Liz Strauss at Successful Blog

Thinking, writing, business ideas … You’re only a stranger once.

Would You Rather Be Martha Stewart or David Armano?

Filed Under Customer Think, Successful Blog | 15 Comments

Before You Choose . . .

“GET” STICKY!

Did you read David Armano’s post on corporate stumbling this week? He cites an article in GlobeandMail about how Martha Stewart made a beautiful website that no one wanted to visit. He points to simlar mistakes made by Coke and Bud, and then explains “what really motivates users.”

  • There are literally millions of enthusiasts out there producing quality content in highly search engine friendly formats.
  • Not only is much of their content easier to find on the Web—it’s engaging, relevant,
  • and the people who produce it actually talk back to us.

David “gets” what’s “sticky,”

. . . it’s the content that will keep us engaged, and coming back for more. It’s the special sauce that can take a consumer and make them an active participant.

So will you be Martha Stewart or David Armano? The choice is yours.
How will you make yourself sticky to the customers already want to love you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
I make business sticky. Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar. Call me.

Related:
See the Customer Think Series on the Successful Series page.

QA QnA: Tom Vander Well Is Magic

Filed Under Customer Think, Successful Blog | 9 Comments

relationships button

Yesterday, I had coffee with Tom Vander Well of QA QnA. We sat right across the street from Sears Tower. He was the bigger deal. I was so looking forward to meeting him. Not many folks in the Customer Service Industry have figured out the power of blogging. Tom is one in a fine group that knows the business.

Tom company’s C. Wenger Group does data-based assessment of how the customer feedback loop works. The special magic is that his company sees the people and hears the words behind the numbers that they collect. That’s why they have some of the most impressive clientele in the Midwest — names that are on that Fortune list.

No matter what your work is, it really is customer service. You should be reading Tom Vander Well’s blog.

Tom Vander Well

Proof of his real customer-centered, relationship focus, though, lies in the gracious company Tom was. In my excitement at a long-awaited chance to meet-up, I rattled on like a box of birds about business and blogs. [blush]

Thank you, Tom! Please know the longer you know me, the quieter I get. Really.

Despite the picture he took, don’t get the wrong impression about what he says I lost at Panera. I had to tell him something that the folks back in Des Moines didn’t know yet.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

I Asked a Telemarketer for Her Number — I Actually Wanted It!

Filed Under Customer Think, Successful Blog | 13 Comments

Leave a Message at the Tone

Customer Think Logo

My son is a recent college graduate.

Since his last year of school started, our phone has been inundated with calls from Student Loan Consolidation Services. They’re calling, asking for my son. Their objective is his business. His name is on some list of the class of 2007. They want to refinance what they assume to be my son’s school loans.

To say these calls are an irritant is to say that major dental surgery is not fun. It’s a relentless one-a-at-time water torture — daily ringing, the same hour, the same number. No message is left on the machine. Eventually we have to answer each one to make it stop.

The call routine is almost word-for-word predictable. The waste of time is pitiful. A bored caller goes through a call script, and we go through our own to get off the call list — the list we shouldn’t be on to start with.

Then this week, Maria called.

When I said, “Who’s calling?”

She said, “Are you his mother?” It was authentic and transparent. Imagine that. She wanted to know about the person — me — answering the phone.

Before she got much further, I had to ask her name, thank her, tell her how nice that was.

We had a great conversation. She asked my son’s situation. She told me two things she liked about what she had to offer and why she believed in it. We both knew it wasn’t my decision.

Then, I did something I’ve never done before. I asked a telemarketer if I could have her number. I took it down and gave it to my son. One day later, I explained to him why he should call her.

Maria, the caller from National Student Loan Division, deserves this mention. She made me a person, when her whole industry had made me a target.

Thank you, Maria.

Yeah, I’m thinking it’s sad that I find this remarkable.

I’m also thinking that maybe if we tell everyone . . . Maria might be the first and the only.

[Please know that this is not an endorsement of the company or a recommendation of their financing. I have not done the research. This is as statement of an outstanding example of customer relationships.]

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Related:
See the Customer Think Series on the Successful Series page.

Reality Check from Kent Newsome

Filed Under Business Life, Customer Think, Guest Writer | 12 Comments

Pass It On

Sometimes a sentence jumps out and grabs me by the ears. It’s always something easily forgotten so simply and elegantly said that I must pass it on.

Those who promote blogging for one thing or another always pretend that corporate non-tech America has or is about to embrace blogging, when the reality is that other than email, corporate non-tech America hasn’t even embraced the internet. –Kent Newsome

How many ways do we only see ourselves?

Thank you, Kent!

–ME ‘Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Blogging Lessons I Learned in Dancing School

Filed Under Customer Think | 24 Comments

One-and-a-Two

ballerina bag via morguefile.com

I learned these lessons about blogging in dancing school, when I was a wee thing.

  1. Looking in the mirror can be distracting.

  2. When I try to be someone else, I’m not graceful.

  3. Expression isn’t much, if I don’t know what I’m doing.

  4. Stuff that looks easy sure takes practice to do well.

  5. Smile.

My dance teacher was brilliant.

The World Wide Web didn’t even exist then.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

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