Notes from the Hive

Recently a client emailed me a link to a Google review that was several months old and less than flattering to their firm. You could sense the anxiety and fear in the tone and the seemingly simple question, “can you make this go away?”

So how can a bad review possibly be good news? No I haven’t lost my mind – at least not entirely. What this does it put a sense of urgency and a dose of reality that what is in fact happening on the internet today effects everyone. Companies that are taking their time to dive in should take note. Even if you don’t have a plan or strategy in place to engage in social media it is time to recognize that millions upon millions of people are and one is bound to be a customer of yours.

That being said, no company in the history of man is perfect. There are system, service and product failures and this is normal – as long as they are not the ‘norm’ for the company. It isn’t that you never make a mistake or have a bad product or customer service is asleep at their desk, it is how you respond.
A tweet here or there, a review in one place or the other picked up immediately can be a early warning alarm that something has gone wrong in your operation. It could be a single episode or worse the beginning of a pattern and either way requires your prompt attention.

As far as the disgruntled consumer or client goes – the faster you respond the more likely they are to either remove the post or update it with a satisfied review. People are usually realistic and more often than not, are understanding. They want to know that they matter and that you care – you heard them and you responded. The faster you respond, the better they feel. Don’t make excuses or blame someone else – find out what will make the situation right or what can you offer to compensate for their pain? You need to find a way to let them know they matter. Yes there are chronic complainers and just some evildoers in the world and there are ways to address that as well.

At the end of the day take note: if you are not listening and watching your brand and your reputation is at the mercy of anyone and everyone. If you aren’t ready to tweet, fan, follow and blog (and I still can’t think of a reason not to do these things) then at least make sure that you have your alerts set to listen for mumblings, good or bad and make the most of them. You might even have a band of fans out there who are feeling a bit unappreciated and that too is a missed opportunity or worse the beginnings of a soured relationship.

Tip #1: go to www.google.com/alerts and start using their free service to email you as soon as your company’s name appears anywhere.
Tip #2: if you don't already have one, then open a Twitter account so that you can at least use something like Tweetdeck to search for tweets that use your company’s name.
Tip #3: make it a priority or someone’s job to go to Yelp and socialmention everyday to search your company’s name.
Tip #4: consider having every order filled, every service provider or however your customer is ‘touched’ be accompanied with a simple card that says SERVICE EMISSARY – PLEASE CALL (PHONE NUMBER) OR EMAIL (EMAIL ADDRESS) IF YOU HAVE QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS – WE APPRECIATE YOUR BUSINESS. And make sure that the person on the end of that phone and email know that it is a crisis management hotline.
Tip #5: have a response team or plan in place to respond appropriately and swiftly to what ever the complaints are and that they have some latitude with resolution offers.

Protect what you have worked so hard to build and improve improve improve at every step of your company’s development. Your customer’s are your best advisors as to how well you are doing.

And for those of you who are just discovering a bad review that is months or years old, I can suggest that you start a campaign to get customers to add great reviews, this will accomplish two things. First it will bury the bad review, and second it will positively increase your search rankings.

Your thoughts? Suggestions? Please feel free to make some comments and share your experience.

When we engage with prospects and clients what it really comes down to is the experience. We pay so much attention to the marketing, the website design, the brochures and yet, what about the actual experience?

We hear and read stories about extraordinary, over the top customer service that explains how some companies grow to mega businesses. The amazing story of ZAPPOS or the over the top customer service and experience at Disney, and we nod our heads because we have either experienced it or we nod our heads as a barrier thinking that this doesn’t relate to our business.

Each business has a culture, a personality, a structure, a process, and a channel. How often do we review the interactions that any outsider would experience when encountering our companies? From initial contact to the collection call… every touch is an experience.

This came alive for me as I am still relishing the amazing meal I had last week while in Tampa on business. Part of my time away I was evaluating our price structure, our service offerings and other aspects of our company as we move forward in 2010. Taking an evening break, I went to the famed steak house Bern’s. I knew I would get a great meal and heard they had an outstanding wine collection so I was psyched to have a treat. What I had instead was a dining experience. A real dining experience that took nearly 5 hours.

Yes it was expensive and depending on the bottle of wine ordered or the country or origin for the caviar you might select you could control the amount of the total tab but once you are caught up in the experience, well reason might just go out the window. The waiter was more like a guide than a salesman or waiter, his attentiveness to answer questions and offer assistance guiding you through a wine list that reads like the novel War & Peace, was helpful. The wines ranged in price from $45 a bottle to $10,000 and up a bottle so there was plenty of room to satisfy anyone’s pallet and pocket. There was no selling, no up grading, no promoting of side dishes. Instead there was an engaging conversation that allowed the waiter to uncover our particular tastes, appetite and of course spend level comfort zone and then he made some recommendations accordingly. He got to know us and therefore tailored his suggestions to meet our desires.

Beyond the table experience, we were offered and we took part in a tour of the kitchen and of course the wine cellar. The wine cellar holds one of the largest collections of wine in the world ranging from some of the more familiar to some of the rarest. Row after row, floor to ceiling we were guided toward some of the more interesting bottles.

Once the tour ended and our after dinner stroll through the kitchen and wine cellar we built up the desire to experience even more. So we were escorted to their desert room upstairs. Here there is a maze of private alcoves built out of wine casks, to sip exotic coffees, ports, sherries while experiencing the most decadent of deserts.

Five hours later, a bill that could have paid for a weekend vacation including airfare, we did not have a moment’s regret. The experience had been well thought out, orchestrated, rehearsed and perfected from beginning to end and all designed to take you from a good meal, priced accordingly to an experience unlike any other you might have known and a price tag to match.

The receptionist, waiter, table staff, tour guides all of them knew the history and story of the restaurant and even after a long hard evening of work, each played their role with a sense of personal pride that conveyed that they knew that they were a part of something very special and wanted to share that with others.

I came to several conclusions after this experience. First no matter how creative our designs and marketing strategies are, if our client’s aren’t creating an amazing experience – well we might be able to get them in the door but it is up to them to keep them. If our client’s don’t have an amazing experience with us then will they contract us for more, rave and promote us to their colleagues? And of course, what makes an experience with us different from our competitors? How will prospects know that they have engaged with something very special and want our team to be a part of their team? What are we leaving to chance?

Time to think about the experience of doing business with your company. How do you make it so extraordinary that prospects can’t wait to engage and customers can’t think to negotiate price or shop elsewhere?

We’d love to hear from you about what you are doing in your company and how you have experienced ours.

As this year comes to a painful end we prepare for the battle toward success in 2009. Where do we invest our time and our challenged resources? What do we focus on to move our companies and brand into the buyer’s mind’s eye for sustaining and growing our companies? How do I create a ‘strategy’ for success in this market? Where is this market going?

There are so many questions to ask this year with less information to actually predict and project. One thing is for certain, 2009 will stand witness to mass mergers and closings, especially in small to medium sized companies. This, you can bank on. If you have cash and are in good credit standing, you will be in a position to buy out your competitors if that is a smart move, or you can just raid their customer base, picking and choosing which customers you want to serve.

Besides buying your way to the top, there needs to be a strategy for your own organization to grow and serve customers. Is social media for you? The answer to that question is that it has been ready, but are you? There has been such a rush around social networking and media that for many, it has been too overwhelming to understand, let alone begin to implement into our business marketing efforts. You may remember a book that came out years ago by John Naisbitt called “High Tech High Touch”. If not, it is still available and what he had to say so many years ago, long before facebook and twitter came into our world, is proving to once again be true. The bottom line to the findings in this book is that the more techy we get the more we long for the human touch. With the rush to massive on-line marketing through internet media and social networks, there was at first a kind of special connection only to quickly become diluted as the numbers became so massive that statistical measuring became a fruitless endeavor, and needless to say, the ‘relationship’ aspect got lost in the volume.

2009 will be about relevancy and meaning – and meaningful connections. The warm hand that touches you in the cold techy world is the one that will be heard. Customer Service will continue to rule as the number one factor that creates fans, blowing away content as KING. So it is not going to be how much you say and to how many people you say it, it is going to be what you say and to whom, and how quickly you respond after you’ve struck a nerve.

If you want to learn more about the predictions, there are innovative frontrunners in this industry that have shared their knowledge and views as well as their predictions. It is well worth reading. We are providing you a link to the article and the pdf which you can download here, courtesy of Peter Kim.

Or view the article online here: http://www.beingpeterkim.com/2008/12/social-media-2009.html