Church of the Customer Blog
August 16, 2010, 02:17 PM
Has your product jumped the shark?
From our good friend Tom Fishburne:
"In the rush to maintain momentum, there is huge pressure to "jump the shark." Jumping the shark attracts new attention and feels necessary in the game of competitive one-upmansship. But the volume of attention is far less important than the caliber of the attention. And more important than grabbing fresh attention is the maintaining of those already buying.
The risk of jumping the shark isn't getting eaten by the shark. It's leaving your loyalists behind."
More on Tom's take on jumping the shark here.
July 13, 2010, 06:10 PM
9 ways Groupon leads the online coupon industry
In the discount world, lowest price is king.
In the online discount coupon world, Groupon hopes to be king via customer service.
Since launching in November 2008, the Chicago-based deal-a-day website has sold over 7 million online coupons in 70 cities. Its success has spawned competitor sites such as LivingSocial, Townhog, and Homerun, and it's betting that fanatical customer service will keep them leading the pack.
During a recent trip to Chicago, I spent some time at Groupon's headquarters hoping to understand what makes this fast-growing company tick. What I found were the nine ways Groupon focuses on customer service in a price-competitive market:
- Promote the fine print. Groupon features terms and conditions in large type in a clearly labeled section right beside the deal highlights. You can't miss it.
- Put a phone number on every coupon. If you are at the location of the merchant and have any issues, you can call Groupon HQ to resolve them. Try to find the Amazon.com customer service number. I dare you.
- Anticipate and diffuse frustration. If you click to unsubscribe from Groupon's email alerts, you are taken to a web page with what looks like a live video feed of Derrick, the Groupon Guy. A button says "PUNISH DERRICK." Once clicked, a guy walks by and throws a drink in Derrick's face. A message appears saying "That was pretty mean. I hope you are happy. Want to make it up to Derrick?" Another button says "RESUBSCRIBE." Fun fact: "Derrick" is actually Groupon CEO Andrew Mason.
- Apologize. Groupon is fanatical about vetting good merchants, so when a merchant went out business after hundreds of coupons had been sold for it, Groupon gathered the entire team together holding a sign that said "We're sorry." They sent the picture, along with a refund, to all of the customers who had purchased a coupon.
- Have an iron-clad guarantee. If you are not happy with the Groupon experience, the company will refund your money, even if you have used the coupon. They call it "The Groupon Promise" and the company told me a very small percentage of customers ask for refunds.
- Let customers discuss your products on your property. Every Groupon deal has its own discussion thread in an online forum. Prospective customers can ask questions about the deal before they buy. The thread stays active forever so customers will often go back and add feedback about their experience with the merchant. No other competitor has this.
- Use two-way ratings. Groupon's success is predicated on happy customers and happy merchants. Customers can give awards to merchants that they like or flag a merchant for a poor experience. Merchants can also rate loyal customers or good tippers, and can flag unfriendly customers.
- Treat the call center as a customer loyalty touchpoint. Groupon customer service reps don't have scripts. There are no pre-set time limits on calls. Reps are trusted to solve a customer's issue on the first call.
- Hire for outside-the-box skills. About 70% of Groupon's customer service reps are connected to the local theater scene. Joe Harrow, Groupon's head of customer service says theater folks are a great fit. They are high energy, friendly, outgoing, quick on their toes and fun people. Plus, they need day jobs. On my recent visit to Groupon HQ, Joe showed me a wall in the customer service area decorated with pictures of team members. He mentioned that you can tell who the theater folks are by their professional head shots.
June 21, 2010, 10:10 AM
After the brainstorm
"As we return to the realties of our day jobs at the end of a brainstorm, we run into road blocks, inertia, committees and other hazards that can water down ideas or shut them down entirely. That's what organizations do well. They are designed to minimize risk. Bringing an idea to life can feel like making it through a circuitous maze. So much emphasis with innovation is placed on the up-front brainstorm, yet the real acid test is in the day-to-day shepherding of the idea through the organization..."
BONUS: Tom is the international managing director of Method by day and a business cartoonist by night. See more of Tom's work here.
June 16, 2010, 03:26 PM
Why a complaint is really a gift
At first blush, a complaining customer is not something we have on our wish list of awesome things in the world.
But this type of customer contact provides a great opportunity to do something remarkable that will build loyalty and word of mouth. Research shows this to be true. Customer experience research firm TARP finds that customers who complain and are satisfied are up to 8% more loyal than if they had no problem at all (PDF).
My experience with Adagio Teas is a great example of this principle. I recently lost the little plastic disk that sits under its IngenuiTEA pot. (Seriously, this teapot for loose leaf tea is super cool. Check out this video.) I couldn't find a replacement disk on their site and emailed them asking why I couldn't buy one. They said there was no way to buy one and that the disk was a nice to have but optional piece of the teapot. I pressed again saying that I prefer to have the disk and how could I get one of them. They offered to send me one for free. Nice! When I received their package, there were two disks plus a sample set of teas and a nice handwritten note.
This was my first interaction with the company as I had received the teapot as a gift. What started out as a complaint about not being able to buy the disk turned out to be an experience worth blogging about. Adagio went above and beyond sending the one disk, and created a more loyal customer who is impressed with their service. That's worth talking about.
BONUS READING: For more on this topic, see Janelle Barlow and Claus Moller's book "A Complaint is a Gift: Recovering Customer Loyalty When Things Go Wrong"
June 02, 2010, 05:34 PM
OGST visually explained
If you're a fan of OGST -- Objectives, Goals, Strategies and Tactics -- then this visual explainer that Paula Hansen of Chart Magic drew during my talk last month at the Social Commerce Summit is a handy way to explain it to colleagues.
May 20, 2010, 04:52 PM
Spreadability
For today's marketer, the real enemy is obscurity.
How do you build attention for your product, company or brand and rise above the marketplace noise?
One way is to make sure your web content is completely spreadable. Adding links for people to share your content on social networks and social media sites is pretty much mandatory. Remove all barriers so that customer evangelists can share your content and messages freely. Nothing new about this except that I found find this archaic message at the start of a B2B company's product video on their website.
Social networks are word of mouth jet streams. Your web content should be designed to ride them.
May 12, 2010, 05:31 PM
Ant's Eye View is hiring (again)
This post is cross-posted from our Ant's Eye View blog.
As enterprise companies are starting to see the upside of implementing social business practices, there’s more and more demand for social business consultants. To fill this growing need, the number of Social Media gurus and ninjas popping up for these positions has also increased exponentially — so much so that those with practical experience managing large-scale, customer-focused initiatives are harder and harder to find.
We’re frequently asked, “What does it take to be a consultant at Ant’s Eye View?” Well, it’s a position that requires some S.P.I.C.Y-ness, a healthy dose of curiosity and an innate desire to help companies improve customer experience. Listen to what Ant’s Eye View CEO Sean O’Driscoll says about what we are looking for.
Ant’s Eye View is currently hiring to fill four positions. Check them out if you think you meet the qualities we’ve described. We’d love to hear from you!
- Senior Consultant in the Silicon Valley
- Consultant in the Silicon Valley
- Consultant in Seattle or Austin (Location determined by local talent pool)
- Listening Analyst in Austin
May 06, 2010, 12:42 PM
How to humanize your brand
If you travel for business frequently, take this quiz:
Think of the hotels you've stayed at this year. Can you name even one employee by name?
I can. Felix from the San Mateo Marriott. I stayed there a few weeks ago and noticed this poster in all of the elevators:
Curious, I stopped into the Marketplace Cafe and sure enough, there was Felix.
Friendly, approachable and mostly resembling the man on the poster, Felix told me he has worked for the hotel for 12 years. He said he loves his job and loves meeting people. He recounted the story of a man he met from Europe who, on his second stay at hotel, remarked that we was surprised that Felix was still there. Felix asked him when he had visited the hotel the first time. The man said "seven years ago."
A now-departed manager had thought up the idea eight years ago for putting Felix on the posters. Felix said there used to be a life-size cardboard cut-out of him in front of the cafe that was so life-like that it would stop people in their tracks to say hi. That is, until someone stole it.
I travel alot and for the most part, hotels are nameless, faceless places that aren't very memorable. But I won't forget the San Mateo Marriott because of Felix.
School of WOM May 24-26
Other brands presenting include P&G, Best Buy, PEMCO Insurance, Kraft, McDonalds, Google, Kodak, Coca-Cola, AT&T and others.
Details on the event are here. Use the discount code Friend of WOMMA to get $200 off of the registration cost.
See you in Chi-town!
April 22, 2010, 11:29 PM
Dork is the new black
[Hat tip to the NewComm Forum which started today's program with this video.]
April 08, 2010, 10:49 AM
A correlation between recommendability and revenue?
Satmetrix has just released its 2010 NPS Industry Benchmark reports. The chart below shows the NPS leaders by industry. (For those not familiar with NPS, it is a recommendability score. More here.)
The more that customers recommend your products, the more revenue you should have, right?
While Satmetrix has not done any recent research into correlating recommendability to revenue growth, a very unscientific look at the leaders shows that:
- Auto insurance, banking, and homeowners insurance leader USAA announced that 2009 was its best year ever amidst the worst financial conditions since the Great Depression.
- Airline leader JetBlue saw a 7.4% increase passenger revenue in 4Q09 and a 2009 profit despite the airline industry suffering the worst drop ever in passenger revenue ever last year (-18%).
- Computer hardware leader Apple recorded nearly half of the U.S. PC desktop retail industry revenue in 2009.
- Cell phone service leader Verizon's 2009 revenue was up 10.7% over 2008, while revenue declined for AT&T (-0.8%), Sprint (-9%) and T-Mobile (-1.6%).
Could it be that the customers of these NPS stars are recommending them at higher rates resulting in increased revenues? Seems reasonable enough.
March 23, 2010, 12:01 PM
The DEVO method to creating a WOM-worthy panel
The panels at SXSW Interactive sucked.
That's what some of the record 13,000 attendees have been saying about the 2010 techfest. I heard it from many people I talked with at the conference, too.
Why?
Low-level content, lame speakers and bad panel moderators.
Of course, there were good panels, including the always entertaining Guy Kawasaki on Twitter tools and the informative Jaime Punishill on banking and social media.
But one panel really stood out: "DEVO, The Internet and You." Despite being late in the afternoon on the last day of the conference, it was the best panel I saw this year.
DEVO, the 80's avante-garde band, is releasing its first album in 20 years. The ironically brilliant marketing campaign for the album is to paint DEVO, which has always espoused the idea of "de-evolution," as a corporation. DEVO, Inc. plans to use "corporate" marketing strategies to promote itself, including focus groups, hiring an ad agency, crowdsourcing, Twitter, YouTube and even Chatroulette.
Here's DEVO member Gerald Casale explaining why DEVO needs to "rebrand" itself:
Then the panel turned into a brilliant piece of performance art. First, DEVO, Inc.'s COO Greg Scholl (hint: he's not real) shared a recorded communique with the audience.
Next, Bill Moulton, from DEVO's ad agency Mother Los Angeles, delivered a funny, deadpan PowerPoint presentation about the marketing campaign, illustrating the "power of the Internet!" and how DEVO will use it. Here's a snippet:
(Here's a pre-recorded version of the entire PowerPoint.)
Then Moulton showed how the band is using online focus groups for a "color study" to get data on what color people like, as well as in-person focus groups, poking fun at the typical corporate process of gathering feedback.
Finally, Jacob, a "research consultant" to Mother LA with an amorphous European accent, conducted a live focus group with the audience to gather even more data for its study, demonstrating the banality of focus groups.
The audience got the joke. One of the first questions from the crowd was: "You've leveraged a lot of synergies. Are there any synergies you haven't been able to leverage?"
The videos illustrate why this session was a lesson in making a panel interesting and fun. Here are the hints:
- A panel is a performance.
- Prepare, prepare, prepare.
- Involve the audience.
- Don't take yourself too seriously.
Think about the next panel you are organizing. Are you going to invite some experts and just wing it? Or will you think hard about sharing the same information as a performance that gets people thinking and talking?
UPDATE: DEVO Inc. COO Greg Scholl (again, not real) just sent the DEVO fan club email list a SXSW follow-up memo. And the performance continues...
March 09, 2010, 11:07 AM
Ant's Eye View: New office, new practitioner
Here's some fun news about our company, Ant's Eye View: We are opening a Silicon Valley office. The new office will support our client base there, including Cisco, Yahoo!, SAP, Symantec, and Apple. Silicon Valley is our third office, after Seattle and Austin.
Kira Wampler of Intuit community engagement fame will lead the Silicon Valley office. She was the first word of mouth marketing manager at Inuit and is widely regarded for her expertise in developing social media marketing strategies for Intuit's Small Business market, and winning awards for it too. She's freakin' awesome.
Kira will be here in Austin this weekend at SXSWi, so say hello if you see her. You can also follow Kira on Twitter at @kirasw.
More info:
February 23, 2010, 10:50 PM
Loyalty lessons from Lady Gaga
There's a lot marketers can learn from artist and musician Lady Gaga.
At age 23, Lady Gaga has rocketed to global fame in less than two years. Playing piano at age 4 and New York nightclubs at 14, she recently broke Billboard's record as the first artist to have her first five six singles reach number one. She's won two Grammys, and has sold 8 million albums and 15 million singles digitally worldwide. While her performance art-style stage shows and bizarre outfits have garnered much buzz, it's her loyalty marketing that may sustain her for years. Gaga is dedicated to her fans and clearly knows the elements of cultivating a community of evangelistic fans.
With that, here are my 5 lessons about building brand loyalty, Lady Gaga-style:
1. Give fans a name. Gaga doesn't like the word "fan" so she calls them her "Little Monsters," named after her album "The Fame Monster." She even tattooed "Little Monsters" on her arm and tweeted the pic to fans professing love for them. Now fans are getting their own Little Monster tattoos. By giving the group a formal name, it gives fans a way to refer to each other. Fans feel like they are joining a special club. (Related business examples: Maker's Mark Ambassadors and Fiskar's Fiskateers.)
2. Make it about something bigger than you. During her concert tour, Gaga recites a "Manifesto of Little Monsters" (text) (video). Although a bit cryptic, most Little Monsters see it as a dedication to them, that her fans have the power to make or break her. (Related business examples: Smoque BBQ (pdf).)
3. Develop shared symbols. The official Little Monster greeting is the outstretched "monster claw" hand. As all Little Monsters know, the clawed hand is part of the choreography in the video of her song "Bad Romance." Gaga tells the story of watching a fan in Boston greet another fan with the claw hand and that's when she knew this was the Little Monster symbol. Even Oprah knows the Little Monster greeting. Shared symbols allow fans to identify each other and connect. (Related business example: LIVESTRONG yellow wristbands.)
4. Make your customers feel like rock stars. One staple of Gaga's "Monster Ball" tour is to call a fan in the audience during the show. She dials the number onstage, the fan screams out, is located and they are put up on a big screen. While the rest of audience goes bananas, she invites the fan to have a drink with her after the show. (Related business example: eBay Live Conference where attendees walk through a gauntlet of applauding eBay staff as they enter the closing gala)
5. Leverage social media. Gaga has the requisite Facebook fan page (over 5 million fans) and Twitter ID (almost 3 million followers) but it's how she uses them that drives loyalty. On Twitter, she tells fans what she is doing, such as tweeting them before she opened the Grammy Awards. She also tweeted to fans that she was buying them pizza for waiting overnight at an album signing.
Some artists are very protective of their image and prohibit recording devices during performances. Gaga doesn't allow professional photographers into her concerts but is ok with fans recording and putting videos on YouTube.
Whether Gaga will have staying power remains to be seen. But she is making waves in the music business and teaching plenty of people the power of fandom.
Wouldn't you like to have fans like these?
UPDATE: To further illustrate Gaga loyalty, watch this fan-created created video card montage of Little Monsters from around the world for Gaga's 24th birthday. Many of the fans get emotional talking about how Gaga has inspired them to be themselves, and not care about what others think.
February 16, 2010, 03:36 PM
$100 off admission to NewComm Forum
I will be keynoting at the NewComm Forum in April. The NewComm Forum is one of the top conferences that focuses on the power of
social media and new communications
tools and technologies to can make organizations more competitive,
insightful, innovative, efficient,
productive and ultimately more profitable.
The conference is April 20-23. Also speaking at the conference is Scott Monty, Geno Church, and Shel Holtz.
Church of the Customer readers can get $100 off registration by using this code: NCF126
More info on the conference here.
February 04, 2010, 03:48 PM
A tale of 2 birthday cards
It was my birthday this week, so that usually means birthday-related direct mail from women's retail stores. I have two examples that showcase distinct differences between doing the minimum amount and doing something worth buzz.
Ann Taylor delivered a typical postcard: 15% off a one-time purchase in February. "On your special day, treat yourself with your Birthday Bonus," says. "It's your birthday. May all of your wishes come true."
Anthropologie sent a card in a odd-sized bubble pouch featuring a perforated cupcake with a candle on it. The candle is part of a necklace. It, too, offers 15% for a one-time purchase in February.
"Happy Birthday! Make a wish. And treat yourself to something special...Your candle necklace is for you to keep," it says. "This little gift is for you and only you. And cannot be turned into chocolate, flowers or cash. It's a one-time treat...."
If there's a card that leaves a lasting impression, both of the brand and how I could possibly talk about and show to others, it's easily the Anthropologie card. From the non-standard packaging to a necklace that you can keep to the non-boring copy, it's a winner.
It's easy for anyone to print a postcard. It's a bigger challenge to create something that demonstrates your ability to connect with someone at an emotional level.
January 27, 2010, 06:50 AM
Simplify your objectives
Strategic objectives are the Holy Grail of a company's being. They typically involve big plans, so the natural inclination is to compose a lengthy description of each objective.
That means strategies and tactics are often piled into the wording of the objective. That unnecessarily complicates the objective, making it less likely to be understood quickly and efficiently. Anything not understood easily is unlikely to spread.
Here's a fictitious, slightly over-the-top example of what a top-heavy objective might look like:
Understand how to create better innovation opportunities for our products by listening closely to our customers' needs through a world-class community solution that deepens our customer relationships and helps customers share and collaborate together.
That's an unspreadable objective. It lacks clarity because it tries to say everything. It's loaded with strategies and solutions. It has a poor chance of blossoming because there's nothing simple to rally behind.
A strong objective is clear and concise like a headline. An objective is an intention, as my friend Stephen Harvill says when he helps companies clarify their thinking. A comparable example is when champion tennis player says simply, "I intend to win" before heading out to a court. How she'll win is through a series of strategies and tactics.
Therefore, to create a simple objective, strip away anything that looks like an action, a program or a piece of technology. Remove anything resembling buzzwords. Get to the soul of an intention, and make it simple.
Using that approach, the complicated objective above could be rewritten to say:
Innovate using customer feedback.
January 25, 2010, 11:00 PM
Why it's important to be a linchpin and an artist
If you want to succeed in today's world of work, author Seth Godin says you should focus on being a "linchpin." That's the title of his new book, so we asked him a few questions about it.
Q: What is a linchpin, and why is it important to become one?
A linchpin is the part you can't live without, the thing that makes a difference. In every organization there are one (or several) people like this. It might be the brilliant inventor who creates the impossible, but it's far more likely to be the great sales rep or customer service person who makes a connection, or the marketer who knows how to tell a story that resonates.
In a post-factory world, manning the assembly line isn't so critical. Stuffing the candies into the boxes, running the punch press, following the manual... these are easily replaced roles, ones where neither the worker nor the organization gains much on the margin. If you want real job satisfaction and security, then, you need to figure out how to do the unexpected, to do work that matters and to create human interactions.
Q: You talk about linchpins being artists. What's the difference between a conventional marketer and one who thinks like an artist? Can you give an example of a marketer who is an artist?
Art, by my definition, has nothing to do with painting and everything to do with connecting with people in a generous way and causing a change to take place. A movie director is making art when she makes you cry. A product designer creates art when the UI is better than it needs to be and it creates efficiency or even joy. Marketers can find plenty of Dummies books and manuals and insider PDFs that demonstrate, step by step, how to follow the rules. That's easy and not particularly valuable. A marketer becomes an artist when she goes out on a limb, does the unexpected or the risky and makes a difference.
I'd argue that you two do art when you stand up and give a talk about the 1%. Or Biz Stone was an artist when he figured out how to launch and scale Twitter's marketing. Or Scott Monty at Ford when he does a car show rollout that bypasses the cocktail parties at AutoWeek in favor of individual interviews with social media mavens. The second time someone does something, it's a copy. The first time, it's art.
Q: We understand the concept of "physical labor" when it comes to work, but you stress the importance of "emotional labor." What do you mean by that, and can you give us an example?
I don't know about you, but I haven't gotten paid to do physical labor in a really long time. Maybe typing.
Emotional labor is the act of smiling when you're scared, or getting on a plane when you're tired. It's dreaming when you don't feel like dreaming, caring when the other person is (frankly) acting like a jerk. Emotional labor is work with your heart and your soul and your feelings. We seem to feel it should be easy, but it's not. It is, though, important.
Q: We love this quote in the book: "The easier it is to quantify, the less it's worth." Can you tell us, and our MBA friends, why this is true?
If you can quantify it, then probably someone before you figured out a why to grind it out. And if you can grind it out, someone can grind it out cheaper than you can.
On the other hand, the really valuable stuff, the stuff we pay a lot for, is unquantified. Things like creating joy or security or happiness. No easy measurements for those, thus they are art, and art is always worth more than the predicted.
We measure the quantified because we can. But we should create the unquantified because it's so rare.
Q: Our lizard brain tells us to "Shut up. Don't stand out. Don't speak out. Blend in." If we want to be a linchpin, how do we silence this negative part of our brain?
Steve Pressfield calls this the resistance. The voice in your head that destroys your art. There are a myriad of ways to defeat it. You can distract it. You can trick it. You can steamroll it. You can seduce it with small steps. I'm not sure there's one best technique, but I know for certain that it must be done. My book has only one goal: to sell you on committing to this very task.
January 18, 2010, 06:15 AM
5 new ways to compete for book PR
(Editor's note: This is a guest post from Barbara Henricks of CaveHenricks, a public relations firm for business books and authors. She's considered by many to be one of the best book publicists in the publishing industry. She can be reached at barbara@cavehenricks.com.)
I’ve been in the PR business nearly 20 years, and there’s been more change the past two years than in the first 18.
That’s created much fear and confusion. Readers are consuming content from more outlets and with a staggering number of devices-- via iPhones, computers, Blackberries, Kindles, Nooks and Sony Readers, to name a handful.
Getting a book published in 2010 is vastly different than in 2007. Advances are lower, editors are more wary of risk, print runs are shrinking, bookstores are ordering fewer copies, marketing dollars are tighter and publicists are chasing coverage in a media world that is undergoing its own transformation. That means authors today must master a new environment, relying on strategy, customization, and increased author participation.
Here are five ways for writers, authors and publishers to market in this new environment:
- A great media campaign will discard many if not all of the old notions, conventional wisdom and template approach of the past. There is no one blueprint for building a best seller. The best campaigns draw on all forms of media, with increased emphasis on digital forms. Campaigns today rely on the author’s participation beyond traditional tours and interviews. The best campaigns draw on an author’s natural strengths.
- There are no longer any magic bullets. No one single media hit can ensure a book’s meteoric rise to the top, with the possible exception of a full hour of “The Oprah Show” that features only one book, its ideas or the author.
- Magazine coverage is coming later and later, but now has the potential to prolong a book’s sales life. Not so long ago, if a magazine did not commit to coverage 3-4 months ahead of a book’s publication date, the process was over. Now, magazine editors will often take a look at finished books and post a review, an article or a bylined piece by the author in their online editions almost immediately. In some cases, if the online piece gets a lot of views, the magazine will run something in the print edition months after the book’s release, which will keep the sales alive well into the campaign.
- Bloggers are jumpstarting many successful media campaigns. For this to work, authors must be willing to become active participants – offering relevant content, contributing comments and connecting directly with bloggers themselves. It’s still the publicist’s job to do the legwork to guide authors through the vast landscape of bloggers, identifying a target group whose readership matches most closely with the book’s intended audience, but the author’s direct participation is required to make this outreach successful.
- Relationships will remain at the heart of good book promotion, but forming them will be more difficult than ever, particularly with the blog world. The best approach is good strategy – taking stories and ideas to a journalist only after very careful consideration of whether that book or message truly meets their needs. Repeatedly delivering only relevant material is the biggest relationship builder of all.
The landscape is different, the challenges new, but as always, big ideas and great books will will always find their way. As someone who cherishes her Kindle for its portability, must have the Sunday New York Times in its reassuringly weighty bundle, reads daily news online and cherishes her big glossy copy of Vogue, I know the industry will figure out how to integrate these formats into a successful mix.
Right now, it’s in flux.
January 15, 2010, 12:49 PM
Please donate to Haiti earthquake relief
If you are able, please consider giving to the Haiti relief efforts. We have given to Yele Haiti, a grassroots movement that builds global awareness for Haiti while
helping to transform the country through programs in education, sports,
the arts and environment. Yéle Haiti was founded in 2005 by Wyclef Jean, Grammy-award winning musician, humanitarian and Goodwill Ambassador to Haiti.
December 15, 2009, 07:12 AM
Create a 1-page strategic plan
A strategic plan has a better chance of being successful when it's easy to understand, easy to find, and easy to share.
That's why after we create longer-form strategy documents for social media or customer evangelism planning, we convert them into 1-page infographics. The word-driven complexity of a strategic plan is easier to comprehend when it's displayed graphically. We've found the one-pager to be a convenient way to keep everyone in a group or a team on the same page -- literally and figuratively.
One-page strategic plans like this can be printed on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper, tacked to a wall, put in the front pocket of a binder or sent easily via email. Each component is color-coded into a group, and every component has a parent component to guard against orphan tactics or strategies.
The plan above is for a fictitious company. Click on the graphic to see a larger version.
(For an explanation of how we define objectives, goals, strategies and tactics in a strategic plan, see my last blog post.)
December 14, 2009, 04:00 AM
70 things to think about (and do) in 2010
Seth Godin challenged us and 69 others to come up with big or small ideas that will matter in 2010.
Along with ideas from Chip and Dan Heath, John Moore, Tony Hsieh, Dan Pink, Bill Taylor and Tom Peters, you will find our submission about the One Percenters in the new ebook, "What Matters Now."
It's a fun and provocative read, and you can and should download it here.
What Matters Now
December 11, 2009, 05:38 AM
Objectives, goals, strategies and tactics
It's that time: time to create strategic plans for next year.
Most people use some form of objectives, goals, strategies and tactics for their plans, but get a group of 10 people into a room and you might have 10 different definitions of what those terms mean? That's why agreeing on their meaning is vital to your plan. Term agreement is a lubricant to productivity.
With that in mind, here's how we define the intention, purpose and usage of "objectives, goals, strategies and tactics" when assembling a strategic plan.
Objectives
An objective is a high-level achievement. The simpler the better, like "Improve customer loyalty" or "Grow our market share." They can also be mountain-tops of company success: "Make our brand a word of mouth success story." They could be trying to solve a nagging, systemic problem or doing something big, like entering a new market. Objectives are a rally point for leaders who manage day-to-day efforts: "Will the idea being pitched to me help us reduce our churn?" or "Will this project help us develop a new market?" For us, objectives sit at the top of the strategic plan, and an ideal plan has no more than a handful of them. Anything more can be overload -- for leaders and the people who work for them.
Goals
In our framework, a goal is anything that's measured. Goals can be revenue, profit margin, members in a community, certifications delivered, a Net Promoter Score number, etc. Goals determine how you fulfill an objective. Multiple goals can, and should, support a single objective. A goal of "Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 59" can support multiple objectives like "become a word of mouth success story" and "deliver best-in-class service." Just like in sports, a goal is based on numbers.
Strategies
A strategy is a way to describe a series of tactics, or very specific actions. In sports or war, strategy is often described as an action: Increase troop levels in a region. Do man-to-man coverage. The commonality is action performed by a team or group of people. Each strategy description begins with a verb to signify that something is being done. Example verbs include: create, hire, develop, launch, etc. Each strategy is supported, typically, by a series of specific tactics that may or may not be linear in execution or time. Every item in our strategic planning framework begins with a verb.
Tactics
A tactic is a very specific action, like creating a new program or improving an existing one. In our framework, a tactic might be "Launch a online listening program" or "Form a customer advisory board for the manufacturing group." Each tactic has an owner who may rely on the work of multiple people in direct or dotted-line reporting relationships to make the tactic work. Each tactic typically has its own plan, too, whether laid out in a spreadsheet or a Gantt chart. Tactics are best, too, when they are preceded with a verb. Specificity is the driver to improvement.
Later: Afterward, Beth Harte raised this point: Who should own the definition of terms like objectives, goals, strategies and tactics? If you believe language is a reflection of culture, and that culture is largely driven from the top, then I would suggest definitions come from office of the CEO and/or COO. It's from there that planning terminology, and even the planning process, should be taught clearly, succinctly and repeatedly. Beth thinks definitions could be owned by an outside association. If you have an opinion, hop into the comments.
December 09, 2009, 02:04 PM
Social Media 2010: it's time to get boring
2009 is feeling a bit like 1999 when it comes to social media.
CNN, Ashton Kutcher and Oprah helped stir the hype for Twitter. Social media and Twitter conferences sprang up everywhere. Social media snake oil salesmen prowled Twitter. Lots of hype, but not a lot of process-driven action.
My prediction for 2010: social gets integrated into business functions. That means: social media policies, aligning social media strategies and tactics with overall business objectives and revenue goals, and realigning functional teams. Yeah, not as exciting as another viral video but those are as reliable as a Vegas roulette table. Social media process is hard work, so it's time for social media to get boring! For process geeks like me, that's pretty exciting.
What was hot in 2009 is out in 2010.
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OUT |
IN |
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Influencers |
Fans |
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Return on conversations |
Return on investment (always in style) |
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Email threads |
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Advertising on Twitter |
Insights from Twitter |
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Taking feedback |
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Interns in charge of posting in social media |
The CMO participating in social media** |
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Showing off |
Showing up |
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Focused on yourself |
Focused on your customer |
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Number of followers |
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Blocking employees from using social media |
Incenting employees to use social media |
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Billy Mays |
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Corp Communications Department |
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Cupcakes |
Ok, that last one has nothing to do with social media. I just like saying and eating cake balls : )
* Via Sean O'Driscoll
** An Ant's Eye View client.
November 18, 2009, 03:14 AM
New company, new history
When Jackie Huba and I decided eight years ago to start a company, we envisioned it as a consulting firm that would help clients create customer evangelists.
It was March 2001. We'd both just left the web development company we had worked at for three years. Online advertising was king then, but we wanted to explore why some brands experienced strong word of mouth while others didn't. We wanted to understand what fueled the evangelism, how it happened, and how could we help others do the same.
We started with a website and an email newsletter in an era that could only be described as Before Blogs. A few months later, Fast Company did a short write-up on us, which led to a call from a publisher, which led to a book contract, which led to a year's worth of work, which led to the book "Creating Customer Evangelists" and a regular schedule of speaking engagements and workshops. Instead of focusing on building a company, we focused on spreading a philosophy.
Eight years later, there's a wide range of belief systems to choose from: evangelists, influencers, agents, advocates, mavens or sneezers. Social media fuels all of them at remarkable speed; some companies have adapted well while many others do nothing -- not because they're resistant to change, but because they're unsure of what to do. We think it's a good time to help with that.
So today we're announcing that Ant's Eye View, a management consulting company led by our friends Sean O'Driscoll and Jake McKee, is acquiring us and our company that's home to all of our work. We're very excited to be part of a group that helps business get smart about being social. We'll keep blogging here, and we'll continue to speak at conferences like we have for years, but we'll do that while helping grow a management consulting firm.
Ant's Eye View isn't even a year old yet, but it's already growing like some freaky kid prodigy. Sean was the guy behind Microsoft's MVP program, a community that brings knowledgeable Microsoft product users together with others who have questions or problems to solve. Jake was the guy at LEGO who changed the way that company thought about and engaged with loyal fans and customers through community relations (the subject of a Wired cover story in 2006).
Sean and Jake joined forces early in 2009 to launch Ant's Eye View. After that, they brought in Sean McDonald; he'd led the social media efforts at Dell to rebuild the company's image after "Dell Hell" scorched it. That included the company’s first corporate blog and pioneering efforts like Ideastorm.com.
We like Ant's Eye View because its people have led complex, customer-driven projects at big brands. They understand and believe in customer participation -- the fifth P of marketing -- our core marketing philosophy. They're focused, too; in less time than it takes some companies to decide on a name and a logo, Ant's Eye View has built an impressive roster of clients like Cisco, Apple, Intuit and a bunch of others. Word is just beginning to spread.
It's fitting that our announcement happens on the first day of the 2009 WOMMA Summit in Las Vegas. Five years ago, myself, Jackie and a handful of others met with Pete Blackshaw, Dave Balter and Jonathan Carson to hear their idea for an association focused on word of mouth. We're glad they eventually founded the Word of Mouth Marketing Association, which promotes the importance of word of mouth among all industries; Jackie was even named a founding board member. A bit rocky at times in its early years, WOMMA has filled its shoes well lately, especially by partnering with smarties like John Moore.
In fact, tonight at 7:30 pm (Wednesday), Ant's Eye View is throwing a celebration party at WOMMA. We'll be at the Risque club inside the Paris hotel, and the drinks are on us.
November 12, 2009, 02:16 PM
Advertising without advertising
Sometimes a movie quote is the best way to capture what you're all about.
October 30, 2009, 12:35 PM
Kicking out unwanted customers
"Don't talk during the movie or we will take your ass out."
If you've been to an Alamo Drafthouse, the movie theater chain in Austin, Texas, then you've seen that semi-serious warning couched in a fun "public service announcement" before a movie showing. Theater founder Tim League knows that talkers mar the movie-watching experience for everyone else, and he does not tolerate them -- even if they punch the windshield of his car.
See, Tim was a customer recently at one of his theaters. A nearby loud-talker was asked by a theater waiter to keep it down. The customer protested, loudly, demanding to know who was offended by his talking. The waiter pointed to Tim.
Then it gets better... OK, worse.
After the the movie, the incensed customer followed Tim to his car, badgering him with anger. It climaxed with the customer punching the windshield of Tim's car, vowing never to return to an Alamo theater again.
To which Tim wrote on his blog:
"Fabulous.You sir are exactly the type of patron that I never want to see at an Alamo Drafthouse ever again. People who continue to talk when the movie has started are impolite, self-absorbed losers who were never taught common decency by their parents. WE DON’T EVER WANT YOU AT THE ALAMO. Please take your business elsewhere for the rest of your life....To our friendly customers, stay vigilant, report talkers and keep our theater safe from the raging hemorrhoids of cinematic society."
This happens all the time inside stores, movie theaters, sporting events, airline flights; an obnoxious customer makes everyone uncomfortable, and everyone in charge is oblivious.
Commenters on Tim's blog post love that he is standing up for them. If you stand with your best customers at the expense of the bad ones, you'll win bigger. The customer is always right -- if it's the right customer.
BONUS: Here's a years-ago example of an Alamo no talking "public service" video. This one stars the late Texas Gov. Ann Richards.
October 22, 2009, 12:31 PM
Twitter: the killer app for customer service
"Hello, this is Sam Kaufman from the AT&T Internet Executive Office, and I am calling about your tweets."
That's what I heard yesterday after posting a few tweets about my less-than-stellar customer service experience with an AT&T DSL technical support rep. The rep was trying to diagnose my DSL problems and after telling me to stay on the line for 10 minutes, he never returned after 30 minutes. I hung up. He never called back.
With a few hours of my AT&T tweet, @ATTJohnathon, a customer care rep on Twitter contacted me, asking if he could help. I DM'ed him my account number as he requested and he passed it on to Sam. Turns out Sam is part of the Customer Advocacy Center, where escalated customer complaints are sent. Sam says he has recently started receiving tweets from the AT&T Twitter team for follow-up.
AT&T is on board with social media for customer service. In addition to the five fourteen customer care reps on Twitter, the company has 23 social media channels on Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Posterous and blogs.
Comcast may have been the first high-profile company to use Twitter for customer service, but now others are seeing the benefits as well, such as DirectTV, Wells Fargo, Alaska Airlines and FourSquare.
Twitter is the killer app for customer service. Companies can discover aggravating service problems by using a variety of tools to listen on tweets mentioning their name. A response can be nearly immediate.
It's good word of mouth, too. Mediocre service is such a standard that any form of pro-active Twitter customer service is worth talking about.
October 19, 2009, 03:24 PM
Fees are penalties. Always.
It's a wonder why some businesses can't grasp this. Consider the U.S. airlines last month:
- Southwest reported an 8.8% increase in revenue passenger miles. Its load factor, the percentage of seats that were filled, increased 11% from a year ago, to 74.7% — a big increase for a month in which schools reopen and summer vacation travels stop.
- JetBlue saw a 9.8% jump in passenger miles. Its load factor rose about 1% from the prior year, to 77.6%.
Compare those numbers to other airlines.
- Delta: Down 5% on its mainline operation. It also cut capacity by 5%.
- American: Down 2.6% domestically. It cut capacity by 6.9%.
- US Airways: Down 6.8% domestically. It cut capacity by 5.9%.
- United: Down 6.1% domestically. It cut capacity by 8%.
What's a key difference between Southwest and JetBlue vs. the others? No bag fee charges.
Before you say, "You can't correlate those two things, Jackie!" let it be noted that Southwest has commissioned several studies that show the traveling public hates bag fees.
Southwest seems to be doing pretty well as angry passengers migrate away from the bag-fee chargers. Southwest is even running an ad campaign with this message, called "Why do they hate your bags?"
Those nickle and dime fees add up, the airlines will say, but really, they do little more than penalize customers with complexity and disguise the end price. It's no different when a phone or cable company charges activation fees. May as well call them aggravation fees, as in "It's aggravating to have a new customer."
Little wonder passenger satisfaction with the airline industry has declined for a third consecutive year to a four-year low.
Wall Street analysts don't like Southwest's position on bag fees. They say the company is potentially losing $500 million per year in revenue. That's OK. No one likes greedy, short-sighted Wall Street analysts, either.
Kevin Krone, Southwest's VP of marketing, said it best : "If we're trying to get people to travel, we should probably let people take their suitcase."
Gotta love any company that keeps the obvious in perspective.
October 16, 2009, 03:30 PM
4 questions with author Jeanne Bliss
Many businesses are admired, but only an elite few have passionate, loyal, vocal fans. The kind of customers who not only come back time and time again, but rave to friends, family, and even strangers.
Jeanne Bliss has been the Chief Customer Officer for Lands End, Coldwell Banker, and Allstate, to name a few. Her new book, "I Love You More Than My Dog": Five Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad,
Q: You describe five types of decisions companies make; is one more difficult or easier than the rest, and how do they happen?
A: The foundation of every beloved company is their purposeful decision to believe. They believe in their employees. This frees them from rules, regulations and processes that take away ingenuity and inventiveness and spirit. And they believe their customers. This creates a level playing field between company and customer, where no one has the upper hand. By believing customers, companies remove the fine print, the unpublished rules and the just plain old stupid rules that make customers struggle to do business with them. This belief fuels the prosperity of human spirit common to all of the beloved companies. It is the underpinning of what draws customers to them and makes employees want to stay. There's no sequence to how companies become proficient at deciding to be there. It’s a funny way of saying this, but the act of believing is an essential core competency of beloved companies.
Q: Online communities and social media have helped create a sense of transparency. Have these been the drivers of a customer driven community or are they merely the byproduct?
A: What’s different about companies that people are drawn to is that they aren’t afraid to show up as who they are, foibles and all. This means earning the rave when they do things well. But it also means fessing up when things go wrong. These businesses allow people to bring the best version of themselves to work with them. They are nurtured and encouraged to apply their personal business decision making in their business decision making. It’s what enables companies such as Lush Cosmetics to have the open volley and exchange of ideas with employees and customers who debate and defend decisions on which 100 products they cut out each year. They enjoy family talk, not corporate talk. Griffin Hospital, for example, saw a 40% reduction in malpractice lawsuits when they decided to suspend the cynicism and trust families and patients by opening up complete records to them. A lot of companies want to “get” the rave. My take is that they’ve got that backwards. Companies need to earn the right to have customers tell their story.
Q: Do companies need to be customer-driven to grow?
A: Companies forget that customers keep them in business. Customers who love companies grow them. To understand this, think of customer math -- a rigorous way to track incoming customers by volume and value and then reconcile that number with the lost customers in that same period, comparing incoming and outgoing customer volume and value. The ‘aha moment’ comes when the math reveals that company marketing dollars are spent replacing customers lost rather than growing the business with the addition of new customers. In essence, many companies are running in place. I believe in elevating customers as the asset of the business. That means creating a competency for rigor around a) identifying and getting rid of those things driving customers away; and then b) getting really great at specific things that create a distinct memory and impression about a company and its people. We forget the fact that it’s the creation of those memories that we make on purpose or accidentally through our operations decisions or policy choices that connect or repel us from customers.
Q: What’s the biggest obstacle companies face in making them beloved?
A: Always looking at what each decision will get them. In a world where products and services are available in a hundred variations, these companies get a disproportionate piece of the pie because of how they treat their customers and employees. Acutely aware of how their every action impacts how customers feel and respond to them, they take the time to make purposeful decisions about the contacts they have with customers. So I’d say that the two biggest things in the way of companies adopting these decisions, is first, time: The rush of the deadline, of the quarter, and of making the quarterly sales goals. The second is silos. The inability of coming together as a unified operation to work together, fail and learn together and win together.
