Going to the Dogs…or, Shopping Doors For Pooches Showcases Customer Loyalty
May 30, 2007 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Service that exceeds expectations. Why is that so hard? How come more people don’t choose to deliver service that’s premiere?
Gary made a simple decision after Percy, his standard poodle was sick. Get a dog door. He priced. He measured. He considered. And he finally went to a nearby home improvement store (a major chain) and ordered a new door with a doggie window insert. “It’s going to be ten days sir,” the clerk said. “No problem,” Gary replied. “I need the door before I leave town August 11th.” It was July 1. Two weeks passed. No word. Three weeks came and went and Gary decided to revisit the store. “The guy that would know about that is off today,” he was told. Undeterred, Gary asked for the manager.
It took several minutes, but the manager finally found the paperwork and the door. He proudly brought it to the service counter and presented it to Gary. “Where’s the dog door?” he demanded. “And the bottom sweep?” The manager seemed surprised and recovered. “They must have sent the wrong one,” he said. “I’ll get another one ordered in.”
I need that door by August 11th Gary reminded him. I’m going out of town. The manager nodded his head absently. “Can’t you have a local firm cut that door out?” Gary asked. “Not our policy,” the manager shot back. Gary nudged further. “You know you advertise satisfaction guaranteed?” “We’ll get it taken care of,” the manager said.
A week later the door was in. Upon inspection Gary declared it ok, took it home and began the installation process. As he held the new door up, it became obvious that the hinges were in the wrong place. He angrily took the door down, loaded it in the truck and headed back to the store. At the customer service counter the comment was “too bad.” The salesman looked at the door and drawled, “You must have measured wrong, cowboy.” Gary, a mechanical engineer prepared for the good fight.
There may have been no way to salvage the relationship at that point. It is a scene repeated many times over in business. Is customer service dead?
Any customer loyalty that Gary had to this store is now gone. In fact, he’ll tell the dog door story over and over, thus spreading the word of their failures to live up to their word. A special order is just that: special. It’s an offer to do something out of the ordinary and a promise that it will be done completely and correctly. I mention this because it’s one year later and I just heard a similar story. Same store. Similar problem.
Is it because we go so fast that we don’t take the time to really know what’s going on? Is that how things go awry? Or is it multi-tasking? Either way, we’re killing customer loyalty. (P.S. What’s a dog to do?)
Technically challenged and loving life?
May 24, 2007 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
It bugs me that things just don’t work. The little widgets that require a geek to set up make me nuts. It’s not fair to expect that I will/can spend an hour figuring out the “how to.” The funny thing is that I know I’m not the only one. It amazes me that someone can spend 20 minutes checking out what I just said didn’t work and then say, “You’re right, it doesn’t work.”
My colleague, Mary Schmidt talked about something similar in a blog post a few days ago (Yawn. The Battle of the Spectrum). She took issue with Verizon Wireless for a customer service problem. It reminded me of a similar situation with the same company. When my Motorola Razr phone died a few weeks ago, I was given the option of upgrading to a new phone for the fee of $50 or, I could send my phone in and wait for repair which might or might not happen. This little encouraging tidbit was delivered by a gum chewing, foot shifting, size zero, twenty-something who really didn’t care what I thought of the options. Just to check, I asked her a question? “Like, I already told you,” she started impatiently, popping a bubble. With an extremely bored look on her face she plugged my phone replacement in, ran the charge and handed me the receipt. No “thank you,” no ‘do you have any question.’, no nothing.
As it turned out, I had a number of problems. My bluetooth no longer worked with the phone. It was a refurbished phone, I was finally told, and sometimes this happened. I made the change for yet another phone. By this time my expertise in programming rings, numbers and display had increased considerably. That’s what the learning curve will do for you. My respect for customer service, unfortunately, had not enjoyed the same gains. I’d been on the phone with support numerous times; they were seemingly unconvinced that a “girl” could possibly have figured out that the bluetooth didn’t work. I’d made three trips to the service center, each time waiting in line for the privilege of being dissed. I’d developed a conviction that continues to grow: it shouldn’t be this hard.
I believe that a company that trains employees to say, “Thank you for being the best part of Verizon Wireless” should at least also train the customer service representative to look at you when they discuss your problem. I believe that repeated asking of questions like “Did I resolve all of your problems?” harms rather than helps the customer relationship when you’re on your third or fourth try to resolve something. I believe that customer service is critical to the future of any business and I believe that all of us have to get better at it.
Nice Guys Like David Meerman Scott Walk their Talk
May 19, 2007 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
You meet the nicest, smartest people on the web. That’s where I met David Meerman Scott. I found his e-book, “The New Rules of Marketing and PR,” (see an earlier post here) to be so insightful that I emailed him to see if I could include one of his quotes in my newsletter. Not only did he agree, he told me to quote from his http://www.webinknow.com/ anytime and offered to send me an early copy of his book when it was released. I’ve since enjoyed a number of postings on David’s blog including a recent one where he noted that the cell phone camera is the new lighter of today’s concerts.
This week I’ve been reading David’s early release “The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly.” What I respect is that this book is presented in a conversational style that reads easily, and encourages one to use the information. What I’ve found so far is that the information is strong, practical, and easily applicable. There are lots of examples and as a result, what I enjoy is seeing myself doing the very things outlined. Even more importantly, what I now know is that David Meerman Scott walks his talk.
As someone with a heavy speaking/writing schedule, he might not be expected to answer his own email, let alone follow up on a promise to send an early release of a book. Yet, he did all of those things. As a long-time student of loyalty, nothing impresses me more than good follow through. I can’t wait to talk about “The New Rules,” use specific examples of its practicality (NOTE: David talks for example about targeting specific reporters, reading their blogs, and defining an objective prior to ever doing a press release) and encourage people in my world to get it.
David Meerman Scott’s early release is perfectly timed for me personally as I prepare a seminar about online press rooms. It’s perfectly timed for many of my clients who are working to implement these very principles; as I read what he’s written, I’m more convinced than ever that they have to build their content engines.
Thanks for the inspiration, David. I was happy to note that you have a new e-book available for download. I’ll address that tomorrow and offer people that link as well. Imagine, free content – another example of walking the talk. Go figure.
Take the Mystery Out of Media Kits
May 13, 2007 by Mary Ellen · 3 Comments
Even as social media continues to climb in importance, traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, radio, television and cable require different approaches. Thinking through the strategies you will use to communicate with your critical media audience is imperative to success. As your business communicates with media, you have an opportunity to put your best foot forward with a media kit.
Media kits continue to be of interest to my clients. In fact, in response to demand, I produced a newsletter about media kits; a copy “Media Kits Double as Hard Hats: Prepare Your Media Kit in Advance So You’re Always Protected” can be found online.
In an upcoming seminar Tuesday, May 22, 2007 hosted by EXHIB-IT! Tradeshow Marketing Experts I discuss core elements for media kits. For more information or to register to attend this seminar, click here.
Because of great interest in this topic, I am producing several tipsheets and a workbook to help you to develop a media kits for your firm. Please post a comment if you want to receive more information about this kit.
Blogsphere conversation
May 12, 2007 by Mary Ellen · 1 Comment
The subject line read: “PS – Nice start on the blog.” The body of the email contained more information and concluded with the comment “I’ve added you to my blogroll. Will spotlight one of your posts soon.”
Mary Schmidt, Business Developer and Marketing Troubleshooter converses easily on and offline. She models community, one of the five critical points of contact. In fact, she’s working the blogging community angle this weekend at a blogging conference in Chicago.
I appreciate the outreach and I look forward to continuing that conversation and starting others in the blogsphere. Someday soon, I’ll even manage my own blogroll. It’s a process, a rather fun and challenging process. Just yesterday I discussed matters of technical nature with another entrepreneur who’s off on a different, albeit related journey called podcasting. That’s yet another post.
As I continue down the blogpath, I’m inspired by Theodore Roosevelt’s quote about persistence: “it is far better in life to strive for mighty deeds, win glorious triumphs, although checkered with failure, than to join the ranks of those poor, timid souls who live in the gray twilight of never achieving much, never risking or failing much, not knowing the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat.” Here’s to those mighty deeds. You go, Mary!
Capture Customers with Content and Context
May 8, 2007 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Of the five critical audiences, customers–the reason for business–come first. Stories of customer care gone wrong, usually due to no communication or bad communication, show up in every medium. Imagine my surprise when a rubber chicken banquet about financial matters captured my attention and won my praise.
Bob Doll, Vice Chairman, Global Chief Investment Officer of Equities for BlackRock, discussed the complicated topic of investing in a volatile market; he spoke during dinner to approximately 250 people from all walks of life and made it interesting. (NOTE: I failed to look at my watch once during the dinner presentation.)
Doll used Power Point, displayed on two large screens, one in each front corner of the room. While he had far too much text for my tastes, he did not repeat the verbiage on the screen. Rather, he expanded on the points and called the audience’s attention to graphs which further illustrated the information. He moved quickly through his ten point trademark; Doll has published Ten Predictions for the year since 2001. (I discovered that in a later Google search.)
In fairness, it’s often easy to finesse a prepared presentation; Doll also held his own in an impromptu question and answer session from the floor. Once again, he provided context and consistency in his information, explaining his thoughts about the French elections, discussing the impact of the Chinese work force on the world economy, and reminding the audience that currencies are a zero sum game. As a presenter, Doll had the courtesy to repeat questions that could not be heard by the entire audience.
I found my thinking stimulated, my interest piqued and my appreciation for good customer communication increased.
Theory of Customer Communication Explored
May 2, 2007 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Typically businesses concern themselves with customer communication. The experts remind us that that is or should be priority one. We talked about the challenge to this theory at a gathering of Independent Business owners – Albuquerque Independent Business Alliance or AIBA.
In the space of a few minutes, these faux paus of business-to-business communication emerged:
- No response to voice mail
- No response to a service request
- No return call when promised
- No product delivery as promised
- No call or notification about it
- Excuses for everything – regularly
- Finders fee requested long after the fact and with no preliminary discussion
- Missed scheduled appointment; failed to call, email or follow up the same day
- Attitude – rolling of eyes, sighing, obvious boredom with the question and/or situation
- No responsibility for agreements
Reputation is everything in business. What does your reputation say about you? Moral: Do what you say you will do.
Public Relations Continues to Win as a Media Strategy
May 2, 2007 by Mary Ellen · Leave a Comment
Getting the word out about your business…bang for the buck…difficult to measure…These are the commentaries about public relations – PR – one of the most misunderstood and maligned marketing strategies in business today.
David Meerman Scott has written a complimentary e-book that explores PR and how it changes. Download your free copy from WebInkNow, his blog. “The New Rules of Marketing & PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing & Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly” comes out in June.
One hint about his material: prepare yourself to think differently about press releases. More on this in coming posts.
Welcome to the new ProfitMeister blog!
May 1, 2007 by Mary Ellen · 2 Comments
Hi and welcome to a new ProfitMeister blog, that looks at business from the standpoint of profit, not just the “cash in the till” profit, but the profit gained from reflecting on the meat of the lessons learned. It’s become a habit with me, one developed early in life. During those times when I hit pause, I know that my experiences are simply a microcosm for all business. I stretch, recommit, review, and then do it again.
My mission for this blog is to look at our five critical points of communication – stakeholders, customers, employees, media and general public – and the stories and shared experiences that come out of each. As such, my blog becomes the story of relationships (only a contract has facts) and in the process business and life balance out for profit!
