New Claims by Domino's

If you have seen the new Domino's TV ads, they claim to have better tasting pizza and if you don't agree you can get your money back.

I was impressed with their new ad. The leader of the company shares negative customer comments and tell you the company wants to do better. That is admirable and they gained my respect just from that message. In my estimation, if they want to survive and grow they have to offer a stronger product (personal opinion, I never liked their pizza).

ps. While it looked to me like they were offering 2 pizzas for $6 - it is actually $6 each. But my husband always wanted to try their pizza again, so we did.

What changed?

• They added garlic powder on top of the crust
• Made the sauce spicer
• The cheese tastes better

What hasn't changed?

They still offer very little topping choices, and are not at all generous with the amount of toppings. In the end, they haven't won me over and we decided we wouldn't order from them again. But they got me to try it.

Also, you can imagine it's tough to make a big change in a company of their size and get all the employees to understand the new message. Proof: when we asked the delivery person if they pizza has really changed, she said no, nothing had changed. Ironically, the box has printed information all over about what has changed.

So kudos to Domino's for being honest about negative customer feedback and wanting to improve their product and giving a money back guarantee. That is all great steps forward in the march to gain customer attention and loyalty.

A bad car dealer vs. good car dealer – a real-life comparison of service

We’ve all experienced it – good and bad service. I have just had a back-to-back experience of good and bad service in buying a car. The differences in experiences included the style and tone, the speed and much more. Read on…

The bad service: classic car dealer experience.

• High-pressure.
• Lots of cheesy phrases like, “What would it take to put you in a new car today?”
• The worst part was how the dealership wasted 2.5 hours of my time – most of which was spent sitting at a table waiting for price quotes and for them to check inventory.
• The sense of being manipulated was intense. For example, the first price they provided took 30-40 minutes for them to provide – and it was just the sticker price (which we already knew).
• In the end, we walked away with them still being pushy and still trying to convince us that we can’t get a better deal anywhere else. At the last minute, they offered to drop the price by $500. Just the kind of hold-out tactics we were hoping to avoid. This was with Universal City Nissan – the largest Nissan dealer in the L.A. area.

The good service: a refreshing car buying experience.

• We were treated professionally and with kindness and respect.
• This dealership knew that good service is its own reward – customers buy and they spread the word. And here I am spreading the word for Robert Thompson at Casa Automotive Group in Sherman Oaks.
• We got a quick test drive, no annoying recitation of car benefits but rather a helpful dialogue about car features.
• Then, when we wanted to know about the exact inventory and pricing, it happened quickly and easily. We waited no more than a few minutes to verify the available stock and get a price and just a short time to check financing rates.
• We decided to buy on the spot (which we didn’t anticipate doing) – it just made sense, good car, good deal and we knew we couldn’t find a better customer experience.

Customers notice all the little things:

• They words you say (when and what you say) and the words you don’t say,
• Your tone (friendly, kind, easy-going, etc.),
• Your style (respectful, passive, etc),
• Your responsiveness

You’d think that more car dealerships would ditch old-style sales tactics given how much money is at stake from potential customers (between sales and service) and the effect of negative word of mouth.

The old style dealerships could learn a lot from a true customer-focused dealership such as Casa Cars.

The best from 2009

My favorite webinars on social media and more: HubSpot

My favorite Twitter tool: HootSuite (easy for multiple twitter accounts)

My favorite book: What Would Google Do?

My favorite social media news website: Mashable.com

My favorite newsletter: Pew Internet Research

My favorite new discovery: Google Voice (get a free phone number and direct it anywhere you want)

My favorite YouTube video (it's cat related)

How to get customers to be even more loyal than your dog

Here’s a great new book on how to create a business that drives customer loyalty: “I Love You More Than my Dog: Five Decisions that Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Time and Bad” by Jeanne Bliss.

In fact, I love the book more than my cat. Ok, not really – nothing can top that kind of love (for me) – but Bliss has taken on a great topic and offers tons of great real-life examples.

The book outlines 5 decisions an organization makes that defines the company and its customer experience. I like her examples of companies that make decisions that delight customers, including Trader Joes, Lush, and Zappos. What’s fun is that some of the companies she highlights will come as a surprise – hospitals, a bicycle retailer, an e-commerce website, and more.

I really like the foundational message running through this book: “Your decisions reveal who you are and what you value.” That’s so true. Your policies, your employee training, your communications and all the action of a company either make a good experience for the customers or they don’t.

The 5 principles Jeanne outlines are:

1.      Decide to believe (believing in employees, customers)

2.      Decide with clarity of purpose (clear about a purpose of supporting customers’ lives)

3.      Decide to be real (shed fancy packaging and be genuine)

4.      Decide to be there (be there for customers on their terms)

5.      Decide to say sorry

I especially love the quotes from passionate and loyal customers printed on the inside of the book jacket. That’s how the book was titled – based on an actual customer quote.

You should read the book, plus follow the author on twitter (@JeanneBliss) to get updates from the book that you can easily re-tweet and share with others.

What Would Google Do?

This is a great question to ask – after all, Google is the fastest growing company in the world!

However, this is more than a question -- it is a book by Jeff Jarvis.

I love this book. I’m telling everyone I know to read it.

The book cover offers a taste of the revolutionary ideas inside. The cover quote reads: “Google is not just a company, it is an entirely new way of thinking. Jarvis has done something really important: extend that approach to business and culture, revealing just how revolutionary it is.” -- Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail (a favorite book of mine).

Jarvis's book focuses on how Google approaches everything a new and fresh perspective.

What I found refreshing about Google's approach (but not revolutionary) is that they find a problem and then create a business solution for the issue. That's a refreshing change to the all-to-common approach of a company creating what it wants and then trying to keep persuading customers they should buy it.

Jarvis defines the principles of Google's ethos and then examines industries that could be transformed by thinking like Google. The industries include: media/publishers, advertising, retail, utilities, manufacturing, service, money, public welfare, public institutions, and then he outlines a few exceptions to industries that likely can’t be helped by a Google approach to business thinking.

I’d highly recommend you read this book – it’s about the revolution of business. And I think it’s fun and exciting. Check it out here on Amazon

Get a short summary of the book highlights with this short video from the author:

Make a roadmap for web 2.0

I like the points brought out in this article which points out that it is time for companies to embrace web 2.0 before web 3.0 arrives (not that everyone agrees on what that is yet).

The article outlines 4 elements that can make web 2.0 efforts more effective - and help in your roadmap for activity. I like their steps:

1. Listen (listening to customers, and potential customers)
2. Experiment (take small steps)
3. Apply (apply what you learn, engage with customers and make a better experience)
4. Develop (work on it, and keep on this loop)

Read the article for more details, then print, share and save a copy of this nice overview.

Customer experiences in cancelling service: Make it painless

Let’s use the example of switching cable/phone companies as an illustration of what to not do and what to do when a customer wants to cancel your service. (This is based on my recent experiences.)

Like many unsatisfied customers, I went searching for a new service provider and scheduled the installation. To ensure I wouldn’t experience any disruption in internet, phone, and cable service, I had Time Warner cable install my new services before I canceled the existing ones.

Then, at the end of the new service installation day, I went to ATT.com to figure out how to cancel with them. When I initially signed up for 3 services from them, I only had to dial one phone number and they did it all. To cancel, it takes 3 separate calls.

It’s too bad that nearly all companies force cancellation to be routed through phone customer service instead allowing online self-service. Most online customer service FAQs don’t even mention how to cancel. At least AT&T mentioned how to do it and listed the right phone lines to call.

Depending on your audience demographics, you may find customers willing to navigate self-service online. I’m always more than happy to help myself (which is cost efficient for the company) and get on with my life.

From a customer viewpoint, when the cancellation process is as frustrating as the service, negative word of mouth will just continue.

On the other side of the fence: from a (customer-friendly) company viewpoint, helping customers leave without a struggle isn’t a bad thing. Yes, you lose the opportunity for a last ditch effort to ‘save’ the customer, but when someone gets to the point of cancellation it is rare to save those folks and it can just make them more mad. (Also, some people will call and cancel due to the cost or other financial reasons, and they don’t want to feel embarrassed to have to state the reason they are leaving to a live customer service agent).

It was too late for AT&T to ‘save’ me as a customer even weeks before I switched as they had already sent out two engineers to try and fix my intermittent internet connection with no success – and no follow-up or follow through. One engineer left his card and said to call if there were further problems but he didn’t respond to our message about the persistent problem. (I did get a tweet from an agent right before I switched services -- it was too late then.) When I finally called AT&T, I was already using their competitor’s services.

This is an example to illustrate that at the point of cancellation, don’t fight customers, just thank them for staying as long as they did and, if you like, you can say you’d like the chance to service them again in the future. Leave things on a positive note – it will help on all fronts.