Successful Blog

There is a Place Beyond Great Customer Service

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A Guest Post by Barry Moltz

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Customer Service is job number one. We have heard this rallying cry within companies forever. Ironically, few of them have been able to implement it. The level of service that most businesses offer is pathetic.

However, this has been changing. With the advent of social media, customer service is now the new marketing. It has become the only sustainable competitive advantage and the current way to keep loyal customers. Advertising and company directed public relations can no longer control the conversation on what people are saying about your company and products. Small businesses have turned to social media tools to monitor what is being said about them and to get involved in that conversation. There are many well known examples of companies that are good at this such as Southwest Airlines, Peachtree, and Lands End.

However, there is now a place beyond great customer service that can even bind the loyalty your customers even more closely to your business. That place is called community.

If you look at the mission or purpose of most companies, it inevitably talks about providing a great product and excellent customer service. For example, Domino’s Pizza’s mission is

“Exceptional People On A Mission To Be The Best Pizza Delivery Company In The World’. This is part of Domino’s ‘Vision and Guiding Principles’ including these statements:
* ‘We Demand Integrity
* Our People Come First.
* We Take Great Care Of Our Customers.
* We Make Perfect 10 Pizzas Every Day.
* We Operate With Smart Hustle and Positive Energy”

However, the starting point for any small business owner is to have a great product, people and service. In order to be successful today, the owner needs to go much further.

Nick Sarillo has been running his pizza restaurants, Nick’s Pizza and Pub in the suburbs of Chicago for over 15 years. When Nick started, he wanted to have a purpose to his small business beyond offering a great product with great service. So, Nick created “Pizza on Purpose”. The mission statement that he came up with 15 years ago for his restaurants was:

“Our Dedicated Family Provides This Community an unforgettable Place; to Connect with your Family and Friends, to Have Fun and to Feel at Home”.

Notice that his mission statement does not talk about having great food or friendly people to serve the customer. Nick set out to use his restaurants to create a community where people can connect. Isn’t this the goal that we have for our social media business efforts? Nick put this in practice 15 years ago. His restaurants now support over 40 organizations in his community through fund raisers.

Nick’s small business gives something beyond great customer service. He offers a community for his customers and a way for them to connect with each other. When they are at Nick’s, they feel good about themselves, their community and his business. As a result, there is no longer a dividing line between his company and his customers. With his business, Nick has created a community which just happens to be a pizza restaurant. This is similar to Zappos, where they are not a company that sells just shoes, but a company that delivers great service regardless of their product.

There is no way to create more loyal fans than for them to be part of your community and have them raving about you. Forget creative marketing. Forget great customer service. Go to the place called community and your business will have its most sustainable competitive advantage: The raving loyalty of its customers.

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Barry Moltz is a Author & Speaker who loves technology and writes about service and small business at Barry J. Moltz You’ll find him on Twitter as @barrymoltz

Thanks, Barry. Customer service with deep ties to the community is truly the competitive advantage. I’m so with you on that!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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What My Boss Doesn’t Get About Social Media

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My Failure to Sell SOBCon2010 to My CEO
A Guest Post by Old Lady Swenson
(not her real name)

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I’m coming off of a failed sale of SOBCon2010 to my CEO. I thought I had done a stellar job of selling the event and investment by outlining the ROI from the last event I attended, providing detailed event information and correlating it to his business, writing a blog post as part of BlogItEarnIt to get a discount and even facilitating a phone discussion between my CEO and Liz. With all of this, his response was, “I just don’t see the direct benefit to the company.” As the result, the lovely Liz Strauss asked me to share a bit about “What my Boss Doesn’t Get About Social Media” anonymously. It goes something like this.

I’m marketing communications manager at a small company and formerly occupied agency roles at two different integrated marketing agencies. I’m a practitioner and eternal student of social media (as part of broader strategy); have developed and implemented various social media activities for clients in both B2C and B2B markets, as well as the organization in which I currently work.

When I was recruited to my current position, I had not yet had the pleasure of working for the entrepreneur. This excited me because of the promised opportunity to innovate and own a big chunk of the company’s mar comm responsibilities. Social media implementation was a large part of the discussion during the interview process and the CEO played very excited about exploring this new territory.

What came to be shortly after my hire was the elimination of the president (my champion and broad thinker within the company), a modified compensation plan that revolved around non-innovative tactics and an overall unsuccessful road that would ensure failed marketing execution and poor quality leads for the sales people because of the CEO’s one-track vision of how to bring home the bacon.

While by no means an exhaustive list, these are some of the things my boss doesn’t ‘get’ about social media, marketing and business that make my job and success very difficult:

He thinks his products and services are God’s gift and that everyone should want them. What my CEO doesn’t understand is better said by my buddy Chris Brogan, “No one cares about your dumb thing.” My CEO believes that pushing one-way messages out is very effective and will get leads in the funnel. Sadly, at one time, this was true because the communication model in place supported a one-to-many distribution. This is no longer true or particularly effective in most circumstances. What is completely unapparent to him is that the quality of the leads obtained in this way are significantly less valuable than if we created a central communications hub and supporting distribution channels that make the user experience simple and actionable for a wide range of users.

Conversations yield. People no longer have to be talked at. The people have the power because we now live in a world of democratized communication. The people have the same publishing tools and more robust communication means than most professional media. The CEO uses these tools himself (EBAY to purchase his vehicles, Trip Advisor to plan trips, Consumer Reports to source for information, etc.), but doesn’t realize that others use these tools similarly to determine their potential purchase of his product or service.

Content, not SEO reigns supreme. The main communication strategy (set in place before my arrival) is to have two Web sites in the top five of Google. While successful in that criteria, the conversion rate is horrible because the sites are optimized for the company and product, not people and what may be most useful to them. When people search and land on any Web site, they are able to make decisions based on the content provided, ease of use and the ability to easily take action. If they don’t find these things they will leave and find it elsewhere. Choosing to be number one with few conversations, rather than give your customers the most simple and effective path to your solution is silly.

This is a much longer story and there is so much more that ‘my boss doesn’t get about social media,’ but what’s been a great take away for me moving forward is:

Social media as it pertains to the organization, is not about the tools and what can be done, but about a culture that has; a sincere desire to learn, grow, be uncomfortable, potentially fail, want to truly connect its customers, and above all, the continued willingness to do these things to deepen connections and relationships that yield. Upon this, something great can be built.

I look forward to finding that place someday.

A big thanks to Liz for spending 30 minutes on the phone with my CEO trying to educate him on the value of my attendance of SOBCon and for everything elseJ.

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Old Lady Swenson (not her real name) works as a social media director for a midwest company that’s trying to grow through lead generation. As you might guess, her job is difficult.

Thanks OLS for the insights into managing up!


What doesn’t YOUR boss get about social media?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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Do You Know Your Blog’s BIG IDEA?

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What’s Your Goal?

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Blogging is like paper and pencil, like an answering machine, like an email or text message to the world. It’s meant to carry information from a writer to a reader. It’s more than Twitter. It allows for a longer thought and a deeper conversation. And well, … the url sets up a certain expectation with readers and search engines that you might add more to it that will be useful and valuable at a future date.

A blog can be text, audio, video or the format can be mixed. Most important is that add value, reaches out, connects, and offers some sort of expertise, especially now that the social web is providing us with so many places to gather and discuss.

It takes a strategy for fitting a blog into all of this.

and it takes an idea …

What’s Your Big Idea

Whether we’re writing a single blog post, planning a calendar for a week or a month, or setting out to start a new blog, we have to know what we’re planning to communicate and the direction we want that communication to go.

Knowing your BIG IDEA makes every other decision about your blog easier.

Decide these two elements:

  • know your goal and message — what your blog is all about in 25 words or less. Filter that down to less than 6 or so words and you have a tagline.
  • name your audience of readers you want to reach — who wants to hear what you have to say?

Determine how to address both of the above with a great mind.

  • What quality content and questions can you bring?
  • What great thinking and value can you add to that?
  • What other quality thinkers and content producers can you preselect and promote?

Figure out how to weave your values in.

  • What passion drives you talk about this?
  • How will you let your humanity come through?
  • How will you celebrate and honor people who do good things in the areas you care about?

Your message, your audience, and how you’ll blend great thinking with great humanity together they add up to your BIG IDEA. The BIG IDEA shows itself in your blog’s design, your writing style, your frequency of updating, even the words you use to name parts of your blog. When a choice confronts you; just hold it up to your BIG IDEA to see if it belongs.

The blogger who fully thinks through a BIG Idea enjoys success, readership, and a community filled with engaging, relevant conversation.

Whether your blog is new or five years old, do you know your blog’s BIG Idea? Can you write it in just a few words?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
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Three “Love You Loyal” Realities to Build a “Love You Loyal” Brand

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Anything Less Will Be Forgettable

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Brand, reputation, relationship the impression that people have of us and our business. We help shape and form it, but the image people take away isn’t in our control. Or is it? In some ways, what people decide about us has to do with experience we might never have been a part of. Some folks dislike all techies or all teachers. Some are biased against our age group and no actions will change that. Some are fiercely loyal to our competitor so much so that they cannot see us.

What does it take to get loyalty like that?

Three “Love You Loyal” Realities to “Love You Loyal” Brand

But with the folks who don’t know us and hold nothing against us. We have a chance to invite them into a passionate business relationship. To that well, we have to understand three critical “love you loyal” realities about you and your brand. You probably already know these intuitively, but you may not have put them all together in one place.

  1. A brand is how people think and feel about us … not what they say. People might remember what tell them or repeat what we want them to say. They might even agree with what we’ve taught them is our value base. If we invite them in, value them, ask them to contribute to it, they see the values in action, become part of what we’re building and want to protect it.
  2. People have expectations based on who they think and feel we are. People use our values to interpret our behaviors and our behaviors to interpret our values. If we share our intentions and how those intentions support our values, people make the connections that support us and help us see the unfavorable disconnects.
  3. The environment — especially other people — influences the thoughts and feelings people have about us. People feel a loyalty until someone tells a story that shakes their belief or their understanding. If we’re consistent with our shared values, state our intentions to keep them, and let folks contribute as vibrant growing part of improving on that, they’ll protect us against influences that might unravel the best of plans.

If we love our customers loyal, by knowing what we stand for and what we stand for is defined by valuing, serving, and protecting them, they will love us loyal back.

What’s one way you’ve seen a person or a company these three “love you loyal” realities into a web presence or a brand?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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The Zen Way to Deal with Negative Commentary Online

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A Guest Post by Shama Kabani

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When someone calls my company for the first time, there’s a high probability that what triggered the phone call is a negative consumer-written review or blog posting that shows up first in search engine rankings for their business.

Usually, they want to know how we can make the negative review go away – right now. It’s a shock when I say that the search engine ‘bots can’t distinguish between a snarky teenager in Des Moines, a competitor in Dallas, and a thoughtful reviewer in Dubuque. The truth is that social media has given a voice to anyone who wants to attack your business, and there are people out there who seem to revel in attacking for any reason – or no reason at all.

Sometimes the negative complaints are valid, and sometimes they’re not. So if you’re getting bashed in an online forum, the first rule is to respond to the negative consumer-generated review publicly, honestly, and as quickly as possible. Don’t even think about creating an alias to respond to a negative online posting. You will get caught, and it will cause more damage to your reputation. Here’s what I tell anyone who is wondering how to handle a negative online review:

  1. Check the facts. Is this person a customer? A former or current employee? A competitor spreading rumor?

    2. a. Once you know the facts, offer to resolve any issues personally, via email or telephone. (This requires the company owner, or a senior manager.)
    b. Continue the discussion offline if possible – then, once it is resolved, go back to the site where the negative review was posted, and post an honest explanation of what was done to rectify the issue.
    c. If you can’t identify the person, and you are not sure the complaint is valid, post your policy on the subject, and offer to resolve the issue.

  2. Follow your mother’s advice. Mind your manners, and if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. Online mudslinging never helps. If someone is posting personal slurs, be sure that YOU stay on the high road – don’t sink to their level.
  3. Rally the troops: encourage friends and satisfied customers or clients to post positive reviews.

Not long ago, after a speech to a business group, a man told me how he had put my advice to work. It’s a perfect example of what I call the Zen way of handling this kind of issue.

“I wanted to tell you how I resolved a problem I was having with a really bad online review on Yelp about my business. Someone – I never did figure out who – posted a terrible review – and that was the first thing people saw when they did a Google search on our company name.

“So I got my own Yelp account. I used my own name, and identified myself as the owner of the store. I basically said, ‘I’m saddened that you had a bad experience in my store. I’ve checked my records, and I can’t find a transaction that sounds like this. Please call me at this number, so that I can resolve this issue immediately.’ No one called, so a few weeks later I posted a second reply that said, ‘I haven’t heard from you. Please call me. I want the chance to make you a happy customer.’

“I used my real name, our store name, and posted the store phone number. At the same time, when I would talk to a satisfied customer, I’d say, ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d consider telling other people that you had a positive experience.’ I even put a request for positive Yelp reviews onto the receipts we give to customers. That first terrible review is still out there – but now there are more positive reviews, and the search engines don’t pick that bad review up first.”

One question that comes up often from frustrated small business owners is what to do if you find out about a negative comment that has “gone viral” (when one original negative message has been picked up far and wide, and a small problem has spread all over the Internet). Again, the action you should take depends on whether or not the negatives are true.

Products break. Employees don’t follow policy. Bad things happen to good companies – and they survive. The key to recovery is an honest response to the problem that explains what happened, and why it won’t happen again. If the problem isn’t simple, or if it wasn’t an isolated occurrence, consider hiring a crisis communication expert with specific online experience.

If it’s not true, politely request that the blog, forum, or site owner remove or retract the untrue information — or at least publish your response. Work with a search engine optimization (SEO) consultant to help you move positive information towards the top of search-engine rankings.

In very rare cases, business owners can seek legal help – libel laws do apply to online media. This is a last resort, and should be considered only in a very extreme case. First, it’s difficult and expensive because of the many steps required to identify the individual who posted the negative information.

More importantly, you can be sure that the minute a letter arrives from the lawyer, the news of “the big bad company” coming after “the poor citizen journalist” will be spread far and wide, further damaging your reputation. I can think of very few occasions when legal action has helped resolve this kind of problem, but being married to an attorney, I leave this question open, and welcome any feedback from someone who has successfully used legal action in this kind of situation.

Becoming an active part of the conversation that is already taking place among your customers, employees, prospects, and competitors is the best way to prevent negative comments from taking over your online reputation. This is especially critical for professional service businesses, where the company’s inventory and the company’s reputation are one and the same.

Take advantage of the free tools available to monitor your company’s online reputation. Start by signing up for Google and Yahoo email alerts using your company name, product name, and the names of key executives Yahoo Alerts and google alerts. Look at other tools like Ice Rocket, Monitor This, PubSub, and Blog Pulse.

While you’re figuring out where the conversation about your business and your competitors is taking place, establish a policy on how you are going to handle your part of the ongoing conversation. Who will speak for your company? How are you going to encourage satisfied customers and friends to speak positively about you?

It’s no longer a question of whether or not social media is going to affect your business – it already is. So the only question is when are you going to take charge of your own online reputation?

—–

Shama Kabani is president of The Marketing Zen Group, and author of The Zen of Social Media Marketing, which hits store shelves this week. You’ll find her on Twitter as @Shama

Thanks, Shama! I find that the more we include folks in what we’re doing online from the start, the more we invite them to help us as we build our presence and our sites, the more we find they help us when those negative occasions crop up.

How do you handle negative remarks and comments when you find them online?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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7 Reasons Business First Should Establish Expertise in a Single Segment or Vertical

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It sure seems counter-intuitive. A bigger market may seem to have more customers, but it’s also easier to get lost in.

Just choosing a smaller domain, a vertical and defining it sets a small business apart from all of the other small businesses that are trying to serve every customer on the planet and not doing much to attract any.

Becoming an expert in a small domain makes it easier to say “We’re the ones for you.” The you might be daycare centers, boomers, auto buyers, foodies, books buyers, cool apps afficiandos or exotic pet trainers — any definable group that has a group identity, talks to each other, and wants what you offer. The payoff in a smaller segment is often faster, greater, and more meaningful, especially when you start with a segment you’ve worked in, are a part of, and know intimately.

After all any small business should know what expertise it offers and be able to judge how well it is doing. It needs to know when new information is worth investigating and be able to apply it as needed.

Even the biggest brands started in one vertical … with good sense.

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  1. It’s easier for anyone to attain true expertise in a smaller domain or segment. Learning a single domain and it’s traditional technical basis will free you up to be creative. Learning an entire industry won’t offer the time to for mastery that breeds true innovation.
  2. The rules and procotols are more easily mastered. You get to know the conditions and the players and their positions more quickly. As, a result, you fit in more quickly and gain status faster.
  3. A smaller field of knowledge focuses your effort, concentrates your learning. Being brilliant at one thing is more valuable than being good at many — especially if many are good at the same things. People place more value folks who understand their issues intimately.
  4. It’s the best way to get your game on and get to know your customers. Mastering a smaller domain allows you to hone your skills more finely, understand nuance, recognize finer opportunities, and develop offerings that more clearly fit customer needs.
  5. Being an expert in a smaller space raises ROI. You apply the same knowledge to similar situations rather than change gears with each new client. You’re able to find ways to connect client work and research to lower your investment. Relationships go deeper and partnerships are more likely — you might share in development for different uses.
  6. A smaller pond enhances your visibility. It’s easier to see the stars in a smaller universe. You can build a network quickly and that network will stay with you and help you grow into new segments.
  7. As you gain visibility, you can extend your expertise and reach by moving into other niches and verticals strategically. With slow moves to related fields, your expertise grows exponentially. You can take on larger territory with out problems of scalability.

With those thoughts, it makes sense to start with a vertical you already know. If you were trained as a teacher or a lawyer, you might want to start near education or a law, where you already have depth and credibility. You can always overlay your marketing or social media passion on the vertical you know.

Remember when Amazon was only books?

What vertical suits the small business expert in you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!

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