Customer Experience Crossroads

More on Curves: how not to re-engage lost customers

I've written in the past about Curves, a very interesting franchise operation. They've done some brilliant marketing in the past, and the very concept of the operation is a great example of building a service offering for an under-served market segment. I used to be a member of the local operation, but now I'm at a competitor around the corner.

I drifted away in a familiar pattern. Not going very often. Then even less often. Not knowing the staff anymore. And they didn't recognize me either. Finally, it just seemed like a pointless waste of money to keep a membership going that only made me feel guilty and wasn't making me any fitter.

Now they want me back.

A letter showed up at the house a few weeks ago. [And is now part of my collection of good, bad, and ugly customer experience stuff.]

"Dear Past Curves Member" it starts out. A harbinger of the tone of the rest of the letter.

The signature is photocopied.

You know, it's totally possible that they had a few hundred past members they wanted to send mail to. But instead of hand-writing the envelope address, they should really have personalized the inside, and signed each letter.

And their offers kind of left me lukewarm. I can avoid the service fee if I bring in something for the Sick Kids Toy Drive "minimum value $30".

I saw "ONE FREE MONTH", but then read that it's a draw for one free month, and I'm only entered if I bring a friend who also joins. When you are trying to re-engage someone who was a customer, offering a genuine enticement is a good idea. This doesn't really cut it.

This offer was only made available for two days. That's right folks, they're on a tight schedule. They want you back, they want you to buy and bring a $30 toy, they want you to bring a friend and get them to sign up, but you need to do it on two specific days.

Here's the best part: "Appointments will be limited".

Imagine putting all these things together, the toy and the friend and all, and convincing the friend that even though you dumped the membership, we should all just go back because they've repainted or something. Then making the call and being told, 'sorry, we don't have any more appointments during this offer period. We'd love to have you come in at full price next week."

Susan's tips:

If you want your former customers to take a chance on you again, you need to offer solid incentives. No catches. No gotchas.

If you are a neighborhood operation, as Curves is, you should really make the offer as personal as possible. Signing the letter personally is a good idea. So is personalizing with the customer's name. Definitely do not call me "former customer".

References:

I've written about Curves before. I had to finally close out the comments because the Curves nation was starting to take over the blog.

Making tradeoffs in customer experience design: CurvesSmart, and what it means for the Curves experience. CustomerCrossroads Blog, October 9, 2007

Designing experiences: Prototype, pilot, tweak and adjust. CustomerCrossroads Blog, October 17, 2007

Qualitative research in segmentation: why you need it and how to get value. Slides on Slideshare of a presentation I gave. Curves was in the "good" examples section.

Was the CurvesSmart Program a Smart Choice, November, 2008,on the Leximancer Blog references my earlier posts, and uses their analysis tool on some Curves comment data. Sadly, they got me confused with some other Susan and got the attribution wrong. Such is life in the blog-o-sphere. Their article is interesting all the same, and an example of what can be done with some of the new text analysis tools available.

This just in: digital nomads, social networking in the workplace, Burger King Studio reprise - how to manage social media

I have to tell you that the guys who created Burger King Studio -- Mess Marketing in Chicago -- demonstrated awesome social media management skills.  You will recall my post wherein I gushed about the cool t-shirts you can make online, and gave them what-for about glitches on their purchase process. Look at all the things they did right here:

♥ They are keeping track of social media mentions of their project. [check]
♥ Rob Robinson, creative director, immediately posted a comment on the blog [check]
♥ Then he tracked down my e-mail and sent me a personal note there too [check]
♥ He apologized for the problem, acknowledged my concerns, said they would give the feedback to the web team, and would also try to find my custom designs!  [check, check, check, double check!]
♥ I got an additional wow when a package showed up at my office, with two t-shirts, some cute buttons, and a catalog of the project showed up. [2 checks and a gold star for that one!] 

This is totally going to make workouts more fun while trainer TK - aka the princess of pain - is tossing medicine balls at me.

♥ Oh, and one more thing. They went hunting for my custom designs, and have promised to send them along as soon as they are made. [extra credit!]
Here they are:


I told him, via e-mail, that I was planning on using the t-shirts as prizes for a workshop I am doing for a client on consumer trends. Because I thought their project was pretty leading edge.  Which it is.

Okay, so he's getting a little earned -- aka unpaid -- media. And he had to exert a little effort for it, as do you. But look at this circle of happiness that was created. He gets more profile. I get cool t-shirts. AND I get a killer story for the next dozen or so presentations I give. Everybody wins.

And an even more loyal BK customer, who really likes to have it her way.

***

Stopping by Chris Brogan's blog I found an interesting report from Citrix about web commuters -- the workshifting phenomenon.  Some startling statistics like these: by 2008 there were 33.7 million US teleworkers. Forrester is projecting big growth, such that as many as 1/3 of the workforce will work from home at least part of the time.  Given that you can't flip burgers or change hotel sheets from home, I'd guess that this means knowledge workers will be telecommuting a lot.

A study Citrix Online commissioned found that 73% of American workers and 53% of small business owners want to be able to work remotely.

In the late 80's I was part of a Future of Work Secretariat that the ministry of labour in Alberta launched. We were talking about this stuff then, but the technology just wasn't there. Now it is.

Apart from technology support, what does this group of people need?

***

In a similar vein, Aon Consulting has published a report about employee attitudes around social media in the workplace. Aon is looking at the big shift towards Millennials in the workplace, and their comfort level with social media, and seeing a disconnect with the ways employers communicate.

45% of the 8000 respondents in the study already work remotely. Almost half use instant messaging at work. Four in ten use text messaging at work -- not to talk to family and friends, but to exchange information.

"The internet’s power not only gives people access to a wide range of news perspectives, but it grants each  person an outlet to express his or her own opinion on it. Employees are using social media to collect  information, to interpret and communicate it to others."

So many organizations seem determined to keep the lock on social media. If this study is any indication, it's not going to work.

***

Have a great weekend!
 

Using social media in a traditional industry: Flooring the Consumer Blog

A lot of businesses still struggle with how to use social media effectively to communicate with their end consumers. They don’t see their company or their industry as high tech, or sexy, or particularly cutting edge – in short, they just don’t see the fit of social media for their situation. Manufacturers and wholesalers of consumer durables might well consider themselves in this situation. Take carpeting for instance. I can't remember when I have seen this industry featured in a marketing magazine.

This is why I have been fascinated with the success Christine Whittemore of Solutia has had with her personal business blog, Flooring the Consumer, and have been keen to ask her a few questions.

Ms. Whittemore agrees the carpet marketing environment is traditional. “It’s not high-tech, and not promoted as high-touch – even though carpet engages the senses more than many home products.” Far from being cutting edge in retailing or marketing, price is often a more dominant feature than fashion or design in messaging.

So carpeting is a market few would see as ripe territory for new media.Stay tuned as we find out more about bringing social media to the marketing of a carpet manufacturer.

Seriously good statistics

Flooring the Consumer was launched in June 2006, and is now ranked as #108 on the Ad Age top marketing blogs, and has over 800 subscribers. These are seriously good statistics for a blog of this type.

More importantly, as you'll see in the coming posts, the blog is achieving business results. Ms. Whittemore is the Director for In-Store Innovation for the Wear-Dated carpet fiber division of Solutia, a $3.8 Billion company with 6000 employees. The company manufactures nylon fibers that go into residential carpet. Her work involves training, presentations, and thought leadership at retail for the flooring industry.

Below, authors of the Carpetology blog. The same team "elf themselves" at the Office Max site.

Born out of frustration with traditional marketing

The blog was born out of Ms. Whittemore’s frustration with traditional marketing to achieve her business objectives. “I had been flirting with the notion of a blog -- actively for 9 months prior to taking that step -- because I was so frustrated with traditional marketing, had things to share with my audience of flooring retailers and retail salespeople, and couldn’t get published fast enough and frequently enough by the trade press.”

In addition to this challenge, there was minimal budget for a traditional newsletter, and she felt these had become “inefficient” as a communication tool in any event.

After attending a Columbia Business School conference on marketing innovation, Ms. Whittemore says she realized “most of the people in the room not only blogged, but were also cutting edge marketers…  and true innovators.” She took her content ideas and her sense of urgency to work, and the blog was born.

About consumers and retailing, not just carpeting

There are now three blogs as well as a Twitter feed, and Facebook activity. The blogs each have a distinct audience. Flooring the Consumer is targeted to the trade, and addresses topics such as marketing to women, the retail experience and consumers in general.

Carpetology, launched in December 2007, is a consumer blog about all things carpet.

The third blog, The Smoke Rise Blog, is a community-oriented, more personal blog.

While the consumers are online, not all the retailers are. There are retailers keen to reinvent the experience, however, and these are the ones that Flooring the Consumer reaches, and that keep the author motivated.

---

Next up: how to keep people engaged with relevant content, and how to measure success.

So you launched an improvement and nobody came?

It took me almost two years to learn that the car dealer nearest my house had Saturday hours for repairs. I wanted Saturday hours, so I went to a dealer a long ways away. It was completely by chance that I found this out.

We are often so absorbed in our own category and our brand that we fail to connect with customers on fundamental benefits. Or we make a single announcement, and assume the message is out.

Ged Parton makes a similar point in this story by Aaron Barr of MediaPost's Marketing Daily: If Obama is Nokia then McCain is Diet Coke (25 Oct 08)

If one is a venerable brand whose only strategy has been to focus on yourself, there has to be something tangible for consumers to latch onto to change opinion. "If you want to change perceptions in people's minds, you have to demonstrate how you're going to change things," Parton says. "It's the tangibles that legitimize mind changes. Without the tangibles, you're only asserting."

Mr. Parton is referring to a Synovate study of the brand attributes of Obama and McCain. But of course this is true for brands generally.

You may think you have the best customer experience. You may have the surveys to show it. You may even be advertising those surveys. But none of this is going to help non-customers understand what is great about this experience unless you tell them.

Brand advertising is a good thing. But support points are good things, too. Find them and use them. Especially is you have something people might not know about.

Unsubscribe - or what readers do in their spare time

I've been spending a few minutes unsubscribing this morning. It's a necessary side-effect of my work -- to keep on top of trends, I subscribe to lots of things to see what they are all about. [This is actually a very good method indeed, if you are looking for trend-watching tips.]

But the nasty side-effect is you continue to get reams of meaningless newsletter cruft.

Let's skip to the point here: your e-mail newsletters are hitting people who are wading through a pile largely composed of cruft, from their point of view. Or worse than cruft. If you want readers, make it visually appealing, make it useful, make it relevant. [Don't think I don't sense the irony here.]

The unsubscribe survey

An unsubscribe survey is a good idea. Most seem to limit their question to "why don't you like us anymore". I wonder how useful that question really is. Is it helpful to know that 30% thought you were "sending too much mail", and 27% thought it was "no longer relevant"?  What do you learn from 18% "other"?

There's likely enough goodwill to answer one or even two short questions. It's probably worth spending some time making those questions really useful. And even change them from time to time. It's free data, if you can make it useful, your ROI is pretty high.

A good second question might be...

Here's my best idea this morning, before I've finished my first cuppa, on a good second question: An open ended question that enquires about the brand relationship in general, or propensity to consider the brand again. Something along the lines of, "Can you give us some general feedback please?", "How can we best serve you?" or "What were you hoping to get from this subscription?"

I invite you to build on this. How can we make the unsub questionnaire better? What do you really want to know that people might be willing to say quickly?

Happy rituals and customer dialogue: Take a lesson from Curves

I posted a while back about Curves...

4Oct07 - Design a great customer experience: find a segment and meet their needs
I was very impressed at the process that Curves' founders seemed to follow to get their original plan. In the post, I talked about how they had figured out what some of the barriers are for women to using conventional gym programs, and how they overcame them, thereby creating a new market, and triggering tremendous growth. [Which, by the way, is still a really good idea] For example,"Not rewarded for my progress. Always measured against a standard I can't meet."

9Oct07 -Making tradeoffs in customer experience design: Curves Smart and what it means for the Curves experience
In this post, I looked at their introduction of new technology to track each workout. The technology changed the happy ritual of heart-rate monitoring from a human interaction to a machine interaction. Personally, I missed it a lot. As I suspected, at least in my local establishment, this change led fairly quickly to a lack of interaction between staff and customers. Here's what I said then...

"Part of the ritual of Curves has been the heart-rate check. Everyone on the circuit stops and does a 10 second heart-rate count at the same time. It's part of the routine, ensures you aren't about to expire from heart failure, and also ensures you are working hard enough to get some benefit from the exercise.

"But the happy ritual is also that the fitness coaches stop the music while this happens, and ask everyone "are you OK?". With the new equipment, this ritual has been dropped. The new equipment has a heart-rate monitor on one piece of equipment. It's all automated now."

Little did I know that this second post would become among my most popular posts of all time. Not only that, but it has attracted an astonishing [for me] number of comments.

Here's what has been happening, I think. These Curves fans are concerned. Things are happening. Things aren't working as well as they used to work. They have questions.

So ... they go to the web to seek out answers. And they are finding, not a Curves forum, but this blog about customer experience and human behavior. They are sharing their worries with each other in the comments on my blog. Yes, folks, this is what your customers are doing when they can't talk to you. They find each other somehow, somewhere, and they still talk. The conversation is happening without you. The brand story is changing, and you're not involved in it.

The posts have continued to grow and expand. The company appears not to be in the dialogue, with the exception of a few brave individual employees.

I'd love to know what is happening to their user base as a result of this change. But I can tell you one thing -- there are people who are raving fans that are upset, and no one is giving them any kind of a forum, and they sound pretty let down by this. Here are a couple of extracts from the comments:

"No matter how hard I work, it doesn't stay in the green, and I feel as though I'm going to pass out or burst into tears. I have no problem working hard, and I admit I'm out of shape, but I am not morbidly obese and I am only 25 years old. I should not feel miserable after I leave."

"Today a staff member told me that I must not be working hard enough...At first the computer coach was great but now we are all getting frustrated about our negative results."

" I feel as though I never can make progress. When I spoke to one of the counselors her response was that since I work out more than 3 times a week the machine may be confused. NOT a good response. I don't want to pay for confusion and I don't feel as though I am making progress."

You could spend a lot of money on research getting findings like these. This is pure gold, and it is just sitting there.

What is clear to me is this. For some users, this change put back a barrier that the previous experience had overcome, #5 shown above. The original system was set up to provide a lot of positive feedback through monthly measurements and progress charts. Positive feedback through staff interactions. But the new system is giving people a lot of negative feedback. It's all about the computer now, not about the people passing on atta-girls to the members who are trying to get fit.

My favorite is this comment...

"The owner of my Curves says that I am the only one having this problem"

People have researched this kind of thing. It's a pretty safe bet that the ratio of people having a problem to people reporting a problem is about 10 to 1. So if you hear about it, it's a problem.

Of course, you won't hear about it if you aren't listening.

Timing issues: that old back to school season, and wanting to be a grasshopper just a little longer

It was in late July that I heard the first back to school advertising. I was driving along back roads in Maine, dreaming of a summer that could last forever. Like a thump, reality came crashing in.

But worse shocks awaited me. Among the flyers waiting for me at home was an offer for the Sears Christmas Wish Book for 2008. I can pick the catalog up at a nearby location, and if I order something between August 13 and September 12 worth more than $100, I can I can earn Sears Club points.

It was with a weary heart that I realized the Christmas shopping season was just around the corner. There's a brief reprieve until Hallowe'en is over, and then the floodgates will open.

In a store a few days ago, I heard a young lad complain to his father that the shorts were all gone, while looking at a rack of fall coats. "What if I want to buy shorts?" he said. "It's still summer -- where are the shorts?" I could only silently agree.

Some of these calendar rituals work, and some of them are just habits that have encrusted the media calendar like barnacles on an old boat. [Dare I say a little research would reveal which.]

Instead of calling it the end of summer sale, try the forever summer sale. Because I'm not tired of it yet.

Service Recovery: a few well chosen words go a long way -- aka clean up on aisle two

There's no substitute for simple human concern and simple empathy when things go wrong. A human response can soothe the savage customer, and create an opportunity for useful communication. Starting from a posture of defence -- "we didn't do anything wrong" -- is almost always the wrong thing to do. You may 'win the discussion,' but lose the customer.

Here's a great example of how a customer who goofed [me] tried to get some help, and instead was turned into a raging virago of emotion by the defensive and unsympathetic posture of the service staff. [At least the gas station is still standing. Thank heaven for small mercies, as they say.]

I was putting gas in my shiny new Vespa 150S yesterday after riding back from a meeting downtown. So the bike was naturally pretty hot.

I guess I made a newbie mistake, thinking that most pumps will stop pumping when the tank is full. [I mean, I've only put gas in about four times, heh, heh. And some pumps do stop, even with my wee bike tank].

You can imagine my state of mind when I realized gasoline was pouring all over the hot exhaust pipe and puddling around my feet. Yikes! After shutting off the nozzle and stepping back to assess matters, I used the handy intercom. "We'll look into it" was what I heard.

That didn't sound too promising, but thinking help would arrive, I waited. Another try at the intercom generated no answer. Then I moved the bike away from the pumps and went into the store.

Now there are a few things the store operator could have done. He could have said any of these things, which would have been great:

• "Are you OK? Is there a lot of gasoline, do we need to come out with some sand? Is there a fire danger?"
• "Wow, I can see you are upset. Why don't you grab a coffee on me and wait while your bike dries off before you start it up."
• "Hey, that happens sometimes, really sorry. You can't trust these pumps with a small tank. I was just heading out there to throw down some fire retardant."

Instead, I got a little lecture about how it wasn't the fault of the pump, it was my fault. No concern for the people standing around at 11 other pumps while a puddle of gasoline was waiting to do something ugly. And some pretty bad behavior on my part as I realized this guy a) didn't care about me, b) wasn't the least bit worried about a major fire hazard, and c) thought I was wasting his time and upsetting the giant line of people trying to buy a Tim Horton's coffee. There's little doubt that they heard me talking about "risk of fire, and you don't seem to want to do anything about it!"

So who's right here?

If that's the question you asked, you are asking the wrong question. It doesn't generally matter who is right.

Customers do screw up. And you need to help them calm down and fix their problem. And fix your problem, too, if they created one for you.Yup, clean up in Aisle 2. And a little empathy with that mop, too, if you want this person to ever darken your door again.

References:

Sunshine Lollipops and Rainbows, by Lesley Gore.

Marketing savvy consumers and what this means for marketing

I was cleaning six months of paper out of the office last weekend. Predictably, after a few hours of energetic tossing out, recycling, and crisp decision-making, I started to drift, re-reading this and that, shifting paper from place to place. [But also ... uncovering things worth sharing!]

I heard Chris Barnham speak at the QRCA conference last October. I had a few notes on this presentation that seem worth sharing.

[1] the consumer has become more sophisticated. They see brand owner "intentionality" everywhere. And they want to know what the brand's agenda is

[2] consumers may like the brand but distrust the marketing

[3] the brand and the brand owner are no longer the same thing. the brand owner has become a force behind the brand with an agenda of its own

[4] when the brand owner is not synonymous with the brand, the brand is not a vehicle for the owner's message, it is the thing that is being experienced. The brand is a repository for meaning. A wonderful analogy to explain this: the brand is to the company as the novel is to the author. We see the connection, but we don't see them as the same. We experience the brand as text on its own. Another analogy: Macbeth is not just a story about witches, it has much more richness than that.

[5] this situation makes the whole awareness --> interest --> decision --> action model of advertising / brand communications pretty unhelpful in unpacking what is going on with a brand, and a consumers relationship to a brand

[6] the brand is instantiating the values and meaning of the brand essence.

[7] the reality of the brand is in the mind of the reader, the watcher, the experiencer.

Mr. Barnham made reference to G.P.Radford, and his book, "On the Philosophy of Communication". Radford says that before the 17th century, the word communication is more about sharing, participation and association. Our notion of the word communication implying transmission of a message is relatively new. We went from the notion of sharing an idea to the notion of conveying an idea.

In the new world of branding, this old notion of communication is back. The one being communicated with is in communion with the sender -- in fact, both are sharing the creation of the idea. [Co-creation anyone?]

So, where does that leave us?

According to Mr. Barnham, if the brand is the manifestation rather than the sender of the message...

Then marketing activity becomes the actualization of brand essence ...

And brand communication needs to refocus on 'sharing' rather than 'sending'.

More practically, when we are conducting research, we may be going down the wrong path if we ask what a brand is saying. We should ask how a brand is being.

These are biggish ideas, with heavy duty implications. 

Also learned from this presentation:

[8] red type on a purple background is practically invisible. But the message was so good I stayed with it.

When metaphors go wrong

I've been spending time recently evaluating print materials for a client. In this case, a multi-page document that we might call a booklet or a brochure.

And I discovered something new. Like so many discoveries of new things, once discovered, they are perfectly obvious. I've been hovering around this one for a while, and suddenly it gelled for me. We each have our own internal library of metaphors and meanings, and while they may be similar, they are not all the same.

But I need to set the stage here. We need to first consider the creative process -- how this print material came to be.

A graphic designer and a creative development team takes a bunch of requirements from the client. In this case, the requirements have been informed by our previous research into the topic. There are some concepts to be communicated. There is language to be chosen. There is a flow and a tone and a manner to the whole concept. And there are graphic elements that will bring the whole thing to life and add richness. Everything from the finish on the printing to the weight and feel of the paper stock will be chosen to support the overall concept and mission of this piece of creative work.

Everyone involved in creating this messaging is drawing on their own internal library of meanings, of symbols, of metaphors. They are drawing on the nuances they understand for words, their knowledge of how typeface affects those nuances. And so forth.

When the work is done, or at least done enough to test, here's what happens.

These words and metaphors are sent out to the target audience, who is supposed to take a certain meaning from them, perhaps have certain emotions evoked, and generally be moved in some way.

But it's entirely possible to have graphic metaphors used that aren't in the library of the recipient of the message. It's like saying something in a foreign language. It's not that you don't want to understand, it's that you simply don't have those words, those meanings, in your internal dictionary.

And this is what happened on my project. There was a visual metaphor that was just as clear as anything for the project team, and that meant nothing at all to the target group. Well, not quite nothing... it meant something entirely unconnected.

When you consider how rich and extensive the internal library of visual metaphors must be for an experienced visual design person, it's a wonder this kind of thing doesn't happen more often.

The more subtle and refined the communication needs to be, the more of a challenge this is. Because a rock is not just a rock, it can stand for many things, from solidity and reliability, to stubbornness and old-fashioned thinking, and a thousand other meanings.

Ultimately, a brand often needs to develop and assign their own meanings to things, to shapes, to colors, to words. Because this is the only way to really reference unique meanings. If you don't do this, you have to share meanings with every other product, object and image out there.

Consider Apple's white color and finish. It's to the point where you see an object with this look, and assume it is Apple even if it isn't.

I have to admire the art of the creative process. To be able to take the brief, the research, the instructions, and to find ways to imply things without saying them directly. To imply things very precisely. With just the right amount of humor, of intelligence, or seriousness, of history, of whatever is desired. This is truly amazing, an amazing skill. It is truly magical.

Are you using pseudo-language with your customers -- or are you communicating?

The articles in management consulting news often have gems that relate generally to customers and customer experience. I saw another excellent example in this interview with author Tom Sant. Here's the paragraph that made me stop:

"I think many people are afraid to put important messages in writing, or they don’t feel confident that they can write well. The mistake they make is that, instead of trying to communicate in their own voice, they try to use somebody else’s voice. They lapse into what I call pseudo-language, a nonfunctional way of communicating which they think is somehow superior to what they could produce themselves."

Doesn't that just sound like so many marketing letters you have seen? Especially the ones vetted by something called the brand council, or similar committee whose job is to extract all meaning from letters sent by big companies to their customers.

When you go through your stack of mail today, see how many examples of this you can find. I guarantee they'll be in abundant supply.

But no one wants to read this stuff. We don't have the time trying to tease meaning out of paragraphs thick with marketing speak.

Sant identifies four types of pseudo-language. I'm sure you've seen all of this, as I have:

• Fluff -- vague generalizations and assertions. Phrases like "best of breed products." Non-specific and lacking any supporting evidence
• Guff -- big words, long sentences, convoluted construction and passive voice -- all designed to show how smart and sophisticated the writer is, and difficult to extract meaning from
• Geek -- jargon and acronym-filled writing that assumes insider knowledge -- people who either don't care, or are just too lazy to try to say something in simple language
• Weasel -- qualifiers like "might be," "prudent to," and other approaches that lack a clear statement of recommendation

Susan's cure:

There may be no cure for the brand council but there is a cure for this kind of writing.

Stop yourself and say out loud the things you are trying to communicate. Now write down what you just said. Now you have something to work with. Force yourself to limit the number of words you add, especially qualifiers and meaningless adjectives.

If you get writing like this from someone else, ask them to just tell you what they are trying to communicate.

When you look at the result, it might not look like a typical corporate communication. That's a good sign you are on the right track.

People love to have key metrics, so here's one to try: track the number of people calling in to get a real explanation of the letter. If there aren't very many, you're on the right track.

How to follow up: Premiere Global revisited

I posted recently about the productivity morass our general approach to customer service has created. I still think this is true.

However, I want to wave the flag for the folks at Premiere Global, who did respond effectively.
First, after I called and/or e-mailed to find out what was up with the account numbers, I got a call back from my account guy, who explained the situation, and promised to send me stuff. (I won't bore you with the details, but I was satisfied with the explanation).

Earlier this week, I had a call booked with a client. 15 minutes before, I went to set up the web meeting portion, and panicked because I couldn't get it working. The services I used to know how to use had been moved around, they had different names, etc. Very frustrating, and the clock was ticking. I called their customer support line, and the person there had me up and running right away. I got through the call, no problem.

Meanwhile, back in PR land, someone twigged that a blogger was posting things about them. [That would be me]. So while I was off-site at a client's ideation sessions yesterday and today, I got at least two calls from people who want to talk to me and sort things out. This is good. I like it. And I will call them back the second I get a break in my schedule, sometime next week.

This is the first time I can recall getting phone calls in response to a blog post, so give yourselves a pat on the back Premiere people. This is a good thing to do, even if it doesn't feel like much fun at all.

Being authentic equals being less formal

The holiday travel season offers so many opportunities to watch excellent and horrible customer experiences play out before you. The annual year-end parade of travel horror stories -- presented as comic -- must have felt awful to the people who experienced these nightmares. (e.g. waiting up to 11 hours on the tarmac)

When you know your systems are going to be stretched to the limit, it can really help people to experience a human voice in communication. This hand-drawn sign I saw at a WestJet counter recently is exactly the kind of thing I mean. It engages because of its humanity. It's the antithesis of bureaucracy-speak.

The words at the top say: "We all thank you for being prepared ... especially the guy behind you in line."

A bank manager taught me a similar lesson some years ago. He was writing things like "Manager's Loan Sale" on a similar white-board and putting it near the teller line. It stood out precisely because it wasn't official, wasn't formal, wasn't a pre-printed poster, and wasn't scripted by head office.

Sometimes we need to let go of consistency in communication in order to leave enough room for some humanity.

Web-Cast on testing communications using qualitative methods

The Qualitative Research Consultant's Association has a series of web-casts (they call them Q-Casts) that are free and available to anyone. The next one relates to a topic that may be near and dear to your heart: how to test communications, including advertising, packaging, concepts, media content, and other communications. The organization's guidelines restrict 'pitching', so the presentations usually have solid information, and you can ask questions via the chat room.

Here are the details:

The 4 Cs of Truth in Communications

Thursday, December 6, 2007
12:00 p.m. ET (GMT -4; BST -5)
Speakers: Isabelle Albanese and Eileen O'Malley

For more information and to register for the free online Qcast click HERE.

The 4Cs of Truth in Communications™, a fool-proof framework for researchers to objectively evaluate consumer response to qualitative communication stimuli. No matter what the stimuli – from traditional advertising, to package graphics, concepts, logos, menu boards, media content, applying the 4Cs will help identify if it really rocks or if it’s likely to sink like one! This method is immediately actionable – it can be used in your very next consumer communication project.

The 4Cs model is also an effective way to get disparate constituents (brand clients, consumer insights, ad agencies, etc.) on the same page relative to evaluating consumer feedback – something that can always be a challenge in any communications environment. It’s a great back-room tool for focus group research as well. Observers follow consumer feedback easily by instantly assessing how the stimulus performs on each of the “Cs”. When it comes time for the de-brief, everyone has a consistent format for structuring feedback – which makes the de-brief flow very smoothly.

Targeted advertising algorithms need work

There are a number of sites that target advertising based on profile information, and then serve up Google ads. I'm sure you've been on lots of them yourself. I captured a screen shot from LinkedIn which nicely illustrates the current challenge of this kind of targeting.

Mostly, these ads are about other people like me, not about services I might like to buy.

Which I guess has its uses, such as monitoring who is advertising in your space. But this isn't likely to be helpful to the advertiser. It's so close, but it's not quite right.

The kinds of things I actually buy for the business are on a relatively small list. Qual researchers use sticky notes, index cards, felt pens, and flipchart paper in truly shocking quantities. We rent focus group facilities, and meeting facilities. We hire recruiters to find respondents for us. We use a lot of travel and hotel services. Like all businesses, we use software, computers and telecom. Some of us would buy specialized software or license various online applications like bulletin boards.

But hiring competitors is not a frequent activity. Nor is installing large scale CRM systems. I advise on these things sometimes, but would never be a buyer.

If I had the option, I could tell the company what services I would like to see advertising for, but that would put control in the users hands, not the advertisers. Surely that would improve effectiveness though.
I briefly tried adwords, and found that many of the click-throughs were coming from other organizations like mine, not from potential client companies. The irony of this is that I can define potential clients quite clearly -- I just can't easily target them using these tools.

I'm curious if others are experiencing this.
Are you being served relevant ads?

Something different in automotive marketing: Nissan Rogue City Guide

I actually read an automotive advertising supplement this week, a rare event for me. And came across an interesting effort from Nissan. I can get a widget for my desktop that will keep me informed of events happening in my city. I don't think my social life is quite up to this standard, unfortunately... but what an interesting way to connect with your customers! And clearly based on a lot of insight into their target customer.
You can check out their site here.

Consumers and Advertisers: where's the love?

This is must-see video on the relationship between advertisers and consumers. Oddly enough, created by Microsoft ....

Here's the link to YouTube.

I particularly liked the part where the guy channels the Tom Cruise frown-look. I thought there might be mash-ups of this by now, but there weren't any when I was there. 

Customer Contact Reduction: is Wal-Mart on brand with this program?

Wal-Mart has announced a Customer Contact Reduction Program. They certainly deserve an award for honesty and transparency -- many organizations have launched programs with this intention, but I have never heard of one that was accurately labeled.

Most of WalMart.com's calls relate to order tracking, and they are investing heavily in an order tracking system. As a result, they won't need a phone number. That's the plan, according to Katie Hafner at the New York Times.

Is this on brand for Wal-Mart?

Most commentators seem to think this is a bad idea. My view is somewhat contrarian. The question we need to ask about any customer experience is whether a change is on-brand or off-brand.

Wal-Mart is all about convenience and low prices. So if they can pull this off, they will reduce costs to serve customers, and perhaps even improve the online experience. If you are shopping at Wal-Mart online, you're not looking for a high-touch experience. You're looking for plentiful, cheap and convenient access to stuff.

Operational challenge of withdrawing all phone support

The challenge Wal-Mart will have is that completely shutting off any door to a human helper might slop over somewhere else. Few processes are so goof-proof that they never have issues. Even at Six Sigma, you have 3.4 defects for every million opportunities. At Wal-Mart's scale, and if they're less than Six-Sigma reliable, there will be lots of customers who have problems that their web site can't solve.

If there is really great e-mail support, that might be sufficient. They might also have a "secret service" option. This is what I would call it when there is human support available, but it isn't publicized. It's only available after you are well into the service hierarchy. Amazon, for example, does have phone support available, but you have to dig for it.

We expect vastly different things from Wal-Mart and from Williams-Sonoma, for example, who's phone number is one click from their home page.

Good customer experience is not always high touch; it is always on-brand. And that's not the same thing.

Resources:

Sam Walton's philosophy of business, as reported on WalMart.com: 

"The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. And really, if you think about it from your point of view as a customer, you want everything: a wide assortment of good-quality merchandise; the lowest possible prices; guaranteed satisfaction with what you buy; friendly, knowledgeable service; convenient hours; free parking; a pleasant shopping experience."

- Sam Walton (1918-1992)

Thank you to Dan Obregon at eStara for bringing this to my attention.

Katie Hafner, BITS Blog on NY Times: "Walmart.com to Customers: Stop Calling"

Image of the Emerald City from MGM Wizard of Oz from OutNow

Keeping in touch with customers: Long Term Client has innovative idea

I heard about an interesting service today from a virtual assistant I was interviewing -- it's called Long Term Clients, and I thought you might also be intrigued.

This service takes your contact list and helps you stay in touch with a personalized greeting card. "Personalized" means a note in the card that is unique and different, and could only come from you. And then they produce these for you, using an image you have chosen, and send them to the list you provide.

They have note-writers that help you craft an interesting note, in case it's not something you can do for yourself. I suspect that part of the service is crucial to the success of the notes, actually. A while back an old work buddy who is now a financial advisor sought my help on something like this. I suggested he add a topical and changing PS to the e-mail he sends out on a regular basis with economic reports in them. I suggested a few to get him started. Topical, personal notes that would make the e-mails much friendlier and feel more like authentic communication. My friend started out pretty well, but it wasn't long before his PS became a simple request for referrals and is the same all the time. Not very interesting. So having a good note-writer help you with your card content makes a lot of sense to me.

Here are some of the other tips from Long Term Clients, gleaned from their web site:

• Facts are best for seasonal cards. Quotations are best for birthday cards.
• Avoid verses and meaningless platitudes
• Clients are sensitive to the quality of their relationship to a service provider such as a financial planner. It pays to make an effort
• It's better to send nothing than to send a 'signature only' card
• An effective greeting card has a long shelf-life -- people keep it on their desk, wall or refrigerator for a long time
• Your personalized note should contain the same facts about you -- personal facts -- that you would share with your top clients in person when you are having coffee or playing golf
• The note needs to be personal, not business-oriented
• Use this form of contact three times a year -- two seasonal notes and one birthday note

This seems like a really great concept, and frankly a vast improvement over what one usually receives. Even if you know it's a mail merge, it is still contact. Some effort has gone into it. Some expense has gone into it, which means you cared enough to spend some time and $. And it's not sales oriented, it's personal and relationship oriented. Very neat idea.

Anyone know of other services like this?

You are here: keeping your customers informed about what is happening and when

Something came up in a research project I'm currently working on that I think has general applicability ⇒  knowing where you are at in a multi-stage process, what's coming next, and when it's likely to happen.
In my current project, a lot of the unhappy people experienced confusion over this. Most of the happy people felt they knew what was going on.

[OK ... get to the point, Susan, you are probably saying. Bear with me for a minute.]

I was trying to think of good examples for my client about who does this well. Naturally, I thought of package delivery (FedEx, UPS, Purolator) and books (Amazon, Indigo, et al). We have come to expect e-mails letting us know where things stand every step of the way when we are ordering things online. If we're not sure, we can log in and check our status using a special code (also e-mailed to us, with a link).

And then, in a burst of universe synchronicity, this notice arrived in my in-basket from Dell. [Yes, we are buying new desktops. I've come to realize that computers are like cars. They don't last forever, and there will be maintenance. And as soon as you buy one, a cooler color comes out. But back to our story.]

What I loved about this e-mail from Dell: 

⇒ It's colorful and bright. Yes, I had to download pictures. But I don't mind doing that when it's something important to me. We are all excited about the new computers, and this message says, yes, you should be excited, something good is happening here.

⇒ It's got a graphic indicator that spells out a number of things VERY FAST. First, it's showing me that there are stages, because it has a little bar for each stage. Anyone who has ever installed software or done an online survey knows what the little indicator bars are about. It also sets up a really nice expectation that there will be more communication coming at each stage. Imagine covering all this in - Yawn - text.

⇒ And there's another nice graphic message that I can talk to a live agent if I have questions. A friendly face, right there under the contact info button.

⇒ What you can't see, below the screen shot, is that they have also given me a nice recap of what we ordered. The full details, actually. 

⇒ There's nothing saying "print this and keep it safe". There's no babble-speak. They say thanks TWICE. 

What you might want to consider:

⇒ If your service costs less than shipping on a book, perhaps you don't need to invest in this kind of status communication. But what about their mortgage? What about their insurance application? There are many important things that take time and happen in stages

⇒ If you are providing something that people have anxiety about, status communications could help them feel more comfortable. They are likely to reduce upset calls to your contact centre. Maybe you'll even avoid other problems because errors will be caught early

⇒ What about bringing supply-chain thinking and tools to customer communications??

⇒ If it's something with a short cycle time, e-mail might not be the most relevant channel. Maybe it's text messaging. Certainly texting would be much better for certain kinds of groups -- those without e-mail, and those that live their lives on a cell-phone

⇒ Dell just raised the bar. Looks like they are back in the game again. Where's your bar?