Customer Service Should Have Soul
After two weeks away in the UK, I’ve returned to the US having been reminded, rather harshly, of how terrible customer service is these days - it’s EVERYWHERE. The quality of customer service has become so bad that when given reasonable service (not great service) it stands out. Let me repeat this in another way - customer service that’s mediocre is bringing attention to itself because it’s better than bad!!!!
While returning to the US on a major US carrier (with the letters U & S in the company title) I was amazed by the appalling customer service I received! We’ve all seen it because traveling has become less than enjoyable. Let me set the stage. Remember the glory days when flight attendants were beautiful, young, vivacious and served you a coffee with a smile? Now let’s think in complete opposite of those terms and you have today’s typical flight attendant. The young have aged, become stressed, tired and less than thrilled about the coffee service….more like coffee with a growl.
I won’t ramble in great detail about my experience because it’s not unique. Between a canceled flight, disinterested agents unwilling to extend themselves, cramped seating, flight attendants forgetting orders and seemingly frustrated to be asked anything at all …..you get the picture because you’ve experienced it yourself. The biggest tragedy of the whole thing is that as consumers we’re paying premium pricing for a lousy service.
Remember the Southwest Airlines flight attendant who rapped and the video went viral? How many of us who fly Southwest secretly hoped he’d be our flight attendant? It’s not that he gave great service, it’s that he stood out brightly from all the rest? Just in case you were living in a hole somewhere and never saw the video, here it is:
So what does this say? A guy rapping on a flight? It says he’s passionate about what he’s doing. Is he tired? You bet. So that’s my benchmark for customer service. Passion.
CUSTOMER SERVICE IS PASSIONATE
Before I started writing this blog post today, I looked up the term ‘Customer Service’ on dictionary.com and wikipedia and the definitions given, left me disappointed.
Here’s the Wikipedia definition: “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer expectation.” It sounds all too….correct. The definition of customer service has no soul. I couldn’t help but feel that the definition of customer service given by wikipedia was giving me bad service in the way it defined it.
Customer service has soul….a Rod Tidwell kind of soul…..PASSIONATE! SHOW ME THE MONEY!!!!! kind of soul. Remember the Quan from Jerry Maguire? When dealing with customer service, we need to be the Ambassadors of Quan…..”Love..respect, community, the dollars too, the entire package……QUAN.”
Anyone in the position of giving great customer service must be passionate about pleasing people. Even if they don’t like their jobs or what they’re getting paid - they must be passionate about pleasing.
I could go on about this, but when asked how best I can improve the PR or marketing of a company - this is the first place I would start - the service. Are your people passionate about what they’re doing? If they’re not - get rid of them because if you own your business, you’re certainly passionate about it’s success. If you’ve got wrong people greeting your guests then you will never have raving fans who in turn will tell the world about their experience on Facebook or Yelp, or tumblr…..you get the picture.
Have soul. Have passion. Be an ambassador of quan.
The Barclays Bike: Brilliant Marketing…..Almost
Over the last 10 days, I’ve been in London assisting my Mum with the care of my Dad who is recovering from double hip replacement surgery. While here, I’ve enjoyed the ease of mass transportation using the London Underground, buses and most recently, the Barclays Bicycle. These bicycles captivated me for the brilliance in the marketing. If you’re in central London, these bicycles are EVERYWHERE. Londoners and visitors alike are riding these bicycles all over the city advertising the Barclays brand. So much so, that as I sit here and think of what banks I’ve seen in London, Barclays is the only one that comes immediately to mind.
Currently, there are over 6,000 of these branded bikes with more on the way. With the Olympics less than a year away, the brand awareness of Barclays is in place for the hundreds of thousands of visitors that will be arriving for the games. Brilliant right? Maybe not……
Let’s take a closer look……..
If I’m the Barclays Bank marketing exec, I’d be a little frustrated by now and a little embarrassed. Having attached the corporate brand along with over £25 million pounds (US$40.7 million buckaroos) over five years, these bicycles are not without their share of problems. In fact, if I were going to attach my corporate logo to something, I’d better be assured that the service is going to work near flawlessly. Have a look at my most recent experience below.
Barclays Bicycle from ZoneMarketing on Vimeo.
(This is about the third time this has occurred since I’ve been using these bikes this week and apparently, I’m not the only one experiencing this issue).
IS THIS REALLY A BIG DEAL?
You better believe it is! Here’s why…..These bikes are associated with one company (not the transportation department responsible for these - TfL) - Barclays. Currently, the view of most banks around the world do not convey positive feelings to consumers who use them as there is much inefficiency and crookery. (Is crookery a word? Doubtful, but I’m rolling with it anyway).
Having had a negative experience, I’m associating this negativity to the company that has branded themselves all over this service. Furthermore, you have to be pretty smart to figure out how to actually hire these bikes. When my mum and I first tried to rent one, we could not figure it out for the life of us. We stuck in my credit card and carefully read the instructions to no avail. We asked four different people for assistance and with their help, still couldn’t figure it out - we were completely dumbfounded. Finally, the fifth person we asked helped us immediately. The directions are unclear with how to rent these bikes with a credit card…..not intuitive at all. Do you know how I feel about these bikes BARCLAYS BIKES…..annoyed!
MY SCORECARD:
Conceptual Idea - 10 on the idea! Less pollution, a public service and inexpensive for the end user. What’s not to love?
Mass Marketing - 10 on the idea - what a great way to get your brand really out there! Better yet, you are using customers as marketers at the same time! LOVE THIS!
Implementation - 6 If the problems aren’t ironed out, the good feeling the marketing campaign is supposed to create is tarnished. Right now, my experience with the bicycles don’t give me the warmest feelings. I’m giving it a six because when the bicycles do work, it’s SO convenient. The one positive is that I now know to begin my journey earlier in the event the bike station is not properly functioning.
The paramount issue I see with Barclays’ involvement with this marketing campaign (and its £25,000,000 investment) is that their image is in the hands of someone else. If the company responsible for this bicycle system under-performs, then that poor performance carries near equal weight on the company associated with these bicycles. I sincerely hope that the service given at Barclays is better than the service I receive using the Barclays bicycles!
The Best Investment in Marketing: Your Customers
So, lately this blog has been all about the daily deal……lot’s more to come on that, but let’s take a break and discuss the most powerful marketing medium out there - your customer. With the explosion of social media comes an exciting time whereby your customers become marketing machines for your company. I’ve met many business operators who shy away from Facebook or Twitter because they are intimidated by it….if you’re not onboard with social media…you need to be….UNLESS you are consistently giving bad service and don’t want the word to get out about your lousy company (I’m kind of joking here…but not really joking either). With social media comes a whole new marketing strategy that changes the way marketing is thought. Here goes:
A NEW ERA OF MARKETING: GOODBYE ADVERTISING EXEC
Today’s marketing is more exciting than ever as it’s a departure from the way marketing has been for a century. No longer do business owners have to think within the confines of traditional mass media marketing - tv, radio and print. All of these mediums take a great deal of money to be successful. The return on investment is slow to recoup and difficult to track. With today’s marketing, the power of the spoken word (testimonials: the most valuable kind of marketing) is no longer confined to casual conversation amongst friends. A happy customer can post a comment or ‘check-in’ at your location and blast out to the world their feelings about your company. The good news with this new era of marketing is that it costs you nothing.
A NEW MARKETING STRATEGY: CUSTOMER SERVICE
I’ve always heard the terms ‘Customer Service’ and ‘Marketing’ mentioned as two separate categories within a company. This way of thinking must change as good AMAZING customer service IS your marketing strategy. Deliver great amazing service and provide your customers the medium to broadcast about you and watch your business grow.
HOW SOCIAL MEDIA MADE ME A CUSTOMER OF LELL’S CAFE
Yesterday, while driving through Rock Hill, SC I passed by a small strip mall and saw a sign that read…Lell’s Cafe. My brain immediately began to scan it’s memory banks as to why it rang a bell and then I remembered! One month ago, my friend Andy Ciordia declared on his Facebook page that for his birthday he would be stopping at Lell’s Cafe before heading to the dropzone to make a skydive. Apparently, this was going to be a great day for Andy! Now, I respect Andy and his opinions a lot and if he’s going to recommend a place, I usually take note as Andy is a saavy guy who supports things that he believes in. I made a mental note of Lell’s Cafe and amazingly enough one month after Andy’s post I was reminded of this cafe as I drove by it. I can assure you that this place would not have stuck out in my mind had I seen it in a printed ad or my local coupon clipper. This is the power of the all important testimonial! Here’s the post that made me visit Lell’s for lunch yesterday:
WHAT HAPPENED HERE
1. Andy loves the service and food he receives from Lell’s Cafe.
2. He posts on Facebook referencing Lell’s.
3. Being in Andy’s social network on FB, I see his reference to Lell’s and make note of it.
4. ONE MONTH later, I visit Lell’s solely because of Andy’s post.
5. I love the food and the hospitality shown at Lell’s. I check in on FourSquare and feature it in my blog today. I also become a loyal customer.
POINTS TO PONDER: a). What if the customer service at Lell’s was bad? Assuredly, the free press received via social media would not be existent and I would not be a customer at Lell’s today.
b). What if the service was bad? What if someone would have put on Facebook that the service was poor? I and others may make a mental note to not visit there.
c). You Never Know Who Your Customers Are.
With social media, everyone is now a food critic. The power of the pen is in their pockets with an app at their fingertips awaiting either a positive or negative review. If you knew you had a critic from the newspaper coming to visit your restaurant, you’d be sure you were on your game to ensure a good impression, right? The reality is you’ve got food critics coming in every night.
THE MORAL OF THE STORY: Treat every customer like they’re a VIP offering excellent customer service. Give excellent service and watch that customer become one of many marketing managers for your company spreading the good word…..for free!
Setting Up the Daily Deal
HOW SHOULD I SET UP A DAILY DEAL THEN? 
1. KICK THE TIRES, AND KICK ‘EM HARD: Remember the tip your dad taught you when buying a car? Don’t seem too desperate and be prepared to walk out of the dealership if you can’t get the deal you want. You know that smarmy car dealer (no offense to the smarmy used car salesmen out there) is going to call you back with a better price. Same thing here. When I worked my daily deal, I hung in for three months before I got the terms I was looking for. Remember, these big daily dealers are going to do one of two things: work with you or move on. If they move on, you can move on to another daily dealer and get what you’re looking for…trust me. There’s more than one game in town and it’s getting more and more competitive by the day.
2. BE PREPARED TO NEGOTIATE: Negotiate that credit card transaction fee. There are other companies like LivingSocial that do not stick it back on the vendor. Furthermore, negotiate the 50/50 split. As mentioned, LivingSocial does a 60/40 split where the business operator gets 60% of the sale and LS gets 40%. For newer daily dealers emerging, the split can be even better than 60/40.
3. LENGTH OF THE PROMOTION: Give this some serious thought. How long should your promotion be? The length of the promotion really depends on the kind of business you’re in. I would suggest no longer than six months if you have an off-season. I would suggest trying to begin a promotion at the tail end of your peak season, running the deal when your traffic begins to slow down. For the sake of your staff’s sanity, it is nice to get a high volume deal to finish soon…..if it prolongs on for too long, your staff may stagnate.
4. DEAL PARAMETERS: Better give this some thought - the parameters of your deal. Have you ever noticed that popular restaurants or hotels put in their conditions that the deal cannot be redeemed on Valentine’s Day or some other big holiday event? Think long and hard about the conditions of your deal. Be sure that your deal doesn’t impede on customers wishing to pay you full retail.
Expiration Parameters: Remember, you’re going to get a ton of calls by people who did not redeem their certificates in time and give you every excuse as to why they didn’t redeem in time…you may wish to stress on the promotion that no exceptions will be made beyond the expiration date (pending your state’s law on gift certificates). Furthermore, you may wish to state that the gift certificate will only be valued at what the customer paid for it after the expiration date (essentially devaluing the deal by half).
5. SIZE OF DATABASE: When investigating who to run a daily deal with, be sure to find out how many people have signed up in a particular market. You may find that one daily deal company may have 20,000 people in their database for a particular market whereas another daily deal company may have five times that much. This is important to note because you want your company to see as much exposure as possible. For this reason alone is why GroupOn is head and shoulders above the rest…they’re the leaders in the market with numbers. No other daily deal programs have as many people in their database rosters by market than GroupOn.
6. BE DISCIPLINED: Don’t offer an unlimited amount of deals….be sure to cap your deal. ‘Nuff Said here!
SUMMARY FOR TIPS TO A SUCCESSFUL DAILY DEAL CAMPAIGN
A. BE PATIENT - Don’t rush to make a deal until you get the terms you want.
B. CREDIT CARD FEES…..negotiate to half or nothing at all.
C. THINK ABOUT LENGTH OF PROMO: This is a strategy….think it through!
D. DEAL PARAMETERS: Big detail not to be overlooked. Think seriously!
E. DATABASE SIZE: Maximize your exposure in the market. Be sure opt-in database.
D. CAP SALES——>This cannot be stressed enough. Don’t offer an unlimited run of daily deals. This is where the daily deal kills you! Be disciplined and reel the number in.
Ready to Deal? Set Your Goals
Okay, you’ve done your homework, it’s time to initiate a daily deal. Before setting up the deal, be sure to set specific goals before working on a contract. There can be no deal unless all the following criteria is met:
DEAL CRITERIA
1. Being Profitable - Not Breaking Even
2. Not being overwhelmed by the response
3. High Exposure of brand
4. Gaining a new loyal customer base
1. DEAL CRITERIA - Being Profitable
The daily deal company (specifically GroupOn) will tell you that you should break even on the deal and will give you, the business operator, reasons why this will work out in your favor. THIS WILL NOT WORK OUT IN YOUR FAVOR. Even if the profit margins are small, make sure you are making a profit on each deal. If you sell an excessive amount of deals (which you should prevent doing) you will incur higher operating costs to handle the deal, resulting in a loss. If you’re willing to break even (or God forbid at a loss) be sure that you feel confident that your staff can upsell additional products once the customers are there.
FOR EXAMPLE: Say you’re a restaurant and you offer a deal of $10 for $20 worth of food. Let’s use GroupOn as an example. GroupOn will take a 50% split on revenues generated…so they will take $5 and you will receive $5. Don’t forget the credit card transaction fee (typically 2.5% on top of the full sales price of $10) that GroupOn will have you pay. So, with your transaction fee you’re now getting $4.75….which is a huge number if multiplied by 2,000 deals sold….At $4.75, your company will receive $9,500 versus $10,000 for 2000 deals…that’s $500 of lost earnings (which is a lot when you’re already working on very tight margins). Now imagine 2000 customers eating $20 worth of food for $4.75? You’ll be kicking yourself and kicking yourself hard!
When broken down, the above example seems crazy, but deals like this are popping up in our in-boxes every day. Business operators are accepting these deals hoping to bring in a new set of customers that will return in the future. The question is (especially in a down economy) is your product strong enough for customers to return when there are more deals popping up everyday?
2. Don’t Be Overwhelmed!
I’ll keep this short and sweet. Don’t be greedy, yo! If you plan to sell 1,500+ daily deals with a six month expiration date then you need to be sure you can handle this. That’s a lot of people swarming in….be prepared to man the phones, hide the women and children and have a lot of staff on hand! This may sound like a good thing…and it can be if you can accommodate these numbers, but remember the daily deal mostly drives cash flow, but not necessarily profit. Be sure to leave room for your customer base that wishes to visit you without a deal and pay full price.
3. High Exposure
There are a lot of new daily deal sites popping up all over the place! Everyone smells money and they want a piece of the action. If you elect to go with a daily dealer, find out how many people are in their database for a specific city. Ask for proof of this….if I’m a new daily dealer, I could spit out any random number. Also, be sure that their database is opt-in and not a purchased list of contacts where consumers are spammed deals.
4. Gaining a New Customer Base
The ultimate goal with your daily deal is to introduce your business to a new group of customers and then keep them as your customers. In other words, work out the kinks before you fling open your doors. Be a well oiled machine standing out above the rest and showing people that they have to return because your business is better than the rest. If you’re not on top of your game then you’ll just be another cheap deal rather than an esteemed business where people will return.
Got questions, comments or concerns……shoot me a message. The daily deal is escalating to a point where only the survival of the fittest will make it through. If a company offers a daily deal and provides lousy service…..the deal with so much promise could put a company under. The daily deal is a marketing strategy that should be handled with great care!
The Headaches of the Daily Deal….Are You Prepared for Anarchy?
Ah yes, your daily deal has just finished its promo online. Throughout the deal, you refreshed your browser over and over again to see the sales increasing. You imagine that upfront cash getting ready to roll in and you begin projecting….”If I’m able to sell 2,000 deals by 5:00pm………”
STOP!!!! DANGER WILL ROBINSON, DANGER!!!!
Okay…so you sold a lot of deals……now what? Are you prepared for an onslaught of customers hitting you and hitting you hard? Sounds like a good thing right?…we all want customers. Well, there are pitfalls to this and I’ll post tips in my next blog post on setting up your daily deal so you avoid the pitfalls.
So There Are Negatives To This?
Yup, there are negatives alright. Many of the daily deal companies try to warn you about this, so don’t call ‘em complaining. They’ve stated the facts on their site for you to read, but if you don’t pay serious attention to the warnings, they won’t go out of their way to tell you…..after all, the more deals you sell, the more money they’re going to make. They don’t want to scare you….too much!
Negative # 1: Your Staff
Your admin staff may will get to the point of hating the daily deal if you’ve not capped your numbers at a reasonable figure. Here’s why - prepare for an onslaught of phone calls. Here’s a sad, but true fact: People do not like to read….including the expiration dates on their deals. Your phone will be ringing, and ringing like crazy with the same questions over and over again. They’re going to get overwhelmed and tired of it.
Advice: It would be smart to meet with your staff and explain what they’re to expect during the daily deal run. One of the major pluses of the daily deal is exposing new customers to your business. This is the most critical time to be on your “A” game with customer service. If service wanes because your staff are worn out by the onslaught, then you’ve missed the opportunity to impress and hopefully have new, loyal customers.
Negative #2: Availability for These Customers
The highest volume of customers that will try to utilize your service or product is near the date of expiration of your daily deal. If you’ve run a daily deal, then prepare yourself for space issues - this is surely the case if you’ve got an insane amount of deals sold out there.
Advice on Space. Everyone will be scrambling to use their deal with you….but do you have the space to accommodate them all? If not, it will be wise to set up a policy on extending some of those that can’t book due to a lack of availability from the last minute rush. Imagine for a moment that you’re a consumer with a daily deal and you call to make a booking prior to the expiration date and you’re told that you’re out of luck…..not cool right? Take care of your customers even if they’re on the deal of the century.
Negative #3: Expiration Dates.
Sticking to the expiration dates can be a tough task because you’re going to hear the best excuses for missing the expiration known to man. No, seriously, you can’t make some of this stuff up…… Be prepared to hear the absolute worst sob stories you’ve ever heard - some probably legit, others total bologna. It’s true that you want to help your customers and offer good service, but don’t take responsibility for your customer’s life problems. Part of the financial gain in offering a deal is that some won’t be redeemed. You’re giving the greatest deal ever….so be sure to end it when it expires. For the tough customers that really work hard with the most excellent excuse, I offer customers the opportunity to pay the difference between what they paid for their daily deal and my full retail price. This to me, is a win-win but doesn’t always satisfy every customer. Remember, you can’t please all the people, all of the time.
Advice: Be sure to check your state’s policy on expiration dates regarding gift cards. In some states, expiration dates do not apply to gift cards. Don’t be caught off guard by this. You may review your state’s policies here.
Negative #4: Your Prime Time
Let’s be clear - be sure to run your daily deal in your OFFSEASON. It doesn’t make business sense to have daily deals redeemed during your on-season. Inevitably your daily dealers will dominate any open availability making it difficult for your full retail paying customers to acquire your services. This is not a good thing.
To Make a Long Story Short……
1. Don’t be overly enamored by the upfront cash infusion of your deal…headaches are to follow. Set a limit on sales.
2. Meet with your staff - tell them what to expect and make sure they know it’s ‘A’ game time!
3. Accommodation - make sure you can deal with the huge rush of customers especially towards the expiration of your deal.
4. Expiration Dates - make sure you have a policy in place as to how you will handle those that missed the expiration.
5. Prime Time - Don’t run a deal that commandeers your prime time.
The Daily Deal Debate, To Use or Not To Use
One of the hottest topics in business marketing is the daily deal. If you own a business then chances are you’ve received a call from one of the daily deal companies trying to get you signed on. Over the course of the next week, I’ll be focusing on multiple topics of the daily deal. I’ll break these down into different topics to keep the posts relatively short and sweet and flowing along. Feel free to chime in…..everyone’s got an opinion on this one!
To DailyDeal or not to DailyDeal……..That is the Question.
If you’ve not yet run a daily deal promotion, consider giving this a hard look and speak with others who have used a promotion of this kind. The decision to run a daily deal is a big one. After the cash has been doled into your account and you begin to smile, note that there are headaches ahead and this cash will evaporate quickly. These headaches aren’t advertised, but I’ll publish these headaches and how to handle them in the next blog post.
Your Approach to the Daily Deal - 1.Advertising or 2.Profit Driven?
Before delving into your daily deal, take a moment and consider what your objective is as it can go two ways. 1. Are you using your daily deal as advertising and exposing your business or 2. are you just trying to get as much cash through the door as possible? The answer to this question will impact your approach entirely. Consider the approaches:
The Advertising Approach - The beauty of the daily deal is that consumers (you and me) have opted in to receive these emails voluntarily. We’re not getting spammed. If you’re like me, each morning I scan my daily deals to see if there is anything that interests me. This is a key detail because you have a captive audience. Even if people don’t wish to buy the deal, consumers now know you exist and that is a huge detail. There is a great value in this. Key Point Alert Here (Don’t Miss This Point) ———> The low margin dollars made in the deal are second to the actual exposure received in the deal. <——-
If you’re setting up a daily deal, ask your ‘dd’ rep how many people are in the database for your market. For many cities, the database sizes are well above 100,000 people and growing daily. Now, let’s think for a minute - what would it cost us if we sent out an advertisement to 100,000 people and we were guaranteed that more than 50% were actually going to read your message……you’d be paying a pretty penny.
The Cash Approach - Okay, this is an approach but not necessarily a good approach. Remember what your mom said growing up while wagging her finger at you….”Too much of a good thing can make you sick.” Falling prey to the temptation of selling as many deals can be problematic disastrous. The upfront cash may be sweet, but prepare yourself for a bitter taste. (As mentioned above, this will be the topic of the next post).
Food for Thought - If you can get the same exposure by capping your deal to say 500 deals versus 2,000……why don’t you just cap your promotion? You’ll still get the same exposure.
So, Is the daily deal good or bad?
Have you ever watched Cesar Milan the Dog Whisperer on TV? If you’ve watched more than one episode, you’ll note that he’s really training the owners more than the actual dogs. I have often thought Cesar would be an awesome marriage counselor….anyway, that’s another topic in someone else’s blog. Consider your daily deal as your new dog. If you give it free rein, chances are it may bite you. A dog in an environment with structure is a loyal and a well-behaved dog.
You must treat your daily deal with structure and guidelines - beyond those that are recommended by your daily dealer. So, to answer the question of whether the daily deal is good or bad, you’ve got to consider the parameters in which you want to offer the daily deal. If you don’t set parameters for your daily deal, I can almost assure you your deal will be a very bad dog. Set parameters and goals and she’ll be just as sweet as can be.
