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In an economic drought, good customer service is digging for water. You have to work at it and be smart about it, but it doesn’t have to be difficult. Here are a few things you can do right now to improve your customer service.

1. Listen to your customers
Listen to their complaints. Listen to their problems and their solutions. Listen to their successes and failures, their goals and plans, hopes and dreams; their boring and crazy stories. But don’t just be passive. Ask your customers to talk!

These are the people you need, and who need you. They are the lifeblood of your business, and they are your community. Get to know them, build relationships. Build trust. It starts with listening. Share their excitement, but be quick to root out and squash the causes of their frustrations.

2. Listen to your colleagues
The employee is every bit as important as the customer. An employee can make or break a sale; can gain the trust and loyalty of a customer, or lose it forever.

Listening does not just mean hearing sounds; it’s not passive. It means comprehending, it means dialogue. It means suppressing the ego, looking for the causes of problems, and solving them.

If you are a business owner, your staff represents YOU to your customers, but they also represent your customers to you. Better pay attention. If you work for someone, listen to your co-workers in the same way. This builds trust and shapes a cohesive unit, leading to better customer service.

3. Be open to change
Listening is good, because it allows excitement to be shared and also the burden of frustrations. But understanding the things you hear is one thing – acting on them is another. What created the excitement? Can we try to create more of this? What caused the frustration? How can we avoid more of this?

Change is hard. But it happens with or without you. Your customers and employees, both, will expect poor situations to be fixed. If it doesn’t happen they will no longer be yours.

4. Follow through
Do what you say you’re going to do. I absolutely hate it when people don’t follow through, all the more so because I’ve failed in this area so many times. But it’s as critical as it is fundamental; if you say you will provide a service, then do so. If you say “we provide quality customer service,” or “service you can depend on,” well dammit you’d better deliver.

The corollary to this, of course, is don’t tell me you’re going to do something if you don’t know for sure if you can. A little open communication goes a long way.

5. Strive for consistency
Say you go to a restaurant where you absolutely love the food, but are disappointed by poor quality. How likely are you to return? How likely are you to say to others, “yeah, this place is going downhill”?

Maintaining consistent quality of product or service is difficult. There are many variables, but remember you’re not in this alone. Your customers will tell you if you’re slipping, and so will your employees. Take care of points 1 and 2, and you’ll stand a much better chance of staying on top of this one. But also remember consistency has to apply to all the above points.

Good customer service takes unceasing effort. Maybe that’s why so many businesses don’t have it, or don’t have it consistently. But does any of this stuff work? Is it worth the effort? Am I full of crap?

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Photo courtesy of Tonamel

5 Ways To Improve Your Customer Service is a post from: RSA Blog

Tools without strategy: poorly built house; dilapidated, isolated. More of a shack, really. A bad marketing shack.

I’ve had the opportunity to speak at a few events about social media. I’ve also spoken to clients, prospects, colleagues, friends, family, and a few pets about social media. One of the most common questions asked of me, and that I see asked of others, is “how do you use social media for business?”

For these presentations, I usually begin by explaining what social media is conceptually, then move into how it can be integrated into the marketing effort – beginning with objectives and strategy. Almost unfailingly, however, I receive feedback to the effect of “I still don’t know how to *USE* this stuff.” I think I know what the problem is (clearly I need to fix my presentation, but that’s beside the point).

Tools without a plan

Imagine I walked up to you and asked, “How do I use a hammer?” How would you respond? You might grab a hammer, nail, and a piece of wood and show me the proper way to hold the tool and the nail, place the wood, and proper form for pounding the nail in. I’d say “thanks,” you’d say “jolly good, ol’ boy,” and we’d part company.

Now what? I can hammer nails with the best of them, but what does that mean? I can nail two pieces of wood together. Or three, or fifty. Can’t cut the wood – need to learn another tool. Oh, the wood needs to be measured? Another tool. Whoops, forgot to lay the foundation – that’s a whole other set of tools.

You get the idea. I know how to use a hammer, but I still can’t build a house – not one that deserves the name, anyway.

Technology without strategy

It’s the same with social media – Twitter, Facebook, Google, blogs, forums, etc. – these are just tools. I can show you how to use any of them, but they’re not going to do anything for your business unless you understand how they fit into the marketing mix, the PR effort, sales, customer service, production, and all other facets of your organization.

Because unlike a specialized tool like the hammer, “social media” as a concept can be utilized to further the efforts of almost any department in your business. But you won’t understand this simply by learning specific tools.

That’s why I always try to begin with the fundamentals – or the high-level perspective, depending on how you look at it: business objectives; the strategic plan. But this seems to make people zone out – they don’t want to hear it. They just want to dive into the tools. That enthusiasm is great, but it’s no use without a plan.

Stop.

It is definitely NOT hammer time. Put it down, back away, and no one gets hurt! Start at the beginning. Form your plan based on objectives. Then when you do get to the tools, you’ll be able to use them effectively, with purpose. Even better, when new tools and technologies come along, you’ll be much better prepared to jump in and use them effectively as well.

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Photo courtesy of foto3116

Social Media Tools Are Useless is a post from: RSA Blog

Is full transparency really a good idea?

Almost every “how-to” or list of tips on using social media includes some kind of advice on being authentic or transparent. I’m not convinced we all agree on what things like transparency and authenticity mean in this context.

Transparency
No one is really serious about full transparency. Full transparency would entail communication of every detail of your life. I don’t know about you, but I’m not too keen on the idea I should tell you when I use the bathroom or what my email password is. If I update a social app with the fact that I’ve left work, I don’t think I’m obligated to tell you where I’m going. Or who I’m meeting. Or what kind of drugs I’m buying. What?

Yes, the truth is there’s stuff I don’t want you to know about. Stuff you *shouldn’t* know. Not drugs, exactly – I’ve been clean for at least a few weeks. The point is “transparency” is sort of a misnomer – no one really means it. Translucent? The reality is probably more opaque.

Authenticity
When people tell you to be authentic in social media, I don’ think they’re saying what they really mean. For example, if I was “authentic” all the time, I’d probably be a brutally critical, abrasive, elitist, condescending douche. What’s that you say? How would that be different? Oh, you wound me. I am wounded!

But you see the point, don’t you? We each have personality traits that just aren’t suitable for social settings. This is why drunk people are so annoying. Unless you’re drunk, too. But if you’re drunk on Twitter, you’ve other problems beyond the scope of this blog (and don’t be looking back through my Twitter feed, now – that was just the one time).

What We Really Mean

I think what people really mean when they say “be authentic” is “don’t be a fakey liar.” Don’t pretend to be someone you’re not. I might be an abrasive ass, but I’m also a compassionate, helpful person. Which side should I show, socially? Am I being less honest by presenting the “good” side? Well, I’m probably not going to make many friends by letting my inner ass out. Wait, that came out wrong. Alright, it’s better to be nice, even if you don’t feel like it.

Be Nice
There’s truth in the saying “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” Without my “inner filter,” my Twitter stream would be very different. Is this less honest or authentic? Absolutely – and that’s okay. It’s still me. All the best parts, in fact, with less of the crazy.

Be Helpful
Yet there’s more to it. It’s not just about showing the “best” side of you. It’s also about being helpful. We are social by nature, and being social means participating in community. Community is based on, among other things, the fact of mutual aid – that we’re interested and concerned in the doings of our neighbors, and have a stake – however small – in their successes and failures. Being social *is* being helpful, and it’s part of being yourself; being “authentic.”

Some of you will cry BS on that, and you’re not wrong. “Community,” per se, doesn’t have a place in business. But if you take a step back and look at the big picture, you might see that business does have a place in community.

Be You
So how do we wrap this all up in a nice little package? Well the questions is too subjective for all that. “Helpfulness” is different for everyone, as it depends on perception, reality, and a sort of social feedback loop. In my case I try to keep things lighthearted, because I think there’s not enough laughter in this business. We take ourselves too seriously.

For others it might make sense to be a bit of an egotistical elitist, because maybe that’s what inspires others in some way. Still others may remain strictly professional in manner, because that’s how they are helpful to their peers. Perhaps a combination of these and more.

So when we’re talking about social media, and we think of being “transparent” or “authentic,” it really just means “be honest, be nice, be helpful, but do it your way.” Be yourself, but be mindful of your community.

I’ve muddled through this landscape quite a ways, and I’m not sure where we ended up. Help me out in the comments.

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Photo courtesy of Yuliya Libkina

Transparency, Authenticity, and Social Media is a post from: RSA Blog

Everyone has goals.

If you own, manage or work in a business, you’re a marketer. Marketing may not be your specialty – that is, you may not be the one calling the shots when it comes to marketing plans and decisions, but you are still an integral part of that activity. You are a marketer, like it or not.

Don’t think so? Think clear back to a time when (generally) a “market” meant a place in town where booths, shops and carts were set up to sell meats, produce, and other goods. That’s marketing at its most basic: a presence in the marketplace.

Bear with me, now, as I try to connect some dots.

Humans, by their very nature, are goal-seeking. We can’t escape it. Since we have goals, we also have strategies. Without thinking we form strategies and implement tactics to achieve objectives. From our perspective it seems like we’re just washing dishes or running errands, but the processes behind these actions relate to our goals. It’s automatic. It’s human nature.

The fishmonger had a marketing strategy, though he probably didn’t know it. In fact it’s debatable whether anyone really “knew” about marketing strategies until the 20th century. They existed nonetheless, good and bad – unexamined.

Everyone can agree that marketing is an inherent component of business. In fact, it’s so fundamental that you actually “do” marketing simply by having a storefront (offline or on).

Since you can’t escape “doing” marketing, and since you are a goal-seeking human, you already have a marketing strategy whether you can identify it or not. It may have been created by someone else in your organization, or it may simply be composed of various ideas you’ve encountered throughout your career, or from interaction with colleagues. It may or may not be a good strategy. Either way, you’re using it.

But the quality of that strategy really is the question. Given that most of the activities you engage in for business fall under the category “marketing” (many of them indirectly), it’s probably a good idea to take a hard look at those activities as a collective and consider whether or not the totality of your efforts is furthering your business goals.

After all, we’ve come a long way from village-square peddlers. Everything has changed: the basic economy, currency, range of customers, type and range of goods and services, the scope and scale of everything…marketing in a modern economy is much more complex. It takes multiple people, sometimes a large staff of just marketing folks. It takes strategy – well researched and articulated.

You have a marketing strategy. Ask yourself if it’s effective or not. Track data. Measure results. Refine your plan. Just don’t leave it up to chance.

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Photo credit: frli

Everyone Has a Marketing Strategy is a post from: RSA Blog

Most of us who are active in social web spaces (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc.) do it privately – that is to say, we’re engaging online with friends and family. But what if you’re doing it for a business? How should you present yourself?

It can be difficult to know where to draw the line between the personal and professional when dealing with brands, vendors, clients, customers, etc. After all, you are YOU, and though you may represent your organization, you’re still a person. And people engage with other people.

Look, I “tweet” personal stuff all the time. Granted, I’m not the principle of the organization, or even a high-level operative (so to speak). So although I do represent my company to a degree, I’m safe from being seen as “the company voice.” Not so, for others. Being seen as the representative of the organization can put you in a tight spot where the line between personal and professional gets a little blurry.

But this is why I’m always talking about strategy (for those of you I have actually spoken to). Dipping into social media just to experiment is fine – in fact, a good idea. When you start to get serious, though, you need to step back and take the strategic perspective. It’s within this view you’ll be able to answer the question “Where’s the line between personal and professional?”

Because it really comes down to how you plan to engage the social web. If your plan is to present a corporate voice maintained by multiple team members, the line is drawn well within the “professional” space. If you plan to just be You, who happens to work for Company A, the personal element should and will naturally spring to the surface.

On to The Good Stuff

Keeping in mind this all depends on your objective and strategic approach, here are some basic tips for keeping that balance between the personal and professional in any social web space.

1. Don’t over-disclose. Pretend you are talking to a customer. In other words, keep it on a professional level, even if the content is more about you, personally, than the business.

2. Careful what you say. Political/religious content can offend your customers. Unless the issue directly affects your business, pass on it (as opposed to “pass it on”). Again, pretend you’re talking to a customer in the store or on the phone.

3. Don’t get carried away. “Personal” is good in moderation, and if it’s still useful somehow. “I’m eating a turkey wrap” isn’t useful or even interesting. “This is the best turkey wrap I’ve ever had – got it from [some restaurant] in [some place] – try it out!” might be both.

4. Be prepared to engage. If you post or tweet personal content (or anything else, really), you may get replies. If you ignore or walk away from it, you’ve missed an opportunity. Once again, pretend you’re talking to customers. Expect questions, and answer them. Have conversations!

5. Don’t have conversations. Wait, what? “Kyle is contradicting himself again,” you say? Yeah, sorta. What I mean to say is don’t hold long public discussions about personal things. If you do want to have such a conversation with someone, take it to private messages, email or instant messaging. The rest of your audience will thank you.

So there are some loose guidelines for keeping that personal/professional balance. Hope this is helpful to those of you just starting out, and if I left anything out please post it below in the comments. Thanks!

Social Media: Personal or Professional? is a post from: RSA Blog

People trust people, not the shirts they wear

I recently tripped over a former high school classmate on Twitter. His user name looked really familiar so I checked his profile to see if it was, in fact, the person I was thinking of. After following his profile to his personal website, I found the proof I was looking for: a photo confirming my suspicions.

Cool! It’s always neat to run into tweeps you actually know outside of the twittersphere.

So after poking around his site, I find he’s also running a little side business with its own website. Being the curious cat (see: nosey) that I am, I checked out this side project. What I found was a one looooooooong page of a website making all sorts of extravagant claims and looking like an all around scam.

BUT.

Since I knew this person from a number of years ago, I found myself thinking, “Yeah, this might be something I would actually buy.” Full stop. What’s going on here? I’m presented with a totally unprofessional site that just screams “Nigerian email scam”, yet I am seriously considering opening up the wallet. Wow.

How much more do you believe the statement you’re reading when you trust (or in my case, vaguely know) the source? How much value does the source inherently bring to the table?

Your grandma makes her cookies from scratch. If Big Box Corporate Cookie Manufacturing Co. advertises their cookies are made from scratch, just like your grandma’s, would you believe them? Note: if your grandma is lead chef at Big Box Corporate Cookie Manufacturing Co., then my analogy fails. Oh well, I guess that’s how the cookie crumbles! (Oh come on, the joke wasn’t that bad…)

Moving right along: customer reviews and peer testimonials are immensely powerful forces in the purchasing process. Similar to the situation with my acquaintance and I, people will trust another person, even if a complete stranger, more readily than advertising (though advertising does have its place).

Think back to the last time you bought something online. Go ahead, I’ll wait. OK, did you read customer reviews before buying the item? Or did you at least Google it before buying? How much did your research sway your final decision? I’d be willing to bet it factored in quite a bit.

What people say about your brand experience is not easily ignored by others, and should be highly valued (pssst: you need to be paying attention to what your customers are saying, because they’re saying it whether you’re listening or not). It’s up to you to listen, interact or even facilitate the conversation on your own website by offering a rating or comment system for your product.

“But what if a customer posts something negative on my site? Won’t that diminish my product?” Not necessarily. Instead of seeing this as a liability, see it as an opportunity to interact and ultimately provide great customer service. If other users see you reply to a specific concern and address the issue head on (“I know you are, but what am I?” is not a valid response), it only increases your value to the customer and you gain a little bit more of their trust. Conversely, if you ignore the problem or, even worse, censor it, what message will you be sending? I’ll give you a hint: it starts with “B” and ends with “ad”.

People vs. Advertising is a post from: RSA Blog

*It is far easier to ensure good customer service than to repair the damages of bad service – like trying to repair a broken window. (Photo credit: Shoes on Wires)

Why are any of us in business? I think that’s a question more people should ask themselves. Sometimes, I don’t know why some businesses bother to go on.

Lately service, or rather a lack of it, has really got to me. I recently ordered some replacement glass for my new house from a local (nameless) company. One of the windows was cracked when I moved in. It was delivered after two weeks which is when the trouble started. Not only was the glass too big, but I also had to pay a Glazier for a window that wasn’t fitted.

The glass company happily took the window back, admitting that it had measured it wrong (good so far). They said that they’d let me know when the new glass was ready. Fast forward six weeks; one more incorrectly measured pane of glass, and I am now fuming. For some time they weren’t even answering my calls; even the shop was closed when I went to visit. Eventually after several phone calls – and a call to the owner’s personal residence – I have a new piece of glass that is supposed to be going in this weekend (I’ll keep you posted). What really annoyed me was the lack of contact and severe delays with no explanation or apology. Rest assured I won’t be going back!

If I contrast this with another story of poor service, it illustrates how things can start out bad, but turn out for the best…

In 1998 my niece was born. She was living in Germany and I was living in England. At the time I wasn’t flush with cash, so, saving for a flight took some time. Nevertheless, I couldn’t miss an opportunity to see my sister’s first child, a beautiful baby girl. So I ended up in Dusseldorf, Germany, and spent a week there, taking pictures of my new niece and having a generally great time (I am a big beer drinker, eater of fresh pretzels, ahh… Ahem, that’s another blog).

So I got back to England and rushed the pictures to the developers – I didn’t have a digital camera at the time and in England, I used to use a well known chemist who also developed photos. Unfortunately, I did not use the 1-hour service which means that your photos stay in the store. Instead, I used the more affordable option, which took longer, but meant the photos were sent away to a processing center. The developer then lost the photos. I angrily explained the importance of these photos as they were of a newborn far away in Germany; therefore not immediately accessible for more snaps.

A week went by and I received a letter from the company’s Operations Manager, who apologized for the loss and gave me a check for £100 (about $155). While it was nice to receive a check, and also a signed letter, it did not bring my photos back. So I wrote back and enclosed the initial check, explaining that the photos were worth far more than this. A few days later, the company called me, and suggested that they pay for first class plane tickets back to Germany over Christmas for me and my family (three of us). I couldn’t believe my ears – I was ecstatic and accepted the offer – we spent a delightful Christmas and New Year in Dusseldorf.

Even after all of these years, I recall this story easily; it truly restored my faith in this company and it also demonstrated that humanity and dignity are a considerable element in quality service. It also proves a point, that while some customer experiences are negative, they can be turned into a positive if managed in the proper way.

Everyone accepts that things go wrong, we all make mistakes; doctors remove the wrong kidney; our troops are hit by “friendly fire”; it’s not intentional – it’s regrettable. I don’t for one minute believe that the harsh realities of modern warfare or mistakes in the medical profession are comparable to my customer service stories. But ultimately the most important thread in all of these analogies is how we deal with the aftermath, how we deal with difficult situations. In my view we need to embrace our mistakes; put measures into place that eliminate their reoccurrence and constantly evaluate our performance. Ultimately, a great customer experience should be at the heart of all we do. We just need to remind ourselves of that sometimes because in this day and age, customer service is a matter of survival. Customer service should never be an afterthought.

Why Good Customer Service is so Important is a post from: RSA Blog

Designer's rendering of the playground

The Vickie Powers Memorial Park Playground Project gets underway today.  It’s an exciting event – 5 days of building by hundreds of volunteers, and in the end the community will have a brand new playground in the park.

What’s cool about this playground is that it was designed with the help of children, so you know they’re going to love it. As part of a “community design, community build” concept, Rapid City’s Parks & Recreation Department teamed up with Leather’s & Associates, out of New York, to make this project happen.

The concept of this park’s “community design, community build” is classic and essential.  Whether it be by getting involved in social media, encouraging higher levels of customer and community service,  relationship building, or by hosting/contributing to community events, the community theme has been a common thread for many of our clients lately.  Sort of as a way to get back to the basics.  Back to the human connection.  Working together toward a common goal.

It’s encouraging to see so many people give so much to such a cause as this park, even in the midst of a recession. This generosity, this sense of community, is now more important than ever. I hope this playground and park will benefit the community by/for which it was built, and perhaps serve as a way to grow our sense of community in the days ahead.

Giving Back to Our Community is a post from: RSA Blog

Our focus was to demonstrate the use of various social tools and spaces – Google Reader, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and iGoogle – as well as show our audience how to integrate these social spaces and streamline their online efforts for both business and personal use. Though most of the presentation was “hands-on,” here are a few takeaways:

1. Don’t jump right to the technology; form an objective, and a strategy to achieve that objective.

2. Social web endeavors should not be message-centered, as traditional marketing is. Rather, the focus should be on the people you are talking to, and what they need.

3. There’s no right or wrong way to “use” social media, but there are consequences for certain things you might do; potentially negative consequences.

4. The future will bring an even larger, growing, more tech-savvy online audience than ever before. New technologies will launch, replacing current tech and services. Getting into it now; getting familiar with not only the tools, but the relationships and interactivity behind the tools, will aid you in moving forward and keeping on top of these changes as they happen.

Below is our accompanying deck.

Hands-on Social Media is a post from: RSA Blog

We're not supposed to talk about how great we are. (photo by JSolomon)

Time to take a step back.

Time to take a good look at what we’re doing here at RSA. The economy is down – way down, and people are cutting advertising and marketing budgets, big time. Looks like 2009 is shaping up to be a “building year,” right?

Maybe not. The problem is, we’re still as busy as ever, and I guess that’s less of a problem and more a relief. Some might call it good luck; I call it hard work and a passion for what we do. And a passion for having food to eat, there’s also that.

And yet we have been building as well. Since late last year we’ve added new departments, new staff, and new teams. We’ve got a new website on deck, and are partnering with new clients weekly.

A little horn-tooting…

Our CEO just came back from the “Alliance of Bigshot MarComm Pros Conference” (or something like that), where they basically sit around, drink beer and watch baseball (and apparently the game wasn’t the only exhibition in the stadium that night – you’ll have to ask him about that).

Oh, and I guess they talk shop a little bit, too. It’s a group of 8 or so agencies from around the country, and they’ve been getting together biannually for nearly a decade to talk about the industry, new developments, trends, technology, and the meaning of life.

So Robert comes back and basically he tells us we’re kicking ass. That’s a good feeling, especially for a small agency in Rapid City, South Dakota. I mean, who really takes anyone seriously out here in “fly over” country? Well maybe we’re a little big for our breeches, but held up against a national standard – and this group is national – we look pretty good. As Robert put it:

“Our discussions with other agencies validates what we’re doing; we’re encouraged that the skill sets and strategies we’re developing are equal to or ahead of the national curve; and by leaps and bounds compared with the competition in our marketplace.”

All horn-tooting and back-patting aside, however, I have to say it’s been a tough few months – tough in the sense of having to work HARD for what we’ve gained. And that’s the key to getting ahead in this economy: hard work. It pays off in the end – we’ve seen it with our own business, and our clients as well.
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Photo credit | JSolomon

A Building Year is a post from: RSA Blog