We’re always trying to find new ways to humanize our brand. This is a timeless concept.

One of the basic foundations of marketing is to humanize your brand – to make it known, trusted, and, well, accessible.

If you’ve been paying attention (and I’m sure you have), humanization is going a step (or more of a giant leap) forward. It’s no longer enough to have a TV (or Hulu) commercial depicting a humanization of your brand (does anyone actually watch the commercials any more?) or to have a banner on the side panel of Facebook (have you clicked on one of those ads lately?). What you – what we all – need to do is build relationships.

It’s sort of like Sales 101. A customer doesn’t want to be seen as a bottom line; they want to be seen as a person, because, in fact – the customer is a person. We cannot forget this important reality.

And in today’s socially-infused-technological world, what brands need to do is build relationships through social platforms. A couple months ago, I hit on this idea briefly, but I mainly focused on utilizing Twitter. Since I’ve noticed a lot of related buzz lately on various blogs, I wanted to further highlight some great relationship-building tips.

1) Prepare to Take Time

It’s no longer as “simple” as strategically planning a great marketing campaign, and letting go once it hits “the presses;” you have to invest in your customers for the long haul. Mikel E. Belicove of Entreprenuer.com explains: “An entire generation of advertisers will need to plan their marketing scenarios around the concept of building relationships.” This means planning on taking more time on the social scene – getting to know people through blog comments, helping customers on Twitter, and gaining an [interactive] following on Facebook. You can’t just hope your marketing campaign will do the trick; you and your employees have to do the trick – the long and hard way.

2) Offer Something (for Free)

In other words, as Chris Brogan said in a recent post, “Be helpful.” It could be a free e-book, webinar, or blog. Whatever your means, be sure to provide something useful – answering a question, solving a problem, or stimulating new ideas. Being helpful by offering something that someone needs will build your base. It will start conversations. It will get people talking, and you can begin to build trust with people. But don’t forget to be helpful for free – this is key. You need to prove yourself before someone will trust you. Chris Brogan calls it “earning your way in.”

3) Be Human

This sounds so simple that it seems laughable, but it’s often overlooked. When a marketing team is developing their social strategy, sometimes they lose touch of the importance to remain human. A customer wants to build a relationship with another human being – not a product. Olivier Blanchard of The Brand Builder’s blog puts it this way: you don’t “see people hanging out a Starbucks with their favorite coupons.” Maybe this means adding a picture to your Facebook profile to introduce the employee your customers will be interacting with. Maybe it means your employees being knowledgeable enough to recommend solutions to your customers. It depends greatly on your specific product or service, but the bottom line is the same: be human. Your customers are people, yes – but you and your employees are people, too. And your customers need to know it.

• What other strategies are you using to build relationships with your customers?
• What companies do you see excelling at building relationships? How are they accomplishing it?

Yes, you read that title correctly. Let me explain.

The other day, I was getting (what I thought was) a routine haircut. As the hair stylist and I were shooting the breeze, she told me a little bit about a three-month trip to her home city – Moscow.

While she was there, she needed to (ironically enough) get her hair cut. Opening up the directory of hair stylists (yep, they have their own directory), she called one – expecting to simply set up an appointment and go in. But that’s not what happened.

This is where the story gets interesting.

When she called for an appointment, instead of saying, “See you then!” they asked her, “What time do you want us to pick you up?” Confused, she tried to explain she’d get there herself, yet they insisted – emphasizing that the pick up was included in her fee (which was about $25 in our terms). So sure enough, a half hour before her appointment, a car service arrives to taxi her away.

But that’s not all.

Apparently, they kept her waiting at the salon a little longer than anticipated. So how did they handle it? Instead of a simple, “We’re very sorry,” they instead asked, “What would you like for lunch?” – at no additional cost. So for the price of one (pretty reasonable) haircut, my stylist got car service and free lunch to seal the deal.

The surprising thing to me was hearing about such innovation in a place not typically known for it. Yet it’s amazing how intense competition triggers innovation. Taking a look at the Russian economy in the last ten years, you’ll find that the cosmetics industry – and that includes hair salons – is one of the fastest growing sectors. In fact, 15-20 new hair salons are opening each month – and that’s only in Moscow.

I’d say the competition is fierce.

But what I love about this story is the way it shows a new-old approach to differentiation.

Many smaller companies believe they don’t have enough money, man power, or momentum to effectively differentiate themselves from their competition. Now, I’m not saying everyone needs to start sending a car service to their clients (and really, I’m not convinced about the profitability of such offerings), but what I want to emphasize is that in today’s world – in markets driven by the need to “humanize” or get closer to customers – there is still one simple (and potentially free way) to differentiate: DELIGHT your customer!

Seth Godin says it best here (emphases mine):

“A few organizations have figured out how to turn customer service into a marketing opportunity and thus a profit center. They figure if they’ve got your attention, if they’re talking to you at a moment when you care a great deal, they can turn that into an opportunity to delight. And being delighted is remarkable and worth talking about.”

To bring us back to the story, the truth is that my hair stylist friend wasn’t even that crazy about the haircut she received that day. Her stylist was a little new and inexperienced, and gave her a “so-so” haircut. But did she care? Not really; in fact, she was delighted. This salon thought raised their competitive edge – and even with so-so results, they differentiated themselves enough to secure a delighted customer.

I’d say that’s something we’d all like to attain (hopefully with better than so-so results, of course).

• Do you have any stories about a time when a company delighted you with their customer service?
• What ways have you sought to differentiate yourself in the market?
• Have you ever used the delight-strategy to set yourselves apart from the pack?

Who is your target audience?

No, really – who are they? What are they tweeting about? What are they searching for? Why are they using your services in the first place?

If you don’t know the answer to those questions, then you may want to pay close attention to the wisdom of Wil Reynolds, CEO of SEER Interactive, a leading SEO and search marketing firm in Philadelphia. If you haven’t done so yet, I highly recommend checking out the full interview with Wil. I already wrote about the Five Guidelines for Using Twitter for customer service, but since there is so much covered in this video (and since I realize you might not have the time to sit and watch it right now), I thought I’d highlight another great segment about the importance of social marketing and knowing (read: interacting with, solving problems for, hearing stories from, etc.) your target audience.

While supporting a small start-up company, Wil decided to get creative with his search strategies. His client had developed software that helped locate lost phones. So Wil typed something in Twitter’s search field – simply, “Lost my phone.” What he found was that every ten minutes, someone worldwide was tweeting the phrase, “Lost my phone.” So now that little start-up company can tweet back and forth with potential customers.

Here’s how:

Let’s say you’re part of that company – with software that wipes a customer’s phone clean if it does get lost. You can type in “Lost my phone,” or “Lost my contacts” (which actually gets typed in every 3-4 minutes on Twitter worldwide), and connect instantly with the (potential) customer. The conversation might go something like this:

   You:   “So, you lost your phone?”
Them:   “Yes, it really stinks.”
   You:   “You know, we have an app you can download to your phone remotely so that no one can use your contacts.”
Them:   “Really?? How can I get it?” (presumably, after they find their phone, this time)

The bottom line is that if your company is stuck on solely using search (i.e. Google) to get people to your site and product, you’re missing a real opportunity to connect. People are telling their friends about a need before they are searching for a product, so you’d better be on Twitter to see that search and find your customers.

How will you know it’s working? If you’re just trying it out, put someone (relatively inexpensive, such as an intern) on Twitter for one day, responding to every single tweet about [insert your company’s niche here]. If you see that more people have acquired your services from Twitter that one day, try it again on another day. And let the numbers speak for themselves. If you have more customers coming to you from Twitter, then you know you’ve reached your target-rich audience.

How have you connected with your target audience? What are your proven strategies?

Why is it that big companies tend to keep their customers at arm’s length? Instead of taking suggestions, a lot of times companies get cocky and decide what their customers want instead of asking what their customers want. This can create major problems, as we’ve seen before.

On the other hand, there are some companies making great strides to not only connect with their customers, but to involve their customers.

One perfect example of this is My Starbucks Idea, an online forum where Starbucks customers can suggest ways to improve their “Starbucks experience,” as the company likes to say. Starbucks then lists all the ideas that come from their customers. Even if you don’t submit an idea, you have the sense that Starbucks cares.

The same goes for Keurig. Here is another company that is catering to the customer, with great results. Last week, I talked about the I³ qualities apparent in Keurig’s single-cup brewer. Since this company is an intriguing case (and since not much has been written up about them yet on the blogosphere), I wanted to spend one more week looking at Keurig’s next innovation – or, I should say, innovations – keeping in mind that all of these innovations came from customer suggestions.

• Larger Brewer: One of Keurig’s weaknesses is size. Currently, you can only brew, at most, 12 oz. at a time. For someone who tends to order “Venti” sizes, or for someone who merely wants to fill their travel mug with one K-cup, this is a problem. Not to worry, says Keurig, who is rumored to be working on a brewer to accommodate.
• Strong Alliances: Keurig recently announced a partnership with Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. This is a win/win for Keurig as well as for these companies – customers who only drink DD/Starbucks coffee can now enjoy it in K-cup form, thereby increasing business for both parties. In fact, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz revealed that “more than 80 percent of current Starbucks customers in the U.S. do not yet own a single-cup brewer,” so this allegiance is bound to bring strong business to Keurig (as well as make Starbucks customers very happy).
• Environmentally-Friendly: In my last post, I brought up the troubling thought about the amount of waste generated, throwing out all those K-cups. What you may not know is that Keurig has already come up with a solution. They’ve introduced a product called My K-Cup – letting people reuse a single pod with the coffee of their choice – which especially makes their greener customers happy.
• Other Instant Beverage Ideas: Keurig has already branched out into the hot chocolate and hot apple cider realm, so what’s next on the docket? Here’s just a few for starters: lattes, cappuccinos, soup, Airborne, and yes, even infant formula. It’s as if the list keeps going. Soon the question will no longer be:
  “WHAT can I get in a K-cup?” — but — “What CAN’T I get in a K-cup?”

So what does Keurig – and all of their innovation – teach those of us who are not in the coffee business? Keurig teaches us that to truly be an I³ business, you must continue to go full-speed-ahead into your market, while never losing focus of your customer base. Keurig and Starbucks teach us that it’s not enough to acknowledge the customer, but to involve the customer.

This seems like a no-brainer, but I’m still amazed at how many companies take their customers’ suggestions for granted. Keurig (and Starbucks, for that matter) has made it their business to give their customers what they want, and it’s paid off. Big time.

• What else do you think we can learn from this ever-growing, ever-innovating world of coffee?
• Have you seen a payoff in your company by listening to your customers’ requests?
• Have you ever been on the other side – have you suggested something to a company, to see them follow through? How did this affect your relationship to the company?
• How are you involving your customers in the trajectory of your business?

It’s pretty obvious that using Twitter is a smart customer service tactic. In mere moments, your company can connect one-on-one with your customer – solving their problems and building their trust. Twitter can be an invaluable humanization tool for your disposal, if you know how to use it.

In a recent interview with Seer Interactive CEO Wil Reynolds, he tells of his personal customer service disaster story with a large and popular airline. When he needed help on the check-in website, Reynolds sent a tweet to their customer service handle on Twitter. As he awaited a response, he noticed that many others were tweeting with similar concerns. Instead of responding to countless customer concerns, the customer service Twitter account only responded to celebrity Star Jones. Immediately, what this airline communicated to their customers was that they weren’t important. It didn’t matter how many thousands of miles Reynolds had flown with them; he wasn’t a “celebrity”, and so he didn’t matter to them.

Don’t let this scenario happen to your company. Before you decide to take your customer service to Twitter, here are five guidelines to consider:

1. Make it a Policy: Don’t just assume people know how to act online. Before you throw an employee out into the live and interactive world-wide-web, make sure you have a policy on their conduct, and the way they represent your company.
    
2. Make Hours Apparent: Only respond to tweets within the confines of your business hours, and make sure your hours are explicitly shown on your Twitter profile page. If you inform your customer when you are and aren’t there, they won’t feel ignored when you don’t answer right away. It also protects your company from seeming cold (by not responding) or inconsistent (by sometimes-but-not-always responding at 8 pm).
    
3. Make It Real: Automated responses don’t cut it. The customers are too savvy for that, and they won’t grow to trust your brand through automated responses. Educate your employees so that they know exactly how to respond – in word and in deed.
    
4. Make the Responses Happen: Make sure you have enough people working on the account in order to respond to every customer concern – no matter if they’ve used your company once, a thousand times, or if they are (or aren’t) a celebrity. As Reynolds points out, if your employee is only able to respond to one out of three tweets, it’s time to hire more people. Every tweet directed “@” you must be answered, or it’s not worth doing.
    
5. Make It Actionable: Ensure that your employees can respond in actionable ways. It’s not enough to simply say, “I’m sorry that’s not working.” You have to take it to the next level and be able to say, “I’m sorry that’s not working; here’s what we’re going to do for you.”

A company that is engaging with people and helping them solve their problems is seen as a company that people trust and want to use. Your customers become your personal advocates. The reputation you build through social media interaction has a payoff.

How have you seen social media (and Twitter in particular) hurt or help a business?

Are you currently using a social media platform to address customer service needs?

I’ve written before about the lessons we can learn from Research In Motion’s failure to keep ahead of their market (and we all saw how the market reacted to Netflix’s little flub), but with 2011 now behind us, I think there are some lessons worth revisiting.

Let’s take a closer look at two companies that were clearly top players: Research In Motion (RIM), once again, and American Airlines. Notice: the key word in that sentence is, “were.”

Here’s the bottom line, and the biggest lesson we’ve learned from 2011: even though you may be on top, it doesn’t mean you’re invincible. The problem with rising to the top is getting too arrogant – too cocky – and not bothering to maintain your competitive edge. We saw this hubris clearly displayed by RIM and American Airlines.

RIM taught us that even though you may be on top – even though you were the first in your industry to release a groundbreaking product – it doesn’t mean you can get away with releasing bad products. The customers are too smart for that, and they will take their smartphone business somewhere else (and, in fact, they have).

American Airlines taught us that it doesn’t always pay to be the lone wolf, and that there is safety in numbers. In the wake of a faltering airline business, we saw two great mergers: United and Continental, and Delta and Northwest. While the other major airlines combined forces, American tried to tough it out alone… And they failed: AMR went from being the largest airline in the US to small potatoes, barely eking in at third place behind the other major carriers.

What were the underlying culprits behind such poor business decisions? What were the causes that issued these companies their death sentences? Without being on the inside, it’s hard to say, but we can certainly take heed of the warnings in these tales of woe.

1) Stay On Your Game (Don’t Be Lazy)

When you’re on top, you could easily buy into the lie that you’ve done the work, and now is your time to reap the rewards. Not so fast. This is an ever-changing, dynamically-demanding world. Every day, technology is evolving and customers want the newest and flashiest technology available (e.g., iPhone 4S). If you decide to take a break from researching and releasing groundbreaking products, expect the customers to take a break from you (and possibly never return).

2) Stay In Your Game (Don’t Lose Touch with Your Market)

While the rest of the world was rapidly moving to touch screens, RIM was releasing the same old models. What’s more, they weren’t even good models. The promised QNX-based smartphones have been delayed twice, and RIM’s customers (and stockholders) are rapidly losing hope. Failure to keep your head in the game – and pay attention to what your competitors are doing and what your customers want – will cost you your competitive edge, your stockholders, and your customers.

3) Gather Your Allies (Don’t Be Afraid to Ask for Help)

All seemed hopeless for the airline industry until the two mergers were announced. Combining forces was the way to go, but American Airlines missed out. Either they thought they were untouchable in this market, or they just missed the boat. In either case, it’s better to ask for help than file for bankruptcy. Allowing your past success to cloud your current judgement might result in the collapse of your company.

4) Treat People With Respect (Don’t Forget the People that Make Your Business Run)

When you’re on top, it’s an easy trap to start thinking of yourself as better than the people who work for you. American Airlines went into tense negotiations with their pilots, and the reality is that how you treat your staff translates into how your staff treats your customers (i.e., not well). So not only was AMR receiving bad press from filing for Chapter 11, but now they were playing the “bad guys” in the battle with their own staff. Not a great move. When you’re calling the shots in a company, make sure you respect the people who work for you; they are a huge part of the reason you’re succeeding, and should be treated as such.

So as we get into the swing of 2012, take these lessons from 2011 to heart. As a business leader, it’s your job to say “when” – when to jump ahead of your market, when to protect your business, and when to show your customers/employees/stockholders you appreciate them. But, as we witnessed through various companies in the past year, just make sure you say “when” before it’s too late.

We’re all familiar with this story.

A business is at the top of its game, makes a trajectory-decision based on an assumption, and subsequently misses the mark. In this case, the business is Netflix, the assumption was about its customer base, and – as we all witnessed (and were perhaps, as Netflix customers, privy to the news via e-mail) – Netflix missed the mark.

A year ago, if anyone had said that within the span of one month, Netflix would lose 800,000 customers and its stock would plummet, that person would have been laughed out of the “society of business punditry.” Netflix was the game-changer of how people consumed movies – arguably responsible for the closure of Blockbuster Videos around the country, as well as much of the Internet’s traffic. There was basically no current competition for Netflix; the business was at the top, gaining two-plus million new customers every quarter. Things were golden, until…

…until a haphazard blog post announced a price hike of 60%.
…until CEO Reed Hastings issued a disarmingly casual “I-messed-up” e-mail.
…until they decided to split the service into two different services
     (instant streaming staying as Netflix, and “Qwikster” for DVDs by mail).
…until they retracted that decision.

Netflix had a good business model. They had loyal customers. They had happy stockholders.

What went wrong?

First: Netflix made an assumption about their customer base, and this assumption was egregiously incorrect. They assumed that their customers were passionate enough about Netflix to stick by the business – that no matter what, these customers wanted their movies and would continue to use Netflix’s services. Although Netflix was right about their customers being passionate, they didn’t realize the passion would be railed against the company itself. In response to a price hike and change of services, Netflix’s customer base passionately informed the company of their disappointment and disapproval, and 800,000 of them jumped ship.

Second: Netflix employed poor communication and execution of the changes in service. Whether or not the new business model was good or necessary is one thing, but the way Netflix both announced and unveiled the changes fell short of their game. The announcement of changes first came through a seemingly slap-it-together blog post late at night, which sent the Internet ablaze in fury. Then Reed Hastings sent out an e-mail one might expect from a college buddy rather than the CEO of a company.

Finally, they retracted their decisions within a month of the first announcement. In the meantime, amidst all of these embarrassing communication flubs, the Qwikster website was not ready when the service launched, and the Twitter account was already in use by a drug-using teenager with foul language. All in all, the launch was sloppy. It seemed uncoordinated – like a last-minute decision gone awry.

We could spend all day disputing and defending the good and the bad and the ugly of Netflix’s recent business decisions, but I’m more interested in discussing the implications every business can take from this situation.

So what can we learn here?

What we can learn is that when you’re on top – when you’ve positioned yourself as a leader in your market, even if its just your local market – each decision must be well thought out (and hopefully the right one).

In the fast changing business world of today, it’s sometimes necessary to make drastic changes to a working business model. But before you are ready to go to the presses (or your customers) with these changes, make sure the model is carefully thought through in minute detail. Not analysis paralysis – but at least a thorough vetting with trusted voices. You have to at least try to do everything right or don’t do it at all.

If you are going to make business decisions based on assumptions, make sure they are the right assumptions. Validate them. Test them. Make sure you have the data to back it up before you go ahead and change your business model.

Once you have your facts in place, make sure you communicate well to all affected stakeholders. When you’ve amassed a loyal customer base, you need to keep them by respecting them, and respect comes through how you communicate. When all of these factors are set in place, ensure that your new business model is ready to launch from all sides of the company. You can’t cut corners – the market is too demanding and too connected for that.

I was recently on my way to deal with a family emergency, and I needed to pick up some cash at a local ATM.

There’s a bank in an office building on a nearby wooded street, and it’s a little bit unusual, in that this building  looks more like a medical office building or something like that. The branch was in the lobby area. I went in, took out the cash I needed and paid the extra $2 fee, because I needed to get on the highway near this location and I was under time pressure.

In that context, I also needed to find the restroom, so I step out into the office lobby that’s adjoining the bank – sponsored by the bank – and the doors on the bathroom say For Employees Only, and are locked!

What’s amazing about this– having grown up in New York, and being used to seeing banks in New York that clearly could not have a public restroom in that context, because of the vagrants and other security issues in a large metropolitan area– was that this bank was in an area that clearly only their customers, or people who would otherwise be in that office building (and therefore presumably would go to their offices), would ever even be here.

In other words, this locked door made no sense, either for security, hygiene, or aesthetics. It just made no sense. It was there for no good reason, except to inconvenience a customer.

Do you have mindless policies– things that you’ve put in place, or that you inherited in your business, or in the way you do things, maybe things you require of your customers– that are really stupid if you were to take a step back and take a look at them, and say, “Why am I even asking for this information?” or “Why do I make people do these things to deal with us as a company?”

Think about it. Take a step back, because if you fail to do so, customers won’t necessarily tell you– they’ll just take their business elsewhere.

In my last post, I included a video in which Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, suggests that while some choice is a good thing, a lot of choices might not be.

If you look at how Japanese automotive companies established their beachhead in terms of small car sales when they first came to the United States in the 1970s, there were some cultural and economic factors that were in their favor, such as the cost of gas and so on, but the other part of it was that they just had a simpler line-up.

They radically simplified the number of varieties you can have of a particular car model and that made it much simpler for a consumer to say, for example, “I think I want to buy a Honda.” Your head didn’t have to explode in making that decision.

General Motors, on the other hand, is the perfect example of what happens if you offering is too spread out. For years, GM had all these brands– Chevy, Buick, Pontiac, etc… –and none of them were particularly good or reliable (IMHO)! Now, they’ve finally gotten rid of a bunch of lines they previously could never bring themselves to shoot down (forced to do so by their recent bankruptcy and reorganization).

Once again, the lesson to be gleaned from this is to examine your desire to provide variety – and do what marketers like to do – which is to stratify a market to capture little pieces of everything along the continuum. Does that actually undermine your opportunity to create a distinct beachhead in a given market, with a superior offering for that market?

It’s counter-intuitive in a lot of cases. Naturally, you’d say, “Well, I want to offer a different color for everyone’s taste, so I can sell more stuff,” but go back to the example of the iPhone again. You can’t get an iPhone 4g other than with a black back. They don’t have the option of a white casing, like the previous incarnations did. Now, perhaps that could have been a manufacturing thing, whatever, it doesn’t matter. The point is, that’s it! It’s black. That’s what you’re going to get. Moreover, it’s cool. They sold you on it, and that’s how it is.

As much as we intuitively think variety and freedom of choice are good, we gravitate towards companies and products that FOCUS the variations offered and the choices we have to make. Does your company offer a lot of options? Too many? How could you simplify your offering, and streamline your customers’ decision-making process?

It’s a familiar scene– a guy walks into a Starbucks looking for a cup of coffee, looks up, and stares at the menu like a deer in headlights for five minutes, overwhelmed by all the choices he has to make before he can pay $4 for his delicious beverage. Cappuccino, frappuccino, macchiato, americano, mocha, latte or brewed coffee? What size? How many shots of espresso? Hot or cold? Regular, decaf, or half-caf? Skim, whole, 2%, or soy? Do you want a flavor in that? Whipped cream? For here or to go?

We’ve all turned on the TV, flipped through 500 channels and gave up and turned it off because “there’s nothing on.”

It may seem counterintuitive, but freedom of decision often leads to indecision. In this video clip, Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, talks about this puzzling phenomenon, and suggests that while some choice is a good thing, a lot of choices might not be. (It’s a little long, but worth watching!)

I couldn’t agree more with the central idea that one can offer too many choices. In fact, a great case in counter-point is Apple. Apple has refined the art of reducing options without making consumers feel constrained. Compare them to, lets say, a company who’s lunch they’re eating (IMHO): Research in Motion. RIM keeps coming out with a new model seemingly every day, and it makes it hard to make a Blackberry decision.

If you want to buy an iPhone, the only decision you really have to make is how much memory you want. There’s not a whole lot of other options. You can argue that the choice between a 3GS and a 4G is a choice, and it is, of a kind, but fundamentally, the way you’re going to interact with the device is identical. Whereas Blackberry offers phones that flip open, one that slides out, one that doesn’t even have a keyboard – and all these things are things that make you wonder if you’re making the right choice. On top of that, Blackberry (and Apple will soon follow) is offered on many networks, with phone varieties that are carrier specific.

In the case of the iPad, again, there’s really only two decisions: Do you need 3G, or WiFi? That’s the big decision (the other is 16GB, 32GB or 64GB – which is less complex) and I know all about that choice, because I went through that very decision when my wife surprised me with an iPad on my birthday. She said she wasn’t sure which I needed, so she got the WiFi model, but I could exchange it for the 3G version if I wanted.

I found myself paralyzed between desperately wanting to open up the box and tear off the cellophane wrap– but knowing that once I did that, because there’s a big restocking fee, there would be no turning back– or I had to get to the mall to get the other one.

I wrestled with that decision for nearly an hour, debating what I should do. That choice made it hard for me. I ended up, like most boys with toys, choosing to tear open the cellophane and enjoy my iPad immediately. Immediate gratification won out. I don’t regret that decision, for a variety of other reasons, but the point is, choices make it hard.

What do you think? Is it better to have more options, or to keep it simple?

[Stay tuned for part two]

Quick Recap:

Two years ago I approached a national organization that rents office conference rooms and office space, and I arranged conference rooms for a series of meetings I was having around the country. One of the meetings had to be canceled. I contacted the organization to let them know,as per our contract and in fact received confirmation of cancellation. As per the contract, I would not be charged anything for that reservation.

Fast forward almost two years and I receive a letter from that organization –a collection letter. The amount referenced is almost a thousand dollars. Of course, I was very concerned and quickly called them to ask what the charge was for. If I did owe them money, I would pay it, but I was pretty sure I didn’t.
click for Part 1 of “Crazy Town”

It was clear that Mary had no authority or ability to do anything about the matter. In fact, her very wan answer was that although she accepted my story, apparently somebody in billing did not. I told her I’d like to speak to that person, or her supervisor, and she said she would give me her supervisor’s name and number, which I asked her to send to me in an email.

I arrive at my hotel that night and it’s waiting in my inbox. It was late, so the next morning I composed an email to that person, the manager, detailing in 8 points exactly what had taken place, including all the necessary attachments.

Before I pressed send, a voice in my mind (not a crazy voice) stopped me.

I paused and looked up the company (a pretty well known company) on the web, and I realized their email convention was “first-name.last-name@…” and so what I did is I found their entire executive suite – the CEO, CFO, SVP of Sales and Marketing – and I CC’d all of them on the email message. I wrote “Outrageous treatment of a customer” as the subject line, and I included this tale of woe.

It went out on Tuesday morning. By one o’clock Tuesday afternoon, the National Director of Customer Service called me up and said “Uh, Mr. Palomino, I’m calling to take care of this matter…” and sure enough, I received a letter of apology, a release letter from the collection agency, and I even got a credit worth about $500 of their services for some future use.

So now the lesson here is this: the person I spoke to originally was not a bad person. She wasn’t trying to hurt me. But she had not been empowered by her organization to keep a customer happy. This is a pure business services entity, so these could be big ticket items. It isn’t like somebody who says I’m not ever gonna buy a slice pizza there again – these are thousand-, even multi-thousand-dollar arrangements, and their representative was clearly not empowered to resolve it, or even to think through the logic of what she was telling me to do. Is your organization making your customers go through “crazy town” experiences without you even being aware of it?

Had I not escalated this matter, I have no doubt I would have been bouncing around lower level functionaries and a collection agency with no interest in hearing my side of the story. I wasn’t going to deal with this back and forth. I took it right to the top and it got their attention.

It’s an important story, and it was very frustrating, and only ended this well because I had the wherewithal to go about escalating this immediately. I don’t know if the CEO actually saw my email himself, but somebody in his staff did. Somebody saw it– somebody empowered enough to get it fixed.

These days you can find out who that is in most companies and find ways, whether email, Twitter or snail mail to contact them directly. That’s the other message, of course, from a consumer point of view– go to the top.

Crazy Town – don’t create it for your customers and don’t tolerate it from your providers.

[Part 1 of "Crazy Town"]

Two years ago I approached a national organization that rents conference rooms and office space, and arranged conference rooms for a series of meetings I was having around the country. One of the meetings had to be canceled. I contacted the organization to let them know,as per our contract and in fact received confirmation of cancellation. As per the contract, I would not be charged anything for that reservation.

Fast forward almost two years and I receive a letter from that organization –a collection letter. The amount referenced is almost a thousand dollars. Of course, I was very concerned and quickly called them to ask what the charge was for. If I did owe them money, I would pay it, but I was pretty sure I didn’t.

The representative looked it up, and thankfully found the record of the event, and it was in fact, one of the events I knew I had cancelled. I told them as much, and the nice young lady said, “Well, that’s great that you tell me that, but we really need proof.”

Thankfully, I save everything in Outlook, so I found the email they had sent confirming I was cancelled and that everything was fine. I forwarded the email to her, followed it up with a phone call, and an email – asking for a reply back to me confirming that the matter was 100% settled (the collection letter threatened to send the matter to a collection agency, which could have negative ramifications for both my company and my personal credit.). She sent a confirming email back to me and I considered the matter closed.

Fast forward a few more months, and I get another letter, this time not from that company, but from their collection agency, demanding that I pay for this item. I emailed my contact again with all the original documentation attached, and told her something had gone wrong here, because I’m getting faxes, emails, and phone calls from this collection agency. I tell her to tell them to stop, because I don’t want to deal with them, and I shouldn’t have to, since as you recall by the attached email, it wasn’t a question of a settlement, I just never owed the money in the first place.

I had just been picked up by a car service to drive me to the airport and I received an email on my phone, saying that if I don’t want to deal with the collection agency, I could pay the original charge to their office (the originating office), plus 20%. That’s how I would get rid of the matter and not have to deal with the agency!

So at that point I called her up, and when I got her on the phone, I got that sigh – when somebody picks up the phone and instantly regrets not checking Caller ID first – and I just very calmly said her name, lets call her Mary… I said “Mary, as you recall, we discussed this four months ago, and this item is something I never owed…” and I went through the whole litany of events, “…and now you tell me that not only is the only way of dealing with this matter is to pay a bill I do not owe – that I in fact never owed, and that in fact you acknowledge I do not owe– but to pay that plus twenty percent!”

“I feel like I just entered Crazy Town!”

I remember the limo driver looking back at me, because I didn’t say it very calmly. “This is insane that I have to deal with this. This is not right,” I told her, “I am a customer, I recommend your services. I continue to use your services. This just isn’t the way to treat a customer.”

[Part 2 of "Crazy Town"]

Have you visited Crazy Town lately? Let us know in the comments.

“Remarkable marketing is the art of building things worth noticing.”
—Seth Godin, author, “Purple Cow”

Product excellence and possessing stellar sales teams are “givens” in today’s B2B world. Existing business literature and marketing “science” have created a global economy in which product and sales excellence are now considered the baseline or “table stakes” for business—the minimum for companies to enter the game.

In a world where most players are aware of the baseline for competition, you need to meet that baseline level of performance to simply close the first deal or attract any market interest at all. Promises of excellent customer service or product excellence, by themselves, just don’t cut it as differentiators, even if you are strong in those areas (as demonstrated in the video in my last post). They’re the foundation of good business, but think about it<— you lay the foundation of a building, and what do you have?

A well-fortified hole in the ground.

You don’t stop there, of course— you keep building on that foundation. It’s what you do above the ground—beyond the minimum prerequisites of good customer service and basic functionality —that people notice.

These givens are the “infrastructure” of current business practices, which serve to elevate the importance of strategic messaging to a higher plane.

The entire organization and its culture must center upon the message of the company and its product. While at first blush, this might sound like a dangerous disregard for those fundamental, “real” aspects of business value— quality, features and support— it actually affirms these attributes.

By pulling the entire organization together around the message the company wants to communicate, “disconnects” in quality, features and support become even more evident and urgent. As champion NASCAR crew chief Ray Evernham put it, “Everyone should feel as if his signature is on the finished product.”

• So, what should the business product or services vendor do?
• How do you make messaging— the communication of value to the marketplace— an integrative process (vs. simply another functional process)?
• How do you build your go-to-market process and plan around your messaging?

My friend Kathie posted the following on her Facebook page and I just wanted to share it here. It’s made the rounds and you may have seen it – but’s it is worth a second look.

(The comedian is C.K. Louis, who’s material is usually a lot more “blue” than this bit).

However, this take on modern life highlights just how demanding our consumer-driven world really is.

Marketers beware – bring your “A” game.

To many companies, “customer” and “client” are interchangeable. They are what we call the consumers who purchase or enlist our products and services. They are the people we strive to win over with our branding and marketing efforts.

Now, to our entrepreneur, marketer, and sales people readers, let me ask you to conduct a little experiment. For one day, stop switching between the two terms and stick to just one. On one day, always pertain to your target consumers as “customers,” while on the next day, use the term, “client” instead. Try to notice any differences both in yourself and in the way the people you are talking to are responding to you.

The truth is, “customer” and “client” are only fractionally similar. Consulting old Merriam-Webster will yield these two definitions:

CUSTOMER
- noun
\ˈkəs-tə-mər\
1: one that purchases a commodity or service
2: an individual usually having some specified distinctive trait

CLIENT
- noun
\ˈklī-ənt\
1: one that is under the protection of another : DEPENDENT
2a: a person who engages the professional advice or services of another
b: CUSTOMER
c: a person served by or utilizing the services of a social agency
d: a computer in a network that uses the services (as access to files or shared peripherals) provided by a server
3: CLIENT STATE

Let’s focus on the definitions highlighted in bold. A customer refers to someone who buys something from you. A client, on the other hand, implies a deeper relationship. You must’ve felt this if you did the experiment, especially if you’re directly conversing with the consumers.

Unlike customers, who merely purchase a product without any guarantee of repeating their action, clients stick to their chosen vendor. If you are a service provider or a company that sells its products to retailers and wholesalers rather than directly to the consumers, it is better to refer to your target market are CLIENTS. This simple change in terms can do wonders in bolstering brand loyalty. The CFO of one IT firm sums it up well: “Customers produce revenue – clients produce relationships.”