Dot-Chris: Exceeding Customer Expectations
As I thought about writing this blog post about how wonderful Chris at Dot-Chris Development is, I started thinking that many of my blog posts about service providers are critical; unmet expectations, unsatisfactory performance, poor customer experience.
So although the purpose of this post is to recommend Chris, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at why working with Chris is such a positive experience.
OK, first the recommendations. If you need someone to work on your existing Wordpress blog…..upgrade, re-design, change themes, add plug-ins, enhance SEO, suggest improvements or anything else you can think of that I haven’t mentioned, Chris at Dot-Chris will do a fabulous job for a fair and reasonable fee
He can also move a blog to Wordpress (he moved my Typepad blog to Wordpress) and he will reluctantly even work on a Typepad blog…he just prefers Wordpress. Chris will clarify exactly what it is you want done, tell you what he thinks should be done and he will give you an estimate for dollars and time. What you get will be all the whats and the shoulds for the price he quotes on the day that he promised it.
This past weekend he even fixed my beleaguered Sony Vaio which is now running perhaps better than it did out of the box. He calls this service, Remote Services.
In his own words, ” Have you ever wished you could have someone remotely fix your computer at a time most convenient to you and without even taking the computer out of your home. Well, with Remote Services by Dot-Chris, this is now possible. We will remotely login to your pc and perform tasks such as Start-Up Optimization, Clean-up of unused programs, and organization of your system, but Dot-Chris doesn’t stop there, in most cases if you are just having general computer issues we can guide you to a solution and best of all you can sit back and relax while we guide you.
Dot-Chris also strives for complete security in any dealings with clients. First, we only use software that allows us to use random passwords that only work one time. Second, Dot-Chris computer systems use AES encryption at partition level, thus any data on our systems is encrypted to government standards. This encryption is powered by
Truecrypt.”
Now, why does Chris (who by the way is the same age as my oldest son) get the highest rating in terms of customer satisfaction? Well, let’s look at his Remote Service as an example.
My Sony Vaio has been a pain from the beginning. The original battery had a nano second of life; a new Sony battery provided through a replacement program lasted about an hour. Then one day after about 6 months the replacement battery died so I had to go back to the original battery which means I am really tethered to the outlet. Yes, I could probably get Sony to provide a replacement for the replacement but since there is no obvious place on their website or on the automated answering system and on a trip to the Sony store at a mall my inquiry was greeted with a blank stare regarding the battery replacement program and a suggestion that I call tech support. Oh please, just shoot me.
In addition to this problem (the laptop was purchased in May 2006) and other issues such as USB ports that work unpredictable hours and days, over the course of the past year it has gotten slower and slower. Oh, it looks sleak and shiny but doesn’t act sleak and shiny. Mostly, I use my MacBookbut sometimes I regress.
One night, Chris was telling me about cleaning up and fixing his grandmother’s computer. I asked if he could do that for mine. He asked me what the issues were. I told him. He suggested a date and a time to do the deed. He explained the remote service. He set my expectations. I knew what he was going to do. I knew how he was going to do it. I knew how long it was going to take and I knew how much it was going to cost.
Secretly, I was kind of skeptical that anything would change the performance of this computer. I had spent hours on the phone with Microsoft thinking that maybe the issues were software related. Microsoft troubleshot all kinds of things and “fixed” numerous “problems”. The problem was though, that in the end, the performance by my definition never improved.
The outcome from Chris was nothing short of miraculous. OK, the battery life is still laughable but that would not be Chris’ purview. Everything else is working great….faster, less buggy, and much improved.
So, back to customer experience. He set my expectations. I understood exactly what I was going to get for my money. I knew how much of my time to allocate (Lack of respect for customer’s time is one of the underreported and unlabeled causes of customer dissatisfaction….another blog post).
He then exceeded my expectations, no extra charge. This has been the case with everything Chris has done for me. Further, he provides service beyond the “sale.” He will answer any question, change something that isn’t meeting your needs and otherwise provide ongoing “promise.”
Cam Beck uses the term “promise” as the fourth “p” in a great post about the “new marketing mix.” Although he is speaking of brands marketed by companies, his words apply to Chris’ brand also.
Cam says that a brand promise needs to be set; an expectation. Then the singular focus should be on meeting and exceeding expectations.
In a post written a few years ago that focused on custmer satisfaction surveys, I noted that, “Client experience is a marketing issue….the client experience is really the operationalizing of your marketing. Operationalization means specifying the exact operations that defines the marketing promise.”
I suggested that at the beginning of a client/customer relationship one should
- Determine customer needs.
- Agreeing on how those needs will be met.
- Set measurement standards.
- Then assess satisfaction by surveying performance versus those standards.
- Meet their needs and their hearts and minds will follow…as will high ratings on surveys.
In other words, Chris rocks; I promise.
AAF: MySpace and YouTube, Yes; Blogs, Not Really Very Much
An AAF (American Advertising Federation ) survey of industry leaders on digital media trends indicates that advertising agencies are not confident that Fortune 500 companies quite appreciate the effectiveness of digital marketing. Sixty three percent of Fortune 500 companies according to the survey are, “generally behind the curve when it comes to online strategy.” However, the agencies executives themselves acknowledge that fifty-eight percent are “personally “struggling simply to manage existing online efforts, let alone stay ahead of the curve.”
Well, what a shame about that curve; agencies think clients are behind the digital curve but agencies admit they can’t stay ahead of it. While the agencies and the client in this surveys are roundingÂ� Dead Man’s Curve they might want to drive by Todd Copilevitz’ and see why they are Advertising Themselves to Death.. Another eye opener awaits as Todd notes that General Mills has told its agencies that they will now be compensated based upon the dreaded RESULTS.
Might be important to realize that the Future of Advertising is NOW: Its not about whether the advertisers or the advertising agencies “get it.” The consumer gets “it” and that is really all that matters. According to Yankelovich and Forrester, seventy percent (70%) of consumers say they like products such as TiVo that block advertising and ninety two percent (92%) of these users fast forward through advertising. For more data, check out the Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMMA) Research Blog and to experience the future in real time join me next week at the Word of Mouth Marketing (WOMBAT 2) Basic Training Conference.
OK, and how does the AAF regard blogs and “user generated content sites”? “Advertising executives find blogs a riskier, less effective advertising vehicle than user-generated content sites such as MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, etc. Sixty-two percent (62%) stated that “blogs are too risky to advertise with due to lack of predictability of the editorial content,” while only 53 percent agreed with the same statement about user-generated content. Despite these concerns, an overwhelming majority said advertisers “should exploit the viral marketing opportunities” of user-generated sites and, to a lesser degree, blogs.
Well Yankelovitch did report that 55% of consumers still enjoy advertising “itself’. Of course that reminds me of the oft quoted John Wannamaker comment about the 50% of add dollars that are wasted but he just didn’t know which half.
Tags: advertising, marketing, word of mouth marketing, WOMMA, WOM, digital advertising, digital media, YouTube, MySpace, blogs
Powered by Qumana
Blogging Irony: We Encourage Corporations to Blog as our Business but Discourage Them by our Behavior
As part of my consulting business I promote blogging to businesses, service professionals, and non-profits. Many consultants, Advertising and PR bloggers do the same thing. We tell them it is an easy, inexpensive way to build businesses and brands; we say, blogs build relationships and join the conversation.And we say the best way to learn about blogs is to read blogs.
Well, I believe all those statements are true…the problem is you hope that they are not reading blogs the week that a number of bloggers are pulverizing a brand blog and asking that the marketing department be fired, or having a too personal slugfest over Wal-Mart and Edelman and who should have said what ,or a lower moment, the Strumpette dumpathon.
John Wagner at On Message from Wagner Communication writes, "There is a lesson to be learned from Strumpette and I hope all you blogists, Kool-Aid drinkers and social media consultants were paying attention." The lesson he is teaching is an old one really, public displays of engagement with an adversary seldom accomplish much. Although he makes some good points and the comments to his post represent the spectrum of opinions, I think his perhaps off hand reference to why corporate America is cautious about blogging is just as important.
He references a blog post on Scatterbox that is critical of hypocricies noted about McDonald’s social repsonisibility blog in light his opinions that their menu is less than responsible, as an example of the kind of criticism a corporation might face in the blogosphere. Again, it’s a valid point. If a corporation has a blog it can and probably will be examined for evidence of inconsistencies with stated corporate policies, product or service offerings, or even political contributions. Any public communication by a corporation is subject to this. And really in my opinion, corporations, just like the rest of us should be held accountable for consistency.
What I think is another important point is that when a company launches a blog and bloggers write things like, "Last wednesday, February 15th Guinness (a generally forward thinking
and creative marketer) launched a blog. As opposed to the usual puffery
and inauthenticity that can be associated with some of the “Corporate Brand Jobs†that pass for blogs, " does it really encourage the brand manager reading the post to feel like adding it to the old marketing plan? And that was pretty tame next to what Juicey Fruit got. McDonald’s blog was not exactly welcomed with open arms, even before the first post went up.
Final comment…it seems that for all the instructions we receive about how to build traffic the way to really build traffic fast is sex, scandal, innuendo, and other forms of negative attention. Thank you Strumpette, building traffic on a blog has now been shown to be the same as building traffic anywhere. Well corporate America, you know all those new things we told you about that will help you build readership and join the conversation…links, pings, comments, tags? Well, the more things change the more they stay the same. Sex sells so come on in…there just isn’t a life guard on duty everyday.
Technorati Tags: blogs, bloggers, McDonalds, marketing PR, advertising, branding, Wal-Mart, corporate blogs, strumpette
What’s the Buzz?
The November issue of INC. has a fascinating article which describes how the blog, Delicious Destination whose intent was to create buzz, hit an initial buzzsaw from the blogosphere but was ultimately put back on course by the marketing savvy of Toby Bloomberg of Bloomberg Marketing. It seems that the blog has a fictional character named T. Alexander and although this was disclosed, some inside the blogosphere took exception and called a technical: violation of the authentic rule. I think this was a bad call.
The heat has most recently been on Panasonic’s Def Perception, where Tosh Bilowski has recently been revealed to be, a fictional character. Amy Gahran at Contenious has been posting about this for over a week.
You can read the Gourmet Station Delicious Destination story yourself at Toby’s blog, Diva Marketing.
Technorati Tags: buzz, character_blog
Hype, Buzz, Budget, Blogs, and Commodity Products
A great post at Crossroads Dispatches really gets to the heart of why the UpYourBudget blog is a perfect example of great hype but not of a blog as buzz, word of mouth, or business building. She says, speaking as a customer, that "You know you’re a commodity when I have to look for the rental
agreement jacket to remember which agency to return the car to at the
airport… give me a remarkable distinguishable service and experience, then you’re conversing."
The blog and the promotion are not conversations, more like screaming…usually what we feel like doing when at the rental counter. As far as the purchase decision goes, as License to Roam notes, one may begin the search for a car with Budget based upon the immediate hype…but the decision will be made most likely based upon price, availability convenience, and importantly how good or bad the last rental experience was or is remembered.
I think Budget might want to look at what their customers treasure, instead of sending them on a treasure hunt.
Technorati Tags: UpYourBudget, hype, buzz, blogs
Blogging For Non-Profits and Social Entrepreneurs
I am doing a blogging workshop on Septemeber 27th at 8AM at Provident Counseling , 2650 Olive Street, St. Louis, Missouri for non-profits and social entrepreneurs. If you are interested in attending, email me!
Target Invades the New Yorker
Maybe the red and white beach ball on the cover of my August 22nd New Yorker should have been a clue. Since I missed that clue….flipping to the content page left no doubt as the familiar red target played ring toss on the Empire State Building. Further flipping revealed the truth: Target was the only advertiser in my
New Yorker. I quickly turned to Google for further investigation.
I must have missed the news! Slate has the James Michener version for any of you Targetophiles out there but the announcement was available from Stuart Elliot and the New York Times, Media Week, Yahoo News, and other usual media suspects. And of course people blogged about it here and there.Even Target Employees were up on it.
OK..now let me just say that I AM a Target shopper…no Seinfeld Tar-zhay pronunciation necessary. Target is fun. Wal-Mart is not. Enough said. And I know that Target now has NYC locations. When I lived in NYC pre-Target I missed Target. I am sure many New Yorkers are happily pushing their carts up and down the aisles at Target at this very moment. No doubt, Target should advertise to New Yorkers and New Yorker Magazine readers. No pun, Target should target.
But, I love reading the New Yorker. I look forward to it. I was just thinking the other day when a renewal notice came for Newsweek that I really didn’t read it any more….that the New Yorker was the only print publication that I still did read. So….all that said, I really found the Target advertising in the New Yorker intrusive. Intrusive. Not artistic, not compelling or interesting. Intrusive.
Back in my early days in brand marketing, someone at Ralston Purina said, if I may paraphrase by memory, that if you wanted a high recall score you could just put a cat through a meat grinder. This came to mind as I was deciding what to read first and kept getting intruded upon by red circles. Or, am I just being a grumpy aging Baby Boomer, again?
A Confession
I previously wrote a post that was critical of Axe deodorant’s shamelessly sexist advertising targeted at adolescent boys and noted that I had purchased some of their deodorant for my own son without realizing HOW low they were going. Well, a friend sent me an email today with an article from the Washington Post, "Aimed at Guys, Axe Really Smells–Like Money". I had to email back a confession…I bought more AXE.
The first mistake was no doubt being at the store with my son to begin with…I know better, but we were on a different mission where his presence was necessary. As we walked towards the desired aisle, an AXE body wash end-aisle display came into his field of vision. "I will take more showers," he coaxed. I demanded a definition of "more" since his summer definition of "shower" was "swimming pool".
What’s a mother to do? I caved. I sold out in the name of cleanliness, but a sell-out nonetheless.
-
Subscribe to RPB
-
Marianne's Space
-
Marianne's Profiles
-
Facebook
Myspace
Twitter
delicious
Technorati
Reddit
StumbleUpon
Flickr