Good customer service deserves a shout out
Rolls Royce customer service is as legendary as the motorcar
OK, the examples I’m about to share do not rival the legendary tales of Rolls Royce. You may have heard the oft repeated tale of the plutocrat whose Phantom develops a transmission problem in the South of France. He telegraphs Rolls Royce and that evening while he’s sleeping blissfully in his hotel room, the motorcar manufacturer helicopters in a team of mechanics who repair his touring car before dawn and then leave neither bill nor record of the repairs. After all Rolls Royces do not experience transmission problems.
Stories like that live on since they epitomize both the brand and the definition of service. These days we have come to expect the total opposite. And, in fact, they are the stories that get told. Usually via social media. Receive lousy treatment in a restaurant? Shout it out on Yelp or Foursquare. Airline refuses to replace your broken guitar? Compose some angry lyrics and post them on YouTube. Comcast doesn’t show up when scheduled? Rant about it on Twitter.
True, more often than not such condemnation is deserved. It feels good to vent. And in some cases our outbursts actually yield improved products or services.
But it strikes me that if we can so effortlessly dish out anger and accusations, we ought to, at least once in a while, offer up praise when it’s deserved. Just maybe, by doing so, we’ll encourage other brands and marketers, service providers and retailers to emulate that Rolls Royce behavior – or something remotely similar — that could earn our loyalty.
So here goes, a recap of some good service I recently received on a family vacation in Florida.
Jet Blue is responsive on Twitter
Delayed flights are the bane of every traveler, but when you’re on vacation with your family it’s even more annoying. Worse yet is not having accurate information. The word “Delayed” doesn’t quite cut it when it comes be keeping you informed. But on a recent trip to Florida, I found that all my questions regarding the arrival of my aircraft, accurate departure time, and other updates were delivered in close to real time via @JetBlue on Twitter. I even got more information than was available on the airline’s mobile website and got it fast. Not sure how they do it and if they can do it all the time for their many travelers, but definitely impressive.
Hertz delivers exactly as they said they would
I’ll start with the fact that rental car prices the week of school vacation are nothing short of highway robbery. In fact the sales manager at Tampa International Airport’s Hertz office actually admitted that the company jacks up prices by 15 to 20 percent that week. But I can’t argue with how great the service was. We had a brand new VW Routan that ran fine, but a few days into the trip, when a malfunction indicator light came on and left us reluctant to drive any distance without knowing the cause, Hertz delivered another brand new vehicle to us less than two hours after we called. No insistence that we come to them. No questions asked. A pretty good way to assure my next rental will be with Hertz, too.
Tommy Bahama Tropical Café is not laid back when it comes to service
I can honestly say I’ve never had this happen before, and I’ve patronized some pretty good restaurants all over the world. Two days after eating at this popular spot in Sarasota’s St. Armand’s Key, I got a call from the manager asking about our experience. In a brief but meaningful call she wanted to know about our reception, the preparation of the food and the service of the wait staff. I’m pretty sure she was even taking notes when I suggested the sauce on my grilled Snapper could have been a tad more subtle. She told me the restaurant calls most of its patrons who make reservations for a quick follow-up. Given that the place did virtually everything right and nothing wrong, one might conclude that they actually listen.
It doesn’t seem it should be that hard to provide great service. Zappos (a Mullen client) does it all day long every day. Apple delivers it in virtually all of its stores. The W Hotel has built a brand around service.
If you want stories told about your brand, perhaps you should forego trying to save money on service by trying to limit the length of phone calls or refusing to treat customers as individuals (Chase, are you listening?) and take a lesson from some of these companies.
What do you think? Is it possible to encourage better service with praise? Or should we resume venting?
Is advertising giving crowdsourcing a bad name?
John Winsor hosts Crowdsourcery at Social Media Week
I didn’t get to New York for Social Media Week so I missed catching this crowdsourcery panel live, but did sit through it online. I’m a big fan of John Winsor and Michael Lebowitz as well as Faris Yakob. Three smart guys for sure. Put them at the same table with Denuo’s Seneel Radia and JWT’s Ty Montague and there’s no shortage of wisdom and experience (not to mention opinion) to go around.
In a nutshell (and I paraphrase here), Ty starts with the accurate assessment that crowdsourcing is still so new we don’t really know whether it’s a good or bad thing. Or even how best to apply it. Michael is skeptical that the technique can ever deliver the kind of product that comes out of his agency Big Spaceship since their process is all about collaboration and teamwork. Faris comes right out and questions the “wisdom of the crowd,” preferring instead the line “a person is smart, people are stupid.” And, of course, John, who just launched a company inspired by the possibilities, believes that crowdsourcing can work if the infrastructure is there and a “benevolent dictator” leads.
Michael Lebowitz, John Winsor, Faris Yakob
Frankly I agree with all of them. But for me the problem with the non-stop discussion of crowdsourcing in our industry is that we limit its application to the output of “creative.” We continually think about the technique exclusively as a way to yield a logo, or a TV spot, or a campaign of some sort. And so it remains controversial. We are either “devaluing the expertise of those who’ve spent years mastering a craft. “ Or we’re supposedly “exploiting all the wannabes who are willing to give their time and effort away for a pittance.”
But if we think of ourselves in the business not simply of creating messages (or even platforms) but of helping brands and clients build their businesses, then there are many uses of crowdsourcing. We can actually aid clients in developing new products. Think what Splenda did with its Facebook fans. We can accelerate learning by soliciting reaction to an idea from a willing community of fans. We can stimulate word of mouth marketing just by inviting people to create their own version of the ideas or spots that we conceive (think HP’s You on You). We can even produce finished work that might never be achieved otherwise. Lemonade the Movie, crowdsourced via Twitter, and the 3six5 project come to mind. While these two examples may not be for the benefit of clients or brands, they just as easily could be.
In the last year, Mullen has experimented with crowdsourcing for a number of projects. None were designed to produce the commercial that would run in place of something we could create ourselves. Instead our initiatives have served to inspire participation and co-creation from a community. We crowdfunded for Grain Foods Foundation. We created a blog to help clients and marketers understand Gen Y. We’re in the early stages of inviting Boston Bruin fans to write new “rules.” And we have some interesting ideas for our new client Victorinox Swiss Army.
The same day that John and friends shared their opinions, I met with Randy Corke of Chaordix. We talked about all the things that Chaordix was doing. They’re working with one of the UK’s top universities to reduce infant mortality in developing nations by crowdsourcing the knowledge and experience of all the doctors and nurses working in those countries. They’re showing a major US retailer how to tap into its employees to solve technical problems that will allow for better service, augmenting a small R&D group that’s overworked. They’re even crowdsourding ideas from the general public in Canada to help that country become innovative in the new digital economy. These ideas suggest possibilities far more interesting than securing an inexpensive logo or a user generated TV spot.
If you’re an agency, stop thinking about crowdsourcing for nothing other than creative (even though it can be a great tool for this, too) and consider your clients’ most important business challenges: faster development of new products; improved customers service; alternative distribution channels; new ways to give customers a chance to participate. All of these objectives could be crowdsourced, making an agency more of an asset in the process.
The big brands get it. Dell, Netflix, P & G, Heinz and others use crowdsourcing for all kinds of projects. But there are a lot of smaller or less innovative companies that haven’t yet explored the opportunities. Why not be the one who introduces them to the idea? If it’s not you, chances are it will be someone else.
Perfecting the podcast: a conversation with the Beancast’s Bob Knorpp
Anyone who’s listened to The Beancast knows it’s one of the best marketing podcasts around. The topics are topical. The guests know their stuff. The conversation stays lively. But if you think that Joseph Jaffe, Len Kendall, C.C. Chapman, or Angela Natividad perform so well on the show simply because they’re smart, or well-read, think again. A big part of it has to do with host Bob Knorpp who works his tail off to research each week’s subjects, prepare his guests and map out the conversation.
I’ve now had the privilege of doing the show twice and am booked again for May 2. (I eagerly accept Bob’s invitations the moment he offers them.) Having admired Bob’swork ethic and commitment to the show, I thought it might be useful to hear his thoughts on producing a great podcast. Here they are.
C_U: You clearly don’t leave anything to chance with your podcast. Do you map out the conversation you want to happen in your mind?
Bob: Although my topic outlines are very planned out, I’m less concerned about having a road map than having a safety net. Early on I realized that not every panel is equal in its ability to take a conversation and run with it. Some people need to be led to the subject. So I outline a potential conversation thread that gets things started.
Another thing I’ve realized from the show is that it’s always good to have the first question on a subject directed to a particular individual, and to have that person prepared to receive the question. Doing the show via Skype removes people from all visual cues. So time and again I would throw a question out and have dead silence as everyone waited for the next person to speak. That’s why my notes now include a specifically directed question at the start of every topic.
Now having said all of this, I still prefer the conversation to get to places I never intended. So while each topic is scripted with a potential scenario, as host I always listen and try to remain ready to jump off script and follow a new thread. After all, this show is about illuminating the thinking of the thought-leaders who participate, not just illuminating my own opinions.
C_U: How much time does it take you to prepare: identify subjects, gather content and links, and brief participants?
Bob: I usually spend about four to five hours pulling together the notes for each episode and getting my guests up to speed. To some that might seem like a lot, but it doesn’t seem all that long to me (considering the volume of stories I have to plow through) and it’s probably as much fun as doing the show. I’ve always been a person who loves puzzles; so reviewing the week’s stories to look for patterns and over-arching subjects is a lot like a game for me. I love to identify the twist that no one has talked about yet and then run it by the panel.
Over all, I probably spend about 10-12 hours on the show each week, not counting the promoting I do all week long. It’s a bit more than what’s done for the average podcast — from what I hear — which is probably why so many folks single me out for staying on topic and having a quality program. But the time is necessary to pull off the particular format I’ve chosen. I’m basically running the second-half of Meet the Press for the ad world. (You know, the part where all the pundits come on and knock the newsmakers from the first part of the show.) That requires me to be prepared.
C_U: The amount of information you consume in a week just to stay topical and be prepared is remarkable. Any secrets? Do you have an easy system? RSS reader, specific pubs?
Bob: My number-one, go-to resource for news is the Direct Marketing Association’s 3-D email blast. It’s the best aggregator of all things advertising and marketing that I’ve come across. I just love how many news sources it plows through and the diversity of its articles. It’s free to DMA members, but also can be bought as a paid subscription.
Beancast Host Bob Knorpp
After that I rely on my daily news blasts from Ad Age (I’ve tried numerous times to subscribe to the AdWeek blasts, but they’ve never worked for me) and I use the Mac News Reader “Times” to aggregate a selection of journal and blogging resources via RSS. I find the composite look I get from these sources to be enough to feed me the perspective I need for the show. They also reveal how narrow and non-illuminating any single-source of news has become these days.
As for just a few of my specific go-to blogs, I love AdPulp (we share cross-sponsorship right now, but I’d say it anyway), Thought Gadgets (Ben is brilliant), Make the Logo Bigger (Bill covers ad culture as much as the ads themselves), Adscam (George is foul-mouthed, but on-target) and the3six5 (Len’s project of having a different blogger every day for a year is amazing).
C_U: What makes for a great participant on the podcast?
Bob: My best guests are the ones who come on with lots of opinions and are looking to enjoy themselves. There’s something about a person who loves to debate without an axe to grind that I find completely refreshing.
The blogging and journalism worlds are rife with exactly this kind of person, so it’s no surprise that I’ve turned mainly to those who are expressing themselves regularly via a blog, column, podcast or online video program. I also look for people doing a good job of expressing themselves via the social spaces. Social media postings give me a good idea of how a person interacts with others and how they express themselves on issues in a debate. I particularly like evaluating people through Twitter, because if a person can regularly express themselves well in 140 characters I know they’ll probably have the ability to be succinct and clever on the show as well.
And, of course, it would be disingenuous of me not to acknowledge that I also look for people with a following of their own. I’m constantly looking for ways to build audience for the show, and one of the surest ways to do this is to have a new guest promote an appearance to his own audience. But I try not to make this last point a rule. I think the show is at it’s freshest when opinions come from a wide perspective. That’s why Al Gadbut from AcquireWeb, who has no blog and is not on Twitter, is just as important to my show as say Bill Green or Joe Jaffe who are everywhere online.
C_U: How important is the mix of people?
Bob: Chemistry is hugely important and probably my hardest tasks to manage. I’ve had shows where everyone is a favorite guest of mine, and still the show feels flat because the chemistry wasn’t right among the participants.
This is one of the reasons why I’ve settled on some recurring regulars whom I try to weave into most of the shows. I know I could put Bill Green or Angela Natividad on any show and I’m assured of success. They bring the chemistry with them and they are good at inspiring conversation. The same is true with guests like George Parker, Joe Jaffe or Peter Shankman who are all forces of nature and can really stir things up when they come on the show.
My goal is to make every guest who appears on The BeanCast look good. Some people have complained I don’t mix up the show roster enough and the same voices come on again and again. But it’s clear to me that finding a good guest mix is essential, and the only way to give a new guest a good chance of success is to pair them with a known quantity.
C_U: What could other podcasters learn from you? Any secrets as to how one can assure the content is good?
Bob: I’d love to say that preparation and hard work are the keys to success in podcasting, but that’s simply not true. Not all formats are created equal. For instance, I sit in as a guest host on the Video Game Outsiders podcast once in a while and that’s largely 2 hours of rambling discussion. And still their audience numbers dwarf mine by a factor of 10.
So I’d say a good podcast comes down to love, consistency and sound quality. Love what you’re talking about and people will be attracted to it over time. Do it regularly, because people won’t commit to you if you don’t commit to them. And make it sound good, because no one will suffer bad audio. And that last point goes for video shows as well, by the way. People will suffer through the worst home video on YouTube as long as the audio is good, but the converse is not true. It’s totally worth springing for a condenser mic and maybe a sound board.
C_U: We’ll cover the basics last. How long have you been doing this? How many episodes so far? What do you feel that you really get out of it for your own growth and development.
The Beancast is arguably the best marketing podcast
Bob: I’ve been doing the show for almost two years and will have logged 89 episodes after this evening’s episode. I also have a best-of program called Fast Takes, for those who don’t feel they have time for the hour-long regular program. Fast Takes offers short clips from previous BeanCast episodes. It’s been going on for about a year and I’ve logged 36 of those.
I get far too much from the program to let it go now. I speak, teach and consult on the power of content engagement strategies in social media. I believe in it. And now I’m living proof of it. Building an audience and earning their trust can take a lot of time and effort, but the result is I learn and grow from the content I’m producing, I gain unprecedented respect and connections within my industry (I most likely would have never had a chance to meet and hang out with someone like Edward Boches without the show), and I’m proving to my current and potential clients the power of my thinking through my actions rather than just trotting out stale case studies of what I did 10 years ago for someone else.
The show and my blog have become my stamp of credibility. That’s branding in its truest form.
Photo by: Duchamp
Share medical procedures via social media
I’m pleased to announce my latest venture, SeeMyOp.com. It’s intended to be the first social network site that lets members share their surgical procedures live with friends and followers, both on SeeMyOp.com as well as on a user’s other networks thanks to an API that will enable users to stream live video from surgical scopes and instruments over Twitter and Facebook.
In addition, a simple interface will also tweet all vital signs during an operation while planned connections to Foursquare and Blippy will inform a patient’s community of his hospital location along with the costs of all procedures.
I think you’ll agree this is the next big thing, not only in social networking and community building, but in health care as well.
SeeMyOp oozes benefits. For starters, it’s the logical next step for social networks. Think about it. As we all collect friends, fans and followers it’s inevitable that they’ll want to know as much about our health as they do about our thoughts, whereabouts and spending habits. And as more and more aging baby boomers embrace the social web, what’s likely to be the most common shared activity? That’s right, medical procedures. Everything from the basic to the life threatening.
Secondly, SeeMyOp.com taps right into the same networks we already use, uniting them in a way that’s useful, informative, and conversational. With Foursquare we let everyone know where we are. With Blippy, we share, if not brag about our recent purchases. With Facebook we update our status and share images of our lives. And with Twitter we tweet about just about anything. SeeMyOp ties them all together in the ultimate personal revelation: the chance to see what’s really going on inside us.
SeeMyOp.com will be the ultimate social sensory experience. In addition to video and vitals, the platform will automatically upload still photographs from any procedure at pre-determined intervals chosen by the patient. Images will be available on Flickr, Facebook and accessible via a new iPhone app also under development.
Even more importantly, SeeMyOp could become an incredibly valuable resource when it comes to health care. It will familiarize patients with procedures, allow them to learn from friends’ experiences, and provide them with comparative cost information.
It could even help with tracking the success rates for different procedures by both hospital and specialist as its installation base grows and more users embrace the new technology.
SeeMyOp is still in the early phases of development, getting ready to raise capital, as we proceed with product development. But I wanted to share it first with my own community of friends and readers.
I look forward to making the platform available to users and the medical community in the not too distant future and in the meantime welcome all of your comments, questions and feedback.
What do you think? Is this the best social networking idea yet or what?
Finally, if you like this post and others you see here, please hit the share button and pass it around. Or click on the RSS button in the upper right and subscribe. I’ll try and make it worth your while.
Five questions every CMO should ask a prospective ad agency
Most RFIs (request for information) sent to agencies are pretty standard, asking for facts, figures, management bios, client list, recent/wins losses, capabilities, strategic approach and examples of work. No doubt that’s all useful stuff. Some go a step further and ask for a description of the culture or perhaps what you think differentiates you from your competitors.
But if I were a CMO or a consultant, I’d want to know a lot more. Why? Because you’re not hiring an agency’s past, you’re hiring its future. And that future, while somewhat informed by previous accomplishments, is more likely to be a reflection of an agency’s vision, the newest people it’s hiring and its willingness to embrace what’s coming rather than preserve what’s been.
Here are the five questions I think you should ask.
1. What is the future of advertising?
This is a tough one for sure, but you’ll want to know if your agency has a clear sense of how much is changing, the new role of the consumer, the migration away from interruptive messages, and the technologies and platforms that make listening more important than talking. A forward thinking agency should have a pretty good point of view about how social media, technology, and the “good enough revolution” are changing the business.
2. What are you doing to assure your survival?
These days an agency should look pretty different than it did a few years ago. How have they made themselves more digital? What practices have been abandoned? How has the creative brief evolved? Maybe they’ve embedded connection planning into the creative group, developed alliances with best of breed partners, or launched a new practice. The innovator’s dilemma challenges all of us, but it’s no excuse for inactivity.
3. What are your criteria for hiring people?
Talent is everything. You certainly want people devoted to your business who have created famous work. But given that you’ll have to work hand in hand with people, you may also want to know what qualities the agency looks for. Curiosity? Courage? Relentlessness? Disruptive? Crazy? And find out for sure how many digital natives your agency’s hired recently. You definitely don’t want them playing catch up.
4. What is your definition of a creative team?
Who else besides the writer and the art director are on the team? Technology? User experience? Social media? Connection planner? Better yet find out whether or not the ageny even uses the label “creative” to refer only to writers, art directors and designers. It will tell you a lot about whether they think an idea is a message or something more compelling.
5. What are five recent creative ideas that aren’t ads?
Are they inventing new products for clients? Creating communities? Building platforms? Developing apps and utilities and WAP sites? Are they as committed to all the non-advertising platforms as to the :30 second spot? You might want to know. After all you may be hiring an advertising agency, but as the first question implies, advertising may be something different in the years to come.
What do you think? Other questions you should ask your next agency?
