Creating Powerful Customer Experiences

Find new blogs at...

2011-04-20T11:47:00.000-07:00

Hello faithful blog readers. All new blogs are going to be posted at:
www.CustomersThatClick.com/blog

Please bookmark this new URL to view all updates. Or you can subscribe to an RSS feed on the bottom right of that page.

If you have any questions or need help, email me at:
www.CustomersThatClick.com/contact

Thank you.

Let’s NOT meet in the middle Twittah!

2011-04-06T16:01:00.000-07:00

If you were to describe the interaction between companies and customers on social media such as Facebook, the relationship status would read "It’s Complicated."

In fact, customers and companies often use social media for entirely different purposes. And the two meet in the middle randomly.

Here’s an example: Most individuals use Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and other platforms for social purposes. By contrast, companies are jumping into the mix in the hope that they can recruit customer evangelists who will spread the gospel of their products and services inside their social networks.

Fact is, a recent survey revealed that 70% of companies use social media to garner word of mouth. Comparatively, only 38% of customers felt it was likely that they’d become evangelists after connecting with a company online.* (See this research and further stats.)

Nevertheless, let’s go back to our example of the connection between consumers and the companies they buy from. Think of a company such as Clairol hair color and its customers. Why should someone “Like” Clairol hair color on Facebook? (Keep reading to find out why.)

The research cited above shows that the customer’s main interest in interacting with companies on social media is to get discounts. Conversely, companies think this is the least important reason to connect with their buyers. To which I say, “Oh, really?”

I’ve observed tons of brands using social media for exactly that. Recent examples: “Like” LegalZoom.com and get entered into a drawing for iPad, or “Like” Clairol to be entered to get one of thousands of coupons for their new hair color foam product.

While this satisfies the customer desire for deals, it certainly doesn’t build or add value to the relationship long term. Once customers “Like” a company they may soon tire of the constant updates from that company in their Facebook stream. They may un-“Like” the company so that they can end the stream of promotions or what they may see as irrelevant content. And then the company loses the ‘value’ and so does the customer.

How can companies and customers meet on common footing?
Customers are always seeking value – “add value to my life.” That doesn’t have to mean just money saved; it can be something that they value (key information, access, first notice/ timeliness, etc).

Let’s look at airlines. JetBlue, Delta and other airlines have noticed their customers tweeting about their frustrations – delayed flights, missed connections and such. These companies are offering customer service via social media. You can see how that would be something that customers “value,” and the company gets value, too – a satisfied customer. This inspires customers to move from angry tweets to a follow up tweet about how they were rescued. This is a great alignment between companies and their customers with social media.

What about your company?
Think about what your customers most want from their relationship with you on social media. In fact, I’d suggest asking them.

#1 Find out what social media platforms your customers use (you can search for your company name on http://search.twitter.com to find out if anyone is talking about you on Twitter for example). Again, you could just ask your customers what social media they use.

#2 Find out what they’d really like to do via those social channels. Do they want customer service via Twitter? And do enough of them want it to be a good choice for your organization? Being affordable is important, but don’t forget the power of resolving customer complaints quickly (before they spread). There is a cost to negative word of mouth.

Not all customers want the same thing. Find out what they most need and then try a pilot test. Try to give them that – where and when they want it and see how they respond. You may just find a huge customer thank you for your willingness to engage with them where they spend much of their time – social media.

* An exception to this point is B2B focused social media. That is a focused market that is syncing up well on ‘social’ media – Twitter, Slideshare, LinkedIn, and the like. These platforms are effective for many industries wanting to grow, share, converse and learn.

Mobile web strategy best practices

2011-04-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

I read this blog from Patty Seybold this week and wanted to share it with you. She ok'd me posting it here. It has great ideas on mobile strategies that everyone is talking about these days.

Best Practice: Mobile Web Strategy – Learning from Nature Education’s Scitable.com
By Patricia Seybold

While everyone is piling on to the mobile app model for delivering functionality and content, the pioneering team at Nature Education Group took a different approach. They stepped back and thought about what their customers actually needed the most. This led them to the conclusion that they needed to lead with a mobile web implementation, not a mobile app.

They also did some deep thinking about SEO. What most Web teams do is to design separate mobile web sites. It’s the easiest thing to do. But Vikram Savkar’s team educated themselves on mobile search and realized that their search rankings would suffer if they used that approach.

Then there’s the question about what to outsource and what to do in-house, particularly if you have a lean development team of 10 people. Perhaps counter-intuitively, Vikram Savkar and Michael Powers decided that it was really important to build an in-house competency in mobile web development.

I learned a lot from both Vikram and Michael. As they talked through the decisions they made, I made a list of all the elements they considered, including:

1. What types of mobile devices do our target customers use? What kinds of mobile devices do we think they’ll they be likely to use in the future?

2. What’s the business model for our mobile strategy?

3. Do we need a Mobile web site or a mobile App, or both? Which approach will work best for our target customers?

4. What’s the best way to get up to speed on what we need to know about designing for mobile?

5. What activities should we do in-house? What should we outsource?

6. What should our Mobile web Search Optimization (SEO) Strategy be?

7. How do we need to structure our content for mobile?

8. Which content and/or application functionality do want to enable for our mobile users?

9. How will we test our mobile sites as we add content, features, and functionality?

10. What can we measure? What kind of instrumentation, analytics, and reporting can we enable?

Business Model Expectations
As I was discussing the business model options for mobile support with Vikram, I had a sense of déjà vu. It seems to me that most publishers seem to be moving towards a consensus that says: Customers won’t pay for an online subscription to content. But they will pay for a mobile app that contains constantly updated content. It’s a fascinating conclusion, and it may be true. Notice how much resistance the New York Times is getting to its announcement that we’ll have to pay for an online subscription? Personally, I’m a fan of bundled business models: sell me the print + online + app for one bundled price, and let me access this content on all my devices. And, yes, give me free access to some of the content online and as an app so that I can try it and decide whether or not to pay more for premium access.

For Scitable’s business model—that of providing sponsored scientific content for free to anyone in the world, making that information as broadly accessible as possible from the mobile web is a winning proposition. If you want to see a really GOOD mobile web implementation, just point your mobile web browser at www.scitable.com!

Read my best practices article.

Customers Don’t Always Like Surprise Gifts

2011-03-27T16:46:00.000-07:00

I received a surprise in the mail today – a women’s magazine I don’t subscribe to. But, according to the address label, I’m going to be getting the magazine for a full year. Three words come to mind: Gift. Horse. Mouth.

Has this ever happened to you?

I called the magazine to see if there was an error and they explained that I was getting one year free as a result of something I bought online. It was coming from some kind of clearinghouse.

Odd. I asked for them to end the free subscription since I didn’t have an interest in the magazine and didn’t want to waste paper. They removed me from their mailing list and promotional list. Glad that was done.

I’m using this story to remind you that not all surprises are good ones. Customers don’t like surprises. In this example I had to go out of my way and wait on hold for over 10 minutes just to cancel something I didn’t order and didn’t want.

Now, some customers may well have appreciated a free magazine subscription but a better approach would have been to have offer customers the option of receiving the gift up-front with a complete explanation of what obligations, if any, may come tied to the gift.

3 ways you may be unwittingly surprising your customers (and causing them to leave)

Are customers surprised when they get a bill? An insurance company I worked with said that many times customers were surprised once they got a first bill, even though they knew how much their annual premium was. Bills are an opportunity to communicate (clearly) and even remove buyer’s remorse.

Are your customers surprised if they are on a yearly contract and you auto renew them (this is a bad practice if you don’t notify customers first – Microsoft pulled this on me recently and I wasn’t able to get a refund when they assumed I wanted to auto renew). Talk about bad word of mouth and making enemies quickly.

How about your contracts. Is your contract language a surprise? I’ve worked with companies that are really nice and friendly to customers and then hand you a creepy legal document full of impenetrable legal-ese. Sure, you may need to protect yourself in the contract by using accurate legal terminology but there are ways to use more understandable language today. Also don't hide things in the small print because that leaves the customer with a queasy feeling that you may be hiding something. So why not explain it in plain ol’ English to the customer? If anything, that’ll clear up confusion and minimize future misunderstandings (and lawsuits).

"I'm a robot; I'm Here to Help You"

2011-03-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

Here’s an easy way to lose customers: Send them impersonal responses that seem to have been generated by the HAL 9000 (from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey).

Example 1: Bank of America recently sent me a standardized letter that reads as follows, “Congratulations, Your account shown above is paid in full. The items checked below may require you to take action or may provide you with important information.”

Below that were 15 sentences each with their own box. In other words, it was a form letter featuring a variety of boxes that the bank could check off according to the relevant category that applied to me. (Don’t form letters make you feel all warm and fuzzy?) The box I got checked read “No documents are enclosed.” And this a reply to my FAX (yes, even in the 21st century they require a faxed letter asking to close an account). This was not related to paying off an account, it was in regard to closing an account. The letter was wholly confusing and seemingly unrelated to my query. Plus, the generic nature of the pro forma letter felt insulting.

Example 2: I recently emailed the Humane Society of the US to request that they stop sending me their donor magazine.

Now, I’m a huge fan of the animal welfare work of the Humane Society. I regularly send them donations and, when the organization’s president held a “town hall” meeting in Los Angeles, I was one of the many attendees. But I find the horrifying images and stories of animal abuse inside the Humane Society’s magazine, All Animals, deeply tormenting. That’s the point of them, I guess, to drive up donations and encourage support for the organization. But these sorts of images stay with me for years. I don’t want them in my head. I’m the type of person who will walk out of a movie that depicts harm to animals, even the whipping of horses in horse-racing films. (You won’t find Secretariat, Seabiscuit, or National Velvet in my Netflix queue!)

In my email, I told HSUS that I’ll continue to donate but mentioned that I’ve noticed how more and more animal non-profits have turned to using horror stories in their solicitation campaigns and that I don’t appreciate that approach.

Their reply?

First I get an auto reply that someone will get back to me.

Then three days later (felt like a week) I get an email saying you’ve been removed from our list. As a long time donor and someone who cares about their cause I expected a reply that included some kind of heart and not just a bland template. That stinks.

It was also a huge missed opportunity. The human touch goes a long way to make a customer feel valued. If you're going to hand over your hard-earned money to a business or a charity, you want it to feel more meaningful than writing a check to the IRS. Robotic-like form letters make one feel like you’re dealing with a government bureaucracy. True, these organizations likely have huge email volume to respond to, but treating long time ‘customers’ with respect and empathy always builds greater bonds. Especially when the customer has a negative experience and you have an opportunity to turn it into a positive one. Sigh.

Focus on the Stars, Be More Customer Centric

2011-03-03T13:37:00.000-08:00

Here’s a quick astronomy lesson on how stars are formed. (No, you haven’t stumbled on to the wrong blog—bear with me….)

When swirling particles of gas and dust clump together they create a gravitational pull that draws in other particles and clumps. The self-perpetuating process creates an ever-growing gravitational mass that becomes proportionately denser and hotter. When it becomes hot enough for nuclear fusion to occur, the star is born. (Or something like that—no doubt, Carl Sagan could have explained it better.)

So, how does this apply to business? You’ve likely heard the term “customer centricity,” which can mean a variety of strategies, tactics and ideas. But I’d like to focus on the bedrock of this concept: How to create a gravitational core in your company that is so customer centric that every aspect of your business operations gravitates toward it.

Hire a few stars of your own. Your employees make a big impression on customers. They can make or break customer relationships. It’s important to get clear on what skills you need in your front-line employees (the ones that have direct contact with customers). Who are you hiring? Focus on what talents you most need to grow and sustain a focus on customers (not just “how things have been done” in this industry). One thing I’ve learned in hiring customer service staff is that you can’t train someone to be friendly and nice, you can only train people in hard skills such as computer or system usage.

How do you create financial incentives and reward employees? Often, company rewards are based on new sales. That creates a culture of focusing heavily on new customers at the expense of investing in existing customer relationships. If that is the case with your company, consider how you could create incentives for employees based on retention too. Consider how other incentives might affect customer relationships. For example, when I first took over an internal customer service call center the reps had an incentive to restrict calls to two minutes. Result? Some reps hung up on customers after 2 minutes!

What are the common metrics at the company? What is talked about in meetings? Is it just sales or percentage increases or customer satisfaction numbers? Push yourself for stronger, yet more specific, metrics. Jeanne Bliss, a customer culture expert and speaker, suggests your “customer math” include the number of customers in and the number of customer out (from her book Chief Customer Officer: Getting Past Lip Service to Passionate Action). I love her idea of getting 2 bowls and putting white marbles in one bowl (new customers), and black marbles in the other (customers lost). Using percentages doesn’t have nearly the same impact.

Start focusing on some of these principles, you’ll become a star in your own business-sector constellation.

Don't Turn Your Company Into a Tower of Babel

2011-02-22T14:41:00.000-08:00

The Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel the Elder (1563).

During a recent flight on US Airways, I heard the following cabin announcement: “We are dimming the cabin lights but you can find your personal light in the passenger service unit.”

Passenger Service Unit?

They were referring to the controls for air flow and light on the ceiling above the seat. I wish they had translated their jargon into every day language.

Unfortunately, many businesses forget how to speak in a language that their customers can readily understand. Case in point: the contract for a new insurance policy or telephone seem designed only to be understood by lawyers who can read Latin and bandy about terms such as inter alia.

But the worst offenders are often tech companies. In 2009, The Gadget Helpline in England surveyed 5,000 people about tech terms they find most confusing and discovered that customers struggle to fully comprehend the meaning of words such as WAP, Cookie, and Dongle. Nokia phones, meanwhile, include something termed a “Navi Key.” Reporting on the survey results, the BBC included the following quote by Peter Griffiths, campaign secretary for the Plain English Campaign:

"We need to pull our head out of the digital clouds and use plain English," he said.
"If changing the name isn't an option then a glossary of terms would work. Not only does it explain the language, but it's a nice way of learning for people who don't have such a good grasp of the language."

Don’t let your company turn into a Tower of Babel. No matter what kind of lingo you use in-house when talking with fellow employees, make an effort to talk in language, style, and tone that your customer will understand. It will strengthen your bond with them and they won’t come away from the experience feeling frustrated (or, worse, stupid).

Steps/Guidelines for how to use your customer’s language in your company...

What is their language?

Listen to customers to tune in to their language. The way that they talk about, or describe, aspects of your product or service may vary from your own terminology and descriptions. You can listen in through social media, customer service phone calls, and your research or even sales calls – you name it. What language do they use for your services, your industry, their needs, etc. You can also talk to your “front line employees” (those who directly interact with customers) about language your customers commonly use.

Take a customer to lunch – once a week or once a month, keeps the sound of their voice in your head. (Then be sure to share what you hear with others internally!)

How to keep their language in mind

What to do – keep customer language near all your employees – even those who don’t interact with customers. It needs to become a habit to adopt customer language – not internal shorthand, acronyms or worse. This can be sharing customer 'verbatims' - meaning quotes from customers internally (see section below).

Where to use this new language

Use this language in your outbound communication – your marketing, website, social media, sales materials, in customer service calls.

Use this language internally – in meetings, in discussion with employees. Share customer feedback regularly.

You’ll find that the more you listen and adopt the language of your customers, the more your customers will feel an affinity and kinship with you. We are all looking for relationships that really connect with us, our interests and reflect ourselves – try these basic ideas and see how it helps you.

Share your ideas in the comments below.

"How to Change Things When Change is Hard"

2011-02-14T11:30:00.000-08:00

In past blogs, I’ve encouraged businesses to consider how to create durable bonds with customers through powerful customer experiences. Easier said than done, right?

Often, the greatest challenge is altering and shaping the behavior of employees so that they become truly customer focused. Indeed, you may feel that changing the fundamental culture of an entire company is a bit like trying to steer the Titanic away from an iceberg with just an oar.

If you feel that way, then meet the cavalry: Dan and Chip Heath, authors of a new, must-read book titled Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard. If the authors’ names sound familiar it’s because the two brothers wrote Made to Stick, a bestseller that dedicated to revealing how to effectively share important information in a way that makes a memorable and measurable impact.

The Heath’s new book is, perhaps, the ultimate self-help manual. It draws on decades of research from multiple disciplines to explain the key steps to making lasting transformation in our companies, our communities and our own lives. The key to change, according to the authors, is learning how to overcome the inherent tension between the head and the heart or, as the authors put it, the rational mind and the emotional mind. They reveal how to leverage the strengths of both and how to guide them on a clear path toward dramatic results. Very readable, Switch is just as eye-opening with fascinating anecdotes that are, well, made to stick. During the course of the book we are introduced to:

A graduate student who saved a nearly extinct species right out of college.

A doctor who saved 122,300 lives in just 365 days by overcoming hospitals’ reluctance to change a set of procedures that led to medical errors.

A buyer for Target who, single-handedly, won over her company’s merchants to the idea of becoming “upscale discounter” with fashion that was chic rather than dreary.

One of the astonishing revelations of the book is what a profound impact one individual can have. Indeed, the principles in this book are very applicable to a boss—or any employee—seeking to dislodge the seemingly unmovable boulder of a stubborn company culture.

In fact, the Heath's provide a great story about how one company transformed from being the least customer-focused entity possible into the industry leader in customer experience. In 1999, Rackspace was entirely focused on its purpose of hosting internet sites for other companies. Unfortunately, the employees seldom bothered to answer customer queries because the company culture was geared to believing that customer-service interactions were a road bump to profitability. Then, one day, a Rackspace customer was so infuriated by the lack of response to his many queries by phone and email that he tracked down company founder Graham Weston in person and read him the riot act.

In turn, Weston realized the company culture needed a wholesale change of focus. He hired a man named David Bryce as head of customer support who posted a banner on the wall that read RACKSPACE GIVES FANATICAL SUPPORT.

But of course Weston went further: he altered the company’s business model. He realized that if Rackspace tried to offer both premium customer service and cutting-edge technological hosting, the company would have to raise its prices to unsustainable levels. Result: Weston decided that the company would forgo its technological edge—he reasoned that large companies such as Amazon should be hosting their own sites—in favor of a narrower focus on standardized products and zealous customer service.

As the authors observe, Weston offered a clear and concise direction for the company. Too often, CEOs offer lofty goals that are too vague and imprecise to spur action.

But the biggest change of all was the abolition of the call-queuing system at Rackspace.
As the Heaths put it,

“The call queue is perhaps the most basic tool of customer support.
Weston threw it out.
‘When a customer calls, that means they need our help, and we’ve got to answer the telephone,’ he said. Without the queuing system, there was no safety net. The phone would keep ringing until someone picked it up. To Weston, this was a critical symbol of the service ethic. ‘When a customer has a problem, we shouldn’t deal with it when it’s convenient for us. We should deal with it when it’s convenient for the customer.’”

The transformation in Rackspace was radical. Those employees who were deemed so zealous about customer service that they had become “insane,” were awarded straitjackets adorned with the company logo. As a result, Rackspace not only became one of Fortune magazine’s Best Places to Work, but also the first internet hosting firm to turn a profit. Rackspace passed AT&T as the highest-grossing firm in the industry in 2008.

That anecdote comes from a chapter in Switch about how changes in ones environment can change behavior. But I encourage you to read the book to discover how to reconstitute behavior in your business so that it is truly geared toward the customer. Go flip that switch!

Try walking in Zappos' shoes

2011-02-07T15:21:00.000-08:00

Here’s an example of why Zappos is the shoe-in…sorry, shoo-in…for the world’s best online retailer. When I recently purchased a pair of shoes from Zappos, I received an email informing me that they had decided to upgrade me to overnight shipping, free of charge. That was a moment of pure delight.

That’s par for the course for a company genuinely dedicated to their core value: "Deliver 'WOW' through service.” To understand why this Nevada-based company has become such an e-commerce success (spurring Amazon to purchase the company), you’ll want to read the book “Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose” by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.

Surprisingly, it turns out that Zappos—which takes its name from the Spanish word zapatos, meaning shoes—had a very rocky start. The startup nearly ran out of money multiple times. It nearly ran out of customers several times, too. The company’s early attempts at outsourcing proved disastrous and it was only when Zappos moved its warehousing services and shipping back in-house that they were able to control their promise to wow customers. (See the video, above, for a fuller account of their early travails.)

I really appreciated learning about how, where and when they decided to keep evolving their business and refining the passion they now have for “delivering happiness.” They have mastered the art of creating experiences that customers want to repeat.

What Zappos has accomplished is all the more remarkable given its line of business. Most people think of e-commerce as cold and impersonal transactions since they rarely involve interpersonal interaction. Yet Zappos makes its customers feel warm and fuzzy. That’s a startling accomplishment for an online store.

One quote from Hsieh’s book explains one of the many ways that Zappos has been able to foster its relationship with its customers.

“A lot of people may think it’s strange that an Internet company is so focused on the telephone, when only about 5 percent of our sales happen through the telephone. In fact, most of our phone calls don’t even result in sales. But what we’ve found is that on average, every customer contacts us at least once sometime during his or her lifetime, and we just need to make sure that we use that opportunity to create a lasting memory.”

That tidbit reminds me of the story I read in the latest Jeanne Bliss book (“I Love You More Than My Dog”) about how a company called Zane’s Cycles realized that each customer was worth a lot more than just one transaction – like one repair or one replacement part. So they provide free parts to their customers, they loan out bikes without asking for your driver’s license in exchange, and they make amazing leaps in service to create memories that keep customers coming back.

What would the world be like if even an additional 1% of businesses really oriented themselves to wowing customers?

Complacent about customer experience? Your competitors aren't

2011-02-03T13:17:00.000-08:00

Just for fun, go to http://search.twitter.com and search for the name of your local cable provider. You may come across tweets such as these:

Iced into my house and now the cable AND Internet goes out. Thanks Time Warner- you guys are the best. And by best-- I mean HORRIBLE.

Or this…

I can't stand RCN Cable I've called twice about my cable issue was disconnected the 1st time and nothing was done the 2nd time.

Or even…

Shutting down the Internet in Egypt? That's nothing, Time Warner shuts down cable TV in Los Angeles every night! #frozen pixels

Ouch!

Cable providers often face little competition relative to businesses in other sectors of the economy. As a result, it often seems that there is little effort by these companies to create a positive customer experience. In turn, customers are very vocal about their frustrations – as we’ve just seen.

By contrast, the latest Forrester Research survey on customer experience management finds that those companies that focus on customer experience tend to succeed – even in a crowded marketplace. For example, hotels and retail stores (companies that typically face lots of competition) gain repeat customers and strong word of mouth when they focus on creating positive, memorable customer experiences.

Forrester compiled its information by surveying 7,700 customers about 154 companies. The respondents were asked three questions about those businesses:
1) How well did they meet your needs?
2) How easy were they to do business with?
3) How enjoyable were they to do business with?

You can read the full report of their findings here, but here are a few quick observations about the survey results:

Be alert to the financial benefits of investing in customer experience for your business! According to Forrester’s research, 66% of customers found their experiences “okay” or “poor.” That means those customers will relish opportunities to find a better experience that is worth their dollars.
There is a good opportunity for new entrants (where possible) in the industries with low competition who focus on the customer experience. Can you say “blow the remaining competition out of the water?”
There is a good opportunity for companies to gain more market share or revenue by focusing on positive customer experiences, even in a crowded marketplace. Look at the stories and buzz around companies that wow customers. Just consider some of the stores and brands that you evangelize. For example, I love Costco. (Not surprisingly, it’s one of the top 10 best companies for customer experience according to Forrester’s research and a Consumer Reports reader survey ranked Costco as America's best retail store.) When I recently purchased a laptop from them but didn’t like the one I chose, there weren’t any hassles when I returned it. They also offer a warranty and returns time frame for the computer that is at least twice other retailers. And all with a genuine smile.
Competition drives a better customer experience. You know when another company enters your space you have to hustle to keep your customers. Be proactive, don’t just wait for competition to take your customers – start your focus on customer experience now so you are poised when threats come your way.

In the meantime, keep an eye on Twitter to gauge how your customers are responding to their experiences with your business.

A WOW customer experience comes from social media

2011-01-12T12:37:00.000-08:00

This is the best use of social media I've ever seen - and it's in creating amazing customer experiences that had far reaching impact. This video is so great, so revolutionary and so simple that is honestly brought tears to my eyes. Just think of what we can do to delight customers and build bonds that last (let alone have a huge viral impact).

Watch all of this video - you will love it all.

Top 10 Ways to Instill Customer Service into Your Company

2011-01-04T19:26:00.000-08:00

This is a great excerpt from the book from Tony Hsieh, "Delivering Happiness." Take note of these 10 ideas you can embed into your business.

Top 10 Ways to Instill Customer Service into Your Company

1. Make customer service a priority for the whole company, not just a department. A customer service attitude needs to come from the top.

2. Make WOW a verb that is part of your company’s everyday vocabulary.

3. Empower and trust your customer service reps. Trust that they want to provide great services because they actually do. Escalation to a supervisor should be rare.

4. Realize that it’s okay to fire customers who are insatiable or abuse your employees.

5. Don’t measure call times, don’t force employees to upsell, and don’t use scripts.

6. Don’t hide your 1-800 number. It’s a message not just to your customers, but to your employees as well.

7. View each call as an investment in building a customer service brand, not as an expense you’re seeking to minimize.

8. Have the entire company celebrate great service. Tell stories of WOW experiences to everyone in the company.

9. Find and hire people who are already passionate about customer service.

10. Give great service to everyone: customers, employees, and vendors.

How many of these ideas do you use now? Some great ideas, thanks Tony.

To buy this great book on Amazon, click here.

Fresh content wins over customers and search engines

2010-12-31T17:09:00.000-08:00

Does your website homepage look exactly the same for months on end? How about the other pages in the site? Be honest, does your site content seldom change? (Don’t worry I’ve got a few ideas on what to update.)

Your website is an important part of your customer’s (or potential customer’s) experience. And the bad news is that customers can tell your site hasn’t been updated and that factors into their perception of your business and their decision on whether to purchase your services or products.

A few tip offs that your site is out of date are:

Does the copyright at the bottom of the site not list the current year?

Does your content have dates associated with it? Are those dates from more than 1-2 months ago?

Has the same content been on the homepage for months? (Potential customers may visit your website more than once during their research and notice this.)

The result is that a customer may inadvertently “read” that you don’t care about their experience on your website or that your offering is irrelevant if it feels outdated. With so many customers using the web to gather information and research companies, the experience you provide online is very important. Don’t miss out on new customers and “Google juice”– keep your site updated.

What in the world can you update?

Let’s say you have the same products and services month after month on your website – how can you make it look fresh? A few ideas...

Main areas of changes are:

A. Graphical – I don’t mean that you need to redesign your site monthly, but you should alter a few graphics / images periodically. Graphic updates are the fastest visual cue of a change (even if the text remains the same, new images can look fresh and appealing to customers when they fit their interests).

B. Headlines or content. Rewriting headlines to change emphasis can give customers a new view of your site. Plus, you can test which headlines perform better (in click conversion)! Take a look at the search terms your website visitors use to find you – play up those keywords in your content, for example.

Here are few more specific ideas:

Insert a box /widget on a web page that shows titles from your latest blog entries. Result: whenever you publish a new blog, this box shows the freshest content. Put this box on your homepage and other pages on the site. (This only works if you update your blog – which helps Google-juice too!)

Insert a space on your pages that highlights different products/ services. Then change out the promoted item weekly or monthly. (This can be a combination of text, image, and button.)

Insert your Twitter feed into your web pages so visitors can see your tweets. Your tweets should also be visible to people who tweet about your industry (use common hash tags or keywords to define which tweets will appear).

Edit the current copy on your site to play up different messages. You could even consider a slowly rotating message in a callout box.

Add a seasonal welcome message on your site (be sure to mark your calendar so that you take down a holiday message after the holiday is over).

Change the images or graphics on your homepage from time to time.

P.S. A website that is updated periodically is more appealing to search engines and can help your Google-juice!

Get the point and sound human: Tips for your website content

2010-12-13T15:56:00.000-08:00

Ever been stumped by an acronym or jargon-laden website? It’s common. We forget that our customers may not know all the insider terms and acronyms that we know.

What’s important to remember is that no one likes to feel stupid – and not knowing terms or phrases can have that effect on site visitors. And that’s the last thing you want.

Question here is:

Does your website sound like humans wrote it or R2D2 from Star Wars?

Key principles of content /messaging online (applies to most businesses/customers):

Consider your words wisely – avoid jargon and instead use keywords your customers use and understand. (This of course goes beyond your website into other communication materials too.

Shorter is better when it comes to top of page content because it allows a customer’s eyes to scan and find what they want. (If a customer wants more information, they will scroll down or click to read more.)

Clear language is better because customers can make choices faster. (Customers know what they need – speak in their language, not yours.)

Sound human, not corporate (unless you have to be corporate sounding – most people don’t relate well to this tone, and it rarely builds relationships or engages new customers). Yes, some lawyer websites may be the exception.

Remember all web visitors have little time to read and decipher your messages and presentation. You only get 3 seconds when they first see your homepage to tell them they found what they are looking for.

Of course, you should consider your company brand and its tone/style – but unless you have crazy corporate style, be conversational. That means – write like you speak (assuming speak normally of course – ha!). Avoid things that sound overly sales-y or marketing-y (excuse me for making up words to emphasis my point).

Read other blogs in this series:

Ineffective websites forgot to "make it easy"

7 Key Questions to Consider When Building a Best Class Website

Does your website help or hinder your business goals?

Learn from 5 awful website landing pages

2010-12-08T16:07:00.000-08:00

I love this article and it goes along well with my recent blogs on the principles of building an engaging website. In this piece, 5 big name brands fell into common pitfalls of overwhelming customers with their website presentation. Click below to get the details.

Click here to read the article.

Ineffective websites forget to “make things easy”

2010-11-29T11:38:00.000-08:00

You’ve seen a bad website - right? Whether you are trained in usability and online user experience (UX) or not, you’ve likely used a clunky or difficult website. (There’s even a whole host of websites dedicated to chronicling to bad websites!)

I’ve talked to many businesses who want a more effective website – perhaps they want it to help them acquire new customers or bring back current customers again and again. Sound familiar? Here are few tips to consider that will help your website offer an even more positive experience and engage customers.

(See links at bottom of this blog to find some of my other blogs on website best practices.)

Let’s start with this question: How well is content displayed on each page of your website? Here are 2 key points to consider.

1. Make it easy for customers to find what they want

The best way to represent your company online is with a compelling and clear presentation – something that is quickly readable so customers can find what they want. Keep your site clean, clear and professional. This includes clear labels, buttons and headlines.

When your website is easy to use and has great content, your site visitors will be more likely to come back – or tell their friends. Avoid clutter – too many photos, too much text, too many different formats of text, competing buttons. Also, avoid using all capital letters because it comes across as shouting (the same rule applies to exclamation points).

Remember, site visitors will decide in 3 seconds if they like your site. Not sure what they are most hoping to find on your site? Start by looking at search engine referrals and keywords that are recorded in your website traffic logs (then look at how well your content matches their keywords/ interest).

2. Make each page easy for the eye to scan

This point is about content format and length. Typically, customers want to quickly scan a page and find what they want without having to read paragraphs of copy. When it’s difficult for customers to find what they want, they will leave and go elsewhere.

Here is a page that is easy to scan (notice headlines with images and brief descriptions): fastcompany.com. The eye can quickly scan down and look for keywords of interest in headlines.

Have a website geared to services? A good idea is to make a brief compelling headline at the top of the page (this invites the reader to scroll down the page or click to read more). Then if you want to include more text below, that’s fine. For the content below the headline use simple and clean formatting that offers emphasis where needed. One good idea is to use bulleted lists or pick one accent color for key points. This allows your customers to easily pick up on your salient points.

The guiding principle I suggest for content presentation and length is: “sip/cup/bath.” This means offer customers a sip first and let them decide if they want to a cup or to take a bath and swim around in even more of your content.

Sip refers to length – offer a small amount of content and let customers who want to – get more information. Don’t barrage them with tons of content to read when they just want a sip and they will choose when to go further. It isn’t just younger generations that want less content to wade through – it’s anyone who is time pressed, which is basically everyone.

This can be done by putting the bath content a click away. For example, put the sip at the top of the page and then a cup below it and then click if you want the bath level of content.

Another important point about creating a compelling website is creating good contrast that is clean and easy to view. Web design principles do vary from print design principles because computers are backlit and that changes readability. One example is to avoid dark backgrounds with light text (or low contrast like white lettering on orange backgrounds).

Want more ideas on creating an effective website that makes customers want to come back?

Read other blogs in this series:

7 Key Questions to Consider When Building a Best Class Website

Does your website help or hinder your business goals?

Bravo to shopittome.com

2010-09-05T15:32:00.000-07:00

I like to herald businesses that really tailor their offerings to what customers want and when they want it. I just read about http://www.shopittome.com/ - it's a terrific concept, they will alert you when your favorite brands/stores have sales!

I wanted to call attention to this website because: a) it's a great idea, and, b) when customers sign up to use the service, they are asked what day they would like email updates. Sure, it seems simple. But many companies forget to offer this kind of basic personalization even though it can yield a big payoff. It's a win for customers because they receive the service on their terms.

I'm a big believer in giving customers what they want -- when they want it! The 'when' and 'how' is often overlooked by companies. What format - email, phone, mail etc and how often. If companies allowed customers to chose the frequency and day of the week like shopittome.com, they would like have more subscribers (and more opportunities to connect and engage - and sell customers).

Does your website help or hinder your business goals?

2010-08-25T16:11:00.000-07:00

The best websites make it easy for customers to quickly find what they want. Less clicks is the goal. Make it obvious what you have with clear text and presentation.
It’s easy to overwhelm web pages with too much content or with too many choices. And it’s always easy to think about what how you want the website to work …. but are you the target audience for your own services and products? That isn’t usually the case.

A co-worker turned friend who I first worked with 10 years ago, still reminds me today that I was often telling her then to consider what the customer wanted. This was because she wasn’t personally in our target market and thus we didn’t want personal opinion. (Yes, I always was a customer zealot.) It can be hard to get personal opinion out and get the customer’s voice in. But you have to do it – without it your business won’t grow!

Think about your customer…

 Start by asking: What is your customer trying to accomplish when they visit your website? Another way to think about this is to ask yourself: What problem are they trying to solve? Get customer service information? Pricing? Renew a subscription? Get product return information? Get your phone number? Get more specifics on your services?

 Knowing what your customer wants to accomplish will help you figure out how to create clear paths right to those key pieces of information or right to the actions they want to take.

Now that you know what they want to do, think about how well your website suits their needs:

 What is the fastest route to getting to this key information? How many clicks does it take?

 Is your most important (from customer perspective) content or information featured prominently on your homepage so they can start their use/search of your website quickly and easily? Is it in your navigation so they can easily continue their use of your website and return to key information when desired?

 Is this key information clearly labeled and prominently visible?

 Once they get past your homepage do you guide them step by step to more information they are likely to seek with suggested next steps on each page?

Not sure if your site if your website is the best it can be? Ask customers, they love to give unvarnished feedback. If a company email or called me that I did business with and asked for my honest view of what they could do better on their website I would jump at the chance. I’d do it for free – because I would want it to be better for myself (as a customer) and for other customers they serve.

(Go ahead companies who I’m a customer of – just ask me – I’m serious.)
More ideas on building a website that support your business goals and objectives to come in future blogs, share any questions or comments here.

7 Key Questions to Consider When Building a Best Class Website

2010-08-17T17:57:00.000-07:00

You want visitors to come to your website and click around, return, and tell their friends – right? It takes a better than average site to do that.

What are your favorite websites – the ones that really impress you and make your life easier. It’s the sites with great usability and great presentation that stay updated. Yes, of course, Facebook you might be saying, but also great ecommerce sites (think Zappos.com, amazon.com, llbean.com, overstock.com, etc).

However, many business websites end up either being too serious, too boring or too static. Sorry to say. But that means you can really stand out from your competitors.

Here are the top 7 questions you need to consider when building or revamping your website.

1. How easy is it for your customers to find what they want? (Good correlated question: How many clicks does it take them to find key information?)

2. How easy is to scan the content on your pages to find what they want?

3. How clear is your content / message? (Consider style, tone, length, format.)

4. How often is your content updated?

5. How much do you offer for free (before a user has to register or pay)?

6. What kind of interaction is possible on your site (forums, commenting, rating, etc)?

7. How does your site compare to Web usability of your competitors and best in class websites?

The danger here is that you’re so in love with your own voice or how you already built your website that you aren’t willing to change and be what your customers want (and what will help your SEO too).

Be ready to slice and dice your website to pull customers in with helpful headlines, clear calls to action and labels. Don’t ramble on – put the pay off up top and don’t be afraid of graphics and buttons.

Pose your questions below and I'll post more blogs that dive into some of the questions above even further.

Using birthdays to thank current customers

2010-07-20T22:11:00.000-07:00

On your birthday you may receive a number of congratulatory cards and emails from family, friends, and … the lizard from Geico.

Some companies view birthdays as marketing opportunities. Done right, these can prove to be a great customer experience. But, as I discovered on my recent birthday, execution is everything.

Good Experiences

I’ll never complain when a business sends me something for free or a discount to use in your birthday month.

Most customers like the opportunity to get special deals to their favorite companies/brands in their birthday month. Here are a few examples from my recent birthday:

ZPizza sent me a coupon for a free small pizza. Awesome.
Aveda (eco and animal friendly hair/skin company) sent me a coupon for a free product. Super.
Starbucks sent me a coupon for a free drink. Salut!

It seems as if email is the most commonly used method due to postage cost savings. Your business may have a natural way to collect a customer’s birth date, whether it’s an in-store postcard or a website form.

But if you don’t have a natural way to collect this information, you’ll need to devise a way to do so that doesn’t seem out of place to your customers. One option is to explain that you are asking for a customer’s birth date in order to send special offers.

Bad Experiences

When a business uses a birthday to aggressively market to customers, it doesn’t feel like a gift and can backfire.

ING Direct (the online bank) sent me a coupon for 15% off purchasing any of their logo emblazoned T-shirts or mugs, etc. That’s the best they can do for a loyal customer? What sort of customer feels rewarded with a measly 15% off something that promotes their service? A simple birthday message would have preferable to this (which is what I expected when I saw the email from them).

Unusual Experiences

Geico sent me a birthday card. I’ve never even been a Geico customer! That sort of tactic can feel like an invasion of privacy since customers aren’t sure how they found out your birth date. While, younger generations don’t get creeped out as easily, you don’t want to freak out customers – that is typically a negative experience.

It’s interesting that Geico presented their birthday greeting by noting that older drivers get better rates – hence the invitation to celebrate my birthday by purchasing lower cost insurance. I wouldn’t have thought about that as a message or a touchpoint for non-customers. Does anyone know if this tactic is working for Geico? At least the lizard on the front of the card is cute.

A Final Thought

Before you add birthday email messages to your communications plan, think about the frequency of contact you already have with your customers, the right kind of tone and “gift” you could provide to craft a good experience. Don’t make customers feel as if you are just exploiting their birthday to profit from them.

Got questions? Comments? Share them here.

Puppy love builds customer bonds

2010-07-12T14:22:00.000-07:00

Have you seen the new TV ad for Pedigree dog food? The message is about adopting a shelter dog – not just about buying dog food. I love this ad because customers like knowing what a company cares about.

Want to win over customers? Tell them what you care about – especially when it’s something you have in common with your customers. Highlighting a commonality is good in any relationship. Plus, many consumers – particularly the Gen Y crowd – factor a business’s values into their purchasing decisions.

Adopting a shelter animal is very dear to my heart (having adopted multiple wonderful shelter cats). And, though I’m a cat person, I couldn’t resist watching this ad about dogs. I was impressed by the company for making this ad (not a pure sales pitch) and for sharing this message that is important to me, too. Now all I want to do is tell dog lovers to buy this food! Will you buy it?

What cause does your business care about? A local community issue? Global issue? You can never go wrong with causes related to kids and animals. Ask your best customers what causes they most care about. Don’t forget to talk about how your business is involved in the issue. For example, Pedigree dog food says that with every purchase, they donate to local shelters.

Where do you talk about these issues your business cares about? Post it on your website, talk about it on Twitter with a link to a non-profit website or some other place customers can learn more about the cause and how to contribute. Pedigree has ads on their site about the adoption drive, a page on their site to search for dogs in your area – super idea!

Watch more of their TV ads:

Mary Grace gets adopted

Oliver gets adopted

Baily

King

What shower curtains can tell us about customer satisfaction

2010-07-08T17:30:00.000-07:00

I recently read a book review of "What Women Want: The Global Marketplace Turns Female Friendly" by Paco Underhill in the Wall Street Journal. The part that caught my eye was a terrific anecdote in how to engage your customers more. Here’s the story:

Have you noticed how more hotels now are offering a bowed shower curtain rod instead of just the straight one?

I did. And I love the change. Why? Because no one (or at least women it seems) likes to be touched by an icky hotel shower curtain. Hotel chains don’t make changes lightly because any alteration means updating hundreds of thousands of rooms at great cost. And yet, the "shower curtain" evolution has even taken root at Days Inn.

According to the review, Underhill says the bowed shower curtain reflects a "growing sensitivity among hoteliers" to a "deeply felt demand of female travelers." It goes on to note that no one wants to be grossed out by the shower curtain or rub up against one. Talk about a big improvement in a customer experience and satisfaction!

Why do I love review and idea from the book so much?

Because companies that are better in tune with their customers feelings and needs are able to beat the competition and stay relevant. (Which makes we wonder how the hotels figured out this issue – research? Other? Comment cards?)
Because I love the idea of the bowed shower curtain rod and hope every hotel I stay at is this enlightened!

All hail the voice of the customer and changes that make our experiences more positive.

Traveling? Tweeting can get problems resolved faster

2010-06-29T14:06:00.000-07:00

As a Twitter-lover and customer strategist, I was thrilled to see the Wall Street Journal article with stories of bad travel experiences made better with Twitter.

Who should read this article?

1) You love/use Twitter.

2) You want to know how companies respond to social media posted messages and feedback.

Read the article here.

Terrific overview of Social CRM

2010-06-29T13:47:00.000-07:00

Note: Make sure to view this full screen.

Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management

New Claims by Domino's

2010-01-25T09:28:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-05T21:45:00.000-08:00

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

2009-12-31T12:04:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-10-26T21:44:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-12T18:43:00.005-07:00

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

2009-09-30T16:32:00.003-07:00

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.

Your website keywords don't help you show up in Google

2009-09-21T12:08:00.004-07:00

This is good to know, I was about to work on filling in keywords on a new site I just launched. Sounds like metatag keywords don't help you get found in Google (for the naturalized, or unpaid search results). But meta descriptions are a good thing to fill in. Check out this video and spread the word.

Enough is enough, AT&T, it’s time say goodbye

2009-09-18T17:05:00.004-07:00

You may have read my past blogs about my bad customer experiences with AT&T (read a recent blog on this topic). I have blogged, twittered and called them too many times. They have sent 2 technicians to my home and still problems persist (our supposed high-speed internet service cuts out multiple times per day) and they continue to send weekly spam about their U-verse product.

And now I’m done with AT&T. If I can’t get reliable service and they can’t treat me like a person instead of a robot who loves spam, then this just isn’t a good match. After a mailing from the competition, I’m finally switching to Time Warner Cable. Right now, they are my savior. They have an extra glow around them because they are my answer to getting rid of AT&T. We’ll see how they hold up to my expectations.

While I don’t want to imagine Time Warner Cable as anything but perfect right now, it is going to take 2-3 weeks from the time I placed my order until I get their service (lame) and I will have to endure a 4 hour in-home set up so that the phone, internet and cable package works right. But I’d rather have that than AT&T right now, so it’s fine.

Key lessons for AT&T to learn here:

Look at your outbound marketing efforts and how many times each week and each month your customer will get your messages. This is a key factor of customer engagement, customer-experience management and marketing today – also known as lifecycle marketing. I was talking with a company a few weeks ago about how many emails one customer could get in a week. They told me it was a very high number. Look at your marketing from a customer viewpoint – imagine how many times they will hear from you. If you send more than one message per month that is likely too much unless your product happens to be highly important to someone’s life.
On a related note: Stop with the U-verse spam. I get weekly mail on this topic, every time I log into their website they push the ads in front of my path, and they call me at least a few times a month. During the last call, I told the fellow that AT&T was so bad that I was leaving them (even though he was a personable telemarketer). Everyone I know is getting overwhelmed by this product and its incessant promotion.
Clarity of communication and follow through is important when customers have service problems. After the technician visits the customer’s house, there should be clear resolution or definition of follow-up of what the customer should do if the issue is not resolved. Because of lack of clarity and resolution, AT&T had to send a second technician to our home (a cost for them) and the issue is still unresolved.

This is the experience of a long-time customer. I know that means little to a company so big – and that’s why customers are frustrated, why they post blogs like this one. and why they tell friends to avoid the companies that make their lives more difficult.

In contrast, some large companies do get it. When I had a negative experience with the Amica insurance company and blogged about it, they called me to try to resolve the issue. Now that is great customer service – and it’s the reason I’m staying with them – they care.

Video: Social Media Revolution

2009-09-09T21:28:00.007-07:00

This is a great video with key stats on the growth and ubiquity of social media.

It's worth watching the whole 4 minutes and 23 seconds - trust me.

Social media resources

2009-09-08T21:40:00.002-07:00

I'm enjoying these social media resources and wanted to share them with you.

http://mashable.com
http://www.socialmediatoday.com
http://techzulu.com

Many of the best articles I read every week are from these sources. Check them out and follow them on Twitter - you'll be glad you did.

An awesome customer service story

2009-08-27T11:44:00.004-07:00

Guest blogger: Mimi Grant, of ABL (Adaptive Business Leaders) wrote (her blog, her company) this super customer service story about Southwest Airlines. Enjoy.

I’m not ashamed to admit it: I love SWA. The other day, “commuting” back to Orange County from the Bay Area, I was reflecting on how Southwest Airlines has increasingly deployed technology to make flying better, faster and cheaper than any of its competitors. My day began, simply enough, on the 6:45 am flight from John Wayne to San Jose, and I had planned to return that evening on the 5:15 pm flight from Oakland.

But this is how technology made all the difference: When my Friday afternoon meeting concluded earlier than I originally dreamed possible, I walked out to my rental car, voice-dialing Southwest reservations (“800-I FLY SWA”). Their message informed me that there would be an eight -minute wait, but that they could return my call to my cell phone, which would call me back after those same eight minutes. Already southbound on the 80, eight minutes later, as promised, another “tele-avatar” called me back to confirm I was on the line and available to speak to a real person. Assuring “her” I was ready, I was connected to Kathy.

In my haste to get to the airport, I’d left my pre-printed boarding pass (with my confirmation number on it) in the back seat, and now that I was driving, I couldn’t reach it. But Kathy patiently triangulated who I was with my name and flight information. Once she figured out that I was booked on a later flight (and how much I’d paid for my ticket), she went to work seeing if she could get me on the flight that would be leaving two hours earlier. Since the telephone reservation system shuts down 30 minutes before departure, she worked with seconds to spare. But, just in time, she booked my ticket, and charged me the extra $32.

By then I was about two miles from the airport, but still needed to return my rental car. Thanks to Budget’s handheld receipt printers, I was on the Rental Car shuttle within just a few minutes after cruising into OAK’s Rental Return lot. At the Terminal, I bee-lined for the check-in kiosk and punched in my six-digit confirmation number (from the old boarding pass, which Kathy had transferred to the new flight). Bingo! In 30 seconds I had my new boarding pass. Next stop: the “A line” – because of my A List status, I have a special card I can flash (better than the Clear card, because it doesn’t require biometric ID confirmation, which always used to slow me down) so I can zip through security lines (this alone saved me about an hour a couple of weeks ago at SFO).

By the time I arrived at Gate 26 they were already boarding the flight (Southwest has the best on-time record). But I easily stepped into my “B30” slot – which meant 89 people got to pick their seats first. (If I had booked or changed my reservation 24 hours earlier, I would have been guaranteed “A” seating – one of the first 60 seats. And, had I pounced on printing out my boarding pass 24 hours earlier, no doubt I’d have a very low number - sometimes as low as A16 – now that Southwest is selling “Business Select” seats at a premium, A1-15 are always unavailable.)

Once airborne, as I settled into my peanuts, I looked around and realized I was surrounded by people tethered to technology: Kindles, iPods and computers – working, watching movies, or playing games. Now all we need is for Southwest to get beyond the “trial’ they’ve been running with Row 44 to test a new broadband, high-speed satellite-delivered Internet access service, and make the service available to their commuters. Since apparently they plan to charge extra for this service, maybe I’ll even be able to trade in some of my growing stack of free drink coupons for an hour on the Internet. Now that would be something to drink to!

Study shows: Social media efforts really pay off $$

2009-08-23T18:30:00.013-07:00

Here is a great study showing the connection between company social media engagement and a real financial result. I love the finding, because it supports the power of engagement, of real two-day dialogue and engagement with consumers.

The study reveals:
“…companies who measured as having "the greatest breadth and depth of social media engagement" grew revenues by 18% over the last year, while the companies that were the least engaged dropped 6% on average.”

The study included 100 top brands and included media channels as Twitter, wikis, blog and discussion forums.

The top 10 brands in this list of 100 are:
1. Starbucks
2. Dell
3. eBay
4. Google
5. Microsoft
6. Thomson Reuters
7. Nike
8. Amazon
9. SAP
10. Yahoo!/Intel (Tie)

According to study, the success factor here is having dedicated teams to stay active in the social media. So, folks… it pays to have a team working full time on engaging with customers via social media. Even if that team is one person – because, of course, the less distracted someone is (by non social media work), the more they can make a real impact online.

Two other items of note from the study include:

“...the most successful teams evangelize social media across the entire organization to pull in a broad range of stakeholders.”

“These companies view social media as an indispensable tool to help them achieve results, and their approach is conversational.”

This study offers great insight into the power of relationship building and social media as a powerful platform for engagement.

Bad service drives customers away from purchasing

2009-08-15T17:16:00.009-07:00

Here are is a very interesting point about the power of negative customer service (from a study of companies based in Australia, New Zealand, and India).

"... in most cases the individual will turn to a competitor for the business, in over 30% of instances the consumer simply decides not to spend any money – a decision the survey said potentially undermined local economies."

You don't often see this point brought out in surveys; it could well be an indicator of the current state of business and the world economies.

I'm sharing this here as a reminder to the large power of negative customer experiences. Yes, they can drive consumers to your competition and even worse, drive them away from the category, service, or product entirely. I'm thinking it won't be easy to win those customers back - even harder than winning them from a competitor. Just some good for thought.

The survey also revealed the main reasons for poor service. No surprise here, "Respondents to the survey said some of their key annoyances are automated, difficult to navigate, self-service programs that don’t let them reach a human agent, along with working with agents who are not empowered to make decisions, and having to repeat information – such as name and account number – every time their call is forwarded to another department."

View my other blogs at www.kimproctor.com.

Customer dialogue supports retention

2009-08-06T21:57:00.003-07:00

Take a look at these interesting survey results about the connection between customer feedback/dialogue and how it powers better decision making. (The study was conducted by from Aberdeen Group and Empathica Partners.)

As a reader of this blog, you know I’m an advocate of a two-way dialogue between a business and their customers, and how that dialogue and responsiveness can grow retention.

I appreciated how this study underscores the connection between companies that offer top-notch service and customer retention (and growing customer value). I find this same connection in many companies myself.

Here are a few topline notes of interest:
“Based on the analysis of 150 enterprises, the findings indicate that Best-in-Class companies for customer feedback are 18 times more likely to increase customer satisfaction, and 44.5 times more likely to increase customer retention.

Best-in-Class organizations reaped benefits from customer feedback management programs. The leading companies were more than twice as likely as their counterparts to have an established process that tracks customer feedback across all departments and channels. As such, these Best-in-Class companies are 18 times more likely to increase customer satisfaction, and 44.5 times more likely to increase customer retention.”

View my other blogs at www.kimproctor.com.

Video: the power of social networks and word of mouth

2009-07-27T12:20:00.003-07:00

Check out this 2 minute video; it is a great overview of the power of social networks and word of mouth.

Customer service & experience continues to languish

2009-07-21T21:34:00.002-07:00

I yearn for a time when companies see the value of investing in the customer experience and top service. When I see it I cherish it, I revel in it –yes, I’m this obsessed. Why don’t more companies at least try to copy the successful strategies of Southwest Airlines or Zappos? They are open about what they are doing; you can experience it as a customer; you can read about it as a professional.

Experiences as of late that I love:

There are a few gals at the check out at my local CVS pharmacy that are just a delight. They are kind and friendly in such a genuine way, they make me smile. I’ve rarely met such delightful people in retail.
I love interacting with companies in a whole new way on Twitter. Here are a few examples:
My local bakeries @susinabakery and @kissmybundt offer fun updates about flavors of baked goods they are offering each day and more. It too, makes me smile.
I love that the CEO of Zappos (a company I adore from a customer perspective and from a customer-focused consulting perspective) replies to my tweets, read my blog, and took the time to tell me he likes it! Awesome. Plus, Zappos exceeded my expectation by upgrading shipping on my recent order so that it arrived in less than 24 hours after I ordered it.

A recent painful customer experience:

Bank of America is making my life more difficult and that is never a good thing if you want positive word of mouth and retention. BofA makes things unnecessarily complex. They allow customers to create new accounts online (ok, that is good) but you can’t gain access to those accounts easily, you can’t access online bill pay from those accounts without requesting it, and you don’t get an ATM PIN unless you request it. So painful. Then I moved to California and because it’s a different system for them, I have to give up my old accounts and change all my autopayments on bills to go to a new CA account. Painful. This shouldn’t be a burden to the customer. And the list goes on with them, don’t get me started.

If you have any positive experiences or stories, please feel free to share them via the comment feature below.

Score one for Twitter

2009-07-16T17:35:00.005-07:00

Video more engaging on Twitter than Facebook or Digg

According to a recent story, "Twitter users watching online video via the microblogging site keep their eyes glued to their computer screen for longer than those using Facebook or Digg, says TubeMogul." Read the rest of the story.

I'm a fan of Twitter, I really like it, and appreciate when I see some positive press for the social networking tool. Too often, the conversation about Twitter has been negative. I think Twitter is a great tool for business, for amazingly fast viral sharing, for reading and finding great content, and more. Let me know what you think by commenting below.

Employees & social media: 5 options

2009-07-16T17:31:00.003-07:00

Here's an interesting overview of the 5 options companies have for employee engagement with social media (or how a company can let it's employees use social media). Thought you'd like to see this article.

This is helpful for considering which option best fits your company.

Read my other blogs on www.kimproctor.com.

Starbucks’s tactic to drive repeat sales

2009-07-08T11:08:00.002-07:00

Perhaps have seen the latest Starbucks offer (it prints out on your receipt if you visit Starbucks in the morning). If you buy something before 2pm in-store, you can return after 2pm to buy any type of medium iced drink for $2.

This can be a fairly compelling offer, so I stopped to think about what they are getting from this deal and how customers benefit. Here is what I’ve come up with (if you have other comments, please add them below).

Customers get:

To return and try any drink at a reasonable cost – including a more expensive drink that perhaps they haven’t tried before (let’s say a Caramel Frappacino, which is nearly $4 in LA).
They can share the coupon with someone else – either way, Starbucks might get an extra sale in that day that perhaps they might not have gotten otherwise. (For example, I give the coupon to my husband – he’s the coffee drinker of the family.)

Starbucks gets:

Repeat or additional sales in one day (from the same customer or someone they share the coupon with).
They might be able to build an appetite for 2 drinks per day from 1 customer (let’s say a morning coffee and an afternoon iced drink). When Dunkin’ Donuts was a client of mine, they were always trying to come up with ways to get folks into their stores for afternoon drinks/snacks in addition to the morning coffee run – that is why they branched into cookies and more drinks, smoothies, etc.
While offering customers the chance to sample a more expensive drink, they might “help” customers see how much they prefer the more expensive option or would like to have that higher-price drink more frequently.

Keep in mind, McDonalds is pushing very hard on the coffee drink space right now – I’ve seen many outdoor ads in LA, plus many online ads too. Often, those ads mention the price of a small coffee drink to drive first-time trials. So perhaps this offer is a way Starbucks is trying to keep some of their existing business and/or grow it a bit. (Note, I have seen this promotion through Starbucks before – maybe it was last summer – so it’s not new, but the timing is interesting given the big McCafe push.)

Comments? Other angles? Have you seen other offers that drive trial? Comment below.

Tool to measure use of social media

2009-07-03T10:55:00.004-07:00

You may have read the book, "Groundswell". It's a good overview of the world of social media and open-customer dialogue we live in now. If you haven't read it, pick up a copy. It offers some good ideas and many helpful ways to think through social media.

Anyhow, I want to point out a helpful tool they have made available. The tool below helps you get a general sense of your audience and how they use social media in various ways. You pick the age and gender specifications and it will show you what types of social activities they engage with online. See the cool research widget below. To get started, click the "Build profile now" button.

How social media supports your business

2009-07-03T10:27:00.003-07:00

Take a look at a few slides I put together that outline the various business activities that are supported by social media. The activities supported include: content monitoring, customer service, decision making, content creation & distribution and more.

Social media supports your business

View more documents from Customers That Click.

Praise where praise is due

2009-06-26T21:39:00.002-07:00

A friend of mine sent along an email he got from FinancialTimes.com. He is a subscriber of FT.com and he was impressed enough to send this to me, and I’m impressed enough to share it with you.

This is an example of the way to communicate to customers when you care about developing long-term relationships. This email tells their customers that they matter.

I love this email so much I’m including it in its entirety below. Use this email as a model for your customer communications. Let your customers know when changes are coming and when and how they will be affected.

Dear FT.com user

Over the next week we will be undertaking some essential maintenance work on FT.com.

The work is part of our on-going efforts to improve the performance of the site and make it easier for you to find what you're looking for quickly and easily.
Naturally, we will do everything we can to minimize the impact on the site and we hope you won't notice a thing. However, on Saturday, 6 June you may find that access to some services is disrupted.

Rest assured that we are working hard to have the site functioning normally as soon as possible, but please feel free to call us with any questions or unexpected difficulties.

Email: help@ft.com

US & Canada: 1 800 628 8088
Asia: +852 2905 5555
UK, Europe & Rest of World: +44 (0) 20 7775 6248

Sincerely

FT Customer Service
www.ft.com

Financial Times, 1330 Avenue of the Americas, New York NY 10019

Social media case study/ growing conference attendance

2009-06-19T15:23:00.005-07:00

Learn from this example of how to grow conference attendance by giving registered attendees extra value with social networking tools.

Read this case study of leveraging social media as a conference benefit/ value.

ps. This case study highlights the Ning social networking platform. The conference in this study was the Southern California Business Growth Conference put on by LAVA and the Harvard Business School Association of Orange County (CA).

Learn from these Internet Marketing Case Studies

2009-06-19T15:21:00.004-07:00

Here are 3 case studies about successfully growing web traffic, the viral marketing effect, revenue and actionable customer feedback. Click on the case study links below to learn more.

Email newsletter increases web traffic & revenue

Growing internet traffic by enabling your content to be viral

Capturing usable customer feedback with online surveys

The ‘broken window’ problem

2009-06-12T21:22:00.003-07:00

No doubt you’ve seen a building with broken windows. This is often due to neglect or vandalism and it is a clear message that "no one cares."

What signals does a company give off that sends the same message? Frankly, too many to list here, but last week a company reminded me of a few of those indicators of not caring.

EZ Lube is a chain of oil change shops here in LA (and possible elsewhere). Here is how I experienced their "we don’t care" message:

- A dirty outside waiting area (tables/chairs). Other customers commented on it.
- Very slow service. 45 minutes for a ‘quick oil change’ service isn’t meeting expectation.
- There were no communications about the delays in their service. (Neither when I arrived, nor after I inquired about the delay while they were working on my car – in a very slow and unfocused way).
- They didn’t vacuum my car (part of the paid-for service) and when I brought it up they didn’t really care.
- Lastly, an email I sent to the manager (his card was on the desk as I was paying so I figured I’d let him know about the problems I encountered) went completely unanswered. If you don’t plan on responding or talking with customers, there is no point to making business cards available.

Take stock of the signals you send your customers. Reminder: You can google your company name, search twitter for mentions of your company, or just talk to your customers. They are often happy to tell you what you can do better. And that is a gift – it’s better to get constructive feedback than never to hear it (and have it affect your business).

Awesome customer service

2009-06-03T13:52:00.007-07:00

I just came across this awesome customer service chat transcript from Zappos. What I love is how helpful and fun the customer service rep is - they are willing to serve, help, offer a free upgrade and have fun. God bless 'em.

Read the customer service chat transcript here.

The value of treating customers like kings

2009-06-02T21:47:00.002-07:00

"I get excited when I hear how companies reward existing customers rather than only courting new customers with perks, discounts or special treatment."

Read more from this blog here.

Communicating substance and value

2009-06-02T21:39:00.003-07:00

"It’s a principal of customer retention and satisfaction to clearly communicate the substance and value of a product or service. Customers are more satisfied if they know what they will get."

Read these tips about communicating substance and value to your customers here: http://customerevangelism.blogspot.com/2009/03/substance-value.html

Customer service delivered by twitter

2009-05-26T20:59:00.005-07:00

You likely have heard of Twitter – it is the micro-blogging platform that while small, is growing and is very viral. Meaning word of mouth about it is spreading quickly.

What does Twitter have to do with your business? More than you may think. (Check out this video if you want to get a good overview of what Twitter is.)

Sure, tons of Tweeple (those on twitter) are sharing seemingly pointless updates about the meals they are eating -- but there is more to it.

Twitter is where your customers are (quite possibly) and Twitter is where people are talking about your business, product, and service.

I’m bringing up Twitter because of how it can be used to support and engage potential and existing customers.

Right now, there are companies offering customer service support through Twitter and there are companies that realize that they can respond to customers via Twitter. If your customers are on Twitter, they are likely happy to spread the word about you – good or bad. If you visit search.twitter.com and put in any search term, you’ll find out who has been talking about you recently (yes, you should do this as soon as you finish reading here).

If you think its nuts to offer customer service through Twitter, think again. If you go to the Twitter search mentioned above and find your company being talked about -- it’s time to use Twitter for customer service. For example, this can mean sending a direct message to the person who tweeted about you to ask if you can help them, or it can include tweeting about how customers can get service via phone, email, or Twitter.

Wondering who is on Twitter? What companies? What their tweets look like? There are directories, here is one to check out. You can view any public twitter page (some are locked) by searching on Twitter and checking out what is being said – use a keyword, follow a person, whatever you like. For example, I’m twittering at www.twitter.com/retaincustomers (twitter addresses are also noted like this: @retaincustomers) - you can see my tweets without opening a twitter account.

While each tweet can only be 140 characters, people somehow make it work. Trying it out doesn’t have to be painful. Go ahead, try it out, send me a tweet, post a tweet or re-tweet – why not try?

The Twitter universe includes tons of tools and crazy lingo and, well, even crazier fans of Twitter – you might have been putting this off, so why not check into it a bit more? See if your customers are here – talking about you – right now.

(Here are a few other links to twitter articles and content if you want to continue to learn more.)

“Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000”

2009-05-17T18:52:00.005-07:00

Check out this book: “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000: Running a Business in Today's Consumer-Driven World” by Pete Blackshaw

It’s an easy-read for anyone who wants a refresher or an overview on customer word of mouth.

I’m always grateful to see new books on this topic continue to appear because they keep customers (and the importance of treating them well, and what happens if you don’t) in the forefront of thought. I say this, especially now, because saving money has become more important than servicing or saving customers and that has a negative impact on your bottom line. Yes, I know the importance of cash flow in business, but you get my message here. At some point, cutting too deep (into service, customer care, return policies, employee training or whatever) can become lethal to a business – either leading to a quick or slow and painful death.

Read this book, it’s worth the refresher. Heck, borrow it from the library to save some dough. I did.

What makes Zappos culture so special?

2009-05-06T19:12:00.020-07:00

1) Their absolute focus on finding the right people for the job.

2) Keeping the right people and letting the rest go.

3) Reinforcing/talking up the culture and living the culture.

4) Have you heard about the Zappos culture book (which is part of step 3)? When I heard about this online, I requested a copy.

The book opens with the quote, “We’ve been asked by a lot of people how we’ve grown so quickly, and the answer is actually really simple. We’ve aligned the entire organization around one mission: to provide the best customer service possible.”

They explain the purpose of the book this way: “As we grow as a company and hire new people, we need to make sure that they understand and become a part of our culture. That is the purpose of this book – to provide a glimpse of what the Zappos culture is all about to new hires, prospective new hires, our vendors and partners, and anyone else who might be interested.”

The book is filled with quotes from employees about what the Zappos culture means to them. It has hundreds of pages of employees explaining how they love Zappos and how great the family culture is.

The CEO explains Zappos culture this way: “To me, the Zappos culture embodies many different elements. It’s about always looking for new ways to wow everyone we come in contact with. It’s about building relationships where we treat each other like family. It’s about teamwork and having fun and not taking ourselves too seriously. It’s about growth, both personal and professional. It’s about achieving the impossible with fewer people. It’s about openness, taking risks and not being afraid to make mistakes. But most of all, it’s about having faith that if we do the right thing, then in the long run we will succeed and build something great.”

The 10 core values of Zappos are:
1) Deliver WOW through service
2) Embrace and drive change
3) Create fun and a little weirdness
4) Be adventurous, creative and open-minded
5) Pursue growth and learning
6) Build open and honest relationships with communication
7) Build a positive team and family spirit
8) Do more with less
9) Be passionate and determined
10)Be humble

Zappos focuses on service and on repeating 1, 2, 3 and 4 again and again. The results speak for themselves -- great growth for 8 years in a row.

2009-05-02T21:23:00.001-07:00

What topics would you like to see covered in this blog?(answers)

Starbucks is ready to tell their story

2009-04-30T19:13:00.026-07:00

Were you wondering how Starbucks was going to survive their competition’s barrage of ads and low prices? One thing Starbucks is doing is spending more money on advertising – they want to tell the story of what makes them special.

They know their competitors make comparisons to them, so now Starbucks wants to tell their story. They need to communicate their unique position and value (1) to employees and, (2) to customers.

You can see 2 of the new Starbucks ads here, plus I’ve included a video made for the Starbucks partners (read: employees).

The video includes comments from the CEO and employees talking about how the new ads tell why Starbucks is unique. What I like about the video is that they ask employees to talk about the campaign with customers. And they know this video will be seen by customers too.

This is smart because employees are a huge part of the Starbucks experience and an important part of customer communication. It’s not just about directing ads to customers anymore. It’s about showing ads to employees, posting ads on the web (like in this blog), posting company videos online so that employees and customers know it all. Smart.

Starbucks, it’s about time. I read so many discussions about the challenges they face: tough advertising competition and price competition. While we all know Starbucks isn’t the low price leader, they do offer something unique, especially when compared to McDonald’s – in experience and in products.

I think the ads will resonate with customers and I look forward to hearing how employees talk about the ads with customers in-store and online.

What you can take away from this? Follow their example:
1. Tell employees about your marketing efforts and messages. This enables employees to talk intelligently with customers about marketing campaigns.
2. Post your advertising campaigns online and explain the messaging - using videos, images of the ads, etc.

An homage to GeoCities.com

2009-04-27T16:42:00.011-07:00

A little off topic for my usual blogs, I know, but I wanted to acknowledge the closing of one the early self publishing platforms (customers love to self publish!) on the web.

If you were enthralled by the early days of the Internet like I was (in the '90s), you may have built a GeoCities web page. I did. I posted pictures of my cats and whatever else I thought was cool. The Internet was being birthed as I finished college and I've loved it ever since.

My love of the early days of the Web stuck with me (I love the Web of today, too). This is why I give homage to GeoCities -- which has just closed. (I’ll also admit that I still use my original hotmail address because it’s a badge of the early days.)

Goodbye GeoCities. Thanks for being one of the early self-publishing platforms on the web.

If you want to read more about Geocities check out this wiki with background information about GeoCities for those want to relive their history from 1994 until present day.

Surveys: how to keep it simple

2009-04-21T20:38:00.015-07:00

I picked up this survey at a local restaurant because I was impressed with its simplicity. I’m a fan of well-designed, brief, yet specific surveys. (I notice every survey that I can – inside stores, restaurants and such.) I like the simplicity in this survey – it allows customers to tell you whatever they want. Plus, because it is brief, it encourages feedback.

If you’ve been a long-time reader of this blog, you know I have specific ideas about how to write good customer surveys. Here are two past blogs with more specifics on surveys:

How to Create Powerful Customer Experiences: Customer survey writing 101: refresher (9/14/08)

How to Create Powerful Customer Experiences: Pitfalls of customer surveys (8/8/06)

What makes Zappos so successful?

2009-04-15T21:17:00.012-07:00

You likely have heard of Zappos.com, but just in case you haven’t, let me briefly tell you how they have revolutionized the shoe-buying experience. They offer a great amount of information so that it is easy to purchase something as complex as shoes online. For example, they offer customer reviews that are very specific about each product, and they showcase multiple views of each shoe. Moreover, they promise free shipping both ways – including returns.

A big part of what makes Zappos so successful is an obsession with customer service. In fact, they consider themselves a customer-service company that sells shoes and other products (not the other way around). This kind of orientation drives a different kind of business thinking and as a result they see a special kind of success.

Fast Company’s recent “50 Most Innovative Companies” issue, Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh told the magazine, “In March of 2003, we made a decision to be about customer service. We view any expense that enhances the customer experience as a marketing cost because it generates more repeat customers through word of mouth."

Here are some of the results they have seen from this focus:

10 million total purchasing customers (3% of the US population).
75% of purchases on any given day come from repeat customers. (Talk about growing additional value from customers! This is the cheapest way to grow a business – keep selling to those you’ve already converted.)
Return customers order more and more often. Their order size is larger than that of first-time customers.

Three areas that Zappos has learned are necessary for good service online:

1) Customer service components such as:
- Listening to customers’ needs.
- Offering 24/7 service.
- Listing the phone number on their website.
- Offering free return shipping with a 365-day return policy.

Customer service is what customers see first, like your phone number on the website, and your free shipping return policy.

2) Customer experience components such as:
- Fast, accurate fulfillment.
- Surprising customers with free shipping upgrades (at times).
- Directing customers to a competitor’s website if it better meets their needs.

3) Internal support of customer experience through company policies such as:
- No phone wait times.
- Running the warehouse 24/7.
- Five weeks of employee training on culture, core values, and customer service for every employee. Hiring interviews and performance reviews that are 50% based on core values and cultural match.

What a great way to keep an amazing customer experience a top priority.

One of the things that I admire about Zappos is that they focus on hiring and retaining the right employees and they require all staff to undergo intensive training. Sometimes a hire doesn’t work out – Zappos knows that the wrong fit hurts their company, so they focus on making sure the right folks are working for them. According to the Fast Company article, new employees are given the option of a $2,000 bonus if they quit after the first four weeks of training. That’s a novel way to sift out unsuitable new hires who aren’t willing to go the distance.

(Here’s a link to one of my blogs on the power of employee engagement.)

Zappos results and lessons (source): http://blog.futurelab.net/2009/04/extending_the_customer_experie.html

Volvo keeps focused on what customers want most

2009-04-07T20:19:00.013-07:00

Oh. My. Word. I just saw the latest TV ad from Volvo. They know their unique value and why customers buy their vehicles. And most importantly, they aren’t straying from it. "Safety" is their brand. No doubt their customers appreciate their focus and innovation.

The TV ad offers a compelling sales pitch for Volvo. In the commercial, a driver with 2 prospective buyers in the backseat (of a Volvo SUV) demonstrates why they should buy. He drives the SUV right up to another car with the intention of hitting it. The Volvo stops by itself. The reason? The “city safety system” (I guess the system isn’t brand new - however, it was news to me). This safety system can sense something in front of you and will automatically stop your car.

This technology is awesome. Talk about making customers lives better! I'm impressed.

If every car had this, think of how many fewer accidents there would be. (If you’re as intrigued as I am about this system, watch this YouTube video in which a Swede shows how it works.)

Kudos to Volvo for sticking with what their customers care most about – safety.

Social media allows new connections with customers

2009-03-30T12:04:00.001-07:00

Today’s social media – blogs, social networks, etc., allow a company to engage in more dialogue with customers. It certainly affords an easy way to listen to feedback and respond. For example, many companies use Google Alerts to receive email notification when their company name is mentioned online. I use it to see how my company, Customers That Click, is talked about on blogs, etc.

It’s a good idea to listen to and engage your customers online. If you reach out to a customer that has commented about your company – with good or bad comments – you can create a bond that didn’t exist before.

Here are two examples:

1. I "yelp" (meaning I post reviews on yelp.com) for the restaurants that I visit. I yelped about a darling restaurant called “Tart” and the manager sent me email “thank you” for posting the comments. That was his whole message -- I appreciated it and was touched it took the time to thank me. He “gets it.”

2. I wrote a recent blog about my mixed experiences with Amica Insurance. For the first time in four years of writing this blog, one company I wrote about called me.

After reading my comments, Amica looked me up in their system and called. I was surprised and impressed. The fellow that called apologized for the service I received and said he would follow-up with the right folks to give them feedback. He did the best thing of all when trying to make a customer happy -- he gave me his direct phone line and his email address. He then encouraged me to reach out to him if I had any more troubles. That is impressive. This executive explained that he oversees several Amica offices and that part of his job is reaching out to customers that have posted comments online. Kudos to Amica for realizing the power of engaging with customers in online forums.

This kind of outreach means a company puts a priority on listening. You want to know the good things customers say as well as the bad things – and that typically happens outside a company website. This portrays an important message to customers who are used to having their comments, suggestions and frustrations ignored.

Want to retain more customers and lower your marketing acquisition costs? Listen to your existing customers, engage in dialogue with them and ask them to email or call you anytime with feedback. That feedback can help your business grow.

When customer contact becomes harassment

2009-03-22T16:55:00.005-07:00

Companies that send too many outbound messages can end up harassing their customers. That is how customers feel and while some marketers might suggest that sending more messages (email, mail, any format) may increase the response rate, the bigger issue is the damage done in turning off customers.

One company that fits the bill is AT&T. They clearly want me to buy their new “U-verse” digital TV/phone/internet package. We have received nearly a mailing every week (in different formats) for 2 months and they have called several times. And to top it all off, they showed up at our house last night to harass us. [Update: as of August 2009 they are still sending us mailings constantly and won't let up.That is 8 months and counting.]

They first asked my husband, who answered the door, if we were satisfied with our current service. When he said yes, they probed to find something we weren’t happy about – that wasn’t hard because our high-speed internet has many interruptions. They used that to set up the sales pitch. The spiel begun and the 2 sales people at our door spent 15 minutes trying to get my husband to switch to their new service right there and then.

They used phrases and words that I interpreted (upon hearing what happened) as too polished and not straightforward enough. They said they could “make the upgrade today” and phrases that made it sound like we had to act now since they were on-site. I’m not foolish enough to believe that anything happens on-site. When my husband wouldn’t decide on the spot, they said they’d return in one hour at 8 p.m. Come on, it’s dinner time and we had already seen all their past mailings and didn’t want the service.

Ok, enough is enough AT&T. This just feels like harassment at this point. It's clear you want us to "upgrade" and pay more for virtually the same service. The tireless messages of "cash back" and offers that allow us a discount for some months isn't a compelling reason to upgrade - since we will pay more in the long run.

Now, your company may not be this bad – please tell me they aren’t, but communicating weekly is a lot for most products and most customers. Even monthly can be a bit much depending on the cycle of use of your product or service.

Frequency is an important consideration in customer communication in addition to your message. The best approach in message development is to consider what valuable information you can provide every time you reach out to customers.

Way to go Ben & Jerry

2009-03-16T13:17:00.007-07:00

Many packaged good products are shrinking while the price stays the same. From the customer perspective this can feel sneaky -- because it is rarely announced.

Check out this graphical email message I received from Ben & Jerry's. It explains how a premium ice cream competitor "think funny sounding European name" is shrinking their package while Ben & Jerry's is not.

I especially love this part of their message, "We understand that in today's hard economic times businesses are feeling the pinch. We also understand that many of you are also feeling the same, and think now more than ever you deserve your full pint of ice cream."

Way to stick up for the customer! Way to look good! And way to leverage this opportunity to build even more goodwill for your company.

Aw, thanks Ben, thanks Jerry.

Podcast on customer retention

2009-03-12T19:55:00.003-07:00

Listen to a podcast interview - of me! - and learn more about customer retention strategies.

On this podcast you can find out:
- how fast you should respond to customer emails
- if should you offer a phone number on your website
- how to calculate your customer acquisition costs
- the connection between employee retention and customer retention
- how to lower customer service costs
- how to gain repeat business and word of mouth
- my customer mantra
- a book that can help you strengthen employee engagement

Big brands in social media

2009-03-11T13:39:00.002-07:00

I just read a really intriguing blog about how customers/everyone benefits from big companies using social media. It provides some interesting benefits that aren't often thought about.

Check out the blog here.

Measuring up to customer expectations

2009-03-10T17:25:00.005-07:00

Two elements of customer communication include: (1) setting expectations of what customers will get from your product/service, and (2) measuring whether you are meeting those expectations.

Part One: Setting Expectations
Customers don’t know what to expect from a company they haven’t done business with before, so tell them what to expect. You can accomplish that via your website text, your email messages, or through your voice message (for example, letting customers know that they can expect a same-day call back).

On the other hand, some companies have their reputations already established. The businesses that competitors envy are those that have best in class reputations and are known for excellent customer service. Since this is my obsession, I choose companies mainly by their service reputation. For example, I recently changed insurance companies and chose Amica for their top-in-service reputation.

Unfortunately, Amica isn’t living up to my expectations. I heard that they offer Nieman Marcus-level service and I’ve not seen that consistently offered. I’ve had one bad experience and two good ones – but the bad one outweighs the positive due to its nature.

The bad experience was filing a claim process via phone – I’d give a low rating to the helpfulness of the filing agent. She provided us with little information that would help us navigate the claim process.

Funny thing is, last week I was going to rate Amica as a superior insurance company because of two positive experiences: online and via phone. One, their website offers the ability to chat with an online agent (my preferred customer-service method). That agent was super friendly and went out of her way to help me. Two, I needed to call Amica to ask further questions (which the online chat agent suggested). And that second contact was positive, too. And then they really let me down when it came to handling the claim once I was ready to begin that process.

Part Two: Measuring Up
The key question for any company is this: Do you know if you are living up to expectations? Once you set the expectations, you surely need to meet or exceed them. Amica has set the bar high and they are known for great service, so I’m disappointed. As you know, over-promising is very dangerous.

In my example, how does Amica know the various levels of service/experience I’ve encountered? Good question. I bet they don’t have ways to measure each of these customer touchpoints. (I wish they did.) I’m also guessing they will send me an email survey to rate their service at the end of the claim process. (We’ll have to see how thorough that survey is.) It’s always better to address issues as they occur, rather than waiting to get that kind of feedback, so I’m already unhappy and it will be weeks before I get the final survey (assuming there is one) and by then I’ve already written this blog and spent time wondering why I’m paying more to be with Amica.

How can you measure if you are meeting customer expectations? A few ideas:

1) Surveys. Of course, email surveys can be used – many companies do this now.

If you have on-going service with a customer, I’d suggest a few surveys per year to check how they are doing. Maybe 3 times a year, send the same survey questions and measure any changes. Also, here are a few tips on writing survey questions.

If you have a defined service period that is brief, send a survey at the end. If you have a longer service period, check in to get feedback before the end of the project or service.

2) Email. Don’t forget that customers love to send comments via email.

Make sure your "contact" form on your website allows for generic feedback and doesn’t restrict the uses of the form with pre-defined options that must be selected. (Amica fell down in this regard too.)

3) Phone.

Post a phone feedback line for customers to leave voicemails – this is great if you have a customer base who loves the phone rather than email or the Internet.
Of course, if you have a live conversation on the phone with a customer you should ask them directly if you are meeting their expectations.
Lastly, you can ask a few brief survey questions at the end of a customer service call --assuming the customer is willing to take it.

Even the best-rated companies don’t always offer top service – which tells me every organization needs to measure the customer experience at as many points as possible.

On the positive side for Amica’s competitors: It looks like there is room for you to come in, offer top notch service and win over new customers here. I’ve always been tempted to call Geico just because the lizard in the ads is so cute – maybe their service is good too – who knows.

ps.
Here is a blog I've written about Amica's follow-up based on this blog.

Substance & Value

2009-03-03T21:29:00.005-08:00

It’s a principal of customer retention and satisfaction to clearly communicate the substance and value of a product or service. Customers are more satisfied if they know what they will get.

The issues to consider here are:

- How clearly do you communicate what you sell? Is it supremely clear on your website and in all marketing materials? Is it clearly communicated via sales and customer service? Or is it communicated with industry terms and generalities? I bet you’ve seen websites that are so generic in their homepage descriptions that you have no clue what they provide or sell.

- Do you understand what your customers expect from you? How can you best meet and exceed customer expectations? Are you making assumptions, or have they told you?

- How do you know when customer’s expectations are not being met? If you don’t know this, you can’t repair your communications, processes or service/product so that future customers are happier.

I’ve been to a conference that did not meet my expectations. Let’s look at the elements that contributed to this mismatch of expectations and it will give you a sense of the variety of ways and places clarity is needed when selling and delivering any customer experience.

Upfront/ before purchase:

The website didn’t offer much detail about the structure of the conference or how it would be conducted, it focused on generalities and the conference outcome.
The person who recommended the conference to me gave me only a generic description and told me it would be worthwhile. When customers can’t define your service with specifics, it may reveal a lack of clarity with what you really offer. Asking customers how they describe your company or services to others (in a survey for example) can be an informative exercise.

During the experience:

When I arrived at the conference, there was little clarification, direction or definition.
During the conference there weren’t points of clarification or direction but rather a general lack of information – some participants knew how to maximize their experience at the conference, and some didn’t.
What I also found was that there were differing expectations among attendees. It seems the organizing groups made assumptions around why people attended the event and what they wanted from the conference.

After the experience:

The conference did send out a survey to gather feedback – I hope this gave them information about the need for more clarity in defining their event in the future.

It’s paramount to help customers understand your service/product/value or you can end up with low retention and even negative word of mouth.

Hanging onto paper subscriptions?

2009-02-22T19:20:00.004-08:00

Do you still subscribe to magazines? I get a few because they are fun to peruse. But at times, given the downside of subscribing to print publications I’m near ready to give up.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of subscribing, from the customer viewpoint.

Pros of magazines:
- They can be fun to look through – at least the personal interest magazines.
- I like tearing out the recipes (which I rarely use).
- The price can be good. Some magazines have a really low subscription price (Fast Company is $10 a year, and 2 years of Better Homes & Gardens is only $18).

Cons of magazines:
- Slow and inconsistent delivery (ugh, snail mail).
- Publishers will sell your mailing address to everyone so you are sure to get more junk mail automatically.
- The magazine can get wet/damaged in delivery (happened to me last week).
- Incessant renewal notices (industry standard is something like sending 9 renewal notices, starting 3 months after you signed up – meaning 9 months before your subscription ever ends).
- If you make the mistake of offering your email address to publishers you get frequent spam.

The question becomes do the pros outweigh the cons? Hard to say? Depends on your viewpoint. Clearly, the decline of print publications is undeniable.

Unfortunately, publishers continue to treat customers poorly during this decline. While I know this factor isn’t single handedly driving the decline of subscription rates, it isnt helping. The onslaught of direct mail from publications is tedious and confusing for customers – it surely makes a customer think twice before subscribing or renewing. On top of the confusing direct mail, if customers call to inquire about late magazine delivery they are told they just need to deal with it. This is because publishers often have a long “acceptable delivery window” (not acceptable to a customer).

As a customer strategist, I’d most like to see changes made in the renewal process. According to subscription marketers they can’t make money by sending out fewer renewal notices.

I’d love to see a publication go out on a limb and illustrate how treating customers better can provide better results – no one has been willing to try, but perhaps that time will come. Any publishers game to try? Email me, I’d love to help.

Selling the same product twice…to the same customer

2009-02-16T20:38:00.005-08:00

Let's take a look at an industry whose strategies aren’t always customer friendly: record/music companies.

Today, I heard that Annie Lennox is releasing a ‘best of’ compilation CD. Quickly it dawned on me how that strategy asks loyal fans to buy the same product twice (at least in part). For example, if 8 tracks come from her existing collection and 3 new songs are also featured – the record company wants customers to repurchase songs they may well already have.

Good news for the customers is that they have more choice today thanks to iTunes – so they can purchase individual tracks instead of just a whole CD. Of course, selling individual tracks wasn’t the idea of record companies (despite declining sales), but they are at least willing to play along. The method of selling existing songs on new compilation albums is age old.

I'm a big fan of Annie Lennox and have most of her existing work and won’t want to buy the whole new CD, so I’ll opt for iTunes.

Sometimes record companies get tricky and release newer or different versions of current albums. It’s common practice for a record label to re-release hit albums within months (with just a few new tracks), for example, the companies that produce Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, and Mariah Carey have done this. The aim, yet again, is to get customers to buy something they already have (if you love the artist or music you may well buy more than one version, like my husband does - argh).

Surely the goals of record company include: (1) growing revenue, and (2) keeping an artist visible; so, they fill in lapses between album releases with a ‘best of’ album as a way to accomplish both of these goals.

Looking at the customer strategy: the positive side is fans can get a few new songs – which is better than nothing (or waiting a long time for the next album). On the down side, if a fan likes to have a complete CD for their collection, they have to buy songs they already have; or, fans have to hope all the new songs are on iTunes (sometimes individual tracks aren’t made available online and they are forced to buy the whole album. Case in point is the U2 best of, "U218," which had two new songs – "The Saints Are Coming" and "Window in the Skies" – which were only available if you bought the entire album).

From my vantage point this industry focuses on self-interest first and customer interest second – never a good thing to do consistently. Good news is, music fans can often find what they want outside the record industry – through a service like iTunes.

Treat existing customers like kings

2009-02-09T18:30:00.003-08:00

I get excited when I hear how companies reward existing customers rather than only courting new customers with perks, discounts or special treatment.

Here is the latest good news: A new Amazon Kindle is coming out and Amazon is offering existing Kindle customers first dibs on buying the new version. Now that is a great way to reward existing customers. Plus, rewarding early adopters is always a good idea. These are the folks who love to have the latest gadget and are more likely to buy upgrades, pay full price, and spread the word about your product.

Here is what Amazon’s website says (bear in mind that they ran out of stock last time, so getting in line for the new product is a big deal):

“Order Kindle now to RESERVE YOUR PLACE IN LINE. We prioritize orders on a first come, first served basis.

If you have previously placed an order for Kindle 1, and have not yet received it, your order will automatically be upgraded to Kindle 2. You need to do nothing.

Special Opportunity for Kindle 1 Owners
Even though we’ve increased our manufacturing capacity, we want to be sure our original Kindle owners are first in line to receive Kindle 2. Place your Kindle 2 order by midnight PST on February 10th and you will receive first priority.”

What a customer-centric message – it shows they are courteous to current customers and that wins over existing customers and potential new customers.

Kudos to Amazon, who continue to listen to, and consider, customers first.

(Here’s an article mentioning the new Kindle.)

Facebook bigger than MySpace

2009-02-06T15:53:00.002-08:00

If you want to know the latest stats in Facebook's growth check out this blog.

I like to keep an eye on this and thought I'd share it.

Research on internet executives

2009-02-06T15:46:00.002-08:00

For those of you who are interested in a brief inside look at some profile information on Internet executives, check out this summary report.

The summary report shows:

Which department is most often responsible for the consumer facing internet strategy
Percent of internet work that is outsourced
Types of internet strategy used most often
and more...

Gmail struggles

2009-02-02T21:32:00.001-08:00

Question: Am I the only one who struggles with the "benefits" of Gmail (Google’s free email)? I love advances in technology and I’m all for bettering customers’ lives, but sometimes those advances can drive me (and other customers) nuts.

I’ve used Hotmail since 1995. I signed up as soon as I heard about it and haven’t looked back. Next, I got a Yahoo account. Funny story is I got it because I wanted to at Yahoo and thought it would be cool to have one while applying for work there – though a job never panned out, I kept the account for random use. In the past few years, I got several more email accounts: one Gmail account and two for my consulting business. And now I’m using Gmail again. Got all that? Ok, sorry.

Back to email usability issues. I’m a master of Microsoft Outlook. I love making folders and using the search feature. I like being organized with folders and dragging emails around; it’s how I like to organize life. Also, this is how most email services work.

Now that I’m using Gmail as a main account, it’s driving me nuts. I’m not seeing that the changes they have made are improvements.

Change for change sake is bad. Reference Windows Vista which made changes just to create a new "product" and drive sales -- not to make their product easier to use.

Gmail feels they have made an improvement by offering tagging functionality instead of folders. They argue that tagging offers more flexibility since you can put multiple tags on each email (whereas an email could only sit in one folder).

But this is a big change for many email users.

I could be all alone in this, and I may get lots of comments on this one, but this is major change is making my life more difficult. Because I’m just so used to how email "works," it allows me to be faster. But not now.

I want to use this example to remind everyone how important it is to test out major changes (to any typical service). Changing a process means changing what customers expect. So it is critical to test it with customers, get their feedback, and find out if your important customer segments will love it.

This is why Windows Vista is so maligned – it felt like change for change’s sake. What existing customers would have been happy to have the Control Panel (in Vista) totally reconfigured? None. The average person wants a computer that is easier to use, not one that forces them to re-learn things.

How to be like Bean

2009-01-23T14:00:00.010-08:00

I do love L.L. Bean – for their top notch customer service, easy to use and constantly improving website, plus free shipping (for their credit-card customers).

I’m going to sing their praises again for something I’ve yet to see any other retailer do (if you’ve seen others do this post a comment below).

Here’s the story of how I discovered their special customer-friendly technique.

I bought something on llbean.com at the end of 2008 when they were offering a $10 coupon/voucher if you spent over a certain level.

They mailed me the voucher, which had a deadline during February. I get it -- they want to drive post-holiday sales, no problem.

Now that it is a few weeks away from the expiry date, they sent an email to remind me to use the voucher before it expires!

That’s the special trick - so small but so big. They remind customers before their vouchers expire.

This tactic is a good example of making things easy for your customer – remind them of important dates – especially when they can benefit from knowing them.

It certainly would be cheaper for L.L. Bean to let vouchers go unredeemed.

Most companies hope you’ll lose the coupon or forget about it. But instead of seemingly 'saving a buck,' L.L. Bean knows that a customer who takes advantage of this special offer will feel good whereas someone who remembers it too late will feel disappointed.

If I could love them more than I already do, I would. At every turn L.L. Bean makes decisions to benefit customers instead of the short-term view (paying for the redeemed vouchers). The long-term view tells you that taking care of customers, thanking them for purchases, and allowing them to benefit from customer loyalty adds to your bottom line.

Kudos to this nearly 100-year-old retailer who continues to get things right.

Sampling – a great way to engage customers

2009-01-16T19:36:00.003-08:00

I’ve always been a fan of the concept of sampling to drive sales and to encourage repeat business. This works with service companies as well as product companies.

The product sampling approach is easy: Let folks try your product and they might buy it, or at least talk about it. Today, I was walking around and went by an Edible Arrangements store. The store had a sign out front saying “Come inside for a free chocolate-covered strawberry.” My husband pulled me inside – we had to see if this was legit. They gave us 2 samples that were totally delicious. If you haven’t had an Edible Arrangment – they are amazing. (Yum, I digress.)

While sampling doesn’t always turn into direct sales, it can. Plus, it can also drive word of mouth. Clearly, I’m a word of mouth spreader (since I have a blog) and I’ve already told several people about this sample and how amazing it was. The fact that this was a special and unusual product sample helps grow word of mouth. So, if you are offering samples of your product, try for something unique in approach or in product trial. (However, product sampling can work in various forms – even straight-forward sampling at a grocery store can drive sales, hey, I buy what I sample at Trader Joes about 40% of the time.)

How do you offer a sample as a service company? Here are several ideas:

My favorite approach is to offer a small bit of a service at a low cost or a trial of your service. For example, a “sample” can be a brief service engagement offered at a low cost, maybe a half-day consulting contract with specific deliverables.
You can also offer a free evaluation. For example, a web design company could evaluate your current website and tell you what could be improved; if you like their observations and recommendations then you can hire them. This approach can show customers how a company thinks, and how well they consider various issues that might impact a potential client’s business.
Another example is the online software-as-a-service models that allow you to sign up to use their service for a defined time (companies such as salesforce.com do this).

The benefits of sampling are:

A larger audience can be exposed to your service and expertise versus the number who will commit to a higher-priced, high-commitment (contract) service.
Creating a low-priced trial can increase incremental revenue. Those individuals who sample your service at the price of $500 instead of a $5,000 contract still contribute to your bottom line, and they enter your sales pipeline and may buy more from you in the future.
Trial periods (for your product or service) can also create buzz and provide you feedback. How? Some bloggers like to try services and write about them – giving you more opportunity for greater visibility online. They may also provide feedback of what they’d suggest adding or changing about your service or product. Free buzz and free feedback are priceless.

The power of atmosphere on the customer experience

2009-01-12T20:25:00.001-08:00

I went to a restaurant called Tart today and it had such a fun interior design that is made me smile. It was a great reminder of the power of atmosphere and environment on a customer’s experience with a company.

Tart has less than a dozen indoor tables and a lovely interior design. It also has a large outdoor seating area (where I sat today, it was 78 degrees here in LA) and the area was clean, spacious, and attractive.

Can you think of a time you sat in a restaurant that felt “off”? Maybe the table was greasy or the silverware wasn’t clean or it just wasn’t that great a place. It is often the little things that matter; consider how many little things exist and what they add up to in your business.

Just to give you a sense of all the little things in a restaurant, consider:

Colors (of the walls, furnishings, etc.)
Cleanliness of eating area
Service (host/greeter, wait staff, etc.)
Condition of the environment (tables, chairs, china, etc)
Comfort of seating/table
Restroom cleanliness
Menu items and pricing
Order accuracy
Food quality, taste, experience
Temperature in restaurant
Lighting

What little things exist in your business that will affect customers? Perhaps: the format and readability of invoices, how fast your respond to emails and voicemails, content of your newsletters, tone of your contract, the readability of your website and more.

My point is that considering all the little things that could affect your business can notably impact your customer relationships and retention.

Ten tiny things every small business owner should do in 2009

2008-12-31T15:54:00.003-08:00

A friend of mine sent me this link to a terrific top 10 list of what business owners should do in 2009. I love this list - you have to read it. While the article says it's for small business owners, I wouldn't limit it just to those folks.

(Note: for some reason you have to scroll down to find this headline, then read away).

Benefits of social media

2008-12-29T13:08:00.002-08:00

To play off my last blog, I came across results from a recent survey on the benefits of social media.

Check out it out here.

Which social media tool to use?

2008-12-19T15:56:00.001-08:00

Today I was called by an organization who wanted my recommendation on the best way they could leverage social media online. What was the best tactic for their organization? I started asking some questions:

What are your business goals?
What communication strategies are you using now to help you reach those goals? Where are you falling short?
Do you have strategies in place related to growth of new customers? Or referrals?

As we were talking, I heard their desire to use online media such as blogs, Facebook, Linkedin and other tools. I didn’t hear them talking about what strategy supported the use of these tools or what goals could be met through social media. (This person was ok with me sharing this conversation on my blog. So no worries, I don’t disclose information without asking.)

This is a common issue: your company wants to be a part of the “latest thing.” “How can we get a company blog?” has been heard in many an office hallway, as well as “We gotta get on Facebook.” One of my past employers was dying to get “on” Second Life (the online virtual world). These are just tactics. After these statements ring out, an effort is made to get a program going, but just for the program’s sake – not in support of a business strategy or goal.

Let’s look at how at the approach changes when you start with a strategy. Let’s say your company has a goal to gain referrals from existing clients. You need to invest in building relationships so that customers felt engaged and valued and would be more likely to refer. From that strategy you next consider what tools would help you, and yes, some social media tools could help.

Random tactics or tools aren’t what is needed, tactics that support your strategies are. See what I mean? No company needs to have a blog per se. Let’s look at a second example here. Launching a blog doesn’t mean you customers will read or appreciate it. However, if your customers want to know more about your company from an insider perspective or if you want to communicate more openly about company activity and plans using a less formal process, then maybe a blog makes sense.

My point is start with a clear goal – whether that is growing repeat business, building customer trust or building the world’s tallest pile of donuts. Then, figure out what you need to do. I’m all for using the internet and social media -- hey, I’m addicted to it -- but not every customer and not every goal can be best served with social media or any particular tactic.

At the end of this phone call, we decided that this organization should clearly state customer goals and strategies. Next, it should figure out who in their organization should be involved and which tools and tactics would be best. In this case, the group needed to focus on growing customer relationships before trying to grow a social media strategy to engage them. This is because you can’t invite customers to join your company’s Facebook group if they don’t think there is any value in it. (Remember: Just because a company provided a paid service doesn’t mean a customer relationship exists, it just means a transaction occurred.) In this case, the focus needed to be relationships first, then efforts to grow those relationships and referrals and engagement through social media.

Are you using social media to support your goals? How is it going? Let me know if you want to run any ideas by me, I love this work.

Customer relationship building – more important now than ever

2008-12-12T19:13:00.001-08:00

I came across this statistic about purchasing behavior today: According to a 2008 Harris Interactive report, 87% of consumers have stopped dealing with an organization because of a negative experience. And 58% would pay more for a better experience even in a down economy!!

This tells me that rather than maintain a sole focus on cost cutting, smart companies are going to invest in customer relationships and retention. Caring about customers at each lifecycle stage can help grow your bottom line.

Here is my #1 suggestion for growing customer relationships: make time to “add value” to customers lives.

Here is the easiest way to do that: Think about what else your customers need based on what you know about them (based on what product/service they buy from you, or based on what your customer feedback and research tells you) and do what you can to give it to them.

Let me illustrate an example of how one company could think about adding value. Let’s say this company offers training seminars on how to find a job. (I have to say first, that adding value is not a sales pitch.) In this illustration the organization should think about what someone who finds a new job needs (because of course, after the customer takes the seminar and they find a job). The company could provide links to websites that have educational articles and other support materials on how to be successful in a new workplace via email to everyone who takes the seminar and reports they found new work.

It is ideal to invest in a relationship building, retention, value-adding strategy now. While you may not see immediate sales, there is very low cost and it provides additional value in the long-term. Investing in relationships means dividends later in sales and referrals. Also, growing relationships means additional income without the expense of acquiring a new customer (that can range from $100 and up depending on your industry, competition and marketing efforts). Ha ha – growth at a lower cost.

Here is your next step: Put together a plan to grow relationships over the next 6 months with modest goals for the first 6 months (it takes time to be genuine and grow relationships) and then goals for the next 6 months that show good growth. When you put the plan into place (soon), be genuine, listen, and really care about how you can benefit your customers. They will feel it and respond in positive ways.

The cost of customer churn

2008-12-02T19:35:00.002-08:00

This past weekend I was reading my favorite customer strategy magazine, 1 to 1 Magazine (published by the Peppers and Rogers Group) and I came across this startling fact: "In mature telecom markets, on average, it takes three years to pay back the cost of replacing each lost customer with a new one." What a wake up call that is on customer churn costs.

The article I was reading was a Q&A with an expert who has researched customer loss and turnover in the telecommunications industry but he also shared a few concepts and strategies that apply to a wider universe.

(While the advice shared here could be considered advanced, I’d suggest digging in and seeing what similar information you can find and calculate about your most at risk customers.)

Below are the general findings mentioned in the article that can be applied to other industries.

Assign potential customer value to all existing customers (there is a whole book on this called "Return on Customer," but you can also begin by looking at the average customer expenditures per year multiplied by the number of years they are likely to stay with your company).
Compare the customer potential value from above against the degree of interactions (frequency of contact or purchases, for example – how active are your customers in reaching out to you, in buying, in needing help? Or are they dormant and silent? Quiet customers aren’t always a good thing.)
Use this information (those with low value and/or those with low contact or those with problems recorded from customer service or sales) to target “at risk” customers and do whatever you can to retain those customers. I’d also suggest using this information to reach out to high value customers and make sure they are being heard and you are meeting all their needs.

A commonly cited statistic which appears in this article is: "Companies can retain 20-25% of their revenues by protecting just 5% of their most profitable customers." Another wake up call. Don’t forget to focus on your best customers – if you have to choose where to put resources, put it toward them.

In one word -- convenience

2008-11-24T16:38:00.005-08:00

Have you seen one of these? It's an iPod vending machine. Yep, great idea.

I saw this one in the airport. What does this offer customers?

Immediate satisfaction in gift buying -- need a gift for someone you are visiting? Or, someone you are coming home to (and you forgot to get a gift at your travel destination). Or, an immediate gift for yourself.

Putting products right in the path of normal customer activity is the perfect description of convenience. What is funny here is that people may not think through the purchase – thinking they can get music immediately. But, of course, iPods don’t come with music on them. You have to buy/download the music on to the player.

However, if you already have iTunes on your machine -- or have CDs with you – you could put music on your new purchase. Plugging in your iPod to your iTunes-stocked laptop will get you some tunes right away without draining your laptop battery. That’s a win-win.

So if you are buying a gift for someone else, upgrading your own iPod, or trying your first iPod, this is a simple way to get what you want fast. No more driving to Best Buy to get an iPod or ordering one online and waiting for the shipment to arrive – this is the fastest method to iPod ownership and I love the idea.

I’m very keen on lessening time I spend driving around town or waiting for e-commerce purchases (one of my favorite purchasing methods).

What I love about this:

1. Convenience for customers.

2. Innovative concept.

3. It’s a new channel for sales.

4. A good way to get my mom-in-law an iPod before we go to visit.

Someone had to think outside the box for iPod vending machines to appear. Someone had to realize: (a) hey, iPods are small and could fit into vending machines; (b) ooh, we could get even more visibility beyond poster advertisements in airports (marketing and product sales in one); (c), sweet, airports have a captive audience and travelers that have money to spend on air travel (with all the fees) may have money enough for an iPod.

Right on, Apple. You have to give them the innovation star of the week – sell more by making it easy to get to your product. Apple if you are reading this, I can tell you that tons of people stop and look at your kiosk (and I’m sure many of them are buying). Great idea that brings in sales, grows marketing effort, and makes customers’ lives better.

Repairing customer relationships after a blunder

2008-11-14T18:33:00.006-08:00

Last week during my Hyatt Hotel stay (see blog on kudos to Hyatt before I even arrived) my room was on the same floor with a loud late night party. The yelling in the halls, door banging and worse was coming from multiple people in multiple rooms and as far as I could tell it was a frat party.

After trying to sleep through it, I got up and called the front desk at 2:30 a.m. They told me the manager was on my floor trying to deal with it. I called again 40 minutes later because the noise continued and was told the manager was still trying to deal with the noisy guests. By that point I would have called these “guests” a cab, but I digress.

Since this hotel stay had a specific purpose – I was at the Hyatt for a conference – I needed to be rested and alert to hear the main speaker first thing in the morning.

The next day the Hyatt took action to remedy the situation:

They sent up a tray of cheese, crackers and sparkling water (which I didn’t eat because that is what my conference served, too).
With a hand-written note of apology.

Nice touch.

As a guest I didn’t think that was sufficient considering the amount of money I was spending at the hotel - 4 nights plus the cost the conference brought to the hotel. So later that day I went to the front desk to ask if the party guests had checked out and what they could do to compensate me for the large inconvenience. They then offered me free breakfast and a few bucks off my remaining hotel stay.

What matters to customers?

What matters is that you make the effort to apologize and try to make things right to whatever degree possible. Customers aren’t usually asking for the world, they just want you to act in good faith. In my case, I wish the hotel had removed the guests, but I appreciated they acted to fix the issue during the night (well, really the morning) and then they apologized and tried to make things right.

What response can you expect?

The customer response to an apology is often gratitude because they can sympathize with your effort and appreciate it.

Also, you might even improve the customer relationship. Research shows that fixing a problem in a customer relationship can lead to even greater customer loyalty. Has this happened to you? I can understand that reaction. Once a company has showed you how willing they are to help you, you see they are worth buying from again.

In my case, I still respect Hyatt and their effort to make up for the problems during my stay and I told them so. They are customer centered and want to make relationships that last -- I give them points for that.

Scaring off customers

2008-11-05T19:22:00.001-08:00

It might sound funny, but some companies intimidate their customers (some intentionally, some not intentionally). Who would want to do business with a company like that?

Example: high-end retail stores. I’ve moved to a part of Los Angeles that has several such stores. The most intimidating thing isn't the price tags. It’s the beefy-looking bodyguard, oh, I mean security guard, you’ll find standing just inside the door. You can see the guard from outside the store and they always look stern. They discourage me from even trying to step inside the store. Of course there is the other intimidation too – that you didn't dress well enough to be seen or served in the store (a la the "Pretty Woman" scene where no sales person will help Julia Roberts’s character – and then they ask her to leave). But if customers don’t even want to try to walk in the door – how does that help sales in this economy?

You may not have this kind of beefy guard at your company’s door, but that feeling can come across in other ways. Here’s how you can inadvertently intimidate customers:

Use jargon language that is hard to understand on your website or in your marketing materials, etc.
I’ve also seen a lot of vague website language on homepages that don’t even tell you what the service or product offered is. That can feel intimidating because, as a customer, you think you should be able to figure out if this is the website you want or not.
If your website is difficult to use. For example, this week I visited a pet supply website where I couldn’t figure out the price of their main product for sale. It took more than 5 minutes to figure out how to buy it online. And I have buying products online for years – so I know how it should work.

The key lesson here is to make your customers feel at ease by being clear, helpful, and inviting.

Hyatt Hotel, color me impressed

2008-10-31T16:33:00.002-07:00

I’m delighted to write about a company that just showed me it cared about me (the customer) and wants to make visitors’ lives easier.

Kudos goes to Hyatt Hotels today.

Seven days in advance of my arrival, Hyatt emailed me. They send a note from the exact hotel I’m staying at (local hotel photo, signed by the real general manager at the hotel, with local info). I found this email very helpful because it:
a) confirms the dates of my stay;
b) offers additional services to make my trip easier (like a real concierge);
c) provides the 10 day weather forecast;
d) includes a map visual of the local area and hotel location with a link for directions.

This is the most helpful and thoughtful I’ve seen a company act in a while, and it makes great sense. They automate emails to send out customized content based on each guest and – boom! -- each customer gets a greeting from the hotel before they even arrive. This is genius. Hyatt thought about what travelers need – good information, confirmation of travel information, easy links to get directions, weather information before they pack, and any additional services that could be of help.

This is going in my hall of fame; that is how smart this is. I haven’t seen this kind of email at any other hotels (maybe the super pricey ones do it, I wouldn’t know that). Post below if you have seen this before. I want to see a copy of any that exist.

Lesson learned here:
- greet your customer before they even arrive/need you;
- simplify customers’ lives by offering them information, links and reminders in a timely way;
- sign emails and all messages with a specific person, not a generic group or company. You are speaking to a customer, so be sure to have a unique voice and to sign your emails – even email newsletters. Customers bond with people, not vague company-speak.

Hyatt calls this their e-concierge. Thumbs up Hyatt.

Two commandments of employee engagement

2008-10-24T18:28:00.003-07:00

I’m reviewing two of my favorite employee management and engagement basics for two reasons: one, I keep hearing stories of bad managers everywhere I go, and two, because there is a clear link between employee engagement and happy customers. (Yes, I’m a broken record.)

I have proven that these ideas work--and they all come from the book “First, Break All the Rules.” (This book is one of my all-time favorite business books.)

Let’s tackle two of the most common issues in employee management:

1) Not making time to provide feedback to employees--positive (in public setting and private) and negative (in private) on a regular basis. Do your employees know how well they are doing? Do they know if they are meeting expectations vs. exceeding them? Do they know if they are on track with what you need from them? Yes, it’s a two-way street and they need to make the effort to seek you out, listen and ask questions, but you need to talk, share, and provide teaching moments.

Most employees want to do their best, but don’t always know how you feel. Don’t hold out for annual or semi-annual performance reviews. I like to say that you shouldn’t be surprising an employee during a performance review; they should be hearing things you have mentioned before. Another note on performance reviews: they need to focus a good chunk of time to the future--pointing to where the employee should focus, discussing their goals for the next six months and listening to what they would like to learn.

2) Not keeping employees “in the know” about the organization or department orientation, goals, strategies and key differentiators. The speed of change is so great that it can be hard to spread the word, but the effort needs to be made.

This communication can start in group meetings, but they shouldn’t end there. It’s important for employees to hear reinforcement and restatement of new strategies and direction, and how it will apply to them (on a small group or individual basis). For example, how will workloads change with new direction? How should employees change their priorities and approaches with the new direction? How can employees support the new direction in their daily responsibilities? Communicate, communicate, communicate.

Employees want to hear what’s going on. They want to feel a part of the overall effort of your organization. Managers are communicators, not just doers of certain tasks, and you need leaders who will constantly talk and share and listen. I love the management style of “walking the floor,” meaning walking around, taking time to stop and talk to various employees. See who signals as you walk by, and chat, listen, share some ideas and feedback. Whatever it takes. This is a huge part of being a manager or leader. When I managed a staff of 30 easily 50% of my job was listening and communicating--on top of meetings, meetings and more meetings. Take pleasure in the times you have one-on-one with employees. You are building relationships that can last with employees that will spread the word about your company.

Stay tuned for more pointers and share your own in the comments section below.

Customers are listening

2008-10-20T18:45:00.002-07:00

Have you ever noticed what employees say in front of customers? Let’s take retail stores as an example. I’d guess nearly half of all the retail experiences I have include employees talking about something you don’t want customers hearing, or talking in a way that is negative, excludes or ignores customers.

I do give Starbucks credit for hiring people that are friendly, yes, hiring. You can’t train people to be friendly. Yes, you can emphasize it, but you have to start with a person who at least leans in the kind/friendly direction. As I’m sitting here in Starbucks I am laughing about the employees talking about the quality of the pastries in their case (going stale), but worse, they are talking about which stores are infested with insects and they themselves would avoid at all costs. Perhaps they feel okay saying this because there are only two of us within ear shot and we both have headphones on, but I can hear over the music on my iPod. Oh man, they are talking about insect problems at stores that serve food. Gross.

More often you might encounter employees who would rather talk to each other than to you--even when they are serving you. I just smile and say thank you. I know how hard retail jobs are and I’m glad the coworkers like each other, but I wish for something more as a customer.

Back to Starbucks. I do love the really friendly baristas. There is one at my local Starbucks (Where there are star sightings--I live near Hollywood now.) who always says, “Have a lovely day,” or something like that. She is really peppy, genuine and friendly every time I see her. I love that.

Question for you: what do your customers overhear your employees talking about? Can they hear negative conversations going on while they are on the phone with your company? Or, are they still finishing a sentence with a coworker when they take the next phone call? How do you know? Walk around the office and be open to what you hear. Can your customers read about negative employee comments on the internet?

Here are two basics to help you avoid the above issues:

Hire for attitude, train for skills. Meaning, if you need a really friendly staff to answer the phone, hire people who are naturally upbeat and friendly. It’s tough to train folks to smile on the phone.
Make a real effort to keep your employee engaged. Not sure how? Read the book, "First, Break All the Rules,” for a 12-step process that works like a charm. (My next blog is going to address some of these points, so wait, and then scroll up.) Engaged employees will make a real effort to represent your company in the best way.

A loyalty program done right

2008-09-24T12:08:00.002-07:00

I was reading 1to1 Magazine, one of my favorite customer relationships magazines, and came across an excellent article about loyalty programs.

Personally, when I hear the term “loyalty programs,” I think of gimmicks that aren’t often as valuable to the customer as they are to the company (because they learn about your spending habits and offer little in return for example). I’ve been on the receiving end of too many lame loyalty programs that didn’t thank me for loyalty or make me loyal. Most were just frustrating to use or redeem.

The article was about Motherhood Maternity (retail stores) that offered a loyalty program. You might think--what? Once the baby is born you probably won’t need those clothes for a long time, if ever again. So how would a loyalty program help?

This company realized they could add value, offer information and help moms with matters beyond the birth of their child. The company’s loyalty strategy became focused on, “giving customer information and tools to save for tuition.”

Here is what the managing director of the company said that I most appreciate:

“Our loyalty program is not about just getting you back into the store,” Bashe [managing director] says. “It’s really about education and the future of your family.” Only the FutureTrust brand appears on the card, to encourage customers to use it after they shop at Mothers Work stores.

The program offers a credit card that helps moms save money in a 529 college tuition saving plan. Smart. Offering tools and valuable information to moms in such a critical way says a lot about how this company really cares for customers not just about sales of clothing.

This is the kind of thinking I encourage every company to use. Think about your customer’s lives, their needs, their challenges and come up with ways to offer them help, simplify their lives -- and make sure it ties in to your service or company. This is a great way to build your company value by building the value of your customer relationships in the long-term.

Note: Here is the full article I excerpted from (you have to register on their site to be able to read it though – sorry).

Why should your company have a blog?

2008-09-18T13:27:00.003-07:00

I'm an advocate of the company blog if it can be kept up regularly and use a real human voice (not lawyer-edited content). It shouldn’t be used to just sell your services, and the blog needs to allow for interaction (comments and responses). But even these 4 points can be stumbling points for some companies thinking about putting their toe into the online waters.

Why should your company want a blog? I think it is a huge credibility builder. It helps introduce your company through a person (the writer) rather than just through Website text, which isn’t as personal. Showing the real voice of a company is a huge benefit. Customers today expect more and when you can deliver more--like showing you are human, engaged and active--you might just get more attention and potential customers.

Think. If you check out a Website to research a company, service or product, and find a blog you might click to check it out. If the blog has recent entries and headlines that are relevant and not self-serving, you just got bonus points with the customer. And in the business world today every additional element that can help a customer contact you or try your service is worth a lot to your bottom line.

Here are a few points on company blogs from someone who works at WordPress (blogging and Web platform). They highlight a few other benefits that are worth considering too.

Post a comment below if your company has a blog. Issues? Challenges? Feedback? I’d love to hear.

Customer survey writing 101: refresher

2008-09-14T21:18:00.001-07:00

Here is a quick refresher on the basics of writing a survey. I'm bringing this up because I recently received a survey that violates several of these commandments.

1. Keep each question focused on a single issue and be specific.
2. Keep the questions clear (don’t confuse the survey respondent).
3. Keep the survey brief.
4. Make sure to allow for comments.
5. Write the questions so you can take action based on the results.

The survey that broke these commandments was from the interstate moving company, Stevens.

Commandment #1 -- Violated
The survey asked me to rate 6 elements of the loading and delivery process, and wanted me to rate the "driver and crew" on all 6 elements. Why is this a mistake? The driver and crew should have separate questions and ratings. Also, if I rated the "overall performance of the packing crew" as poor, what would you specifically know from that rating? Nothing.

Commandment #2 -- Violated
The questions were confusing. I couldn't tell which section referred to the packing crew (on the pick up end) or the unpacking crew (at the delivery end). Additionally, the ratings were so generic: "excellent/good/fair/poor/n/a." Those ratings could be interpreted in many different ways.

Commandment #3 and #4 -- Passed
This is good; there were 15 questions/items to rate, and an open comments field. That was a reasonable number of questions. I was able to take the survey in a few minutes, so I'm grateful that commandment was followed.

Another thing they did right was to include an open area for comments so I could explain that my driver was amazing and the crew was mediocre. I wonder if anyone will read the comments or just look at the ratings.

Commandment #5 -- Violated
As you can tell from my above comments, the way the questions were written left no room for taking action on the ratings. If I said the "overall performance of the driver and crew" was poor--what action could be taken? What would you focus on fixing? Who knows?

Rewriting the questions would create a survey that provides helpful input and feedback.

Company culture and customer service

2008-09-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

Good customer service…as a customer, you feel it when it’s good or when it’s bad. Within a business, employees can often feel good or bad customer service. But among management, that’s a different story.

In your organization, who touches the customer? Who talks to your customers? Customer service? Billing? Contracts and procurement? Marketing? Sales? Whatever department, these employees are most able to feel the effects of the service, marketing offers or support you deliver.

Can you recall a time when you’ve called customer service and spoken to an agent that sounds deflated? Perhaps their hands were tied due to company policy (even when it makes no sense). It isn’t hard to find an employee frustrated by company policies--they are everywhere. Do these frustrated employees work at your company?

I’m a proponent for internal employee meetings and surveys that take a temperature read on your culture and company feel. (Of course periodic meetings don’t replace an open, on-going dialogue with employees.) There are professionals that focus directly on this kind of internal survey and focus. If you need any suggestions, let me know.

A company culture that makes employees feel confused, concerned, hand-tied or is just unclear creates a negative impression that can be hard to turn around. This is why getting a feel for your company culture on a regular basis is useful. Not to create panic, but a company culture can take up to 5-8 years to turn around depending on the issues and employees. No one wants to be stuck with a company that isn’t able to provide the best customer experience. So listening to employees is a huge part of a healthy company.

Employee-wide customer care

2008-09-01T22:20:00.001-07:00

I was reading an article about kayak.com in Fast Company magazine today and was thrilled to see one of my favorite customer care ideas. It is… having everyone on staff answer customer emails.

This is a tactic I put in place at a previous workplace and it really worked. It helped us all understand what our customers want so we could develop the website in the most productive way. Additionally, our customers felt they were being heard and their relationship with our website improved. When employees communicate directly with customers they feel empowered and have a heightened sense of empathy for customers.

Here is a quote from the Fast Company article, “English [a kayak.com executive] has an obsession with usability, to the point that he makes every Kayak employee answer emails that come in to the help address. ‘We got pushback on why a $150,000-a-year engineer rather than a $30,000-a-yea support guy should talk to a grandmother from Florida.’ He says with some understatement. ‘But we’re going to learn from her.’ ”

I love this idea. If you have implemented this idea, share your story below.

Get tuned into online customer feedback Web sites

2008-08-22T15:45:00.001-07:00

You likely know about Web sites that collect customer feedback on all kinds of services and companies--like planetfeedback.com, epinions.com, tripadvisor.com and, of course, the Better Business Bureau. These are great places to keep up on what your customers are saying about you--and may not be telling you. Trust me; it’s better to know than keep your head in the sand.

I like to share my experiences with others and personally, I use the Web as a first source of information and references and reviews when I need a new service. For example, I needed to ship my car across the country to my new home, so I started online. There were a few companies in my area that came up if you just searched by zip code and car movers. I quickly learned, however, by continuing my search, that those companies frequently had bad customer reviews. I also looked up the moving companies that were recommended to me.

The online reviews helped me decide what would be the best companies to use. For example, on movingscam.com I learned that Golden Key Express was the best car shipper for my route--so I used them. I’ve since received my car and there is not one new scratch on it. The owner of the company even drove the tractor trailer. Thank you online customer communities for helping me find an amazing company! And my moving company I chose because it had the highest rate of positive reviews (and least negative ones)--thanks again to fellow customers.

Every day customers use online reviews to make choices worth a few dollars to thousands of dollars and more. Don’t miss out on the chance to hear what people are saying about you. What you could learn could help you grow your business if you listen and respond to feedback. At the minimum, thousands of your potential customers will read these reviews--you should too.

Marketing to women

2008-08-12T09:34:00.001-07:00

Here is a good article on marketing to women - it has some great points and it is a good refresher.

Reminder: watch out for customer obstacles

2008-08-12T09:17:00.001-07:00

It’s often cheaper to transact business and customer service transactions online. The fact is, it’s cheaper to support and service email than phones. Plus, you know customers expect things to be cheaper online. And it’s the companies that are driving customers to think that way. Hey, AT&T told me just that last week. Now, this doesn’t have to be the case to keep customers happy and get them to buy online, however, companies are reinforcing this message (think airlines, rental cars, and hotels that have better rates online).

In contrast is the US post office. To forward your mail to a new address online they charge you $1 per each person you change. This is their method to validate the change. Okay, safety checks are good. Other companies have done this. I think PayPal does this, but PayPal gives you a credit back after they charge you--to ensure you are who you say you are. But not the post office--they just charge you a buck.

What is funny is that this will drive *some* customers to just go to the post office and pick up the old-fashion forms for change of address. If I were the USPS, I’d consider other ways to validate address change requests since online submissions must save them tons of money. Imagine the cost of filling out a form online that feeds into a central system versus a paper form they pay to print, mail to the central processing location and finally, pay someone to input the information.

I realize a dollar is a tiny amount to charge a customer, but you have to consider how to get rid of obstacles. This is an opportunity to save money and make it easier for customers to do business with you.

Who is doing it right

2008-08-09T12:55:00.001-07:00

As you read in my last blog, I’m moving and it is no picnic. I could write 10 blogs on all the negative customer experiences I’ve lived through, but let me focus on the companies that are doing things right.

We’ve all lived through experiences that are lame, difficult and drawn out. But, the good news is there are some companies that “get it,” and I want to spread the word for those companies. Take note below.

Here is what has been good:

One magazine has a terrific online change of address form. My husband subscribes to “Entertainment Weekly,” and they were the only magazine company that offered the opportunity to pick the date for the address change to be in effect. Otherwise, the customer has to figure out when to call, or call multiple times, until it is convenient for them to take your address in order to affect the address change at the right time. Kudos to EW.
One credit card company offers online self-service for address changes. I was getting used to calling each credit card, bank, etc. to change my address. After calling the last card (My new Barclays L.L. Bean Visa--L.L.Bean dumped Bank of America, which had been offering the card.), they told me I could have changed my address on their Web site. No other credit card or bank allows you to make a change of address online. Kudos to Barclays.
American Express makes phone change of address fast and easy. I am a new customer of American Express. I have their Costco credit card, (Yes, I love Costco--just search my blog for the word “Costco” to read more.) and I am impressed so far. The best thing about their phone customer service? No long wait, they pick up the phone fast (same with L.L. Bean). Kudos to Amex and Costco (for picking a company like Amex to keep in line with their amazing service record).

So, if you wondering who is offering a positive customer experience--take note of these three and keep your eye on them

A self-service website gone wrong

2008-08-04T12:15:00.000-07:00

Today I went online to figure out which companies offer Internet and phone service at my new home. AT&T showed up in my search, so I went to their website looking for options and pricing (but not sign up yet).

I followed their Web self-service system and chose the kind of Internet service I’d like (I would have rather chosen that later in the process). I picked the fastest high speed connection to see what that would cost and then proceeded to input my address. After 3 attempts it told me my address was invalid. Um, that is what the landlord told me, so I think it should work.

Smart move on AT&T’s part here: a pop-up box appeared connecting me to a chat with an agent. I wonder if that was triggered because I kept hitting the same pages on the website and getting error messages, or if it just happens after so many minutes on their website? Kudos to them for realizing I was frustrated and about to leave their site.

I’m trying the chat feature right now. (I’m writing this blog while I’m online with the agent.) Alright, the agent is responsive--unlike most Web chat agents that take 5 minutes to respond to each thing you type.

I did tell the agent if this isn’t going to be easy I’d find another company to use. That is just how customers work--if something is difficult, look for another option. Why waste time? Make it easy for me (the customer), or I’m gone. You know my mantra on making it easy for your customers to do business with you--here is yet another example of that.

Okay, the AT&T agent just responded to tell me I have to call them because my address isn’t working, and he can’t tell what would have to be changed to make it work. (Ironic since he’s an agent for new service sign-ups that has to use this crazy system.) Then he suggested after calling their phone service to come back to the website to sign up for the service since they offer lower rates via the website. Seriously, they want me to make a phone call and come back to the website. Talk about customer frustration. Yes, I know they want to lower costs so they built online self-service, but it has to really work--easily (and your online agents have to be able to problem solve or you are just creating upset customers who will blog about itJ)

I’m going to try some other companies first and come back to this option only if I have to. I can’t wait for the day that customer input really drives company activity and service.

Refreshingly good customer service

2008-07-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

I’m moving and I’m sure you know how time consuming that process is--especially when it involves calling every company you do business with to tell them your new address. Synchronizing this activity is even harder because magazines needs months lead time, and your bank and others need just days. And you don’t want mail at your new address before you arrive. So the dance begins.

Today I had an experience that exceeded my expectations. I have already called several companies to change my address. A few of those told me to call back to synchronize the address change with my billing cycle. Oh well, what can you do, right?

Then I called the subscription line for the LA Business Journal (weekly publication) and while it wasn’t the right time in the cycle for them to instantly make the change, they were happy to take all of my information and make the change for me at a later date. And they even offered to email me a confirmation when the change does occur. That is awesome. How could this smaller organization handle what even Citizens Bank can’t offer? Argh.

I love it when a company really goes above and beyond the call of duty and the LA Business Journal gets my kudos for doing just that.