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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SOB Business Cafe 04-16-10

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SB Cafe

Welcome to the SOB Cafe

We offer the best in thinking — articles, books, podcasts, and videos about business online written by the Successful and Outstanding Bloggers of Successful Blog. Click on the titles to enjoy each selection.

The Specials this Week are

gaping void and Pam Slim
I was one powerful little girl. The Champion of the World.

My Dad smiled at me, squinting his eyes as he crouched behind the camera. I was safe, cherished and loved. He snapped the picture.

Things blew up after that, rather quickly.

Jonathan Fields, Awake at the Wheel
Rather than focusing all of your energy on fixing what’s wrong with your life, he asked:

What might happen if you focused instead on the sole quest to identify, then grow what was right?

Ramblings from a Glass Half Full
It happens the moment I step on a plane. That loss of control. Someone else is behind the wheel and taking me somewhere.

When control is lost, I get nervous. Edgy. Unsure. I need something to calm me down.

That something is information.

Art of Nonconformity
On the ride down I replayed the classic “time/money/no object” game in my head. You know, the one where you ask: “If time and money were no object, what would I do today?”

Social Media Explorer
It doesn’t matter which social media monitoring service you use. None of them do what you want them to do. They’re good at doing part of the job, but not all of it. And sadly, they probably won’t ever be good at doing all of the job because you have to do it.

Altitude Branding
Sometimes, you just outgrow things.

When you first learned to read, Dr. Seuss was awesome. Simple, rhyme-y, easy to grasp and remember. When you were little, you likely read those books over and over and never got tired of them.

Until you did. Until you needed something more to challenge you,

Related ala carte selections include

4/16 is Foursquare Day
Are you already the “Mayor McCheese” of your local McDonald’s on Foursquare? Get excited because this Friday the 16th could be your lucky day. We are very proud to announce that McDonald’s are joining the celebration of Foursquare Day by offering special deals for Foursquare users on April 16th 2010. That’s right folks, ALL 17,000 McDonald’s restaurants in the USA will become Foursquare Day venues.

Sit back. Enjoy your read. Nachos and drinks will be right over. Stay as long as you like. No tips required. Comments appreciated.

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

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

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Cool Small Biz Tools: PollDaddy – Need a Poll on Taxes?

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Todd Hoskins Reviews Tools for Small Business

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Todd Hoskins chooses and uses tools and products that could belong in a small business toolkit. He’ll be checking out how useful they are to folks who would be their customers in a form that’s consistent and relevant.

Survey Says . . . Polldaddy
A Reveiw by Todd Hoskins

Ask for feedback. Ask for feedback. Ask for feedback.

It’s so important, I wrote it three times. I was reminded of this wisdom recently when I asked a circle of friends for some input regarding transitions in my personal life. The responses I received were surprising, and multiple people thanked me for the invitation to share what been unspoken for months or years.

Not every customer will volunteer his or her opinions on your service, product, or brand experience. A simple, “How are we doing?” or “What could we do better?” can yield a library of rich information.

So, Problem #1 is getting the feedback. Problem #2 is dealing with the data. PollDaddy can provide assistance on both fronts.

polldaddy

Most people love to share their perspective, some openly, some anonymously. Also, they love to compare themselves to everyone else. This is what ESPN learned when they created a poll at ESPN.com. This led to a featured tab, additional interactive programming, and widespread promotion on television as well as radio. The polling was driving traffic. When they promoted their polls, visitors flocked to vote and compare.

I have used SurveyMonkey in the past to systematically gather feedback. It’s a great tool as well. What I love about PollDaddy is the ability to do email surveys, plus polls embedded in a blog, distributed via Twitter, or within social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, or Ning. For both SurveyMonkey and PollDaddy, the service is free for up to 100 responses. Annual subscriptions are very affordable at $15 to $75 a month. When the responses have been collected, PollDaddy provides reports that can be easily downloaded into a number of formats.

Polls are valuable for getting a quick read on more of a day-to-day basis. You can adjust your tactics based on questions like, “Was this helpful?” (PollDaddy also has a ratings feature for this). For bloggers, it’s insightful to poll your readers’ intentions for reading your blog: Inspiration? Community? Information? Get a feel for their background – professions, demographics, and interests.

The non-intrusive and entertaining aspect of a poll also makes it a great way to inject humor into your brand. A balance of asking questions to learn, and asking to be creative, silly, or human will win points with customers and readers. Don’t take it too seriously.

Surveys can provide more in-depth assistance for developing your strategy. I have asked customers to rank strengths and weaknesses of a client’s service, and asked them where clients should expand their products and businesses. It is important to keep the surveys brief (under 15 questions usually), and minimize the number of open-ended questions. While providing the most unbiased responses, too many open ends will result in a low response rate.

Polls and surveys are no substitute for real, natural dialogue. They are imperfect, but they both show that you care and give you valuable data to make decisions. This leads us to the final issue.

Problem #3 is being responsive to the data. PollDaddy can’t help you with that. When you ask people for input, their expectations increase. It doesn’t mean you need a redesign, a new feature, or more promotions. But your customers will expect you to respond – either with actions or words. Thank them for their participation. Send a note to the responders who were most impassioned. And, when possible, make public what you learned.

Summing Up – Is it worth it?

Enterprise Value: 4/5 – continuous feedback is as important as large-scale research

Entrepreneur Value: 5/5 – cheap, easy, and brings you closer to your customers

Personal Value: 2/5 – if you want to raise your geek flag, go for it

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Thanks, Todd! You can find Todd on Twitter @ToddHoskins

Thanks, Todd, I think it might be time for a poll around here.

What do you find polls useful for in the work that you do?

–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!!

Buy the ebook. Learn the art of online conversation.

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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
Work with Liz on your business!!

Register Now!! for sobcon-vmc