Are You Insane?

You know the old addage: "If you always do what you have always done..." ...but people do!

I recently worked with a team to answer an RFP. I asked if the potential client wanted to research the reasons why people in their target market were not buying, despite obvious benefits to them and to others. The answerf was , "No." How can this client grow market share unless and until they do something different? Shouldn't we at least check to make sure we have all the reasons for rejection? Without changing, expecting to grow the business is insane!

We recently presented to the annual meeting of the Public Relations Society of America, and to a ProVisors group. The "Popcorn Story" worked well with both groups, as it always does. I started thinking, why is it so difficult for people to think of customer needs when they are in a business frame of mind? The example always works. People almost never think of the customer when they are thinking of business metrics. And yet, when they are asked to think of their own needs with respect to a movie theater, they can come up with an extensive list immediately. Why do we have these two separate parts of our brain? Can they be brought together? Are we insane, with two completely separate personalities, the "business" person and the customer?

Do me a favor. Talk to a few of your customers or potential customers. Really concentrate on listening to them talk about their business and their future. Listen for opportunities. Listen for pains or problems. Listen for budget issues. If you need a few questions to get started, look in the front of Pain Killer Marketing: How do you see your business or market changing in the future? How does doing business with us cost you money? How do we help you make money? Who is your best supplier, of all types, and why? How do you choose whom to enlist as a business partner or supplier? Listen. Listen without judgment. Listen without an agenda. But listen.

After you have spoken to a few customers or potential customers, contact us here and let us know how things went. What did you learn? Were you able to solve your insanity and bring your two minds together: the business person and the customer?

This blog posting was inspired by an article written by Stacy Karacostas a few weeks ago on Biznik.com: "Is Temporary Insanity Keeping You From Growing Your Small Business?"

Your thoughts are always welcomed and appreciated!

How Can You "Listen" to Blogs?

Many companies are debating whether to create a blog or not, whether to participate in any form of social networking or not. One of the key questions is: Is it worth it?

As most of you know, besides being consultants, we both teach at UCSD Extension. Many of our students come from local businesses. The class projects of these students have convinced us the some companies could really benefit from listening to and participating in some blogging activity. Blogging is not for everyone, but some companies have set aside hours for executives to respond to bloggers, with success.

Has your company developed a formal program for monitoring, listening and organizing data from blogs about your products or services? If not, why not? Lack of interest? Lack of time? Not knowing the value?

Think about the person who blogs: they are passionate, interested and vocal with their opinions. If you have read Pain Killer Marketing, this describes an ideal subject for qualitative research! Learn which blogs to follow. Occasionally steer the conversation to a topic of interest to you. You may find an incredible source of detailed information on customer pains or Voice of the Customer attributes!

What do you think?

If you want to see the slides from our presentation at Dine America! in Atlanta in September, visit Chris Stiehl's page on LinkedIn for access.

Be sure to see us at our Public Relations Society of America presentation on November 10th in San Diego (convention center) in the morning.

To Tweet or Not To Tweet: Is that the question?

Many companies have wondered how much "Tweeting" to allow their employees to do, if any at all. One employee inadvertently shared a proprietary cooking process while engaged in social networking. He was fired! Other companies have had executives engage with social networkers for an hour a day, just to stay in touch with the customer base. This raises several key issues:

Should employees be allowed to engage in social networking at work?

How can the social networking tools be used to engage and listen to customers?

What are the dangers? What are the potential benefits?

I have written here in the past about the new world of customer service: a woman who had unanswered questions about a flight after her children were on board. She tweeted her network to get answers from the airline. She had a personal phone call from the airline's customer service department in less than 5 minutes! Impressive use of social networking on both ends: she had a large network; someone at the airline was listening.

Check out this article on the four dangers of social networking and let me know your thoughts below. Reading the article should take less than 5 minutes.

http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/24703.asp

How much should we be monitoring, restricting or limiting employees' use of the scoial networks at work?

Customer Service = Social Networking?

If you read our last post, you know what we think about social networking: we think we are in the process of revolutionizing customer service and customer expectations. In a world where many products and services are being thought of as commodities, customer service is becoming even more of a differentiator than it was before. Of course, you will still need to service your customers by telephone, and in some cases in person, but more and more transactions are taking place via social networking.

Last time we talked about the woman in JFK airport and her experience: getting explicit personal help in less than 5 minutes from her airline, using Twitter and her 10,000 followers. Rather than the exception, such experiences are rapidly becoming the rule.

In an article by Aaron Strout that appeared in MultiChannel Merchant yesterday (http://multichannelmerchant.com/social-media/0810-social-marketing-customer-service/), the author discusses how embracing social networks has enhanced customer loyalty and differentiated customer service for several companies (Intuit, Comcast, Zappos). What is social networking doing for you and your company?

Mr. Strout suggests that you begin your social networking efforts by listening (sound familiar?). As "The Listening Coach," I couldn't agree more! The book that I wrote with Henry DeVries gives you a structured way to accomplish this (Pain Killer Marketing).

The second step is to engage your customers. Stimulate their passions to help to create loyalty. The author cites Fred Reichheld's assertion that increasing loyalty by as little as 5% can increase the bottom line by between 25% and 85% (Leading with Loyalty)! Again, this agrees with the assertion that Henry and I made in our book: tap into the customers' passions (often, their pains).

The third and final step is to measure. You must develop and deploy predictive internal business metrics. This will enable you to show the ROI for your efforts and predict future success.
Have you engaged in social networking as a corporate entity? Are you wondering what the cost/benefit calculations show for your investment of time?

Many of the companies who have engaged their customers and potential customers in this way have greatly reduced their need for call centers and reduced their time to service. In some cases, customers help each other solve problems! Talk about establishing a community of loyalty! Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, has more than 1,000,000 followers! What would it be worth to your company to have direct access to a million customers, instantaneously, who want to hear from you? As a market researcher, I would say that is a lot of people to tap into for their ideas and opinions about your product.

As you move into this realm, whether as a marketing effort or as a customer service program, please keep in mind that it begins with listening. Have a structured way to capture and use the Voice of the Customer. If we can help in any way, please call.

Great Customer Service is Really a Tweet!

There is an interesting customer service story making the rounds these days, on CNN, WOMMA and elsewhere. Jessica Gottlieb was an active blogger on her iPhone. She watched helplessly as her children sat for 60 minutes on the tarmac at JFK, waiting to take off. Jessica immediately got on her iPhone and twittered about her problem to Virgin Air.

In 140 characters, she indicated her situation to Virgin Air: plane delayed, kids onboard, waiting for an hour, her gate at JFK, asking her followers to "retweet" her message to Virgin Air and/or their networks of followers.

She had nearly 10,000 followers. Who knows how many followers they had! Within minutes, Virgin Air called Gottlieb to reassure her that her kids would be OK. They contacted the gate agent and explained the weather problem, indicating that this information should be shared with Gottlieb. Within 20 minutes, the plane took off.

How does this scenario compare with customer service at your company? Are you listening that well, so you would know within minutes if an individual problem had occured and be able to generate a cogent and meaningful response? This is not the customer service challenge of tomorrow, but today!

As "The Listening Coach," I cannot encourage you enough to embrace the new technologies and be prepared to listen and respond. Your competition will do that, if they have not done so already.

The listening technologies have changed. There used to be just a few ways to report a problem: telephones, face-to-face and US Mail, pre-Internet. Social networks came along, but American businesses were not responding to them, not quickly, if at all. Now, Facebook and Twitter are everywhere. Many companies have thousands of followers. JetBlue, for example, has 700,000+ followers. Social networking is rapidly becoming a business necessity, at least for customer service, if not market research.

Are you listening? What is being "tweeted" about your company? How quickly can you respond? Are your customer service agents equipped and authorized to respond? What's next? Google Wave will allow text, photos and other information to be shared in real time later this year. Are you ready for that? Is your customer service organization ready? What will the marketing research issues be? Is marketing ready?

What are your thoughts? If we can help you understand your customers' needs or your own with respect to any of these issues, please call (619-516-2864).

Local CFOs Say Recovery May Take 2 Years

FEI and IMA recently surveyed their membership (these are CFOs from local Southern California businesses). While many were cutting costs, through renegotiating with vendors and the like, most were looking forward to a better future. They were investing in improving processes. They were training their management and staff on ways to cut costs and perform better. Almost half of them were launching new products in the next few months and continuing to invest in Research and Development, at least, not cutting there. Many of their businesses, particularly in service industries, have flattened out and are just starting to see the hints of recovery. The business is nowhere near as good as 12 months ago, but it may be turning up. Many of these excutives felt that the road to full recovery may take a while, up to two years. What do you think?

Penn Post, Bob Eberlein and Chris Stiehl conducted this research. It will be available as a white paper soon. Please let me know if you want to be able to obtain a copy.

Are You a Good Web Conversationalist? Companies better be!

The great benefit to Web 2.0 is the conversation. Normally, you advertise or do your PR work, and it is all about talking to customers (the target market, etc.), telling them your benefits, then measuring the impact and response. LinkedIn and other social networks allow a conversation between the company and its customers - not just listening, but interacting. How well suited are you to having a conversation with your customers? How do you listen and generate a response, without sending it through legal, etc.?

In my experience, many companies have no mechanism for this. At one company, getting a communication through legal could take a month or more - not practical for the Web. The companies that can design the system for having a conversation with customers online will have a tremendous advantage over their competitors.

The interactive nature of the conversations provides opportunities for market research, particularly for creating a Voice of the Internet Customer. What are the demographics? Do they mirror your target market for your product or service? A well-trained researcher can use the opportunity to ask generic questions, with sincerity, and collect ideas and attributes for analysis. The techniques outlined in our book are applicable here, with a few modifications.

How are you using the interactive nature of the Web? Are you taking advantage of the conversation, or just listening?

Customer Service People Need to Learn How to Listen!

Companies need to trust their customer service people a little, and not just have them follow a script. Sometimes you feel as though you are speaking to a recording, and listening to one, even when it is a live body on the other end!

I called someone about a service that I had seen advertised on the Internet. I was an enthusiastic buyer, but I had a couple of questions. The person who answered the phone had a script to follow. He proceeded through his script quickly, as if he were in a hurry to get to the next break point where he would ask for my credit card information. I tried several times to interrupt him with questions. One time he stopped, totally befuddled, and had no idea how to answer my question or where to refer me for an answer. He transferred the call to a supervisor.

She asked what my issue was. When I told her, there were a few clicks on her keyboard followed by her reading a script, which was not exactly related to what I had asked. She wound up transferring me again. Apparently, this company had never seen the data that each time you transfer the call, customer satisfaction is cut in half.

By now I had gone from being a very interested buyer, to being an annoyed buyer, to being just curious about where this would all end! No one seemed to be interested, or willing, or able to just shut up and listen to me! They did not have access to the data or the authority to think about my question and answer it. I wound up deciding not to waste any more time, but I wondered, what could my clients learn from this?

Do your sales, marketing and customer service people have access to the data they need and the authority to use it? Are your incoming sales calls scripted, or do you allow the sales rep to listen to the customer and think creatively about how to meet their needs?

If you are reading this post, you are probably sympathetic with the need to ask customers about their pains, wants and needs with respect to products and services. Don't forget to include the sales experience! How do your customers prefer to buy? What are their wants and needs with respect to the sales process...the ordering process? Do you have that needs hierarchy? Make sure your sales people know how to listen!

No $ for Marketing in Downturn? Evidence Says That's a Mistake!

The historical evidence is clear. Companies that want to win in the long run, MAINTAIN or INCREASE their marketing budgets during a downturn, when the ad rates are lower.

Dr. Gerard Tellis of The Marshall School of Business at USC has conducted a study of the recessions in the last 110 years. The recessions are growing less frequent and of shorter duration. Of interest to us is the fact that those who invest in marketing and advertising during the recessions come out of the recession with much stronger brands. Kellogg's did this in the 1930s to gain considerable ground on Post Cereals, for example.

Russ Klein, Chief Marketing Officer of Burger King is doubling down on his investments. He told Advertising Age: "There is strong historical evidence around companies that step up with their innovation and advertising and their ability to move through economic downturns and emerge with stronger brands."

Dr. Tellis' research has shown "There is strong, consistent evidence that cutting back on advertising during a recession can hurt sales during and after the recession, without generating any substantial increase in profits."

Bernard Ryan, of the American Association of Advertising Agencies wrote in Advertising in a Recession in 1991 "One study after another, of recession after recession, shows that those who reduce spending usually lose market share and sales. Furthermore, they take longer to recuperate...The bottom line? The advertiser who does not cut back can move ahead during the recession and afterward, capturing share from those who, hesitant and unsure, do cut back."

Content may still be king. We can help with that with "Voice of the Customer" studies to get the right messaging and words. What do you think?

Can You Understand Customers Without Talking to Them?

Recent market research has shown that 75% of senior managers and above in the United States NEVER talk to customers! Does this make sense to you? Not to me!

How can you possibly understand what's going on in the world without talking to customers? I understand that salespersons and Customer Relationship Managers will get nervous about having executives talk to customers. They may promise things that their organization cannot deliver, or say that an issue is "fixed" when the solution that they are talking about is in a future product, not the one the customer has.

Of course, the senior manager or executive will need to be coached on what to ask and what can and cannot be promised. They may want to read our book concerning the Voice of the Customer process. They can talk to their salespeople about what may be on the customer's mind and what problems they may be having.

Having said all of that, why not talk to customers? Why not get a first-hand account of what the issues are? The book describes how to collect and make sense of that data, how to organize it to take action. It is our feeling that ALL senior managers and above should have at least a few conversations with customers every year. There is no substitute for that experience. What do you think?

Can 900 Customers Be Wrong?

On Amazon they began selling milk for $3.99 a gallon. As a result, they got 900 people to rate the milk as very good or outstanding! One rater said that the milk was so good it was "worth its weight in gold times infiniti!" An analysis of Amazon's ratings of books shows that the "average" rating is 4.2 out of 5! When Amazon sold staplers, almost 60% of the raters gave the stapler a 5, with only one rater giving it a 3. Does this mean that there are no average staplers? I don't think so!

When people rate romance novels, for example, they tend to be fans of romance novels. So even a mediocre read is rated good by that audience. How many of us, when we are unhappy, will make the time and effort to find the item on the web and enter a "Poor" rating? If only fans of products are rating them, what happened to the old addage that an unhappy customer tells 30 people, while a happy one tells just a handful? Is that changing on the web?

Are the people inflating scores on the web sincere? There were stories of some companies inflating scores about their products on blogs, etc. Do we trust these scores?

Some companies are using online reviews as measures of the "Voice of the Customer." Is this wise?

We would recommend more traditional surveys, but they have problems as well. What are your thoughts?

Voice of the Sales Staff?

Do you treat your salespeople as well as your customers? You should. Good salespeople are tough to hire and even tougher to hold. You can apply our listening techniques to your sales staff. Learn their pains and learn how to solve them. You will reap great benefits!

One company that did this hired us to interview their sales staff. We obtained a "Voice of the Sales Force" in much the same way as described in our book. We then got several sales managers together to discuss metrics that would predict success with the sales staff's pains, things like "The Amount of Time Required to Generate Reports for Upper Management." Obviously, the staff wanted this metric to be near zero!

By implementing these metrics and solutions, their sales increased, the staff were happier and had more time to make sales calls. Revenues and profits increased. After all, that's the purpose of sales activity, isn't it?