I wrote previously about my experience at OTA Sessions a few weeks ago, and highlighted some of the topics discussed. It all boils down to changes in the way we do business; whether you like it or not, these changes are occurring.
In this (holy crap it’s long) article I am going to outline what some of the speakers at OTA Sessions said about how to approach this new marketplace–and the new “consumer”–we’re faced with.
Social communication isn’t new
While social media like Twitter and Facebook are new, they are simply vehicles for an activity we’ve always engaged in. Humans are fundamentally social and always have been. We are drawn to each other and impelled to communicate and belong to social groups; something greater than ourselves.
The difference now is the marketplace is shifting to media through which human interaction is enabled–necessary, in fact–rather than muffled or disabled.
Here’s what our speakers had to say about approaching and succeeding in this new communicative, interactive marketplace (again, with commentary not meant to reflect what each speaker said, only my own conclusions):
Instead of focusing on numbers, focus on WHO your audience is
The quality of the audience matters more than the quantity–that is, I’d rather speak to one person who is in need of my services than ten who aren’t. Likewise, I’d rather speak to one person who knows ten people who need my services than 100 who know none.
Think of new ideas and tech as “along with” not “instead of”
Your audience is fragmented. Don’t abandon traditional platforms for “new media” – use them together to get the most out of both.
Google is the gatekeeper: SEO is critical–every page should be the homepage
Google search results can often be a person’s very first encounter with your brand. If you’re not paying attention to search engines you have zero control over what a person might see in search results, whether it’s a negative review or a competitor. SEO can give you some influence in that arena.
You can’t create or “get” community, you earn it over time
Don’t approach social media with the idea that if you provide a platform (like a fan page or discussion board) people will automatically flock to it. Building a community is a long process, and it’s hard work. If you expect to gain the benefits of belonging to a community, you have to put genuine effort into it.
Negative reviews have been shown to convert better than positive reviews
Here’s an eye-opener. One of the biggest barriers to entry in “social business” is fear of negativity. But contrary to this natural fear, we’ve seen negativity become an opportunity for people and businesses. Think about how YOU research purchases. Do you read user reviews? Which ones do you read?
“Touch the burner”
Experiment and explore, expand your knowledge and understanding. Try new things, take risks, learn.
Hype dies, but building a community through interaction lasts
A TV spot can generate “consumer” interest, but it dies quickly. The whole point of online is interactivity; human relationships, community. If you’re not using that to your advantage, but simply moving old tactics into the web world, you’re missing the boat.
Build your community before you need it; when you have need it will be there
On the other hand, don’t focus on community–this group of people–as a means to your end. YOU are part of THEIR community, too.
Think about “social capital” and facilitate the exchange–always say “yes”
The point here is to be helpful. Helpfulness is unlimited currency–don’t hoard it.
Pattern breaking creates emotional responses; break someone’s pattern and get a reaction
Don’t exclude yourself from this either. Part of taking risks and experimenting is breaking the patterns you’re locked into. Do something crazy.
See people for who they are(“If you talked to people the way advertising talked to them, they’d punch you in the face” – Hugh MacLeod)
Talk to people like a marketer and they’ll tune you out. Talk to them like people, be interesting and interested, and you’ll be starting a real relationship.
“Be there before the sale”
Success in this marketplace relies on being helpful to people, not just trying to sell them as much as possible. Be genuine; stop manipulating.
Three aspects to social media: Listening, Connecting, Publishing
I would add “measuring” to this, but the point is you have to really listen these days. You have to REALLY connect. And on top of that, you are now a publisher. Think about that.
Stop asking “what” and start asking “why”
Asking “why” helps clarify underlying goals and keeps your activity focused on those goals. Ask not which social media platform you should be using, but ask why you want to be active in social media in the first place.
Everyone wants to jump in and start executing. Where’s the goal? Where’s the strategy?
With respect to social media this is true. it does little good to be active in this space without knowing why you’re doing it. If you don’t have a goal, you can’t succeed.
“Social media” is just another tool; the difference is in your approach
We’re emerging from a half-century of some pretty bad marketing, in general. Yet good marketing hasn’t changed. These new medial let us be good marketers again in this urbanized, global marketplace.
Campaigns vs Movements
Similar to Julien Smith’s “hype vs community,” this distinction is rooted in the meeting of different marketing paradigms. Where campaigns are me-focused, movements are people-focused. Campaigns are about a product, movements about a passion. Movements have a high barrier to entry (only passionate people need apply), have inspirational leadership, empower people, share ownership, and elevate advocates. This is community building.
Burn the ships Tim related the story of Cortez and conquest of Mexico, during which Cortez burned (actually scuttled, apparently) his ships to preempt any retreat, and likened this to the way we should approach this new marketplace: there is no retreating, no going back to the way it was before.
Experiment all the time
You don’t innovate by doing the same thing over and over without adding anything new.
Hybridize: seek multi-dimensional people
I found this incredibly interesting. As a “hybrid” myself, I can see the merits both from the personal and professional/business perspective. But are we looking at the death of the specialist? Is that a good thing?
Curate content: highlight content relevant to brand and encourage/empower those advocates
The mass of information that exists online – and the constant deluge of new info – dictates we have some sort of filter in place to sort the wheat from the chaff. “Content Curation” is going to be the Next Big Thing.
The last century has seen us erect pillars of mass marketing that cut off the speaker from the audience and elevated the message above all (classical rhetoric, anyone?), effectively disabling communication and enabling the stuffy, inhuman “message/consumer” mentality we have. The next 10 years (less?) will see those pillars crumble into dust. The “consumer” is now a person, thinking and acting, able to see others for what they are rather than what they say they are. We’re getting back to real marketing, something fueled by social communication and personal interaction.
So change your thinking. Take risks. Touch the burner. And if you’re still unsure about all this new media stuff, look toward the beach: the ships are burning, friends. You’re stuck here whether you like it or not.
[In this guest post, Tracy Mailloux points out a trend in advertising he noticed while on his Great Education Adventure, and is kind enough to share some insight with us. Thanks, Tracy! ]
Interactive TV ad
Traditional TV isn’t dead… yet. It is, however, on a respirator, and the priest has been called in for last rites.
Digital TV, on the other hand, is very much alive. Although in it’s infancy, it is growing at a rapid pace–its steroid of choice: advertising.
Now I know what you are thinking, “there’s nothing new about advertising on TV.” True, advertising has been around ever since cavemen could sketch on rock walls. But with the digital revolution in TV, advertising is becoming more and more interactive and engaging, which is a new thing for ads.
Invention or Ad-vention?
“It’s about making the TV a more lean-forward medium than a strictly lean-back medium,” said Bob Ivins, vice president of research and data products with Comcast Corp.
Digital Cable and Satellite (DC&S) are employing advertising techniques conceived on the internet through your DVR. It first started about three or four years ago when DC&S started advertising on the menu screen or guide page on your digital service. For example, while searching for your favorite TV show, there is an advertising banner, usually at the bottom of the screen, prompting you to “click here,” for more information about a show, a product, a service, etc. DC&S collects a fee every time a viewer clicks on this feature.
When DC&S started this, many people were not happy with it at all. Many felt that it slowed down their DVR’s response time–just to linger an extra second so you might be captivated by the banner and decide to click on it. For me, that little banner isn’t a problem. I’ve never used it to request any information, but have used it to watch movie trailers. I actually think it’s a great advertising method that is capitalizing on a captive audience.
Ads within ads…
But I was taken back the other day when I noticed advertising within advertising. That’s right, advertising within advertising. Basically DC&S are now able to have “pop-up banners,” during commercial breaks. For example, let’s say you’re watching a commercial about Viagra. As the commercial plays, a pop-up (no pun intended) banner appears prompting you to “click here,” (using your remote) to receive a free trial pack. With that one click, your information–from DC&S–is transmitted instantaneously to a processing center that will fulfill your request.
“It allows us to combine the power of the Internet–with its engagement, targeting and accountability–with the power of the big screen,” said David Kline, Cablevision’s president of ad sales.
Being in the advertising business, all I can say is… wow, that is insane. On one hand, I think that it’s a great idea to be able to request information, coupons, free samples, enter sweepstakes, or have an agent contact me about a product that I am interested in as I sit in my pajamas while watching TV–very cool! This is the ultimate for advertisers: seeing exactly who their audience is, and build databases from that contact.
On the other hand, I do worry about what the next phase will be. Will advertising become too obtrusive while watching TV, as it can tend to be while surfing the internet? In addition, with my information being sent to companies and stored in their databases, who is to say that they won’t sell my information to third parties? Next thing you know, I am receiving more junk mail and spam calls.
So where’s it headed?
To be fair, the survival of DC&S depends on their ability to get creative with the way they execute ads for their advertisers. The reason and culprit for this is the fast-forward button. How many people skip commercials with their DVR’s fast-forward button? I know I do. Because of this, DC&S must implement interactive advertising channels. Now you can go to this interactive channel, say you see an ad for Walt Disney World, with one click of your remote, you can request for a travel agent contact you. Next thing you know, your telephone is ringing–it can be that fast.
“Using interactive techniques, we can get a targeted consumer to engage with a brand on TV for a much longer period of time than just a 30-second commercial,” said Jacqueline Corbelli, chief executive of media agency BrightLine iTV.
Kevin George, an ad executive at Unilever who oversaw one such campaign, said “the response was great” because it reached its targeted audience “without interrupting them,” in part because Unilever reached the audience “in a place where they’re comfortable, giving them the option to participate without interrupting them.”
In addition, due to the fast-forwarding of TV commercials, there are talks about having TV shows being sponsored again–much like they were back in the 1950′s. Be on the look out for these and more changes in the years to come.
When Digital TV started, they promised better picture and sound. But with the great potential now for much more data to be sent through your television, TV will become more and more interactive. Pretty soon, TV and your computer will be one and the same.
Last week I wrote about OTA Sessions, which I attended the week before, and gave some overall thoughts about the experience. For the next couple of posts I will attempt to dive a little deeper and find out what it all means for you and I.
Most of the ideas discussed by the event speakers can be boiled down to one thing: changes. Changes in the marketplace and marketing; changes in the “consumer,” and the “user”; changes in the way we interact as people, and changes in the way we do business because of it; changes in our thinking and our actual physiology.
So how exactly has the marketplace changed? Here’s what some of our speakers had to say about the current state of things, with a little commentary thrown in:
40% of TV watchers are also… sleeping
So on top of people watching TV shows online and using DVR, 40% of people actually “watching” a TV aren’t even seeing your ads. Because they’re sleeping. Hey, not to dismiss TV spots altogether, but we can all see that people’s habits concerning home entertainment are changing, right? Other studies show people also surf the internet while watching TV, and for that matter I watch ALL my TV on the internet.
There are 1.8B people online
That’s about 20% of the world population with close to 300 million in North America. Most of the rest are in Asia and Europe, predictably, but I’m sure we can agree this internet thing isn’t a fad (does anyone still think this?). Short of global catastrophe, the internet isn’t going anywhere.
81% of holiday shoppers read product user reviews online
People aren’t looking to you to find out about your products anymore, they’re looking to each other. While there is still some debate about whether people really trust each other that much, it’s pretty clear they trust advertising less than word-of-mouth. Have you seen any online product and service reviews about YOU?
20% of DAILY searches on Google have never been entered before
This one boggles the mind. A full fifth of searches entered every day are unique?! Well I suppose it doesn’t help that probably half of all searches are for *ahem* adult content. You’re right, probably more than that.
Online, WE create our own user experience
By choosing and sometimes even creating the content viewed, people are experiencing something custom-tailored for them. This isn’t sitting on the couch staring numbly at the screen. It’s interactive and user-controlled. You may not be burning any more calories than watching TV, but at least your mind is engaged. So does this more interactive, engaging activity make people pay closer attention to ads, or ignore them more easily?
Brand control hasn’t shifted, but people who experience your brand now enjoy an amplified voice
While you still control your brand, to a degree, peoplenowhave a voice. They can be heard all over the web, and as the 3rd bullet points out, they listen to each other. Collectively, they can make or break your brand. And don’t forget Google’s influence on the brand experience; have you checked the search results for your particular product or service lately?
We don’t have to wait for “they” anymore. WE are “they”
Chris related an anecdote (this is all paraphrased) about a woman who commented on one of his fundraising efforts saying she wished “they” would do such fundraising in her locale. He responded, “hey congratulations: YOU are they. Sign up here, put the widget on your website and start raising money.” The point is there are a lot of things available to the individual and small business that we’ve never had access to before. The internet helps to level the field.
We can now listen at the point of need, and directly fulfill that need
There are plenty of “listening” tools out there to help you monitor social media, blogs, forums and the rest of the web to find people in need of your particular product or service. You now have a DIRECT line to the customer.
“Community Manager” is one of the most frequently filled position right now on Monster.com
This is one of those things you can take or leave, but I think it’s very interesting some of the new positions that are arising from these changes we’re seeing. Community manager? I thought they only existed in online gaming.
90% of word-of-mouth happens offline
For all our technology we still do most of our communicating in person. I’m not sure if “offline” includes the telephone, but either way 90% of our talk about products and services happens without the use of the internet. Don’t misunderstand it, though: much of the subject matter we talk about is found online–and some is available only online, in fact–but actual discussion of that happen mostly offline. (I’ll talk more about what Spike Jones had to say in the next post.)
Conclusions?
There’s a lot to consider there. This really is a new marketplace, but we’re still in the middle of that shift.
We’ve heard people announce the death of print and traditional advertising, and plenty more have denied it. I don’t think this debate is relevant. From the very first printing press, this technology has been constantly changing. One thing has stayed constant from the very beginning: human interaction. In fact, if you really think about it, social networking is far older than mass media.
We should be able to agree that humans have always been fundamentally social. We are drawn to each other and impelled to communicate and belong to social groups; something greater than ourselves.
The difference now is the marketplace is shifting to media through which human interaction is enabled—necessary, in fact—rather than muffled or disabled.
I’ve said it before: whether you like it or not, your business already has a presence in this marketplace. Even if you don’t have a website yet, there are still business directories, review websites, and conversations in social media that may involve your brand. Do you know what they’re saying?
Next post I’ll get into what the speakers at the OTA Sessions had to say about adapting to enter and succeed in this new marketplace. You may want to subscribe to get future posts automatically in your feed reader or e-mail.
Last week I went to Sioux Falls to attend the first ever OTA Sessions, and I’m glad. It was a great event with plenty of interesting speakers, attendees, and ideas.
The organizers of OTA Sessions sought to demonstrate the creativity present here in the Midwest, and to develop more of the same through presentations from regional and national names, and conversations among some of our local best and brightest.
That all makes sense to me now, but I had a hard time explaining it to people in the weeks leading up to the event. In the end, as far as I am aware, I was the only person who made the trip from western South Dakota.
That’s a bummer, because we in the west need to be attending events like this. To be frank, marketers and business owners in this area are well behind in terms of new ideas and technology, and they are often the first to admit it.
The east and west coasts don’t have a corner on creativity, but let’s be honest: that’s where many leading-edge ideas are grown. Events like OTA Sessions expose us to these new ideas so we can take them and make them our own for the benefit of our customers, businesses, and the community at large.
We’re all dealing with a new marketplace; it continues to change, with or without our consent. The “consumer” is now a person, thinking and speaking, able to see us for who we are rather than what we say we are. If we cling to old ways of doing things, we fall behind. It’s that simple.
So don’t get comfortable. Try a new idea or three. Take a risk!
Using the internet is now mainstream; a way of life for the great many people who buy products and services online. In light of this, you might think more businesses would have a better online presence. So why don’t they?
Low budget = cheap website?
In my experience the top reason is budget. Businesses, usually those on the smaller side, tend to have limited financial resources to devote to web marketing. Now no one wants to settle on a poorly designed website, but some do because they think it’s all they can afford. Unfortunately a poorly designed website can often seem shady or unreliable to potential customers-which sort of defeats the purpose of a website: to draw customers in.
So enters the do-it-yourself website template. This kind of thing sounds good, in theory: it’s fast, cheap, and requires no special skills in web design, content development, information architecture, search engine optimization, or the rest of that “stuff.” As a business owner, you can’t lose, right?
With a decade of experience developing websites across many industries, I’ve seen the effects of both good and bad design. So I can say with confidence that your website, if done incorrectly, will most likely fail to achieve your goals, leaving you with a sense that websites don’t work.
The “template” website
I’ve noticed a recent push by these template companies to sell their product as a quick and easy website solution, but they’re selling you an incomplete package. Don’t get me wrong-these types of services can be useful, but only in the hands of a professional development team. That’s right, team. Web development is much more than just placing a Word document into an eye-popping web interface, and so it takes more than one person to do it well.
Web development takes the business as a package and gives it an online presence, so that everything your business is and does is represented as a whole. You could say it’s your “brick and mortar” for the web.
Website templates completely skip all strategic planning steps, and many feature poor navigation and content structure. Some may even look like a competing business. This can hurt your brand in three ways:
It forces you to modify your brand to fit a set “look” rather than designing that “look” to fit your brand
It means less thought goes into your site structure and content development, affecting user-friendliness
You have far less chance against competition, especially in search engine results
A better way?
If cost is the main issue when building a website, spreading that development cost out over a longer period of time may be a better option than a one time “cheap” solution. Let’s put it this way: would you go to the car dealership and ask to see the best Cadillac on the lot and only bring enough cash to buy a Yugo? Maybe you would, but you certainly wouldn’t be driving the Caddy off the lot.
Instead, maybe you’d purchase the base model Caddy knowing that you could upgrade the vehicle over time. The analogy ends here, though, because we all know cars don’t work that way.
But websites absolutely work that way, and this way of developing your website can be more successful and save you a costly redesign in the future.
Necessity of strategy
If the goal of your website is to make some kind of conversion, whether it’s product sales, subscriptions, downloads, etc., a strategy is essential. But the implementation of that strategy is an ongoing effort that does not end, and should never be thought of as a one-time purchase.
So even if a template purchase is your decision, having a good game plan for that website is still very important. Get a consultation with a reputable development company before executing any major decision, or you may end up missing the boat.
Have you ever gone the “cheap” route? How did it work out?
For the month of March, Topeka doesn’t exist. The town of 120,000 is now officially named Google, KS. The big question, of course, is why?
Earlier this month Google announced a contest to bring Google Fiber (ultra-high-speed broadband Internet) to one or more trial communities around the country. A Topeka Facebook group urging locals to support the project spread like wildfire, and culminated with the mayor’s proclamation to change the city’s name.
Topeka’s stunt kicked off a marketing feeding frenzy, with hundreds of communities vying for Google’s attention – several in utterly bizarre ways. The mayor of Duluth actually promised that all future first-born children will be named GoogleFiber or Googlette, then jumped in freezing Lake Superior and yelled, “I’ve laid down the gauntlet! You want Google Fiber, you jump in Lake Superior!”
While not all campaigning cities are going to such (ridiculous) extremes, many have wisely turned to social media to bolster support:
The mayor of Memphis is using Twitter to ask residents to post videos with reasons their town is the best choice for Google’s experiment.
The ‘Google Fiber for Grand Rapids’ Facebook group has more than 34,000 fans, with user-generated photos and videos.
Greenville, SC created a YouTube Channel to spread the word about ‘Google on Main,’ a quest to build the world’s first people-powered Google chain (though I’m not exactly sure what a ‘Google chain’ is, somehow it involves glow sticks and a helicopter).
This is how social media can be used to your advantage. These communities are finding creative ways to use social media platforms, both to spread information and engage their residents in conversations. This give-and-take exchange taps into a value the user actually cares about (100x faster internet) and offers it as a potential reward for participating. Everybody wins!
So what about you? How can you use social media to engage your customers?
I’ll be driving through eastern South Dakota next week. It’s a drive I’ve made many times, though I’m usually on my way to Minneapolis. This time Sioux Falls is my destination, and I’m pumped.
I’m heading out that way to attend the OTA Sessions–an event that, if you’re a small (or large) business owner, marketer, salesperson, PR pro, or creative in the Midwest, you should not miss.
OTA is the first conference of its type in South Dakota, as far as I know. From the website:
The OTA Sessions are a chance for all of us Midwesterners to shatter the perception that creativity and thought leadership live solely on the east and west coasts. They are a chance to hear and interact with the most innovative and creative minds in the country. Most importantly, they’re a chance for YOU to be a part of something bigger than “just another conference.”
I was witness to plenty of great talent when I lived in Minnesota, and have seen plenty more since moving to South Dakota. But I’m still familiar with the perception that being “truly successful” means moving to the coast, and I think it’s a myth.
I’m excited to meet other creative professionals from the midwest, to learn from and share ideas with them. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I hope to meet you there.
Who cares what the glass looks like...is the beer any good?
Who cares how a website looks if it doesn’t work?
Well, the owner of the site, usually. Many of the websites I’ve built over the years have been for clients who care very much how their websites look, and often make decisions to enhance that aesthetic quality at the expense of usability (the ease with which a person uses the website).
Of course the “look” of a site is important. A website needs to draw and engage the eye quickly, or at the very least, not make the visitor puke on their keyboard (here, this might help you with that).
But drawing the eye is only part of the equation. Readers familiar with this subject might here expect me to talk about “function”, and how it needs to take precedence over “form.” In other words, don’t sacrifice usability for flashy eye-candy. But we all understand that, don’t we? I don’t need to beat this dead horse, because look, here’s a perfectly good, live horse that’s ripe for a beating:
Form follows Function follows Content
What’s usually left out of the puzzle is content. Yet content is the most important piece. It’s what the internet is about; it’s what you visit websites for. It’s what you came here for. You’re reading content right now.
Would it make a difference to you if this site was ugly (go ahead, call the site ugly–Google knows where you live), so long as you were still interested in this article?
Further (let’s assume you came via direct link), would it have mattered to you if, when you came here to read this article, the navigation was broken, the images didn’t show up, or the styles or scripts didn’t operate quite right? Would you still have read the article? I think so, provided you were interested enough. And interest in content is only effected by lack of good function or form to the degree that lacking hinders your ability to view the content.
Form follows function follows content. Content comes first; it’s what we build the website around. As a designer, it’s always better for me to know the content before beginning design work. It allows me to design a better website, something that fits the content in look, layout, and function, and to do it much more efficiently.
The benefit to you, the business owner, is a better website all around.
We’re entering 2010 with a new website, but also a fresh perspective and a new appreciation for the position our clients are in when embarking upon web development projects.
As an agency that offers web development as a core service, we’ve been painfully conscious of the need to update our website for a few years now. It took us a good long while to devote enough attention to getting our own work done, for the obvious reason of being extremely busy with client work. As Robert once put it, “The cobbler’s children have no shoes.”
Of course finding the time was only part of it. It’s often said “you are your own worst critic,” but we never thought we’d also be our own worst client. Turns out we are.
The Curse of Knowledge
We’ve built websites from research to release, from the ground up, and been very successful at it. Dozens of times. Yet for some inexplicable reason, all of our knowledge about marketing and web strategy, design and usability became completely useless when we started on our own website project. We may as well have been school children trying to reach Mars.
I’ve pondered this at length: how and why does this happen? It didn’t take long to realized we’re not unique in this – it happens with many of our clients as well. But it was rather surprising to experience it first-hand after being on the outside for all other projects.
What we experienced was the overwhelming scope of a web project that involves something so personal you can’t separate the emotional from the pragmatic; the technical from the preferential. This subject matter was so internalized – we take so much of it for granted – that it was immensely difficult to pull it out and put it down on “paper” in a way that made any sense to others. If you’ve ever read Made to Stick, you’ll recognize this as the “Curse of Knowledge,” as the Heath brothers coined it.
But this experience also underscores the value we offer our clients, not only in expertise or great service, but also through caring enough about your business to understand the emotional element, yet remaining objective enough to weigh the practical and external concerns. It’s much easier for an outside agency to keep a project on focus without the “curse” of detailed and ultimately distracting knowledge of the subject matter we found in ourselves during the project.
In other words, if not for the fact we are an advertising and marketing agency, I would love to have hired such an agency to help us with our website. After all, the surgeon doesn’t operate on himself.
Need a Hand?
So here we are in 2010, with a fresh look and a fresh outlook. What about you? Thinking of building your first website or upgrading the one you have? Feeling overwhelmed or apprehensive? We’ve been there, and we can help.
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?
