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After a few months with no updates due to an extremely busy work situation I have now stopped updating this blog. For new blogging entries from me, please visit roarweb dot com.

Online or Not - Retailers & Service Providers Beware!

A press release posted on Canada Newswire (http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/January2005/25/c6712.html?view=print) refers to a study by the Verde Group looking at the impact of "bad-mouthing" in the retail industry.

In their study they found that "more than 50 per cent of Canadians say they will not event walk into a store if they have heard something bad about it from friends or family"

Clearly, the potential impact of poor service can be enormous. The study found these dissatisfied shoppers told two other people on average. I believe other studies have found this word-of-mouth effect to spread more quickly, with dissatisfied customers telling 5-10 other people.

I'm afraid the impact in the online world can be even higher. The ease of spreading a complaint through e-mail, websites, chat rooms or blogs means that hundreds or thousands of people might hear about a complaint within a very short time frame.

Beware!

Whatever your business, you must be aware of these "moments-of-truth" where a customer interfaces your organization. You need to provide your employees with the information, processes and procedures needed to be able to serve your customers properly.

And .... you need to do this while keeping an eye on your expenses.

Not an easy task. While ROI projections can be tricky enough on a good day, how do you calculate the multiplier effect of such bad-mouthing? While keeping in mind the 80/20 principle?

If nothing else, have a plan in place on how to handle complaints. The earlier an issue is dealt with, the less the impact. If you are a brick-and-mortar retailer you might even be able to get your dissatisfied customer tell their contacts you took care of the issue!

Online? Beware!!

The problem with bad-mouthing on the Internet is that web archives have long memories. And, while a physical person likely will see their contacts again and (if appropriate) tell them their complaint was dealt with, people reading an online post may never be back to see if it has been updated.

How much negative feedback can you handle?

I love the idea of customer feedback through online rating systems ... as long as these give you (the "retailer") the possibility to delete or at least comment on postings which may or may not be true. Such systems can help "retailers" develop appropriate solutions to deal with customer service issues.

Of course, you can only deal with issues you are aware of. When was the last time you had a look on the Internet for what people are writing about your organization?

Feedback appreciated.

Marketing Image and Operational truth

Yesterday I made a mistake!

So what you may ask? Well, the truth is that I've been making this mistake over and over again for a while now.

I didn't back up my harddrive!

And yesterday .... to make a long story short ... it failed me. Damaged sectors etc. So not only did I not have my main computer not working, but I also had no recent backup of my files. And that was a mistake. With a proper backup I could have been back in business in a very short time. Instead it took all day.

I guess I was lucky. Data recovery is a difficult process. I tried a few things (which I probably shouldn't have) and in the end the combination worked out for me.

I guess I made 2 mistakes ... the first by not having proper backups and the second by trying to recover my data myself. I have backups now - and will probably outsource any future recovery if ever needed again.

What kind of "mistakes" are you making? I recently told a customer service representative (CSR) that their automated system was very difficult to use - there was no way "back up" after having chosen an option, and the options I tried didn't give me the acknowledgement I was looking for - that I was in the right place. I had to hang up and try again. The CSR went on to tell me that if I'd only picked the right option I would have been fine. She could not tell me how to get "back up" .... "I've never had to call the system" she said.

Is there a mistake there? I believe so!

If your organization markets itself as a customer friendly business, then this must be reflected in any "moment of truth" - the moments where a customer interacts with your business.

In my case I noticed 3 things that do not support the notion that they care about their customers: 1) The automated system did not let me navigate the way I found natural - a usability issue! 2) The CSR was telling me "You did the wrong thing!" I wonder if she really cared? 3) The CSR had no idea about how their system worked - a training issue.

So, money spent on marketing this organization as a place of good service ... somewhat wasted I'd say. Good marketing cannot deliver long term customers if the organization fails the "moment of truth"-test, i.e. if they fail to live up to their promises!

The same goes for your printed materials, your web site and e-mails. Even your blogs! They all help paint an image of who you are, and if there is a mismatch between the marketing image and the actual experience ... then you loose!

Go fail no more! (Or at least make sure what you say/do reflect who you want to be seen as).

In my case, I missed a deadline yesterday. It doesn't happen very often. I want my clients to trust that I can help them manage their business challenges - I now have backups!

Feedback Appreciated!

Service Management & The Moment of Truth

I love discussions about Service Management! So, you can probably understand that I quickly opened an e-mail from eSeminars (http://www.eseminarslive.com) with the subject line of "The race for Business Service Management".

I did not find what I was expecting, but the again I did not have my IT hat on. While this seminar was on IT tools, I was looking for something, on a strategic level, on managing the relationship between customers and an organization.

It shows though, the value of a good subject line. No wonder direct marketing copywriters spend plenty of time on those few words on the outside of an envelope.

But back to service management, the kind I grew up with back in Europe (long story... maybe another time). In the early/mid 80's Richard Normann published his book on Service Management. [ Comment: While I have since seen lots of comments suggesting this is not the best book on this subject ("Meaningless" "...not always consistent or complete") it was still the book of choice in my circles back then.] And while the concept may not have originated with Normann, the term "Moment of Truth" forever got imprinted on my mind.

To me, the Moment of Truth, where customer and organization meets - is something we need to pay particular attention to. It is in this "Moment" that our Brands, Quality etc become real to the customers, and they use their experience from these Moments as a basis for future decision making. Think about it! Have you ever paid a higher price "somewhere else" because service was poor where you initially went?

An the "Moment" is everywhere - in staff blogs, on the phone, via e-mail, web, through Word-Of-Mouth" etc etc. How our company and products/services are perceived, depends on how the "customers" reacts to/remembers these moments.

Two examples I've seen over the last year comes to mind ....

- a software developer with lots of dead links on their otherwise nice web site. Would you trust the code of a developer that can't even get the links right on a 5 page static web site? Not me. But this company obviously didn't mind. Actually, one of their senior managers later "blasted me" for even suggesting to his staff theat the site should be updated to take care of these - relatively few - errors.

- another software developer - an ASP based service ... promising their distribution network a certification & training program. A few days before launch I had still not seen even an outline of how this would take place. I hope they have it fixed by now, I know they made some major changes, but again ... would you trust a supplier that promises you one thing but never delivers? Not me, at least not if this lack of care for me is consistent over a series of issues.

Time to go, I have an interesting seminar to go to ... on early stage financing ...

By the way ... if you've read my last posting a couple of weeks ago ... you probably have been thinking that I did not follow my own advice on keeping things up to date. Both yes and no! YES - my earlier blogs were more frequent. NO - every two weeks might be fine if that is what the audience expects. That being said ... more often is likely better. I saw somewhere, today or in the last couple of days, that they recommend smaller paragraphs a couple of times a day instead of a long blurb now and then.

Feedback appreciated.

Updating News vs. Updating Image

If you read a lot of blogs you probably already know that most blogs are not kept up to date. Maybe not that surprising, especially given the low "cost of entry" into this area of publishing.

Unfortunately, "stale" blogs, or even websites, are not limited to personal blogs or pages. If you've been following my entry into blogging, you've probably already noticed it has been a week or so since my last entry. I'm sure you've also seen web sites where the news section is quite old.

If you think about it, you'll probably agree with me ... "stale" sites/blogs etc impacts your view of the publisher. Why then does so many organizations let their image suffer because of a lack of updates?

Let's face it. Writing content takes time. There are many reasons ... "Writers block", message complexity (even good writers can spend 2 days in writing the text on the outside of a direct mail envelope) ... but most often, a lack of commitment or time to even get started [again] is the major reason.

In planning communications schedules an organization must take their resources into account. Keep in mind it is easier to increase frequency of communications, should you find you have the additional resources, than it is to reduce frequency should your audience have gotten used to getting your updates on a regular basis.

So, instead of having a weekly or monthly newsletter, maybe a quarterly edition is all that is needed? Same with blogs ... if you are using this tool for a business purpose (please write me and tell me about your usage), then you might choose to publish once a week or every two weeks ... instead of trying to get something down every night? As for "News" sections of web sites ... do I need to say anymore?

From an integrated business perspective, poor communications planning is a problem. Why should your call centre have to tell a newsletter subscriber waiting for the issue "on her topic" ... the issue you promised would be out 6 weeks ago, that it could be 2 weeks or 2 months for all they know? "We're too busy..." Maybe? Hopefully not too busy to keep a promise!

What you promise is one thing ... how you deliver on this promise another. If you'd like to create a positive image of your organization, then overdelivering on a promise is a good thing. If you've promised a bi-monthly newsletter and then publish a "special - hot off the press" in between regular editions, then you probably score some extra "Image Points" with your audience. On the other hand, if you've promised monthly newsletters and then skip a month ... get the picture?

Let's overdeliver on our promises! You'll likely feel better than if you're always behind, and your customers will probably like it as well. The KISS principle ("Keep It Short and Simple" with variations) is a good guiding light ... if we can't keep it up to date, or overdeliver once in a while, then it's not short and simple anymore!!! If you can't keep it up to date, then don't add/promise it in the first place!

So, are you keeping your Image up to date?

Feedback Appreciated!

PS: I'll be back ... when I feel like it . Promise!

Oh Adobe, why do you make such mistakes?

Early this morning I received an invitation from Adobe to come to one of their seminars, the QuarkXPress to InDesign CS Migration tour.

As I like to know what they are up to, I welcomed their e-mail. These days I do little on the creative side myself, but I see these seminars as a great way to keep up with what the creative geniuses out there can do for me.

While I welcomed the e-mail I also was very disappointed. This is my 3rd invite to this event series. I went the first time! Maybe they noticed I had not followed up with an upgrade to my Adobe tools, because a month or two (or so I believe) after the first event I got another invitation... I passed it on to a designer friend - my business is to help people manage and I often pass things on if I think it can be of help to one of my contacts.

Anyway, my disappointment does not come from getting a 3rd invitation.... Although I see no reason they couldn't have captured my attendance information from my registration for and participation at the first event, what really gets to me is the location of this event.... I'm in Vancouver, BC [and have previously attended multiple Adobe events here in town] ... and this event, or at least the location listed in their e-mail, is in Montreal.

Oh, Adobe ... why do you make such mistakes? Why do we all make these mistakes at times? My suggestion is, in addition to actually capture available, relevant information, that we probably do not put ourselves in our customers shoes often enough. In this case, maybe someone should have asked the question ... Do our customers really want to travel from Vancouver to Montreal to attend a free 4 hour sales pitch? Not likely!

We must all become better at asking questions about how our actions will impact our customers. Not only our external customers, but our internal customers as well. Just recently I spent hours trying to clean up an online database for a client after it was updated with records that should not have been there. In fact, I'm uncertain it was any good reason to do that update at all. Cleaning up messy uploads is not what I enjoy doing but no-one else could fix it within the timeframe needed. It took quite a bit of time and the bottom line is that this now has impacted the schedule for this organizations mailouts.... once again, a simple mistake - which I believe should not have happened based on the information available to those involved.

Adobe's mistake was a minor one, but it impacts how I look at the organization. And all our actions do. In my other example, he messy upload resulted in extra customer accounts being created - and then a bug in the system told the customers, whose extra accounts we tried to delete, they had been "terminated". I guess that impacts their view of this organization. Hopefully a positive relationship can be restored ... once we have all of the bugs out of the system!

From a learning perspective, I think there is an important organizational lesson here ... whatever our positions, whatever we do ... our actions will impact your customers ... Internal and external ... and we need to make sure we've thought about the consequences of everything we do. Not easy, but needed!

And after a mistake has taken place ... learn from it, then move on ... staying negative does not help the bottom line! For me, I look forward to the next Adobe event in Vancouver, and hope I'm done cleaning up messy lists.

Feedback appreciated!

No thanks, Corey ...

Two hours ago, at 11:30 PM, I received yet another e-mail from Corey Rudl. I'm sure many people has made good money by using his techniques, but this e-mail actually made me unsubscribe to his newsletter. Why? Because I don't trust him anymore!

Not that the marketing hype from his organization so far had managed to get me to purchase anything, but as an Internet Marketer it is still interesting to see what is happening. This time Corey just wanted to remind me I could bring guests to his "wedding". While he has managed to put an interesting spin on a speaking event, he managed to kill any trust I had in his services with one simple sentence: "Lots of people are asking about whether or not you can bring guests... My receptionist, Melanie, has got 3 calls in the last 20 minutes about this. "

Trust is an important factor in a business relationship. And with that sentence he managed to loose my trust. While Corey might have told the truth ... I just did not believe him. Come on, even if I work until the early morning hours, I just can't believe that his secretary got those calls after 11PM Westcoast Time (PMT).

So, what can we learn from this situation? While my personal philosophy is that we would stay away from lies, I believe we also must be careful when we present the truth. In this case I did not believe that what he said was true ... maybe it was, but it did not feel right to me. And by now I have unsubscribed ...

In choosing what to say in our communication with customers, we - as marketers - must remember that many things can be misunderstood. Thus, we MUST be careful when we choose our words. Why loose a potential customer because of a small sentence that was of little importance to the message?

Feedback appreciated!