Tag Archives: customer satisfaction

Social Media for Business – Why I am embarrassed for 99.9% of you…

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My kids get it. They don’t think about it; they don’t hire gurus to guide them through it; they don’t contrive anything about it; and… they can sniff out anything contrived in an instant.

It’s social media, and it’s not mystical or complicated; and it especially doesn’t require any real expertise.

Of course, if social media is so easy, why do nearly all small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) really suck at Facebook and Twitter? Three reasons: they overthink it; they hire gurus to guide them through it; and what they post is often so contrived I want to laugh and cry at the same time.

It’s time to stop the madness. It’s time to either crap or get off the pot with your lame social media attempts. If you’re ready, I have only two quick tests for the content you should post to your social media accounts:

Test 1: Will it inform or entertain?

In other words, will it be interesting to anyone? More importantly, will it be interesting to your customers and prospective customers?

If what you’re about to post neither informs me nor entertains me, then don’t post it. Here are a couple of quick examples of posts that would pass Test 1:

  • A young couple posts a picture of their new baby to Facebook while Tweeting “It’s a Boy!!!” (This passes the test because it’s information that their followers and friends likely want to know.)
  • A teenager posts a Vine (6-second video) to Twitter showing his friend eating a jalapeño pepper and then gagging. (This passes the test because it’s likely entertaining to his friends… not to mention entertaining to me.)

Here are two actual SMB social media posts from this morning that do not pass Test 1:

  • Happy Friday!
  • Come in to Sport Honda today for a test drive.

These two posts are just downright embarrassing. They are pitiful. It hurt me to even type those asinine posts, because they are so uninformative and utterly unentertaining.

But what about Google?

(Quick aside for all the SEO “experts” reading this article)

I’m not naïve. I understand search engines look for “social clues” as a small part of the algorithm they use when deciding how to rank your website on relevant searches. But you’re naïve if you think the gaming, cheating, conniving scheme your social media guru is executing on your behalf has any long-term SEO value. It doesn’t. Google did not become Google by allowing any con jobs to go on for very long.

(Plus, without getting too technical, the social clues Google looks for include interactions with your social media content. No one is interacting with your “Happy Friday!” or “Come in for a test drive” spam.)

Let’s agree to just stop it. You look silly doing it and you’re alienating the few true fans you have.

Test 2: Is this me?

Some people find news stories about Bangladesh to be informative. Some people find pictures of cats to be entertaining. Does this mean your SMB should post a story about a pet store in Narayanganj complete with lots of pictures of playful kitties?

Probably not. That is, unless, you happen to own a pet store.

For the second test, you need to look at your entertaining and/or informative post and ask “Is this me?” Does this content represent who we are and (more importantly) what our customers want from us? If the answer is no, then don’t post it – the content failed Test 2.

That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. (Sorry, I know you wish it was more complicated – and I certainly know the social media “experts” will disagree with me – but there’s really no magic or mystery here.)

So what do we post?

If after Test 1 and Test 2 you are left with nothing to post, then I suggest you shut down your social media accounts. Your business has nothing to offer the social media world. Stick to fixing air conditioners or whatever it is you do. Just make sure you do those things right, and that you always treat your customers like the valued human beings they are. If you do this, perhaps they will post nice (and interesting) things about you.

As I wrote two years ago, Facebook is a waste of time for 99.9% of businesses… and it still is; you just don’t want to believe it. If you’re adamant about staying in the social world and creating genuine interactions with your customers, then at least apply my two tests to your content and save the rest of us from the constant stream of ridiculous spam spewing from the average SMB account today.

 

What Every Business Can Learn from the Social Media Efforts of @Delta

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It was about 6:30 last evening when I found myself at the Delta Sky Club in Tampa, Florida. I was booked on Delta’s 7:45 flight to Atlanta (where I am speaking to a group of Ford dealership managers about Internet processes this morning). I had a yearning for a cup of coffee, but I really didn’t think indulging in a caffeinated beverage that late in the day made sense. (Between my upcoming flight and the strange bed I was soon to be sleeping in, it would be hard enough for me to get any rest. As it ended up, I got a solid six hours.)

I grabbed a clean cup at the self-serve coffee station and placed it under the decaf jug’s spout. Pushing down on the lever I discovered they were out of decaf, so I moseyed to the bar to let the Delta bartender know this fact.

“Oh… thank you,” she replied.

I got a glass of water to hold me while she made the decaf and headed back to my seat in the lounge.

Twenty Minutes is Plenty of Time to Make a Pot, Right?

At about ten minutes before seven, I headed back to the coffee station only to discover that the decaf jug was missing. Clearly, the bartender just forgot to return it after she made a fresh pot, I surmised, so I walked over to the bar to ask her if the decaf was ready.

“Oh… it’s too late to make any decaf,” she replied.

I looked at her and just blinked my eyes for a couple of seconds to get my bearings.

“Um, isn’t nighttime when people usually drink decaf?” I asked.

“Well, I was told it’s too late to make any more decaf tonight,” she replied smiling.

Would You Like a Double Gin & Tonic instead?

I figured that a pot of decaf must cost Delta all of two dollars, so I wondered why they were being so cheap. Had I been ordering double Gin & Tonics all night they wouldn’t have batted an eye – even though my drain on their profits would have been much greater.

Since I really wanted that coffee – to the point that I could actually taste it on my way back to my seat – I decided there was nothing I could do but sit down, shut up and be a good Delta customer. In other words, I was fuming. Not because I didn’t get my precious coffee, but because of the arbitrary nature of how the Delta team at the Tampa Sky Club chose to create rules. They didn’t want to have to clean the pots after a certain hour (I surmised), so they invented a rule that you couldn’t make decaf after six.

They reminded me of a bunch of teenagers working at any fast food establishment fifteen minutes before closing: “Oh shit, here comes another customer. Don’t they know we close in like fifteen minutes?”

Vent or Die

I could keep my now rage about being denied a cup of decaf inside me or I could let it out. I chose to let it out. Of course, rather than throw chairs around the Sky Club or even demanding to speak to a supervisor, I decided to just Tweet about this experience to my 1,200+ alleged followers. (Because it was a Friday night, I was pretty sure that no more than 1 or 2 would even read the damn thing. I just needed to vent.)

I followed that message with one more Tweet a minute later to complete my thoughts about the whole affair:

Feeling somewhat content having gotten this off my chest; I sent a couple of emails, packed up my belongings and headed for the departure gate.

A few minutes after I settled into my seat and cracked open an unsatisfying bottle of water, a Delta agent came to my row and asked for me. Instinctively, I just knew I was going to hear some regurgitation of why they don’t make decaf after 6:00 PM and how sorry she was but that “the policy was important to ensure the blah, blah, blah…”

“Mr. Stauning?” she asked.

“Yes?” I replied.

She followed with “We were wrong not to make a fresh pot of decaf for you in the Sky Club this evening. Can you tell me who it was that told you this?”

I was floored. She admitted they were wrong and actually wanted to know which of their employees needed some additional training on customer service.

After I told her my experience and the brief conversations with the bartender, she thanked me for being a loyal Delta customer and handed me a $12 meal voucher for Atlanta. (Delta knows, you see, that I am flying out of Atlanta today after my meetings and so they correctly assumed that I might have to grab a bite in the airport.)

For the cost of a few minutes’ time and $12, Delta was able to completely resolve a minor situation with a long-time customer (and often vocal critic). Moreover, the half-dozen or so people who heard the exchange on the plane were undoubtedly impressed.

#TheLittleThingsThatMatter

As I hashtagged in both of my Tweets, it’s the little things that matter. Not making decaf for your frequent fliers is a little thing; but it genuinely pisses customers off. Telling your customers you were wrong and offering to buy them a $12 lunch the next day are little things; but these are what customers remember and appreciate.

The lessons that all businesses – whether they’re a B2C or B2B establishment – can learn from how @Delta handled this “little thing” are these:

  1. Be diligent and genuine about your social media pursuits. If you’re going to be on Twitter or Facebook, don’t do it for branding or marketing purposes; and don’t just become another spammer. Be social. React genuinely. Solve problems. Or shut the hell up.
  2. Be quick and don’t escalate the little things – SOLVE THEM. I don’t know who made the decision to greet me on my plane and present me with a meal voucher, but this decision did not have to be reviewed by a committee. Imagine if the team that monitors Delta’s Twitter account had simply waited until the next day and responded to my Tweet with “Dear Mr. Stauning: blah, blah, blah…” That would have been infuriating (I know, because another minor issue with a company last week was handled just that way. They would have been better off ignoring my Tweet than to send me down the customer service path of hell I am currently on.) Delta has empowered someone to make quick decisions in the field to solve minor customer issues. This seemingly tiny act can do more to defuse a bad situation than all the “we’re sorry you feel this way” emails and calls from insincere customer service drones.
  3. In all relationships, it’s truly the little things that matter. This is especially true in the realm of customer relationships. The customer is not always right… but, they are always the customer, and when it’s your fault that they feel bad you need to tell them it’s your fault, and then you need to fix the problem.

But The Steakhouse Did So Much More…

Some of you may be familiar with a similar, albeit more extravagant, response from an overpriced steakhouse to a loyal customer who also Tweeted his desires from the Tampa airport. The differences in this case are that Delta (in my opinion) wasn’t looking for publicity, just hoping to satisfy their customer. Additionally, Delta operates on a much smaller margin and deals with many more customer service issues than a chain of restaurants, so sending a guy in tuxedo to deliver me a porterhouse dinner would not have been fiscally responsible. Finally, the guy who Tweeted about steak was just a whiny traveler who wanted something he couldn’t have.

(Well, I guess the two stories do have a little in common.)

The 10 Douchiest Job Titles in America

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The 10 Douchiest Job Titles of 2012

For as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to keep my business cards free of my title. I feel this way for a couple of reasons: primarily, I don’t want those outside of my company getting hung up on my title; also, I really don’t give a shit what you call me inside the company; so long as the work is challenging and fun – and that my role can somehow influence the company’s results.

Of course, I understand I’m in the minority here. There’s an episode of Cheers that humorously magnifies America’s love for important sounding job titles when Woody, Sam and Carla individually go into Rebecca’s office to demand a raise; only to come out overly satisfied with nothing more than artificial titles.

So, while I get why some people want a title and want to proudly display it on their business cards, I struggle to understand why anyone would want a title that basically screams to the world “Hey, look at me: I’m a major douchebag.”

Do you have a douchie title or do you know someone with a douchie title? If so, please share them here. For now, here is my list of The 10 Douchiest Job Titles of 2012:

10. Lifetime Value Business Leader – This title is douchie for so many reasons, not the least of which is that I have no fucking idea what it means. To me, this title sounds more like something that would be inscribed on a crappy award you get from the Fort Wayne, Indiana, Chamber of Commerce than something you would print on a business card. Chances are, if you’re a Lifetime Value Business Leader, you probably can’t lead and likely provide no value to your business (even in the short term).

9. Talent Acquisition Expert – I have two major problems with this total douche bag title: first, if your title shows that you are an “expert” anything it means you are exactly the opposite; and second, the title “Talent Acquisition Expert” springs from the same political correctness that brought us such classic douchebag titles as “Sanitation Engineer” and Subway’s oxymoronic “Sandwich Artist.”

8. Director of Customer Experience – Taking care of customers should be Job One for everyone at your company; but if your business actually names someone their Director of Customer Experience, your front line employees are likely just paying lip service to the actual customer experience. Of course, that’s not what makes this title so douchie. What makes this title really douchie is that the role can only be filled by complete and utter douchebags. Think about it: have you ever met a Director of Customer Experience who didn’t annoy the fuck out of everyone around them? Sickie sweet phoniness does not make for a great customer experience.

7. Chief Motivational Officer – Similarly to the Director of Customer Experience role, if your company needs anyone with any variation of the word “motivation” in their title, then you have a real motivation problem. In fact, your lack of genuinely motivated people will not be solved by giving some made-up title to someone who cannot execute; but he’s really fucking nice so you named him your Chief Motivational Officer. Fire this guy and use the money you save to buy the employees a pool table for the break room and pizza every Friday.

6. Entrepreneur – This title is certainly douchie on the surface: it screams “look at me; I’m a real risk-taking maverick.” Yet these risk-taking mavericks who call themselves entrepreneurs are using the more cultural (mostly incorrect) definition of the word as “someone who starts a business that promises economic gain, but also entails great risk.” In fact, the word actually describes any manager or owner of a business – regardless of actual risk or gain. Putting “entrepreneur” on your card is equivalent to putting the non-descript “manager” as your title; only way more douchie.

5. Company Evangelist – The only people who should be allowed to have “evangelist” on their business cards are those hell-bent on saving our souls and taking our money. (Just taking our money is not enough to make you an evangelist.) In all seriousness, if you don’t spend your Sundays on television speaking to a bunch of sheep and fleecing them of their life savings, then you need to leave this off your business card.

4. Guru – The word is Sanskrit, and if you did not know that, then you’re not a fucking Guru. Moreover, this type of douchebag title is one of the “self-anointed” kinds. This means that no one ever called you a Guru (unless their tongue was firmly planted in their cheek) – you gave yourself this title; and for that, you are a douchebag of the highest order. In fact, you might just be the Guru of douchieness.

3. Mentor – What in the world would prompt someone to put this drivel on their card as their title? It is the job of everyone in your company to mentor to those with less seniority, knowledge or experience than themselves. However, if any douchebag put “Mentor” as their job title on their business card, then they are just announcing to the world that they really value their experience and opinions a whole lot more than the rest of us. I can honestly say that I have not learned a thing from a single person who ever “tried” to be a mentor to me. The true mentors in my life never tried, it just came naturally to them – and they gladly mentored without fanfare or the need to be officially called a mentor.

2. Visionary – Putting this on your card literally screams that what you lack more than anything else is vision. Because… if you had any vision at all, you’d see what a douchebag you look like with this on your card. Let me break this to you gently: being right about a few things does NOT make you a fucking visionary; knowing more than your boss about technology or the Internet does NOT make you a fucking visionary. “Visionary” is a title people bestow upon you at death (think Steve Jobs), not something you call yourself when you’re still alive and annoying the rest of us.

1. Thought Leader – The King of all douchebags, the “Thought Leader,” is another self-anointed position. Those who use this title to describe themselves really see their place in your industry as Socrates meets Einstein. They believe – generally because they have a below-average IQ – that they are both philosopher and genius. While the rest of us see the obvious for what it is, the self-proclaimed “thought leaders” point out the ordinary as if they’ve cracked the genetic code. Deep inside I think many “thought leaders” are truly just “do nothings” who gave themselves the title of “thought leader” because they don’t want to do any real work; they just want to regurgitate what others have published.

…

Generally speaking, I think the Internet magnifies the self-importance that the douchebags who proudly display any of my Top Ten douchie titles tends to feel and feed upon. Make no mistake, I get that many of you who read this think I’m a douchebag for my often ranting style of writing. The difference between me and the douchebags that might desire one of the above as their titles is that I know whatever I write will be douchie to someone.

Of course, if you happen to be one who thinks my writing is douchie, then I feel good that I could help you feel superior to someone; even if it is just some douchebag who rants when he writes…

Facebook is a Waste of Time for 99.9% of Businesses

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A little bit of knowledge is a very dangerous thing… especially in business.

With Facebook recently passing the 700 million worldwide user mark and basically two-thirds of all US online consumers counted as a part of this hoard, most business leaders have been scrambling for a couple of years to leverage this incredible base for financial gain. The problem for these business leaders is they don’t understand the first thing about social media… and they’ll be the first to admit that.

Most small and medium-sized business (SMB) owners and, frankly, C-level executives at large corporations are likely among the one-third of US online consumers without a personal Facebook account. They’re too busy, too old or too smart to have created one that they actually manage for themselves.

Of course, with about three quarters of a billion worldwide users and everyone shouting that businesses absolutely must have a Facebook presence, SMB owners and other business leaders feel in their hearts that they should do something… anything.

Enter the Consultants

The explosion of Social Media has brought with it an explosion of companies and consultants hell bent on helping businesses leverage social media… without regard to whether a business should even care about Facebook. A year ago, I wrote a column for Digital Dealer Magazine introducing what I called the Continuum of Social Media Engagement for Business (with the cool acronym C-SMEB) that details (for car dealers in this instance) what types of businesses should expect to interact in meaningful ways via social media with their raving fans.

The argument I made in that article – one that I still support today – is that the frequency of engagement is so low for some businesses (like car dealers and real estate brokers), that it is irrational to think they should be heavy players in social media engagement. (Leveraging social media as a conduit for managing contests or to spread coupons is fine, but low-frequency-of-engagement businesses should not expect to drive any real ROI from their customer interactions via social media.)

The bottom line for car dealers, and really 99.9% of all businesses, is that consumers don’t want to interact with you socially because there is nothing in it for them. For those of you really good at math, this means 1 in every 1,000 businesses might get some return on their investment of time, energy and money (none of which is infinite) that they spend toward social media interactions, but the other 999 should stick to proven and more traditional avenues for driving business.

Of course, none of this stops the consultants from descending on your business with their idiotic opinions and worthless (or worse) advice on how you should change everything about how you reach consumers, because “… if Facebook was a planet it would be the second most populous planet in our solar system!”


 

What is the Goal of your Business?

If you answered anything other than “make money for the owners,” then stop reading, because you either work for the government, run a non-profit, or you don’t understand what capitalism means. Regardless, you are not going to be swayed by my arguments here, as they apply to businesses trying to increase their customer base, revenue and profits via their marketing activities.

Clearly because it helps them secure high-dollar contracts from unsuspecting business owners, the vast majority of social media consultants lay truly asinine “measurements” on your lap and expect you to buy-in 100%. The most idiotic I’ve heard is “ROE” (Return On Engagement), which is supposed to give businesses a good feeling about what it is Facebook, FourSquare and others are delivering for them. The “return” in this case is not increases in revenues or profits, but rather increases in alleged Facebook “Likes” and Twitter followers. (I write “alleged” because no one really knows if anyone is actually reading the banal crap most consultant-aided businesses are posting or tweeting.)

One consultant recently wrote that a “great” measurement for ROE was a company’s “share of conversation” over their competitors. Hmm, I don’t think any businesses can really translate “share of conversation” to “share of market,” so this has little application in a true for-profit business. (Additionally, just because consumers are talking about you does not mean it’s a good thing. For example, I imagine that Rep. Anthony Weiner’s current “share of conversation” is greater than all other Congressmen combined, but that doesn’t make it a good thing.)

Bad advice that keeps getting repeated over and over to every industry…

Please don’t feed me the line of bullshit that businesses need to “truly engage their followers if they wish to blah, blah, blah.” People do not become your raving fans after “Liking” you on Facebook. They are fans in real life first, then they might also “Like” you on Facebook. (In other words, Facebook has nothing to do with making someone a raving fan – this is now and always has been your job.)

I’ve personally witnessed companies spending thousands of dollars and dozens of man-hours every month to perfect their Facebook image or grow their alleged fan base, yet completely ignore their free listings in Google Places, Yahoo! Local and Bing Local (which drive much more traffic to retail businesses than virtually anything else online – and these are totally free).

What’s worse is when businesses do post something on Facebook it’s usually a message like: “Happy Friday, what are your weekend plans?” Of course, these get no response, though that’s no surprise. These types of Facebook posts by businesses – such as the Chevrolet Dealer who posted this one – are downright embarrassing, and the self-titled “Social Media Experts” who encourage this waste of time are incompetent or worse.

It’s actually a little sad, because these businesses just don’t know any better; they’re only doing what their social media consultant is telling them. (Like the dunderhead who recently wrote that car dealers should post “2-3 times per day” on Facebook! Was this person serious? Is there any consumer out there who wants to get 2-3 messages each day in their Facebook news feed from some car dealer? I don’t know about you, but this sounds a lot like SPAM to me; and I just cannot imagine anyone wanting to read the drivel that might be delivered via this over-posting.)

So, how do you know if you’re the 1 or one of the 999? Hint: If your brand or business wasn’t being discussed nostalgically on message boards or enthusiast websites prior to the launch of Facebook, then be ready to run lots of contests and giveaways (which, could easily be run via email or your own website with equal success), because the consuming public doesn’t want to socialize with you. You’re just not that interesting.

 

Knowledge Hoarders & The Mack Truck Theory

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Q. I’m the office manager at a large Midwestern distribution company. We sell a variety of products to retailers across the US, and have a sophisticated computer system that can show the status of orders with just a few clicks. My problem is that the operations managers like to work the orders on legal pads and only update an order status when the full order ships. Customers call constantly wanting an update on their orders and the operations managers are never available to take these calls. What do you suggest I do? Todd in St. Louis, MO.

 

Interesting problem, Todd. As surprising as your issue might seem to someone working with technology on a daily basis, there are many industries where technological advances meant to improve productivity are simply underutilized.

 

Knowledge Hoarding

 

The reasons many people continue to underutilize technology vary from a simple fear of computers to a lack of training to general laziness to a lack of oversight to the ever-insidious knowledge hoarding. While all of these reasons could be bad news for your business, knowledge hoarding is often the most damaging.

 

From updating customer records in a CRM tool to repair orders in body shops, I’ve seen too many instances of salesmen, managers and other associates hoarding knowledge in an effort to make themselves seem indispensable.

 

Regardless of why your operations managers refuse to properly enter order status on incomplete orders, the customer satisfaction issues that arise from it can damage your reputation and harm your company’s ability to grow. It is clearly a practice that should be stopped immediately.

 

When I’ve encountered similar instances, I generally take them to the highest level in the company. Surprisingly, about half of the leaders I’ve approached with these issues are reluctant to do anything to change these practices. Their argument is simply that the knowledge hoarder is a long-time, trusted manager who already enjoys great productivity. There’s no need, in their minds, to force change onto such a valuable employee.

 

The Mack Truck Theory

 

The next words out of my mouth are “so you don’t subscribe to the Mack Truck Theory, do you?”

 

After a few seconds of puzzled looks, I generally ask them if this trusted manager, let’s call him Bob, drives to work, walks to work or takes a bus. Whatever the response, I then ask what they would do if Bob was struck and killed by a Mack Truck on his way home tonight. How would they identify and service Bob’s customers?

 

This is usually followed by a few more seconds of puzzled looks and the standard “well, I don’t know” answer.

 

No One Is Indispensable

 

The truth is that in more than 30 years of management I have never, ever met an indispensable employee or manager. I’ve met some truly great ones, but I’ve never met anyone that was actually the “glue” holding the entire company together. This is not to say that I haven’t worked with CEOs who believed someone in their employ was indispensable. Unfortunately for these CEOs, their beliefs in these superstars keep them from growing others in the organization.

 

I generally argue that these “indispensable” people are really hurting the company more than they are helping. The company is better off without them. By hoarding knowledge, they are, in effect, running their own businesses within the confines of your business.

 

When they leave, and they often do, they take with them customer histories, relationships and knowledge that they would have shared with others had they cared more about your company and less about making themselves indispensable.

 

But What About Todd’s Problem?

 

Todd, my advice to you is to first introduce your company’s leaders to the Mack Truck Theory and then offer to train the operations managers on the proper use of your order fulfillment system. If that doesn’t do the trick, let me know and I’ll pass your resume around to companies I know in the St. Louis area. 

 

J