Successful Startup 101 Magazine - Issue 7 Page 5
The more we know about our customers, the better we can be at predicting their needs and building relationships. When at all possible, customers should be able to talk to the same person they have formed a relationship with for continuity in their experience. Customer service and sales representatives should have enough information to be able to ask, “How did (your child’s name) enjoy the (product) you purchased from us last time?”
THEY SURPRISE AND DELIGHT
Another thing I noticed about Bindha is that he always surprises and delights his customers. When he is about to leave a table he offers a free round of wine, a free dessert or something else he thinks you will enjoy. He knows I love Chateau St. Michelle’s Reisling and he makes sure we get a glass on him every time. He’s given us free dessert and free Naan. We never expect to get anything free and we are more than willing to pay for what we consume, but he always surprises us with something meaningful that we remember. This is one of the reasons you feel like Bindha is a friend who treats you like a special customer. When I started watching, I noticed that Bindha does this with every table; it’s a secret sauce he uses to make sure you remember your experience. And I think it’s brilliant!
How can your company surprise and delight customers? It could be something simple like a hand-written thank you note, free shipping, free rush delivery, or a special gift they weren’t expecting. The key with surprise and delight is that is must be a surprise. Customers can’t start to expect it; they need to feel like it was something special just for them. We need to figure out how to surprise and delight customers EVERY time. This requires companies to allow their front-line staff to have the power to decide what the right surprise and delight gift is for each customer. And it’s even better if they can personalize a note with the gift so the customer knows the person they dealt with was the reason they got the gift and that they were thinking of them when they included it.
THEY ARE ALWAYS READY TO SERVE
The great experience at Royal Taj, doesn’t start and end with Bindha. It’s clear customer experience is something they engrain in their employees. When you dine at Royal Taj you will see the entire staff standing in a line right in the dining room waiting for an opportunity to serve. They scan the dining room constantly and all you have to do is look at them and they rush to your table to serve you. We’ve all been at restaurants where the staff casually stands chatting each other up, getting distracted and even doing unprofessional things. As a customer you feel like your needs are less important because they don’t convey an interest in being ready to serve you.
How can your company always be at the ready looking for an opportunity to serve? Are you monitoring social channels for mentions of your company? Do you have live chat on your website? If so, do you proactively reach out to website visitors and let them know you are there to help? How are you making it ridiculously easy for customers to get your attention?
The challenges with putting customer experience at the core of your business comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. But seriously, it comes down to one thing; how committed are you to ensuring customers have a great experience? If you are truly committed then you won’t let any obstacle get in your way. You will find creative solutions to challenges instead of using them as excuses for under-serving your customers. Isn’t it time for every company to put their customers at the center of their business model?
How important is customer experience in your company? Are you making great strides or using a lot of lip service? What are your biggest frustrations that company’s need to address? Leave a comment and join the discussion for helping company’s put customer experience at the core of their business model.
About the Author
Nichole Kelly is the CEO of Social Media Explorer SME Digital. She is also the author of How to Measure Social Media. Her team helps companies figure out where social media fits and then helps execute the recommended strategy across the “right” mix of social media channels. Do you want to rock the awesome with your digital marketing strategy? Contact Nichole
Manage Your Marketing: Remember You’re in Sales
By Margie Clayman
A few weeks ago I was in Barnes & Noble and I happened to glance at the business best sellers shelf (as I am wont to do). A book sitting there caught my eye. It was Daniel Pink’s To Sell is Human. The title got my attention for a couple of reasons. First, as we have discussed many times, there are silos between marketing and sales departments in most companies. The title made me wonder if Pink would offer an argument that would help to destroy that (needless) division between sales and marketing. The title also got my attention because as a marketer, I have always known in my gut that I also need to understand what’s happening in sales. As Pink notes at the start of his book, very few people like to think of themselves as sales people. Why is that?
Pink suggests that most people equate “sales” to being shady, like the old stereotypes of the used car salesman. In fact, in a questionnaire that Pink cites in the book, many people, when asked, answered that sales made them think of primarily negative personality traits. However, Pink argues that “sales” is more than just trying to sell a product. “Sales” can mean trying to get a person to buy into your ideas or, as he says, “moving people.” If this is not marketing, what is?
But I must reiterate – being in sales is gross!
I think a lot of people have this gut reaction to the idea that they are in sales, especially people who are using social media as part of their marketing campaigns. The emphasis in the online world has long rested on relationships versus “selly” engagement. There is a sentiment that if you try to “sell” online it will be a real turn-off. For marketers, this creates a conundrum and this conundrum lies behind the entire controversy regarding whether it is possible to calculate social media ROI. If you are hesitant to sell anything online, it will of course, be extremely difficult to realize any return on your investment.
Beyond the online world, it is also important to visualize your marketing content as if it is an army of non-human sales representatives for your company. Instead of knocking on doors, your ads appear before eyes of potential customers. Instead of traveling city-to-city, your email marketing calls for attention in someone’s inbox. Your content is intended to help increase sales. It may not be a direct line like it would be for door-to-door salespeople, but the intent is the same. You are striving to convince someone to buy your company’s product or service. If you are using social media marketing, you are like the old-fashioned store owner who knows everyone’s name, who cares, but who also is still trying to sell something. One does not need to be a snake oil salesman to be in sales.
There’s no reason for silos
Marketing and Sales departments are often pitted against each other in companies. When things go wrong these departments point the fingers at each other. “Sales are down because the marketing is bad.” “Sales are down because the sales team isn’t converting leads into sales.” When things go well, the departments compete for credit. The faulty logic is that sales and marketing are diametrically opposed. This is simply not the case. If you are truly enmeshed in marketing for your company, you are in sales. If you are trying to promote ideas that will help your company grow, you are in sales. Indeed, in an ideal situation, marketing will work with the sales team to make sure all messaging emanating from the company is consistent and effective.
The next time someone says that marketers don’t really understand the world of sales, or the next time you hear a marketer talking disparagingly about the sales process, remember that marketers are also in sales. Marketers are humans. And, if you agree with Daniel Pink, to sell is human.
Do you agree?
About the Author
Margie Clayman is the Director of Marketing, B2B Services at Clayman and Associates, a full service marketing firm headquartered in Marietta, Ohio. You can follow the agency at www.facebook.com/claymanandassociates.
In addition to blogging for her agency
, Margie Blogs for Razoo Giving and Vocus.
Dear Brands, This is the End of Our Friendship. Sincerely, Your Customer
By Vincent Teo
Social technology is heralding a new wave of consumerism and this has startling implication to brands. Your consumer is not just ditching you, they're becoming your competitors.
There's been a slow shift in the balance of power that has been happening for a long time.
Once upon a time, brands held all the power in their relationship with consumers. They withheld information and could afford to charge higher prices, additional fees or get away with bad service because there was a lack of transparency and connection between consumers. Customers put up with it because they didn't know any better or thought this was the norm. And even if they minded, they had little choice but to comply because there were simply no viable alternatives.
Things started to change with Web 1.0 - where the Internet gave consumer the transparency of information online, which disrupted closed group industries (travel, insurance, cars, and electronics etc) and made prices and standards more open. This gave consumers the information they needed to compare between brands, take options, and make informed choices. It also gave rise to direct purchases with e-commerce, cutting out the need for unnecessary intermediaries (e.g. booking a holiday).
Then came along Web 2.0 - this was about the openness of sharing information amongst consumers, i.e. social media. Where people could share content and their experiences with brands (both good and bad) to a larger group of people, forming communities that were passionately for or against brands. We all remember this moment, herald as the great equalizer where brands now had to respond to criticism and complains from consumers or risk the quick outrage of an angry online mob that can quickly grow as information spreads virally through social sharing platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
We're now living in the age of Web 3.0, where social technology is heralding a new wave of consumerism; one that allows consumers to share resources that puts them into a position where they can directly compete with entrenched brands and provide the same services.
This has startling implication to brands – your consumer is not just ditching you, they are becoming your competitors.
The rise of sharing economy has been widely covered. Technology is one of the key facilitators but credit goes to the multitude of tech startups that recognize the gaping hole and opportunities left by slow moving, entrenched brands, creating digital marketplaces that connect consumers with excess resources and those with a demand for it together in a mutually beneficial way.
Think about it. Airbnb fills more rooms than all of the Hilton branded hotels in the world and they don’t own a single bed. It’s simply a marketplace that connects resources to those who need it bypassing the traditional hotel business that has been around for decades.
There are many such examples all born from opportunistic startups and entrepreneurs who themselves were probably disillusioned with what was provided by brands and thought “what if there was a better way”. Things that were once the expected norm are now a thing of the past.
Want to avoid paying expensive charges when you park your car at the airport for a short trip? Flight Car lets you rent your vehicle out to other travelers coming in (and avoid expensive rentals from the likes of Hertz and Avis). Parkers save and make money while renters get a cheaper price.
Want to avoid expensive public cloud computing costs? Gridmarkets allows companies to sell their excess CPU capacity to others that need large amounts of computational power.
Want to avoid expensive office rentals? DesksNearMe allows anyone who needs a flexible workspace to book from others that have desks and office space that’s not being used.
My favorite example is one that's close to my heart. Recently, my mobile provider SingTel announced to much of my dismay and further disdain that they were going to double the price of excess mobile data.
To provide some context: Singtel has recently cut down its data plans from 12GB to 2, 3, and 4GB plans – essentially already increasing the price of post paid data plans. Now, with the already ¼ reduced data in your monthly service bundled, you're expected to pay double the cost of what it was when you exceeded usage.
If Singtel is going to make me pay a penalty for going past my data bundle, why aren’t they paying me if I have excess unused data at the end of each month? This is a simple idea: Instead of paying SingTel’s outrageous costs, I should just be able to use another mobile subscriber’s excess data from their bundles.
Turns out, this already exist in the form of Air Mobs – An app that allows you to sell wireless bandwidth to a stranger near you, in exchange for credits allowing you to buy bandwidth from another stranger in the future.
Taking this one level up, instead of paying expensive roaming charges for using data abroad, CrowdRoaming allows you to share your excess local mobile data with travelers. In return, when you travel abroad, you can also tap on the mobile data from locals at your destination.
Now is the time that brands need to learn to play nice, be transparent, and act in the interest of its customers and not itself or its shareholders.
T-mobile in the U.K. is a great example of behaving consumer first. It disrupted the entire telco industry by dropping the mandatory 2 year mobile phone contract. In addition, it will now eliminate all the ridiculous sky high international roaming charges that consumers have accepted as norm and an acceptable cost for traveling.
Mike Sievert, T-Mobile’s chief marketing officer articulated this form of behavior nicely when he said “Other telcos sit around trying to figure out what customer charges they can get away with. We sit around and think what can we get away with not charging the customer.”
About the Author
Vincent is the co-founder and partner at C//IQUE, a product development studio and incubator that focuses on developing digital products and services that disrupt traditional business models and empower consumers. He has over a decade of experience both on the client and agency side, most recently as a digital planning director at BBDO/Proximity and lead digital strategist at Publicis. Prior to that, he started-up and managed the Hong Kong office of Splash Interactive Group and built the online business at Citibank and HSBC. Connect with him on Twitter @intersphere.
How Do You Have an Effective Social Media Presence and Not Get Sued?
By Mark Schaefer
If you can’t see the video, click here to see my interview with Anne McGraw of Nissan-North America.
I recently had the chance to catch up with Anne McGraw, senior manager – customer experience for Nissan North America and discuss some very relevant and timely marketing issues.
Anne works in an extremely high-pressure environment where any social media response could potentially result in a lawsuit or a spot on the national news. Yet, she has been able to navigate this internal and external minefield to create a state-of-the-art social media presence for her company.
Today you get to see an interview with Anne where she shares how she developed her strategy in this difficult environment as well as:
The event that led to Nissan’s “ah-ha” moment — when her management team finally “got it”
Her approach to getting the legal team onboard.
How she is using social data as a leading indicator to discover customer issues 4-6 weeks faster than normal.
I think you’ll enjoy this interview and you can connect with Anne on LinkedIn and on Twitter.
About the Author
I’m Mark Schaefer. If you want to learn about my awards, books, degrees, patents, professional accomplishments and all that LinkedIn stuff, you can click here: Professional Credentials. There is also a good bio here if you’re looking for the short story! -
7 Sure-Fire Success Principles
By Daniel C. Steenerson
Success is something everyone wants but only a few achieve. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. No matter where you
are in your business – from startup to seasoned veteran – there are principles you can apply to ensure your success. Below are seven sure-fire success principles you can start using right now:
Work with relentless urgency.
Getting up and showing up are a great start but if you want success in your business – or in any part of your life – you have to be willing to work, and work hard. The Army’s slogan from the early 1980s was, “We get more done before 9 a.m. than most people get done in a day.” It’s that hard-driving work ethic that will set you apart from the pack and create opportunities that will open the doors to success.
Apply a disciplined approach.
Discipline is defined as a system of rules governing conduct or activity. When you wake up in the morning, do you have a systematic plan of what you are going to accomplish and how you are going to accomplish it? If not, you can’t expect to move forward in your career in any meaningful way. Begin using a disciplined approach by first setting goals and then planning activities that will achieve those goals. Finally, measure the success of your activities and then adjust your plans accordingly.
Focus on implementation.
Closely related to discipline is implementation. This is simply the principle of carrying out and accomplishing the goals and plans you created, ensuring actual fulfillment by concrete measures. You can dream and plan and set goals for yourself all day but if you do nothing tangible to see those goals through, you are simply spinning your wheels and wasting time. Implementation is the step that transitions plans into results.