my hands dirty!!
• There are opportunities to for intact teams to celebrate at select events, such as the Connections Block Party and Disney’s Service Challenge Scavenger Hunt on Sunday.
• There are tracks on people (employees are a key to customer focus), customer experience (what my blog is all about!), front line faces (about customer service), numbers talk (the all-important measures and metrics), as well as opportunities to just network (such as the Slackers Happy Hour - can’t wait to see that one!).
• The event organizers are providing each attendee with a journal, not just a program, to really keep track of business cards, notes, as well as the agenda.  Sounds intriguing.
• The event organizers also promise to “surprise and delight” attendees, a familiar rallying cry for those who are customer-focused.  I am looking forward to seeing what they come up with!

Want to join me at this innovative event?  Learn more about the NACCM Customers 1st Conference here.  If you are ready to register, click here to get a 15% discount on registration (it should take you to a page with my discount code already entered, which is XM2100BCKCRL). 

“You can dream, create, design, and build the most wonderful place in the world, but it requires people to make the dream a reality.” -Walt Disney

Today we have a guest blogger, Eric Brown, Founder and Owner of Urbane Apartments.  His unique approach to Underground Marketing and Property Management, focusing on the Residents Experience, has helped Urbane Apartments achieve some of the highest rents per square foot and per unit in the Royal Oak, Michigan area where they are located.  In this guest post, he shares some of his fascinating perspectives on brand and customer experience, as well as some of his company’s innovative ideas.

Does Money, Luxury, or Value Create a Remarkable Customer Experience?  What are the key ingredients of a Remarkable Customer Experience?

Remarkable, as defined by the legend Seth Godin:

• Remarkable doesn’t mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to me. Am I going to make a remark about it?
• Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. Running down the street naked will get you noticed, but it won’t accomplish much. It’s easy to pull off a stunt, but not useful.

Is the experience you are creating for your customer remarkable, and does your customer find value in the experience created? Are you matching your Brand to a Targeted Experience? As posted by one of Becky’s readers,

“Service excellence, just as with beauty, is in the eye of the beholder”

This is spot on. Take some time to evaluate what will Engage and Delight your customer based on your Brand. We were at the local Mini Cooper dealership and they openly invite customers to bring in their beloved pets to the dealership, which some folks get really excited about. It works for Mini Cooper, but you likely would not find that at the Jaguar showroom. Mini Cooper is matching a Customer Experience to their Brand; this example has no correlation to Luxury and doesn’t get better by adding more Money.  Southwest Airlines, you either love them or hate them with the cattle call lines, no assigned seats, no frills. Yet true Southwest Customers like, enjoy, laugh with, and  have a favorable experience with, Southwest. Herb Kelleher somehow figured out how to deliver a consistent, value driven experience and permitted his employees to fix it when it wasn’t.

We own and manage a small boutique apartment management company Urbane Apartments in Royal Oak, MI and have used some innovative ideas to create Remarkable Experiences for our Residents that align to our Brand. Here are some Case Studies:

• We do not send out paper leases. The lease, a floor plan, emergency numbers and some unit pictures are given to the resident at Move In on a thumb drive, which is also a key chain with our logo on it. Being able to walk away with all of the lease information on a tiny thumb drive that fits in their pocket and that they can also use to store additional information has created a “Cool Factor”, something worth talking about. This idea may not bode well if we were in the senior housing business, but it does resonate well with our target demographic.
• We have embraced Urbane Loves Pets, no extra fees, no breed restrictions, no size requirements. Our theory is that if we have great residents, they likely have great pets. And while there are certainly problems that occur from time to time, we own the segment pet market locally by creating a favorable experience for our “Pet Lover Residents”.
• Urbane created the “Freedom Lease” which affords maximum flexibility on lease terms for our residents. Lots of folks out there are consultants today, and the standard year lease did not fit this paradigm shift. We have fostered a living arrangement that works to address the residents’ needs, our needs, and allows flexibility, which evokes a better experience than figuring out how to break a lease when circumstances change.

What experience you are creating for your customer? Let us know your thoughts and stories here at Customers Rock!

(Note: I will continue my series on Social Media and Customer Loyalty later this week.)

Today, I am introducing a new feature here at Customers Rock! called Expert’s Corner. Once a month, I will be sharing recorded interviews with experts in the field of customer strategy and loyalty.

I am very pleased to kick-off this feature with an interview of renowned expert Martha Rogers, Ph.D., founding partner of Peppers and Rogers Group. Martha was named by Business 2.0 Magazineas one of the nineteen most important business gurus of the past century. The World Technology Network named her as “an innovator most likely to create visionary ripple effects.” In addition to her work at Peppers and Rogers Group, Martha is an Adjunct Professor at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and co-director of the Duke Center for Customer Relationship Management. She is widely published in academic and trade journals, including Harvard Business Review, Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, and Journal of Applied Psychology.

She is also a friend of mine and was more than happy to spend time talking to me about her answers to the following questions:

1. There is a lot of talk today about being “laser focused” on customers. How would you define “customer focus”?

2. We are obviously in a challenging economy right now. Do you believe that a renewed emphasis on existing customers will make a difference to a company’s growth in this environment? Why or why not?

3. Where should the use of social media fit into today’s marketing plans?

Click here for the podcast interview: Experts Corner with Martha Rogers.  Note: this will take you to a white page where the audio interview will stream.  Click the back button to come back to this post.  You can also right-click the link above to download it to your computer and play it offline.  (PS - If anyone knows a more elegant solution to play the podcast, please let me know!  I am a podcasting newbie.)

Are you an expert who would like to be part of Expert’s Corner here at Customers Rock!, or do you have one in mind you would like me to interview? Drop me a note in the comments or send me an email, and let’s make it happen

Today’s post has my first video with my new, fun video camera the Flip Minoin addition to some news to share and a question for my smart readers (that’s you!).  Speaking of Flip, welcome to new readers who have come over from Jim Kukral’s blog (he does a show called The Daily Flip), where he did a podcast interview with me called Do You Have Happy Customers?  If you like what you read here at Customers Rock!, please subscribe to my blog.  Thanks!  Now, on with today’s post.

Customer Engagement at FreshBooks

A while back, I wrote about how FreshBooks was engaging customers by taking a roadtrip to a conference in an RV. Along the way, they stopped and had breakfast, lunch, and dinner with their customers.  Very cool.  I was thrilled to be invited to one of their customer dinners when they made a recent stop here in San Diego, CA.  Saul sent me an email and asked if I could join them (I am a FreshBooks customer, too!).  We had a wonderful meal at Buca di Beppo, which serves Italian food family-style on big platters for sharing.  A perfect venue for customers to come together, break bread, and get to know each other.  We swapped stories about our business, about the San Diego economy, and about our new friends at FreshBooks.

The dinner attendees were kind enough to let me take a very short video with my cool new tiny camera (it is smaller than my Blackberry!) around the table, just so you, my readers, could get a feel for this group.  One customer, a friend of mine, was a little shy with the first pass, but he was willing to show his face moments later (see photo above). 

It was a very fun dinner, and I left with both an appreciation for what FreshBooks is doing to engage customers as well as some new friends.

Leave me a comment and let me know what you think about the video!  The Flip Minois really easy to use, and I think the resolution is pretty good (I promise, my videography skills will improve…).

News: Cool Customer Engagement Event

If you live on the East Coast, or want to head out there in November, you should check out the upcoming Customer Engagement and Loyalty Summit in Miami.  It is taking place November 17-19 and is focused on taking you beyond creating customer loyalty programs to helping you build customer strategies.  Sessions include looking at customer experience in a low-cost environment (Alaska Airlines), learning how Word of Mouth and WOW service go together (Zappos.com), and a panel on quantifying the benefits of customer loyalty to your CFO (lead by Best Buy).  It looks to be a great event.  Readers of my blog can get a 2 for 1 discount if they mention this code: IUS_CR_001.  If you go, let me know what you think of the event.  It sounds great!

Question: Blogging and Customer Service

My good friend Mack Collier asked a great question on Twitter the other day, and I told him I would re-post it here (as so many of you are focused on customer service). Mack is looking for examples of companies that are using their blog for customer service.  I can think of companies that try to share best practices about using their product in their blog, such as ConstantContact, and also companies that answer frequently asked questions via their blog, such as Sony Playstation’s blog.  If your company is doing this, or if you have seen a good example, please send me email to becky at petraconsultinggroup dot com or leave a comment here at Customers Rock!  I will share all the responses I get and link to you, too!  Thanks for your help!

(Photo credits: B. Carroll, piksel)

Part 1 of this blog post discussed the importance of focusing on existing customers to help weather the economic storm.  Today, we take a closer look at how your sales team is focused. 

I was inspired to write this by a post at Jim Kukral’s blog about how one bad salesperson can destroy your brand.  In a video post, Jim shares his sad story about a salesperson who didn’t seem to understand Jim’s need to shop around before committing for a big-ticket item (you’ll have to go over and watch the video to find out which store he dissed and which one he ended up buying from).  Here’s an idea of what Jim said:

“I don’t care what discounts or coupons they may have in the future. One employee, with one horrible sales tactic and personality destroyed their brand for me. That’s how easy it is to do.”

What is Sales Focused On?

Take a look at your sales force.  It may be a crew of sales people staffing a retail store.  It may be your channel partners working to incorporate your product or service into their offering.  It may just be one person and a phone.  Regardless of how your sales team looks, most likely they are focused on making sales, as they should be.  But what are they focused on when they are trying to make their numbers?

When I worked as director of marketing for HP in the UK and Ireland, we had several sales teams, each targetting different groups of enterprise (commercial) customers.  As marketing, we partnered closely with sales to help them understand the needs of the various customer groups and how they differed.  The most successful sales teams were those who used their understanding of those customer needs to change their sales approach to one that was totally focused on helping make it easier to do business with HP for that customer.

In Jim’s example of a salesperson that turned him off, the salesperson was more focused on pressuring Jim to get an immediate sale than he was on helping Jim meet his needs.  This self-focus, rather than customer-focus, drove Jim away, and the sale was made elsewhere.  I had a similar experience last summer when we were trying to buy a new truck, but this one was a poor experience with the dealership itself (and an unmotivated, yet professional, salesperson).  The dealership and sales team seemed to be more focused on what was convenient for them rather then what was convenient for a potential buyer.

Do You Want My Business?

Times are tough.  Competition is fierce.  Customers have high expectations.  With all of these factors in play, businesses can’t afford to treat their customers with anything other than respect and great customer service.  If you aren’t sure whether you want your customer’s business or not, take a step back and look at it from their perspective.  Here are some tips to make sure you are ready to meet and exceed customer expectations.

• Hire a mystery shopper to check out all aspects of your customer’s buying experience.  Notice I didn’t say your sales experience; again, you need to look at it from the other side of the table!

• Talk to customers who have purchased from you recently.  How was their experience?  Were their needs met?  What could have been better?  You might not want to hear all the answers, but if customers aren’t happy, they probably won’t keep buying from you.  Even worse, they could say bad things about you to others.

• Get your best customers to come in and meet with you and your sales team (or do it via phone conference).  It gets sales teams all jazzed up to hear positive feedback from customers, and you will get ideas on what works in your customer’s buying experience.

• Create customer profiles of different customer groups and their needs.  Make sure your sales team understands how they are unique and how their sales approach should change in each instance.

• Train sales in WOW customer service and relationship building techniques.  Customers should be viewed as people, not transactions.

Too much to think about?  Simply put yourself in your customer’s shoes and take one step at a time.

(Photo credit: LatinPoint)

Today we have a special guest with us, Esteban Kolsky. Esteban is a VP at KANA where he is very focused on great customer experiences, especially in the area of customer service. He is also an active commenter here on Customers Rock!, so please welcome him and enjoy the post!

Five Winning Strategies to Excel at Customer Service via Email

Back in the “early” days of the internet (read 1990s) we all thought that email was going to revolutionize the way we do customer service. Customers were going to send us all their questions and inquiries via email, which in turn was going to be answered within a few minutes - either automatically through a software package or manually by knowledgebase-assisted engineers. This setup was going to do away with the need to use telephones and call centers (after all, emails can be answered from anywhere), and reduce the cost for customer service.

Fast forward 15-20 years and it seems to be not where we thought it would be. Alas, we did try using email as much as possible yet the results were not as expected: automation was harder than we expected, customers did not like the speed of response (which was down to days in some cases, and non-existent in others), and transactions completed via email were not similar to transactions completed via the phone. This slow realization of the problems of using email for customer service made the adoption slow down almost to a trickle - pushing customer service automation via email to the point of extinction.

So where are we today? After 2-3 years of very painful experimentation and working in the lab, we are beginning to discover how to use email properly for customer service. There are over two dozen best practices and lessons learned that anyone starting to implement email for customer service would do well to read and understand before starting. However, the following five are the top sure-fire ways to get customer service email to work well in your organization:

1. Classification - customers tend to ramble in free-form emails, posing questions somewhere in the middle of long sentences or paragraphs. That makes it almost impossible for parsing engines to identify the inquiry within the email. Eliminate free-form emails in favor of web-based forms with drop-down menus to allow customers to send emails. You can create a unique answer for each unique combination possible, or a workflow to gather more information or open a ticket if needed. Knowing what customers are asking, what are the variables or terms more often used also assist in improving the knowledge-base.

2. Automation - customer service emails, as with phone-based inquiries, follow an 80-20 rule: 80 percent of the questions can be answered with 20% of the content available. However, with the constraints of email as a communication medium (complex, oddly-written messages, lack of interactivity for clarification or expansion of data), the 20% gets reduced very rapidly to around 5% of content that can be properly expressed through email. Alas, still it can answer a large number of incoming interactions automatically, greatly reducing the dependency on agents to answer those emails, and improving the speed of response for customers. Identifying that 5% of content and questions, creating the specific rules and deploying it can greatly improve the experience for customers, and create a fertile lab for organizations to discover more and more interactions that can be automated.

3. Integration - the best way to add value to an email response is to provide the customer with personalized, custom information that matches the customer intent when writing in. If they want to know the status of their order, don’t send them a link to the page where they can get it - send them the information. This is impossible to do unless the ERMS and the data stores and applications are integrated. In some cases, this integration is done directly and the data flows are controlled via business rules. In others, the integration happens through an existing application feeding data back to the ERMS. In either situation, the customer feels as if the system has been custom-made for their needs increasing satisfaction.

4. Maintenance - the quintessential secret to having a powerful customer service solution via email is the maintenance of the solution. This is nothing new; we learned how to do this while deploying our knowledge management solutions. Yet, email has a complicated set of business rules and workflows that must be maintained. Even if you support a centralized model for knowledge management, the email-specific components still carry a heavy load of maintenance. You could streamline the maintenance by deploying a centralized rules server across channels. Alas, as it is with knowledge, business rules and workflows get outdated as soon as they are deployed - making maintenance THE way to manage the content properly. The mid-life of an improperly maintained ERMS is very short, usually not passing a couple of months before customers stop using due to poor results.

5. Marketing - similarly, marketing is the secret to growing the adoption of email among your customers and within your organization. Customers don’t know you offer a specific solution unless you tell them about it, and they understand the benefits they can get out of it. Your organization does not understand the great job your email solution has done for you unless you tell them about it. Advertise your solution. Extol its benefits. Announce the availability of new and upgraded features. Create a killer marketing plan, target the right people to know about it, and distribute the information.

Where are you with the use of email in your organization? Are you an early and satisfied adopter? Or are you intrigued by the promise?

About the Author

Esteban Kolsky has over 20 years of customer service, market research, and technology experience. As Vice President and Practice Leader for KANA, Mr. Kolsky delivers strategic consulting, systems integration and managed services programs designed to help KANA customers deliver exceptional service experiences. Prior to joining KANA Software Mr. Kolsky was with Gartner where he built and managed both the eService and Enterprise Feedback Management practices. He has been featured in television and radio, and quoted in over 400 publications around the globe as an industry watcher and commentator.

(Photo credit: © Yannis Ntousiopoulos | Dreamstime.com)

In the current economy, consumers are holding on to their money more tightly and making hard choices about if, and where, to spend it. Having a great customer experience greatly increases the chances that a) customers will come back to shop there again and b) they will tell their friends and family about how great it was! Word of mouth is very powerful marketing; studies show that consumers trust friend recommendations more than information from vendors.

Ikea is one of those stores with a great shopping experience that evokes word of mouth. In addition to the fun one can have by sitting on all those couches or envisioning how that bedroom would look in your own house, Ikea does things to make a difference even to the smallest customers.

Ikea has a play area for the littlest ones, where they can romp while their parents are enjoying the shopping. However, Ikea actually encourages families to bring their children with them through the showroom experience, starting right from the entrance. At our local Ikea store, a staircase leads shoppers up to the showroom floor. I was very impressed when I noticed they had put in a hand rail at kid-level, just right for those youngsters to hold onto while navigating the steps (see photo). The sign on the hand rail says the following:

“We care about the little ones, too. Look for the hand rails mounted lower, specially for your children.”

This does two things for the customer. One, the rail itself helps the kiddos feel like grown-ups (look, Mom, I can reach the hand rail!). Two, it specifically tells customers that Ikea has thought about their experience in advance and has done something to make it better.

Understanding Customers

Whether your customers are consumers or businesses, having a solid understanding of them makes all the difference in the sales and marketing process. How do your customers shop your business? What would make it easier to buy from you? Craft your own customer buying experience around the answers to those questions, and you will find an increase in not only sales, but also in new customers as the word spreads that you are a fabulous place to meet their needs.

For more great insight into the retail customer experience, see the these smart blogs: Doug Fleener’s Retail Contrarian, CB Whittemore’s Flooring the Consumer, Stephanie Weaver’s Experienceology.

(Photo credit top: rmarmion; photo credit bottom: bcarroll)

Overheard the other day from a cashier at my local grocery store (a large chain, by the way): “Can I get a bagger over here?  You aren’t paying me enough to have me bag the groceries, too!”  I heard this as I was coming up to the check-out counter with my purchases (which were only a few items).

Wow, what does that do to the brand’s marketing messages?

The issue here is this: the customer doesn’t differentiate between what marketing is saying and what they hear from customer service personnel.  All messages, regardless of medium or origin, add up to communicate the brand’s image to the customer.  Yet too often, marketing and customer service are managed separately in a company or organization, they don’t speak to each other, and they don’t have common metrics (you know, those things that drive the behaviors?).

When we look at it from the company’s perspective, we see silo-thinking, each department focused on their own area.  When we look at it from the customer’s perspective, what do we see?  One brand, with everyone working together for a great customer experience?  Or many experiences, looking like many brands, with the experience differing based on how customer service personnel are asked to behave?

Customers Rock! was started to focus on highlighting companies that understand these concepts.  Customers Rock! doesn’t mean the customer is always right.  It means we should view our customers as one of the most important assets that we have; therefore, we should plan each step of how we are going to get, keep, and grow these assets.

Who is speaking more loudly to customers at your organization?  Do you need to bring those messages into alignment?  What do customers think about your brand, from all perspectives?  These are critical questions to answer as companies consider how to weather the current economic storms.

“The relationship that is formed when marketing and customer service meet is like saying that you’re making good on your promises.”  Meikah