Which comes first?

Courtney Ellett

I was ironing the kids’ school clothes recently and had Casino Royale on in the background. Usually, I tune out commercials pretty well, but all of a sudden, I heard one that heartily touted a company’s two-hour service window. No, it was more than that. The entire commercial laser-focused on this company’s ability to meet service times with their high-tech command center, a deep commitment to punctuality and a stealthy team of colleagues that talk to each other constantly like military forces.

I actually snickered out loud and thought a certain cable company could definitely learn from this business. But my smugness was quickly extinguished and transitioned into awe when I realized it WAS this certain cable company being highlighted in the commercial. Now, that is some audacity.

If you asked me which brand failed me most on a regular basis in terms of customer service, punctuality, communication and service recovery, it would be this company. Yet, on a Sunday afternoon, I am smacked in the face with the irony of this commercial. And that just made me mad.

Why? It’s bad enough when a behemoth of a company can’t get customer service right. Shame on them. But it’s unforgiveable for this company to then think they can trick consumers into believing a brand promise that absolutely isn’t delivered operationally.

I’ve worked with a few companies in the past that were eager to make a big and bad brand promise before they were ready to deliver. It’s not that they had ill intentions at all; there were many things in motion to help them get there and deliver. But our team cautioned them: They just weren’t ready yet. Thank goodness, they listened.

If you make a brand promise – whether it’s “leading-edge,” “luxurious,” “easy,” or “family-oriented,” you have to be ready at that moment to ensure that’s what customers get every single time. If your customers don’t get that, you’ll most likely lose them forever. Plus, they’ll feel tricked and be mad enough to tell other folks about it (like me on this blog about a certain cable company – except they’ll use the company’s name).

So the next time you’re ready to send out a news release, produce a commercial or share something via social media, please take pause and ask yourself if you’re ready to deliver on that brand promise.

How much is too much?

Thomas Whitehead

As seen in The Memphis Daily News...

Show of hands – how many of us have those friends on Facebook who are over-sharers? Whether they are talking about that last taco they regret eating, their string of continuous bad dates, that very last beer they indulged in or other information that maaaybe we don’t really know them well enough to absorb. I think we all have those people in our newsfeed.

This might surprise you but I have begun to see examples of organizations that are becoming over-sharers as well, and this could be at the cost of their main reason to interact with their customers: sales.

A few years ago, there were so many blog posts written to encourage business leaders to blog, share more information and discuss business interactions to some degree. As a consumer, I personally loved to see this. I could now have more understanding as to what decisions were made about the brands and products that I liked.

However, recently, I have noticed two different trends that I hope are not going to continue in terms of sharing company information. I will preface this by saying that these two trends have been exclusively with private and small companies, not large or public corporations.

The first trend is sharing with customers on social media that your sales figures are down. I have noticed this with several retail stores and restaurants. Although I can appreciate hearing the perils of a small business owner, I feel that the bigger issue is the risk of customers perceiving that your business is in financial trouble.

The second trend is similar, but I have begun to see retail outlets and restaurants/bars practically beg people to come to their places. And, I don’t mean a simple, “Come to our store today!” requests. Rather, I have seen some comments similar to “we really need your business” or “we have had a slow month, please help us out” pleas.

Just like no relationship is perfect, we also know no company is perfect and each comes with their own struggles. However, just because I like to eat your burritos does not mean I am entitled to see your profit margins or quarterly forecasts. And, you shouldn’t want me to know that information.

Instead, your interaction with me should be focused on how my experience with your company will be one-of-a-kind and special through customer service, incredible products and attention to detail. If your messages are positive, then I will be more inclined to consider supporting your business.

There is a huge difference between shareholder and stockholder. As a customer, I have an interest in your success, but it won’t impact me financially if your business fails. As a stockholder, it definitely impacts my financial viability.

However, it is very important to identify which audiences you are speaking with through different channels. But, I can explore that topic later. Until then, I am going to go grab another burrito.

How may I help you? My pleasure! Thanks for stopping by.

Lauren Hannaford

There are about a million different things one could “preach” in regard to customer service. There have been books written, lectures given and training customized for all different types of customer service scenarios. From an account manager perspective, our PR efforts don’t usually pan out well for clients who consistently provide poor customer service on their end. Thankfully, we haven’t encountered very many of those client situations, and for that we are glad!

For some reason, I’ve been running into more bad customer service experiences than usual. Two of these took place at a drugstore near my house. It wasn’t that the employees were being purposefully rude; they just weren’t providing good customer service. They were doing the bare minimum, leaving me to figure out my requests on my own. This is point No. 1. If you are doing the bare minimum, you aren’t providing good customer service. I hate when people say, “I don’t know.” You should be saying, “I don’t know, but let me find out for you.”

What happened next gave me this very idea for a blog post. Let me preface this next paragraph with a little honesty -- I am not a patient person. My blood probably starts to boil at least three minutes before someone else with at least a smidgeon of patience. So, at my most recent experience, I was standing there witnessing bad customer service firsthand. Blood starting to boil, attitude shifting, dirty look starting to form, I decided to give the employee “good customer service” from my end instead. 

This is point No. 2. Practicing good customer service in your everyday life is the best practice for providing great customer service at your job and vice versa. Even if you are supposed to be the one receiving good customer service, practicing patient and polite communication will go far in your own workplace. After all, being rude sucks!

Navigating the waters of PR isn’t as difficult as it may look

Erinn Figg

A friend of mine called me the other day seeking PR advice. (Yep – if you’re my friend and you need PR counsel, I can be bought with a white chocolate mocha. Or even better, a glass of pinot noir.)

I agreed to meet this friend over a couple of adult beverages. When I got there, he was drowning – not in vodka, but in industry terminology.

He had just gotten out of a meeting with a PR consultant and was floundering around in acronyms such as SEO, SMT, MCM and ROI. He was treading through buzzwords like crowdsourcing, digital ecosystem, tablet marketing, vertical media and – my personal all-time favorite (not really) – “low-hanging fruit.”

This friend, a doctor who specializes in cosmetic procedures, had been loading up on so much information from so many PR “how-to” articles and consultants that his brain finally blared “DOES NOT COMPUTE!” and refused to process any of it anymore.

He told me he was trying to think outside the box. I told him to forget the box. Stash it away somewhere. That box is probably exhausted anyway from being in a phrase that’s used about 90 million times a day. In fact, I’m sure that box is longing for a vacation. Maybe we could pack some low-hanging fruit in it and ship it to Cancun.

I asked my friend the same thing I ask anyone who tells me they feel adrift in a sea of PR and marketing decisions: When was the last time you took a break from thinking like a business owner and tried thinking like your customer?

So I gave my friend a checklist of questions to help him think like a patient who’s trying to choose a doctor. Here are a few of them. Although some of these questions apply to his business, they all have a universal theme: What is your target customer looking for, and does your public persona reflect your unparalleled ability to meet that need?

1.    WEBSITE: Take a good hard look at your website. I’m sure it’s packed with confident and enthusiastic language. That’s fine – copywriters need love, too. But what’s the ratio of marketing dialogue to useful information? Do visitors leave your website feeling educated? Do you have a gazillion – YES, a gazillion! – quality photos that showcase your work, particularly before and after shots? Do you have detailed descriptions of your procedures? (If so, you’re providing authoritative information to counter the misinformation, horror stories and scary photos your potential client will most likely find in a Google search.) Do you have a Frequently Asked Questions page? Does your website offer several ways for visitors to contact you with questions? Are you frequently sharing your knowledge and industry news with your website visitors? Actually, that question leads to the next topic.

2.    EXPERTISE: You’re the next best thing to the Fountain of Youth, and you’ve got a wealth of information to help people look and feel more attractive. Are you giving away that info on a regular basis? Oh yes! I said, “giving it away”! Sharing valuable tips and advice demonstrates your expertise as well as your genuine desire to help others. Does your website have a blog that addresses relative topics? Is its tone informative or does it read like a sales pitch? (If it’s the latter, please hold out your hand so I can smack it with a ruler.) Are you also sharing useful information through Facebook, Twitter and other social media outlets? There are some great forums out there for consumers seeking advice and answers about products and services. Are you occasionally chiming in on those forums with advice and answers to their questions? DON’T FORGET: Getting your brain out there is just as important as getting your name out there. (Somebody put that phrase on a T-shirt!)

3.    CUSTOMERS: You’ve got consultation patients that are a little jittery in your waiting room. They’re wondering if they’re making the right decision. They’re dealing with the reality that they’re about to let someone alter their faces and bodies. So what are you doing to nurture these people? Is your office a comforting environment? Is your receptionist warm and welcoming? Are you offering them a beverage while they wait or using small, meaningful gestures to give them the royal treatment? Do you have a binder of your media coverage accessible so patients can flip through it and recognize you as an expert in your field? From the moment your customers/clients/patients walk through your door, your place of business should speak to them: “You are welcome here. You are safe here. We care about you. We want you to be happy – even if you ultimately choose to go somewhere else.” Word of mouth is one of the most powerful PR tools we can use. Make a fabulous impression on your customers and they’ll tell people about it.

For small business owners who don’t have an agency to navigate them through a sea of PR strategies and initiatives, the process can get a little overwhelming. If it happens to you, just shift your perspective. Think about your own buying habits and the factors that influenced those decisions. Think about the brands you love and the reasons you love them. Then think about why you love your own business and how you can convey that passion to others. Sometimes, we have to get back to our roots in order to keep growing. I think Yoda said that. Or Mr. Rogers. Either way, I like it.

The Cost of Being Nice - $11.50

Thomas Whitehead

You may have seen some of the morning news segments back in December about how several bars and restaurants across the country have used negative describers to identify their patrons. The ridiculous part is that once closing their tabs, the customers have the opportunity to see the negative words used to describe them.

So, imagine the breath of fresh air I felt when I read about what Red Robin did for a customer in North Carolina recently. A pregnant woman came to the restaurant with her family, and the manager not only comped her meal, but used a promo code wishing her well, “MOM 2 BEE Good LUC.”
 
This story could have just been another feel-good tale. In reading the interview with the manager, his response about being attentive to a customer caught my eye. He said that the key to having a happy customer is to "listen to them, and make sure they leave feeling appreciated and valued. If our guests know we welcome their feedback, I think they'll talk with us and speak up … to say they had a positive and satisfying experience with us, and hopefully also to say they'll be back again soon."
 
Simple enough, right? Yet so many of us forget this too often. With all the strategies, tactics and action plans we develop for our businesses and organizations, it is the day-to-day activities that we can do that can have the most impact on a customer relationship.
 
And it all begins with what the manager said: listen to them. And listening is not always something done with just the ears. Sometimes, we can listen with our eyes and see things that we can adjust or enhance.
 
That feeling of being valued and appreciated is not something that will most likely encourage a customer to use your services in the first place. But that feeling of being valued and appreciated is something that will have a customer coming back for your services time and again.

Hey, customer! Take a chill pill!

Kerri Guyton

OK, so while this may be what’s coming to mind as you open your mouth to diffuse an emotional customer, good communication skills will filter this statement into something pleasantly soothing and magically transformative. Some may claim that performing magic would be easier than pleasantly responding to an irate customer, but with a focused commitment to positive communication, business professionals might be surprised at their own “power” to redirect a customer’s frustration.

While situations vary, keeping your cool is the overall goal of any heated interaction. Simply by remaining calm, you exude a confidence that the problem has a solution. The rest of the interaction can be remembered as easily as you remember your vowels: AEIOU.

•    Acknowledgment
•    Empathy
•    Insight
•    Offer
•    Understanding

Starting with an acknowledgement of the customer’s concern and empathy for their distress immediately softens the customer’s defense and begins to assure them that you are open to helping them.

The next stage of the interaction involves gaining insight into the situation – listening to the customer’s story to determine the problem. This stage may also involve providing insight, which may settle the situation right then and there. If you are able to clear up a misunderstanding or answer a question that wasn’t being answered, that may be all that was needed to clear up the situation.

You can most often expect the offer stage to turn the corner for the situation, be it an offer to do something about the problem, to provide a reimbursement or replacement, or even to handle something differently in the future. Unhappy customers are likely to come with a demand ready, and by having a spirit of offering ready to go after gaining the insight needed, you continue to control the positive momentum.

A lasting impression is made in the understanding phase, where it is imperative to communicate an agreement that the situation has been resolved, so that the customer can walk away feeling taken care of, satisfied and far from the angry patron who initiated the exchange. 

And then, you can put your “magic wand” back in your pocket.