Church of the Customer: August 2005 archives
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August 02, 2005
Hiring for attitude, not just skill
The world is filled with retail store employees who have no interest in their work. Just a paycheck.
This help-wanted sign posted in the window of a Tea Gschwendner store in Chicago recently stopped me in my tracks becaust of its well-defined cause ("passionate about tea") and its unique filter for potential employees.
Without stating it directly, the company is saying: "We don't want just anyone. We hire for attitude, not just skill."
August 01, 2005
Chicago for sale
Chicago is short $94.1 million dollars for 2006.
How will the mayor raise funds? By selling naming rights of city assets to the highest corporate bidders, reports the Sun-Times.
"There's a few other assets that may provide for a captive audience to be exposed to advertising" or naming rights, said Budget Director John Harris. "The [Chicago Transit Authority] is exploring it for some of its train lines.... We will be putting out a request for information to the experts in that field to give us some more ideas."
That includes airports, libraries, water filtration plants, police and fire stations and vehicles, bridges over the Chicago River, the famed Lake Shore Drive, even the 911 emergency center.
I can see it now...
911 Operator: Hello! Welcome to 911, brought to you by Crest Whitestrips, which gives you brighter, whiter teeth for 18 months without lasers.
The science of word of mouth
In our last podcast, we chatted with Dr. Walter Carl, an assistant professor at Northeastern University who is researching organized word-of-mouth programs and whether they alter the medium's natural ecosystem.
BzzAgent provided Walter with a big chunk o' data to study and today, the company released some of his findings in a six-page whitepaper. (We're mirroring the 229kb PDF here.)
Some of the key findings:
* Nearly 80% of word of mouth happens face to face
* WOM resulting from a managed program tends to be as spontaneous as natural WOM
* WOM programs managed by third-party agencies tend to attract volunteers who are more socially connected and spread more buzz than the average person
* People in WOM programs usually do not oversell their networks to the point of losing credibility
* WOM program volunteers nearly double the number of recommendations they provide than those who aren't part of a program
That's all good news for companies like BzzAgent that manage WOM programs for clients, but there are questions to be answered with additional research, as Walter told us last month, including:
* How do managed WOM programs affect sales?
* Do people in managed WOM programs have greater, lesser, or the same level credibility in their social networks as their peers?
* The 80/20 rule: If 80% of WOM is happening offline, is the 20% of online WOM influencing the larger group? Or vice versa?
* Does managed WOM differ by industry or product type? Is WOM the same or different for B-to-B companies vs. B-to-C companies?
* What's the variance of managed WOM programs managed by agencies vs. programs managed in-house?
Carl's paper will arrive next year in Management Communication Quarterly. Let's hope more companies volunteer their data for academics to dissect.
