Zane Safrit

Notes from Conversation with Jackie Huba

Here's some notes from my BlogTalk Radio show with Jackie Huba from The Swom and Church of the Customer.

• Word-of-mouth vs word-of-mouth marketing.  Word-of-mouth is a strategy; word-of-mouth marketing is a tactic. The first is a mission; the 2nd is an after-thought.

• DNA. Word of mouth is generated from the DNA of a company, when they give a reason or inspire their customers to talk about them, to volunteer to be their loyal sales force.

• Kudos to the person asking it. That's what Jackie answered when I asked her what’s so important about the Net Promoter Score from the Ultimate Question Survey. Ok, now what. You've found out the customer will/won't recommend you. Now what?

Exactly. Kudos to the person daring to ask a customer their opinion. Neither one of us are being facetious. Jackie pointed out so  many companies are scared to even talk to their customers, so let’s give kudos to the person asking it. That’s such a huge step. And once taken, you can’t really go back to ignoring the customer.

• Badge of Courage. Employees at Enterprise Rental wear their Net Promoter Score as a badge at company events. That shows how important it is. It’s measured and celebrated and heroes are made from that score. Heroes and careers.

• Customer Service is pro-active now. Using examples from Salesforce.com and their use of Yahoo Pipes (link and link) and  comcastcares at Twitter and Dell’s Ideastorm and blog response team, she points out that companies (the smart ones) are pro-actively seeking customer experience opportunities by engaging the customers where the customers live on social media.

• 4400 Tweets. Frank Aliason at Comcast began using Twitter (comcastcares ) to reach out to their customers. In less than 3 months he’s posted about 4400 tweets to Comcast customers in response to their needs for service.  That’s roughly over 1500 per month direct responses. Happy customers tend to tell 3-5 people about their experience. Now, multiply that message spread rate by the power of Twitter. And multiply it again by proactively reaching out to solve their issues before they become a dell hell-like firestorm.

• We are not an airline with great customer service. We are a great customer service organization that happens to be in the airline businessWe’re a customer service organization who just happens to fly airlines. - Colleen Barrett, CEO of Southwest Airlines. Church of the Customer Link

• Social networks’ growth comes from niche-markets, niche or specialized communities. Ning has over 250,000 communities. The most popular are very niche-oriented: firefighters, Lisa Nova (youtube), alumna, scrapbook makers.

• Employee Engagement Comes First. Dell built an EmployeeStorm internal community site to enlist their employees in creating solutions and understanding the need to reach out to their customers with the Ideastorm site. Very smart. See 2nd point about corporate DNA and its role in creating word-of-mouth.

• TheSWOM. Their current project. 835 members, great conversations from the members, great solutions for generating word-of-mouth from the members. And these solutions are happening nearly every day. And it's free. And it's helpful. Get over there. Become a member.

Thanks, Jackie.

What if EVERYONE was in Customer Service?

What if everyone in your company handled customer service calls? What if everyone one in your company handled their calls and complaints and requests for help? What if their results, including email text, was shared with everyone else in the company?

Me thinks there would be alignment between customers and the company, employees and the customers, company and the employees. A fairly seamless alignment, in fact.

Ok. That feels good. Alignment...

I bet this feels even better for the company, Kayak.com, that actually does it. Their revenues are on track for $140 million this year. In 2005 they posted $3 million in revenues.

"We fix customer problems in real-time," [their CEO] says. "Paying an engineer to do that for 20 minutes is cheaper than outsourcing the problem." - Link

Yes. Yes it is.

And a lot better for growth, too.

You know your customer service is bad when...

the city attorney sues you for causing major havoc and distress and says in the complaint that your service was so intermittent and inferior in quality that it was not much better than no service at all.

( That's a body shot. OH! )

LA's city attorney, City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, plans to sue Time-Warner Cable in a 25-page lawsuit, claiming the company violated its franchise agreement with the city by having subscribers spend hours on hold with customer service representatives and allowing excessive repair work delays.

(I wish he was my city attorney. That sounds pretty standard for MediaCom. They once refused to pull their cable off the sidewalk for 3 days, even when the police called them. That's why we have DirectTV, now. )

LA Times Article.

The 3 C's of Word-of Mouth

Conversation. Conversion. Cash-flow.

Conversations > Conversions > Cash-flow

Change. It might be the 4th C.

Change in conversation (quality or quantity) > Change in Conversions > Change in Cash-flow.

You can't control the conversation. You can influence it. You can feed it material.

You use your cash to do that.  You can commit cash to create a product, an experience, a company, a day-to-day experience, that will fuel an inspiring conversation.

Change in uses of cash > Change in conversation> Change in conversions > Change in Cash-flow.

Or you cannot.

Either way, the cycle is perpetual.

Conversations > Conversions > Cash-flow...> Conversations > Conversions > Cash-flow...

The Three-C's of Word-of-Mouth.

Today's BlogTalk Radio Interview with Angela Maiers

UPDATE: Angela's not able to do the show. She's on the way to the hospital. Not life-threatening, but it needs her attention. We'll reschedule. You can leave your get well wishes here or on her blog at Angela Maiers.

My weekly BlogTalk Radio  show has a special guest this morning:   Angela Maiers

Angela has a passion for creating engaged teachers and creating an engaged learning environment. And THAT's the foundation for our future: engaged teachers creating engaged students.

And not just for our school years, but for life. Her vision is we create a habit, a lifestyle for learning. And more than vision, she has skills and programs that will bring her mission to life for many.

And, she's grown her business solely through Word-of-mouth.

I'm looking forward to our talk, this morning.

Our conversation is live at 9:30 AM, Central time, here in the US. You can listen streaming at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/zane-safrit.

And you can call in and ask questions at:

US:          646-915-9212      
Code: 19978#.

And a link will be up later so you can listen at another time in streaming mode.

Microsoft's Death Rattle

Begging your customers never work.

Bribing your customers never work.

Paying...them...to...use...your...product...each n' every time...isn't...a customer-acquisition plan. It's just the noise you create to muffle your death rattle from the ears of your customers and employees.

That's not my quote.

Leopard Dog wrote that comment at TechCrunch's debate over Microsoft's decision to pay users of its search engine. It's a great quote.

And he's right.  The noise of the announcement and the ensuing hype and debate at TechCrunch is just that: mere noise to hide the death rattle of Microsoft.

Microsoft?  You're one of the world's largest companies, with one of the largest collections of smart people. The market is $16 billion and will double by 2010. You currently have 9.1% of this market and you're losing even that small slice.

And you've engaged your corporate brain trust, incentivized them with an understanding of this opportunity...and this is what is spit out. We'll pay our customers to use our product....!

Microsoft, let me suggest another idea. Here's Seth Godin talking to your competitor, Google. Listen to his description of Google's plan. It's complicated. But it's boiled down to this: Google gave their audience something worth talking about. And they did it...for free.

It's had some success.

Make Happiness Your Business Model

Happiness as Your Business Model

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My workshop from Thinking Digital UK.

SlideShare Link

Jeff De Cagna Interviews Charlene Li

A great interview between Jeff De Cagna of Principled Innovation Podcast and Charlene Li, author of Groundswell: winning in a world transformed by social technologies.

The key point for me from the interview is:

Concentrate on the relationship not on the technologies.

Where'd I find this? Through Jeff's comment at The Swom, The Society of Word of Mouth, in response to Warren Whitlock's question:

What do you think? Can a company survive if they refuse to listen to the conversation?

Twitter's Power is ...

Twitter's community. And it's built around the easy, simple, 140-character limit to its post, its immediacy and its reach. Yawn....buzzwords. Hate 'em.

Anita Campbell shares her story of how she used Twitter to find a graphic designer.

From her post, here's the sizzle, the steak and the Heinz 57 for Twitter:

It took me about 15 minutes of time to compose a short message on Twitter, copy and paste the responses into two emails I sent to my colleague, and respond back to those who sent referrals with quick “thank yous.” And for that, I was able to get 10 word of mouth recommendations.

Imagine if I had tried to do that via telephone or individual emails. I’d still be waiting for responses — and I would have spent considerably more time.

15 minutes. 10 referrals. All from trusted, vetted, known friends and colleagues...aka your community.

That's what community is about. That's what Word-of-Mouth is about. That's what the conversation is about. And that's the power of social media with tools like Twitter.

Disclaimer: In the graphic on Anita's post is my Tweet to Anita and my recommended designer. I also write a small business expert column with others at Anita's SmallBizTrend site.

Here's BusinessWeek's take on Twitter.

Here's how to pitch me.

Paul Chaney from Conversational Marketing lays it out for PR firms, etal  on how's the best way for a PR firm to pitch me or any blogger on their project.

And he brings in added thoughts from a few other seasoned bloggers and their posts from...ahem, 2004. 4 years in blogging social media is essentially a generation, if not a lifetime, of learning.

So...somewhere, somehow, some of these tips and recommendations should be common practice now in the PR industry.

These aren't high-level skills we're talking about:  open-source coding tips or how to create RSS feeds simultaneously defending life and limb on public transportation and twittering about the event at the same time, shooting a video and uploading it to YouTube and checking your friendfeeds.... These are pretty straight-forward common-sense, common-courtesy tips for even the most basic email campaigns.

That is, if they're listening...

Exactly.

Paul's pretty polite about the whole thing unlike some others. I'm of two minds on the thing. I just shake my head, laugh darkly and mutter something in the privacy of my office. Besides bald heads, Paul and I share a dearth of such pitches.

However, our embrace-ratio would significantly increase (that's a good thing PR folks) if some of these tips in Paul's post, and others, were followed.

Ultimately, I think the marketplace will shake it out.

Tactics like public blacklists are the signs of a long-standing pattern of disrespect and a lack of communication. Personally, I like them. Call people out if they're not listening. People rarely remember the numerous times you were patient, kind, repititive, clear, consistent, logical, direct. Stop wasthing time. You've earned the moment. Put them in a web 2.0 version of public stocks where we can all hurl tomatoes at them and their communiques for an extended period, maybe until the next offender arrives.

Or maybe blog about them. I mean...the PR firm DID ask you to promote them...right? It's your blog and your time. You're not gettin' paid for it...

But remember, based on my experience, you look bad, mean and venal, for doing that. Justified, yes. Satisfied? Oh, yes, baby. But you look bad.

So, unless you want to look bad but feel satisfied, stop wasting time with them.

And in the meantime, set up an email rule for repeat offenders, ignore the others and let's get on with it.

Pretty soon those PR firms who can't get tricky social media norms, norms like common courtesy and personalized emails, will no longer generate results for their clients. While those that can embrace the idea of a few moments to research a blogger's interest and then tailor their pitch to them....will find more business than they can shake a string of twhirls at.

And we'll all be happy with that outcome.

(Satisfied...maybe. But definitely happy.)

Social Media Business Case: One Profile

Annie Mole's London's Underground's Blog.

From the article in Reuter's

A number of the private companies which do maintenance work on the 12 Tube lines that criss-cross London's Underground, have recognised her blog's powerful influence on commuters and have met Mole to clarify rumours and answer complaints, she said.

"They think what I'm doing is positive...they say it's a way for the public to see what actually goes on behind these lines that they would have never done without bloggers."

What happens when more people talk about you, using social media, in an open and transparent manner: You get a better experience, better communication, a better product, happier people. Not immediately, mind you. But first the conversation, then small steps and then you have a system, aka a conversation that's sustainable to make your business sustainable with the help of your customers and employees talking with each other. 

Newton's Law of [Marketing]

Ok. Even a BA in Art(ist) like me knows Newton didn't articulate his Law of Marketing*.  He discovered, articulated, the Law of Gravity. There he talked about objects' mass and proximity and how one's experience of gravity is based on the relationship of the two. Jupiter: big mass, little proximity. Moon: little mass, big proximity. Who's movement effects our ocean's tidal surges? Class....?

David E Bowman's post The Physics of Marketing - Newton's Law of Gravitation, takes that discussion of mass and proximity and applies it to...marketing. Does your company have small mass? Well, then you need to get up close and personal with your customers to effect the tidal surges of their spending.

( * Newton's not a scientist, if he's alive today. He'd be a marketer. And he'd write the law of marketing after an iPod would drop on his head. And instead of falling from a tree, the iPod would fall from the fifth floor of a warehouse turned artist enclave where the iPod's user...ok, anyway.)

Link from Brand Autopsy.

Customers and You: Do you miss each other?

Would you confess, one to the other?

Anna Farmery at EngagingBrand noted in her twitter post, loving this post at Conversation Agent...I'd say Me, too.

The post is The Cluetrain Manifesto Conversation.

"You’re either participating or you’re not"...,

These are not necessarily negative conversations, mind you. They well could be constructive discussions filled with chances to learn about your customers and what you need to do to make them happy. Happy people buy more and tell their friends. It's your prerogative whether to join the conversation or not.

Yes. Every brand has a prerogative. ( Ask Bobby Brown; he had one, too.)

Most, funnily enough, choose to not join the conversation. Go figure. Their loss, really.

That's why so much of marketing these days isn't about talking to ...gasp...the customer. No, it's about statistical modeling and research, survey numbers and margins of error, statistical anomalies... Not about conversations, no.

What an opportunity, though, especially for small businesses where one2one conversations with customers, with each other in the company, can happen daily. They should happen daily.

That close contact with the customers is one of THE KEY ADVANTAGES a small business has over the large impersonal cash-cow brands we call national brands. They can customize their products to their customers needs based on what the customer tells them...in person. That, my friends (both of you), is the true definition of direct marketing.

But enough about me...(What do YOU think about me?) Valerie Maltoni writes Conversation Agent. This post is a great post about conversational marketing.

And Anna Farmery writes a great blog and hosts a great podcast series at The Engaging Brand. She speaks, we should listen.

If We Could Talk to [Our Customers]

I was out in the yard this week. And I started laughing. For some companies the reality of talking with their customers (or employees...) is as real as Doctor Doolittle talking to animals. I began to hum that little ditty If I could talk to the animals. And I came in and translated the song.

If we could talk to the customers, just imagine it
Chatting to a guy in michiGAN
Imagine talking to a buyer, chatting to a VP
What a neat achievement that would be.

If we could talk to the customers, learn their challenges
Maybe get a QNA degree.
We'd study businesses and partners, what they’re needs really are,
Alligator, guinea pig, and flea.

We would converse like people now, hear each other,
And we would never, ever need to curse again,
If people asked us, can you listen to what I have to say,
We'd say, "We do it every day?"

If we could talk to the customers, learn all their problems
Think of all the things we could discuss
If we could walk with our customers, talk with our customers,
Stop ‘n learn to hear our customers,
And they would want to come and tal-l-l-k to us.

(Ok. So, it helped pass the time working in the yard. I'm watching the NBA tonight.Take it easy. The principle still applies.... :)

Why do you blog

I realized I could make money with a business model where the blog was central to it. - Anita Campbell, SmallBizTrends, in her interview at Lexblog.

Works for me. It worked for me as CEO at Conference Calls Unlimited, when advertising, all forms, stopped working and I turned to blogs as an easy way to A. replace the missing traffic to the website; B. add to the company's positive cash-flow; C. differentiate the company's products and services and identity; E. network easily and quickly with thought-leaders and smart people around the world. And they with the company. And that led to business and partnerships. And an introduction to Anita. Back in the day, 2007, I was interviewed on her show.

Blogs are one of the resources that level the playing field for small business. Nothing is more unique than a person's voice or their words. There is no greater differentiator than a business owner's words or their voice sharing their passion, their dedication, their vision, their why-they-get-up-in-the-morning reasons, their failures, what they learned...why their product/service is different...all very personal, all things a giant corporation can only hope to emulate like wearing Armani at a neighborhood event. Very fake, very obvious. And everyone asks...who's the Goob? Who invited them? Do they belong here? And the answer's always 'no, but they're harmless. But keep an eye on 'em anyway, they're souls may be missing'.

Ok. That last one's harsh. But...if the suit fits, you know?

[Customers] Know Best

So just ask 'em how to make your product/service/experience better.

Choice or Confusion?

Which do you offer your customers? Choices or confusion?

I know I'm not looking for choices. I'm looking for a solution. One solution. The right solution for me, right now. And anyone who can provide the right solution for me, right now, for my challenge not only gets my money, but gets my word-of-mouth, and my repeat business. An all-in-one package. Their value add was in simplifying my life, saving my time and helping get on to the next challenge. I'll return to that solutions-provider again, if only to seek their advice or their direction.

I know at Conference Calls Unlimited, where I was the CEO, prospects weren't interested in all the service options and features offered. They wanted the right solution, for the right challenge, right now. The solution there was to ask them what their goals were with the service. What they planned to do with a conference call, how many people, how often, were they going to record it etc. After that, then the sales agent could give them the right solution, right now for the right challenge. That's why the sales conversion rate was very high and so was the customer's loyalty.

Prospects and customers aren't interested in what you have to offer. They're interested in what they need. Help them find it. Help them find solutions for their challenges. Then you have a solution for some yours including: growth, sustainability, positive cash-flows, customer loyalty...employee loyalty, happiness...

Link: When Less is More in Consumer Choice at MarketingProfs Daily Fix.

Customers or guests?

The more we treat them like customers, the less we have to be nice to them, because the niceness is purchased.

The more we treat them like guests, the easier it is to be nice to them, because we are less worried about the price and more interested in the relationship. - From Expectations at Levite Chronicles by Jon Swanson.

Customers or guests?

I vote guests.

How NOT to build customer loyalty

Becky McCray nails this business for not talking to their customers. She's right on all her points. When you fail to let your customers know.

She asks for examples on how to do it right. So, here's one:

* Tell your customers.

Do it personally, meaningfully, respectfully. A notice on your sign is none of these.  What if...I mean, what if...the pizza place had shared why they would be closed for 3-4 months? Maybe it's a family emergency? Maybe they're renovating the interior? Any of these would be a personal story their customers could share. It would provide a personal meaningful connection. The story would communicate the customers are part of this business' life, an important part.

What if...they had a countdown, then, until they day they closed? 30 days until we start improving our store for you. Thank you for growing our business. You've told us you want more...this and that. We're going to provide. But first we have to renovate...Then 10 days until we start our next phase. Thanks to all of your support. We'll be back and better.

And then they had a contest to see who'd get the last pizza before they closed, or who gets the first pizza before the open. Register now to win the first pizza at our new store! Or Be first in line and win a years worth of pizza!

And then they regularly shared updates and announcements and photos...with the community in  a newsletter or article with the newspaper. I think they're re-opening would be an event not only for their business, their customers, but for their community. The ROI from this downtime would be...much more positive, much sooner.

How to get a blogger to blog about you

Jeremiah Owyang's post How to get me to blog about you tells how one company got him to blog about their book. Lots to learn from this post on social media, its uses, cutting through noise of spam and email and pitches and how to connect in a PERSONAL way with influentials important for your cause.