On Good Customer Service

I recently had 2 experiences that demonstrated perfectly how Customer Service – either as a concept or “the team” – can have a direct correlation to the Marketing function, and the best part of good CS is that when it works it both compliments and amplifies the Marketing function for free.

Experience #1 related to the fact that we finally got a new dishwasher.  (The cutlery tray is not as goofy as you might think…) 

The unit is just slightly narrower than our old one so I needed to fill the gap between it and the adjoining cabinet with a 1 5/8” X 30” strip.

After finding our original kitchen installer out of business I called a local cabinetmaker and was told that they could help me out, but that it would take 3-4 days to “work the job into their production schedule”.  The cost would be ~$20 and while that wasn’t an objection, I was hoping for some instant gratification – after all, I could make the cuts myself in 5 minutes if I really had to…

I called another cabinet maker and was told flat out that unless I bought my kitchen through them they weren’t interested in helping me.  Hmmm… I guess that business is good, because I found this attitude arrogant and pathetically short-sighted.

I then remembered Snider Plywood.   Arriving at the shop I explained my predicament and the fellow took my original piece and headed to their scrap bin.  He found 2 pieces that were a close match; one was a better color but the grain went the opposite direction and one was slightly darker but the grain matched.

 To give me options he cut them both to size in about 2 minutes, charged me nothing and sent me on my way.

So, I went from “Unless you bought with us…” to “Here you are – have a good day…” in 15 minutes and Snider’s has made me a believer!  They will get future business from me, and probably 50 referrals that I’ll give over the next little while as I recount the story. 

Total cost to Snider’s?  Nothing but 5 minutes of time as my “materials” were sitting in their scrap pile.

Experience #2 came courtesy of the Home Depot. 

Not a real fan of big-box retailers, we had reason to replace a small amount of carpeting and I went in.  The woman who helped me – Liz – completely astounded me.  She was competent, fast, professional, asked good questions, knew how to work their computer system and explained the process clearly.

In many respects, she represented everything that the Home Depot wants you to believe that their workers are, but normally aren’t.

Yes… many of their ‘associates’ walk around with badges to indicate one completed training course or another, but if I had a nickel for every time that I’ve wandered around aimlessly looking for items or getting “advice” from someone that I felt that I knew more than, I wouldn’t be shopping at the Home Depot!

If you want carpet, go find Liz in flooring.  Heck, even if you want to just watch good, professional customer service in action, go find Liz in flooring and pretend you want carpet.

Today I will give a Rave to Liz and Snider Plywood who are 2 shining examples of how good (free!) customer service leads to buzz, referrals and a lightened load for the marketing team.

The Sub(way) Surfaces!

Recently, Subway has been running TV spots for their subs that break away from the traditional ‘interrupt’ advertising model and rather than featuring tight-angle camera pans of impossibly perfect subs they have taken to featuring brief games – ‘what is different between these 2 pictures’, ‘what object has been moved’, ‘what comes next in the sequence’, etc.

 

 

Now… I’m no big fan of Subway’s food, but for attempting to break – even just a little – the traditional mold of television advertising, today I give them a Rave!

Ronald’s Got New Joe!

I’m no big fan of McDonald’s, but I think that they’ve had 2 great promotions lately.

The first involved a direct attack on Canada’s obsession with coffee shops.  While Tim Hortons is far and away the market leader, smaller chains like Williams, Coffee Time and Country Style all get their fair share of those in search of a java jolt at all hours of the day and night.  (Starbucks, too, is a player, but caters to a white-er collar crowd than the others.)  McDonald’s has traditionally been known for its horrendous coffee, but it raised its profile a few years ago when it imported Higgins & Burke coffee (assumedly) in an effort to disassociate itself as the coffee producer. 

Recently, they introduced their own line of a ‘Premium Roast’ coffee and to introduce it simply gave it away for a 2-week period!  Yes… “gave”, as in free.  No coupon, no combo, no 2-for-1 or other offer-ish gimmicks, just free.  Show up during breakfast, and get coffee.  “We think you’ll like it, come in and try it on us.” 

I like simple, and a balls-y move for a corporate giant, if you ask me.  

Their second effort involves a summer-time promotion called ‘dollar drink days’ which features “any pop, any size, $1” (soda for our American friends!).  

Now… they do face a mountainous uphill battle to overcome in that people are ridiculously conditioned to purchase pop at traditional ‘corner stores’ or when buying gas, but if someone is really looking for killer value, there could be none better to find than a large Coke for $1!  (My local convenience store is charging $1.69 for a 500ml bottle.)

If they can get traction during the long, dog days of summer, however, they stand to make a killing and will accomplish a monumental shift in consumer buying patterns.

I would love to be on the inside to know whether or not they get any long-term uptake in market share from either of these promotions, but I doubt there will ever be any way to find out…

Regardless, for thinking creatively outside the traditional ‘coupons and combo promotions’, today McDonald’s gets a Rave!

 

One day later…

Wow!  How was this for a timely post?  This morning I came across the following related article.

In Defence(man) of Tim Hortons

I got the following spammy viral message from a friend today:

 

Subject: Tim Horton’s… what your coffee buys!                        

 

Ron Joyce, Tim’s former partner who bought out Tim’s widow and owns Tim Hortons, owns this 161 foot boat.  I am so glad to have helped him out, one donut and a coffee at a time – especially now that almost every reminder of who Tim Horton was is gone and none of the employees have any idea – even traded the proud Maple Leaf blue signs for Liberal red eh. Makes me even prouder to reflect on Tim’s grandson playing in a subsidized house league hockey league while I view this yacht!

http://www.hamiltonspectator.com/video2/sailingaway/index.html

 

 

As a disclaimer, I have no idea as to whether or not this is actually Ron Joyce’s boat, or if Tim Horton’s grandson is really “playing in a subsidized house league”.  Aside from the links now inserted, here was my response to him.

 

 

From the tone of the writer I picture a tough line-worker sounding resentful over the success of the chain and 2 thoughts spring to mind:

1.     As any Canadian knows, THD – as both a brand and a product – is wildly engrained into our collective psyches, and from a marketing perspective it’s awesome to have a customer like this who obviously feels such a passionate connection to the brand that he seems to be taking personal offence at what he perceives as a financial injustice at the hands of “the evil corporation”.

2.     Give me a break!  Where does this guy think the profits from his “one coffee and one doughnut at a time” go?  The company is not a co-op or credit union, nor does Tim’s widow or family wait for the Brinks truck to roll up (no pun intended!) every month.  This is a business plain and simple and Ron Joyce et al. are/were in the game to make money; disagree over the evils of capitalism if you will, but that’s their plan. 

 

If they weren’t making money, there wouldn’t be the same number of stores, and therefore not the same level of entrenchment in our culture and ’round and ’round we go…

 

What I find more interesting about THD is how the brand has evolved over time and while the original co-founder’s name is on the marquee, there is no more reference to the man anywhere; it’s almost as though “Tim Hortons” has solidified into a proper noun in customers’ minds and there is no connection to the man himself.  Truly, who under 40 even knows who Tim Horton was, let alone remembers ever being in an outlet that had his picture hanging on the wall?

 

So… Harland Sanders is dead but the KFC brand still gets mileage out of his likeness with its cartoon logo.  Dave Thomas is dead, and while his personal impact on the Wendy’s brand is obviously gone, you could still argue a tie to it through the use of the cartoon ‘Wendy’ that they’ve always had. 

 

Tim Hortons, on the other hand, was never really about Tim Horton – alive or dead.  Yes, at one time each location featured his picture, but little else, save from originally trying to cash in on his popularity in the Golden Horseshoe.  (Can you imagine starting a franchise today named for a sports star without memorabilia in each shop, dishes named for them, etc.?  Unthinkable!)

 

I suppose that I could understand someone getting upset if Ron Joyce tried to capitalize on the ‘rugged blue-liner’s image’ after Horton’s death and was now trying to whitewash it, but truly, the operation was always about making money, and if Horton was alive today, I’m sure that he too would be happy to be sitting on his 161′ yacht.

 

For the fact that Ron Joyce was able to build THD into a 2,700 store chain that has about as much importance to Canadians as both air and water, I give him a Rave!

A Brilliant #2 Idea

I’ll admit it: I’m a lousy #1 idea guy. 

I am, however, a great #2 idea guy; that is, someone with the ability to take the germ of an idea and shape it into something far better than what it would originally have been.

 

Last weekend I found one of the most brilliant #2 ideas ever and it came from the smarts at President’s Choice (or from whomever they licensed the idea from…).  The improvement wasn’t an upgrade to their ‘Green Kitchen Cleaner’ product, but rather to its delivery method: the “atomizer” (spray) bottle itself.

 The thing that drives me most crazy about all of the hundreds of products that are delivered in traditional spray bottles is that eventually you get the liquid down to a level where the ‘straw’ can’t reach it, but there is still enough liquid in the container for another ~10 cleanings!

 

Imagine my joy, then, at finding that “they” have changed the design of the spray mechanism such that turning the bottle upside down will allow a user to get at the remaining liquid that the straw can’t get to!

 

So… for having the smarts to make a no-cost improvement that could/should net them a significant bump in sales, President’s Choice gets a Rave! 

 

I will, however, qualify this rave, as I’m a little puzzled as to why they’re not marketing the daylights out of this innovation.  The design change is perfect for mass-market, visual, ‘interrupt’ advertising.

 

Storyboard:

·        Zoom in on woman cleaning her kitchen who gets down to the bottom of her cleaning bottle but clearly there is still a bit left.

·        Says something like, “Household cleaners have been invaluable products for 40 years, but don’t you get frustrated when the bottle doesn’t let you get all that you’ve paid for?”

·        She then turns the bottle over and continues spraying.

·        “Well with President’s Choice Green Kitchen Cleaner, now you can…”

 

The concept works across all PC markets and products, and they could be spinning waste, environmental and frugal concerns into the messaging.

NHL Shake-up… or Shake-down

I’ve never liked Gary Bettman.

To be fair, I’ve never met him, and am probably not smart enough to really understand all the business complexities that he faces every day, but from my “armchair quarterback” perspective, I’ve never had any like for the way that he appears to be running the National Hockey League (NHL). Right from the day that he was hired I have felt that he doesn’t have any sense of what hockey is all about, its fans or what the league really needs to survive (noting, of course, that “survive” is not defined as having more teams south of the Mason-Dixon Line). In fairness, a big part of his mandate – created by the team owners – was to make the game more appealing to American customers and that he did, at least in the short term. (Noted Exception: the FoxTrax glowing puck.)

In more recent times, however, and now completely exasperated by the current economic meltdown, he faces a league in a serious financial situation and yet appears to be refusing to be taking or making or allowing any real creative steps to allow the league to evolve into something more appealing and financially viable than it currently is.

His attitude feels to me a little like the Detroit 3 saying, “I think what we need this year is more big trucks!” C’mon Gary, this isn’t the 1950’s anymore! This is big business – big marketing – in the year 2009. Where is the creative thinking about relocating teams where more fans will support them? Where is the guts needed to force some teams to ‘call it a day’ and simply fold up operations?

I think that everybody would agree that for a person to use the services of a credit counselor is a far better route than to limp along on their own until they have to declare personal bankruptcy.

While Toronto fans still have to remortgage their homes and sell their children just to have a faint hope of being able to get a ticket, other teams are teetering on the brink: Columbus is offering ‘ticket, supper and drinks’ packages, Atlanta lost another 8% in attendance through the early part of the season, and Nashville’s management is looking to buy unsold tickets just to be able to lick of the League’s revenue-sharing plate. So… what do the Gary and co do when a white knight (in the form of RIM boss Jim Balsillie) comes along? Do they look to see how they might embrace some new thinking and pick the league up across the board? Nope, they simply kicked him in the glass…

I don’t care if you’re RIM or Rogers or the Regina Pats: companies that are nimble, forward-thinking and innovative thrive. Period. Stoic companies, on the other hand, that lumber down time-worn paths usually end up in dire situations before any meaningful changes occur, but why do they wait so long?

This is precisely why Toyota and Honda have fared better than the Detroit 3 in recent months.

More Toyota and less GM.

For the fact that Gary Bettman has (to date) refused to demonstrate anything that smells like creative leadership to help market and guide the NHL through these toughening economic times, he gets a Rant!

View The Time As An Investment Not A Waste!

Cleansing data can be a huge consumer of a marketing department’s time, but anybody that doesn’t consider this time an investment (but rather a cost-sinking waste) is doomed to fail!

 

Case in point is a message that I just received from ON24.  The message was from “Denise Persso…”, and while I didn’t immediately recognize the name, this isn’t unusual in my current role.  The subject line – intentional or otherwise – was intriguing enough for me to consider opening the message.  It said simply, “2009 Planning”.

 

Battle #1 accomplished: through either skillful planning or dumb luck I’ve been convinced to open the message.

 

What I then saw caused my heart to sink, my eyes to roll and my finger to press ‘Delete’.

 

“Dear A.,” told me in 1 second that this was spam, that they really don’t know who I am and that we don’t have a relationship.  Opportunity lost.  Unsubscribe.  (The other obvious and painful errors in this message aren’t worth discussing…)

 

For me, operating with a small marketing staff, we continually view both our customer and prospect lists as high-value assets and treat them as such.  We correct names – spelling, punctuation, capitalization, etc. – sometimes painfully line by Excel line all in an effort to ensure that when messages leave our hands they will be received with as much familiarity and trust as we need in order to get the prospect to continue reading the message.  

 

Learning intermediate Excel skills can help greatly.  3 quick tips:

·        “=Proper” can turn john, JOHN or JOHN SMITH into John (or John Smith) in the blink of an eye

·        A simple sort (ascending order is easier) lumps like names together for easy copy-and-paste mass changing

·        ‘Text to Columns’ is a wildly useful function to be able to split a column that contains an entire name into its parts – the segmented names are more valuable to a marketer.

 

For us, once our names are clean we make the conscious effort to go through and delete any that don’t sound personal as a greeting; would you ever send a friend a message that started ‘Dear C. Robert,’? 

 

Multiple names like William Robert Johnson will get deleted from mailings as I can’t be sure whether he would go by William, Robert, Will or Rob.  Likewise for initials: W. Robert Johnson or William R. Johnson – get rid of them…

 

Last tip: most marketers do a mail merge that looks like “Dear <FIRST>,” but I recommend including the ‘Dear’ in your Excel sheet of names (‘=concatenate’ is another invaluable function).  That way, any person on your list without a good first name can still be included in the mailing; their opening line remains blank, which is a heck of a lot better than seeing “Dear        ,” at the top.

 

The more time you invest into cleaning your data, the better a list you will have, and the better the list you have, more value it will generate for you both today and down the road.

 

For not doing a good job managing their data and sending out a campaign that I immediately discounted as spam, ON24 gets a rant!

 

 

 

 

 

Radio Killed The Radio Star

What the heck is wrong with FM radio? 

 

7 years ago satellite radio appeared with giants like XM and Sirius on the scene.  With much fanfare they began signing up paying customers, and those customers – assumedly – were now removed from being potential audience members for the radio stations that operated in their local/home markets.

 

Estimates suggest that the current subscriber base in North America has grown to some 19 million (or about 7% of the “15+” age pool within Canada and the USA), but what has the radio industry done to combat this rising threat to their prosperity?  In my opinion, I would suggest “absolutely nothing”! 

 

I will guess that the biggest reason that people switch to satellite radio is for the absence of commercials, and yet this is the one key factor that the radio industry DOES have some control over!  (Among other factors, they can’t escape the censorship regulated by the CTRC and the FCC, can’t broadcast outside their home range (or even guarantee their signal quality within it), can’t offer the niche-like variety of satellite, etc.)

 

And yet, here we are with people still running radio advertising the same way that Herbert R. Tarlek did it all those years ago: morning and afternoon “drive” shows with as much talk and commercials as they feel the market will bear and some of the more popular songs thrown in.  (There is a great deal of irony that the times in which the fewest people are listening are when the most music is played…)

 

Admittedly, a couple of my local area stations have tried to combat some of this new challenge by lumping their commercials together in 2 minute blocks and then preceding them with pleading to convince listeners that ‘it’s really not so bad to sit through 2 minutes worth of adverts’.  Unfortunately for them, in my case I’m able to change channels with a button on my steering wheel, so all I do is switch to a station that’s playing a song.

 

Here are a few quick thoughts:

·        What about moving back to the “sponsored by” model of the old-time radio shows?  They could offer more songs per hour if they skipped commercials between (eg.) 8 and 9am and simply state with every song that ‘this hour is brought to you by Red Wigglers, the Cadillac of worms’.

·        What about using the new ‘Info’ technology to their advantage?  Most new radios have the ability to receive information and display the song title and artist, so why not have songs sponsored?  What would be so bad with “Black Dog by Led Zeppelin sponsored by City Pet Foods” scrolling by?  I don’t know if there is any regulation on this content, but this would seem to me to be a painfully underutilized technology at present… 

·        What about less commercials during the traditional drive times and more commercials during the daytime hours?  Yes, the daytime audiences will undoubtedly be smaller, but I highly doubt that listeners during these times – office and ‘trades’ listeners – will be as likely to switch stations as those in their cars; it’s (typically) not as easy as hitting a button that’s 6” away.

 

Couple this issue with the challenges presented by the current economic downturn and the radio industry has to be hurting badly.

 

For not creatively responding to the rising challenges brought about by both internal and external pressures, the FM radio industry as a whole gets a rant!

The Death Of The BlackBerry?

Living here in Waterloo, ON (Intelligent Community 2007, future home to Stephen Hawking) much conversation revolves around our little tech darling Research In Motion (RIM), makers of the iconic (and now ubiquitous) BlackBerry. 

 

I recently overheard a conversation between 2 marketing types who were debating the merits of the new “key-free” Storm.  Obviously a product aimed squarely at the iPhone audience, pretty much everybody now knows that the new model features a (sweep-sweep!) touch screen where all other BlackBerry models have good ol’ fashioned buttons.  Oh sure, the folks at RIM have tinkered with different sizes and configurations of keys/keypads over the past ~decade, but the BlackBerry has always had keys for inputting. 

 

To now go to a touch-screen, went one side of the argument, is to spell the ‘death of the BlackBerry’.  Without keys – or more arguably, its QWERTY keyboard – the thought continued, it’s “not a BlackBerry”; it’s unique identity is gone and RIM goes from segment/thought leader to cash follower, riding the coattails of Apple’s iPhone success.

 

Unfortunately I didn’t hear the rebuttal, but the comment did get me thinking: is a BlackBerry without keys still a BlackBerry? 

 

For me, the answer is quite clear: yes. 

Now… had you asked me the same question a couple of years ago (and had the iPhone been released then too) I might’ve responded differently, but today I start with asking, “What is a BlackBerry?” 

 

A couple of years ago a BlackBerry was a mobile email, phone, and browsing device (chiefly for business users) that was differentiated by those in the know by the model number theirs contained: 7200, 7500, 8000…

 

Today, however, much like the shift from Google as a corporate name to both a proper noun and verb, the brand gurus at RIM have transcended the BlackBerry to be a mobile platform that is defined by each user that uses it.  This began with their foray into the consumer and small-business world with models like the Pearl and Curve and continues on with their new Pearl FLIP. (As a side-note, I am a little surprised that they haven’t taken greater strides to provide more user-customizable options like cases, screens, shells, keys, etc.)

 

2 years ago – with just one style of model – I could buy the argument that releasing one with touch-screen could be considered a ‘sell out’, but not now… not with so many different models that happen to be aimed at widely different market segments.

 

Any other opinions out there??

 

I suppose that really this post isn’t really about a rant or rave, but is more of a marketer’s pondering.  With that said, for the bright (and successful!) venture out into other markets with tailored offerings, I give RIM a Rave!

 

 

 

 

Get Back To Class!

I really struggle with Classmates.com. 

 

On one hand I think that the site is a brilliant concept, fits a perfect niche and can offer an enormous amount of value to its users.  Where sites like Facebook and LinkedIn focus on the relationships in your current social network, Classmates.com focuses on that group of people that a) you spent a good chunk of your formative years with and b) have most likely lost touch with (if you’re anything like me, that is…). 

 

On the other hand, as a marketing organization they do a lot of spammy banner advertising and – IMO – send questionable campaigns and offers once you’ve taken the step to create a free account. 

 

I’m sure that other marketing minds smarter than mine have already figured out some good terminology to describe when a company crosses “the line”; not so much like a dramatic Tipping Point event, but more of a subtle shift across to the other side of the fulcrum.  To me, CM.com has crossed that line and leaves me feeling that the powers that be are more interested in getting my short-term money rather than building a relationship with me that would see them receive more revenue from me over time; $50/yr X a 3 yr commitment because I find/feel value makes me a much more valued asset than $50 from my 1-time experiment (read: ‘glorified evaluation’).

 

In my case, I’m probably the perfect profile of a prospect that they want to get converted to a Gold Membership:

·        approaching a significant high school reunion timeframe (likely to be highly active and recruit others), and

·        have clearly been lurking around through my free account

 

The problem for CM.com, however, is that they have yet to convince me of the value of their service, and because of their spammy prospecting practices and ‘uneasy’ marketing through my free account, have created an even higher value barrier for me to scale over.  Sure… you could be saying that I should just shut up and pay the $50, but I need to feel that the value is there before I slap down a McKenzie King.

 

Today was the capper, but before I get to that, let me quickly walk you through my history with the company:

·        responded to the ~500^th banner ad that I saw to ‘find old classmates’

·        created a free account with a minimal profile

·        now regularly (2X per week!) receive frustrating offers like ‘1 person searched your name – Click here to find out who’ and ‘1 person signed your guestbook – Click here’…

 

All links, of course, take you to the paid subscription form, and – as a sidebar – 2 messages per week from an organization with whom I don’t have a trusted relationship is way too frequent a mailing cycle.

 

Today I received an offer that said “Try Gold Membership free for 7 days”.  My first thought was ‘Perfect, now I can get a feel for what I’m missing by not being a Gold member.  They’ve been sending me a ton of messages, but now I’ll get to judge for myself the value in those guestbook signatures, classmate mappings, and be able to send email to people that I don’t have email addresses for’. 

 

What I found, however, was a total disappointment!  There was indeed a free 7-day offer, but to get it I had to give up my credit card details, and at the end of the trial a 1 yr paid account would automatically be created. 

 

What?!  Honestly, if I’m at a point in the buying cycle where I’m interested but questioning the value, how could CM.com possibly think that this painful offer would entice me to take the next step?  Not only haven’t I been able to judge the value for myself, but through this offer I’m forced to commit before I’m ready to AND the offer itself contains no value “for me” (eg. discount a membership if I do create an account at the end).

 

My unsolicited advice to CM.com (that will last longer than 7 days) is to build relationships with prospects from the bottom up; make people feel like they’re a part of something, convince them of the value – genuinely for free, if necessary – and then show them what they’re missing if they then don’t continue by taking advantage of the subsequent offer.

 

Maybe this is an American vs. Canadian mentality thing, but I truly believe that CM.com would gain far more subscribers if they built a relationship with prospects that helped the prospect see and believe in the value of the CM.com service, as opposed to their current model which is to tease prospects with information and then cause bad feelings when the offer doesn’t pan out as planned.

 

So… even though they’re a huge company that undoubtedly makes boat-loads of cash, from a marketing perspective, for giving me an offer that was close to getting me to part with my cash, but then turning it into something that felt like a scam, Classmates.com today gets a Rant!