Customer Think Archives - Page 6 of 20

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

September 28, 2007 by Liz

Leave a Message at the Tone

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

July 27, 2007 by Liz

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

May 7, 2007 by Liz

One-and-a-Two

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

Looking in the mirror can be distracting.

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

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

Stuff that looks easy sure takes practice to do well.

Smile.

My dance teacher was brilliant.
The World Wide Web didn’t even exist then.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Choosing for Our Readers: A 5 Point Pop Quiz

March 6, 2007 by Liz

It’s a Surprise Quiz!

Content is king. It is the product and the service we offer to our readers. Content is what they come for. So when we look on our front page, our job is to make sure that readers will find what they came for. Our posts are our way of extending ourselves, our thoughts, our business savvy, and our expertise. They are the flag that carries our branding message to the world in every sentence.

Sometimes we can look in the wrong direction. Instead of choosing for our readers we unconsciously choose for ourselves.

I use this 5 Point Pop Quiz to check today’s post.

What was my purpose for writing today’s post?

Who is the audience who will enjoy the post? Are they the core audience of my blog or business?

Is there real content in the post? If it’s a link list, do I personally recommend every link on offer? If I’m passing on information, have I added my own insights, analysis, and value to it?

What will my readers learn or get from reading today’s post? Will they be informed, entertained, or moved to action?

For today’s post, did Ichoose for myself or for my readers?

Now and then we all forget and find we chose ourselves over our readers. Other times we write for each other, rather than for the folks we want as customers. I’ve been writing for years and I know I still get caught there.

I hope your post passed this 5 Point Pop Quiz with flying colors — the flying colors of a brand well focused on your readers. If not, I bet you know just what to do. . . .

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Don’t forget to sign up to meet me in Chicago. Seats are, oh so, limited.

Self-Promotion as Easy as Knowing What You Do

February 15, 2007 by Liz

Self Promotion Made Easy

When people asked me why I quit teaching grade school, one of the reasons I offer is that I found myself at parties answering the famous question, What do you do? like this.

I’m a teacher, but not like any teacher you ever met.

What do you do is an opportunity to sell yourself.

I knew enough to know that I was losing the passion for my job. What I didn’t know then was that I had stumbled onto a key part of self-promotion –understanding what people will think of what I’m about to say.

When someone asks What do you do for a living? How do you answer?

If you say the name of your job, butcher, baker, dancer, writer, web developer . . ., you offer them the chance to attach to you all of the preconceived notions they have about folks with that job. You’re walkng right into their box.

Bob Weiss knows. If your answer is: “I’m a lawyer,” you’ve missed a marketing opportunity.

Bob knows that by saying you’re a lawyer, you’ve turned the conversation to the topic of lawyers and away from what you do. No possible clients will be happening. Instead you’re probably going to be hearing what people think about lawyers for the next while. You’ll be up against proving what you’re not or maybe proving what you’re as good as.

Either way,to name a job is to invite comparison.

Of course, I’m no longer a teacher. I’m an entrepreneur. My job depends on the people knowing what I do and that I do it well. So I’ve learned to answer that question with a little finesse.

When folks ask what I do I say I help individuals and small businesses find their vision, focus their business, and layout a strategy that allows them to do what they love and make money meeting their customers’ unexpressed needs and desires better than their competition does.

Yes, I have a shorter version too, but you see where I’m going. I don’t start by saying I’m the Perfect Virtual Manager. I know that would only get me blank stares.

So think for awhile and then tell me . . . what do you do for a living? If you would like to write in the comment box under a code name, please feel free to do so. If you have trouble getting it the way you want, let’s find the right words together. All of us can probably get you to a lovely description of what drives your passion for the reason you work everyday.

When you can answer the question, it won’t feel like self-promotion. It will be you talking about what you do every day.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you’d like to help with your brand or business,check out the Perfect Virtual Manager on the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Words We Search with, Words We Sell with

January 23, 2007 by Liz

When Words Fuel the Internet

Words are the fuel of the Internet. We type the name or description of a product, service, or topic into a search engine, and the search engine takes us to it. With luck we get where we would like to be. Easy enough from our end — usually.

Of course, our search words have to match those that marketers use to describe their product. And therein lies the problem. Sometimes as marketers, we are too clever for our searchers, or as my husband would argue, “Peach is fruit, NOT a color.”

In his post Words That Work at Marketing Profs, Gerry McGovern, uses the book “Words that Work,” by Frank Luntz to show that the words we sell with are often not the words we punch into a search engine. Take a look at Prof. McGovern’s examples:

However, according to Overture, in December 2006, 730,958 people searched for “used car,” while only 949 searched for “pre-owned vehicle.”

Nearly 73,000 people searched for “housewife” (122,000 searched for “desperate housewife”), while only 43 searched for “stay-at-home-mom.”

Over 30,000 searched for “gay marriage” while 19,000 searched for ” same-sex marriage.”

While about 17,000 people search for “impotence,” over 100,000 search for “erectile dysfunction,” proving that some words are indeed falling into disuse, even from a search point of view.

The point is that the words that might bring us to products — cheap office supplies, budget hotel — aren’t the same words that sell us when we get there — office supplies at great prices, campy hotel. Prof McGoven wonders whether we need to use more than one set of terms to describe things. Hmmmm. I don’t know.

I keep thinking that transparency and deep knowledge of our customers as people would lead us to write copy that naturally avoids the problem.

I’d love to know what you think.

— ME “Lia” Strauss

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