Generosity

July 13th, 2010

By Doug Stephens

Generosity: noun~ Willingness to give or share; unselfishness

All successful relationships are underpinned by generosity.

The willingness to give or share without expectation of repayment is central to healthy, human interaction.  It doesn’t matter what you give.  It can be your time, your praise or simply your attention but without generosity, relationships tend to vanish in a cloud of selfishness and resentment.

This is equally, if not more true with business relationships.  Long-term success in retail comes down to fundamental beliefs with respect to the whole concept of generosity.  Specifically, you either believe that generosity is almost always rewarded or almost always abused.

You can easily spot businesses that believe the latter.  They’re the ones that have you deposit a quarter to use their shopping cart.  The ones that refuse refunds without a receipt. Those who link any charity work they do to a sales goal or promotion.  They cut the holiday employee turkey to save a few dollars. And you probably can’t use their restrooms either.  All because their belief system suggests that generosity is something that is abused and taken advantage of.  As the English poet Alexander Pope wrote “…all looks yellow to the jaundiced eye.”

Rare businesses, however, take the contrary view.  These businesses believe that the simple act of giving – whether to customers, employees or the communities they operate in is simply the right thing to do –it’s just good karma.  They provide their employees with great places to work, their patrons with great places to shop and their communities with businesses that give back.  They regard customers as people – not mere transactions.  Employees are part of the team – not simply headcount.   They give based on the belief that people are basically good and that their generosity will indeed be repaid – if not today then tomorrow and if not tomorrow then someday.

The unfortunate thing is that generosity is no guarantee of success.  Indeed, some of the most successful businesses in the world are also the greediest.    The consolation, however,  is that only those businesses who give generously will leave a positive impression on the world.  And perhaps that’s the truest definition of success.

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Posted in Branding, Marketing | Comments »

An Inconvenient Truth About Bad Customer Service

June 29th, 2010

By Doug Stephens

The effects of bad customer service may take years to prove fatal but the eventual outcome is almost always corporate extinction.  Despite this, surprisingly few companies turn these negative situations around and actually improve their customer service position.  And as counter-intuitive as it seems, many businesses act like they don’t even care.

It’s a lot like global warming

Whether you believe the science or not, most would agree that the world’s climate is changing.  With this change we are seeing potentially devastating and irreversible impact on the planet’s ability to sustain itself and its inhabitants, for that matter.  Unchecked, the problem will almost certainly eradicate life on earth.

So why have we done so little to reverse the trend?  I mean the survival of the planet is a pretty big deal!

According to Dan Ariely, a professor of psychology at Duke University and author of the bestselling book, Predictably Irrational, there are three primary reasons for our apparent apathy when it comes to huge problems like global warming.  Firstly, the problem seems simply too large for any one of us to comprehend solving.  Secondly, it’s a problem that threatens future rather than immediate devastation.  Lastly, we have trouble visualizing how the little things we do as individuals (like using more energy efficient light bulbs or recycling), can contribute to solving the seemingly insurmountable problem.  The end result is that we don’t become emotionally invested in the solution.  We check out.

This same theory holds true  to systemically bad customer service.  Despite leadership droning on about the need for improved customer service, front-line staff often see the problem as too large, too complex and beyond their individual capacity to correct.

The Prius Effect

Perhaps no other automobile has become as synonymous with the environmental movement as the Toyota Prius.  It seems safe to assume therefore that people who own a Prius are more environmentally conscious than those of us who don’t.  However, there’s no credible evidence of any correlation between driving a Prius and having an elevated environmental consciousness.  Apart from owning a hybrid vehicle, Prius owners are much like the rest of us.  They don’t exercise any more day-to-day concern for the planet than we do.  In fact, one study concluded that a mere 27% of Prius owners made the choice based on a strict concern for the environment – most drive one to save money.  Nonetheless, we perceive Prius owners to be more eco-friendly.  In other words we infer from their choice of vehicle that they actually care more about the environment than they actually do.

So, what if we took this idea of inference a step further?  What if you could create a similar effect when it comes to delivering customer service in your business?  What if you could define specific actions, that if performed, would infer to customers that your employees appreciate them, even if they don’t?   Think about it.  Could you program specific events into the customer experience that make even the least engaged staff member seem to actually care about the customer?

Stop Talking About “Customer Service”

The first step I would advocate is to stop using the term “customer service”.  It’s problematic for a few reasons.  Firstly, it implies servitude and who wants to be thought of as a servant?  Secondly, it’s nebulous, making it difficult for staff to know if they’ve really provided it or not and also making it difficult to measure.  Lastly, it’s too subjective.  Great service to one person may be mediocre to another.

Instead, let’s call customer service something different – I’ve always liked the term the path to purchase.  And let’s agree that along the path to purchase certain defined, measurable and positive events should take place.   These events might range from holding a hotel door open for guests to shaking a customer’s hand– it doesn’t really matter as long as they’re defined, measurable and widely accepted as being positive behaviors.

So now, instead of pleading with staff to “improve customer service” – which is undefined, impossible to measure and open to interpretation, you can be instructing them to perform the specific tasks you’ve engineered into the path to purchase.

As a hotel guest, I don’t really care how customer-centric the bellhop is.  If they smile and hold the door open for me, I’ll infer from their behavior that they care.  As a shopper I don’t know if the salesperson appreciates my business or not but if they come out from behind the counter to give me my purchase while shaking my hand, I’ll infer from their actions that they do value me.

Behavior Drives Emotion

But how do we solve the problem of apathy?  How can we get our staff emotionally invested in delivering a better customer experience?

It’s commonly accepted that what we do affects how we feel.  Change the behavior and you’ll change the emotion.  It follows then that if you get staff consistently doing things along the path to purchase that clearly indicate caring for your customers, eventually those same staff will care about customers.   There may also be staff who choose not to come along for the ride but trust me, with a clearly defined set of actions on the path to purchase, they’ll stand out like a Hummer in a sea of hybrids!

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Posted in Store Experience | 3 Comments »

Dollars and Sentiments. The Real R.O.I. on Social Marketing

June 8th, 2010

By Doug Stephens

Alice in Wonderland speaking to the Cheshire Cat….

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where—“  said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go” said the Cat. “–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation. “Oh, you’re sure to do that”  said the Cat,  “if you only walk long enough.

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Like Alice, marketers often find themselves needing to “get somewhere” but may not be precisely sure where that somewhere is.  This has become particularly true of social marketing efforts.  With the fervor around social media, marketers are feeling pressured to begin incorporating it into their program but aren’t quite sure how.  In some cases they’re not even completely sure why social marketing matters so much – they just feel they ought to be doing it.  So, like Alice, they often set out in a direction, only to find that after considerable time and effort, it got them nowhere.

In talking with marketers I’ve come across three common pitfalls that, from the beginning, can lead them astray.

Pitfall #1: Believing that ALL social marketing means creating social media

While social marketing may involve social media, there’s a fundamental misconception that all social marketing involves the development of content – blogs, videos, Facebook apps etc. This is not always true.  Media or content development is only one aspect of social marketing.  Depending on your company’s objectives, you may never want or need to create your own content.  The key lies in defining what results you want from the program.  What do you want to happen as a result of your social marketing?

I like to think of social marketing as a spectrum of engagement ranging from passive to active.  The objectives you target will directly affect the activities you undertake and your engagement level.

Pitfall #2: Setting Program Objectives That Aren’t Measurable

I was speaking recently with the head of marketing for a major regional shopping centre.  We were talking about her desire to begin to incorporate social marketing into her plans.  When I asked what her objective was, she said “to generate foot traffic for the mall.”  This sounded like a reasonable objective but the problem is that the mall has no empirical means of credibly measuring foot traffic.

The objectives you set should meet three key criteria; they should support the overarching strategy and positioning of your business.  They should be credibly measurable. And lastly, they should be meaningful to the people in your company that control the financial and/or human resources you’ll need to continue or expand your social marketing effort.  After all, there’s no glory in meeting an objective, if it doesn’t at least win you the resources you need to continue your program.

This doesn’t preclude you from establishing any objective you want; it only puts the onus on you to make sure it matters and measure it.

Pitfall #3: Confusing Social Activity with Return on Investment

One of the most uncomfortable points in a marketing meeting is when the CFO turns to the CMO and asks what the R.O.I to date is on the company’s social marketing program.  The only thing less comfortable is when the CMO cites the R.O.I as having gotten their 1000th Facebook fan.  This is usually met by a blank look from the CFO, who is quietly making a mental note not to invest another nickel in the social marketing program.

While it’s true that some enlightened companies have simply come to regard social marketing as a tool that is as essential as their phone system, they are definitely the minority.  The rest of the world works for companies that regard social marketing as the new kid on the block that needs to earn every nickel it consumes.

Part of what gives social marketing a bad rap is that too many marketers simply measure and report the company’s social marketing activity – that is blog posts, YouTube videos, Tweets etc.  They also tend to confuse return on investment with non-financial consumer responses like blog subscriptions, YouTube views, Re-tweets etc.  The result can often be a nebulous set of metrics that neither support nor negate the merits of their program.  What they fail to measure is the amount of sales, profit or cost-savings that the social marketing program is (or isn’t) generating – the real return on investment.

Part of the problem is that we’ve been told that financial R.O.I on social marketing can’t be measured – that it needs to be valued against softer metrics – which is simply not true.  I won’t go into detail about it in this post but will instead point you to a great Slideshare presentation here from Olivier Blanchard from Brandworks who shares an excellent methodology on for measuring financial R.O.I on your social marketing spend.

We’re beyond the “shiny tool” phase with social marketing and the onus is back on marketers to show the return on their work in this area.  Like most things, with social marketing you tend to finish how you started.  So, be sure to start with the right objectives, the right means of measurement and a clear path to the (real) R.O.I. your program is delivering.

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Privacy is Dead… and It Could Be Great

May 11th, 2010

By Doug Stephens

Recently Facebook announced its intentions to develop what it calls the Open Graph, a means of connecting data about an individual based on their choices, tastes and preferences by profiling  their social networking and web activity. The idea is to link all of this data and then bring it to a central point; that central point being Facebook, of course. In doing this, Facebook would be capable of graphing an intricate, accurate and ever-evolving picture of the individual consumer.

The strategy involves a few things. First, they are allowing partner sites to interface with Facebook. When a user comments on an article (on CNN.com for example), it would be shared with their social circle on Facebook and in the process, the fact that the user visited CNN.com would be noted and added to their graph. Second, they’re going to share the “like” button programming code so that any business can place the button on their site to create a social-link back to Facebook. In the process, Facebook gathers more data about that user’s preferences outside of Facebook itself. Lastly, they’re going to break from the current protocol of not storing or caching user data for more than 24 hours. They didn’t give any details about how long they intend to store this information.

 The open graph is the Holy Grail of marketing

The point in doing all this, according to Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is to “create a Web that’s smarter, more social, more personalized, and more semantically aware.” In other words, to bring all our disparate likes and dislikes together to form a unique profile of who we are and in doing so, allow the web to deliver data that’s more tailored to our needs as consumers. The subtext however is obvious. By holding the keys to the open graph, Facebook literally becomes the centre of the marketing universe and the preeminent channel for any brand that wants their message to reach consumers with unprecedented timeliness and relevance – the issues that have always been the greatest challenge for marketers.

Reaction to this announcement ranged from enthusiasm to anger. While some viewed it as a positive step toward a more connected and meaningful internet experience, others saw it as yet another step in the eradication of privacy as we know it.

In fairness to the naysayers, anyone who’s been phished on Twitter or Facebook can attest to the fact that the web can be an ugly place when you share the right information with the wrong people. What’s particularly disconcerting is the speed and scale of the damage that can be done when your information gets compromised. There’s no question that we need to be vigilant in our pursuit of improved safeguards to this sort of activity.

Privacy is outdated

Having said all that, I believe that the idea of privacy is completely outdated. To be honest, it’s a nostalgic notion that we’ll describe to our grandchildren who will no doubt wonder why it mattered so much to us. They may even speculate as to what we did that was so weird or shameful that we didn’t want other people to know about it.  

And what privacy do we really have anyway? We live in a world where your picture can be taken hundreds of times in the course of a normal day. Our cell phones are like homing beacons, tracking our whereabouts at all times. Our credit card is a trail of digital breadcrumbs a hundred miles long. And it’s now routine to Google someone before you meet, hire or do business with them. Our lives are anything but private. Good lord, talk show hosts and golfers can’t even keep a good old fashioned affair under wraps. So why should we care about handing over more of our personal information to institutions and companies? It’s not about privacy.

It’s really about trading information for value

Traditionally when we give companies information, we don’t get any real value in return and if we do get anything, it’s usually just generic offers, junk and noise. Life doesn’t become easier or less complex – just the contrary. It becomes filled with more information that we don’t need.

However, imagine if we could move to a state where the marketing messages we receive are almost completely relevant and timely. If virtually every piece of direct marketing you received made perfect sense with respect to your tastes and preferences and needs at that moment. If the advertising you were sent matched your life-stage and interests perfectly. If even new products that you’d never heard of made sense with respect to your unique needs and wants as an individual.

Would you be willing to trade a little privacy to get to this point? I know I would.

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Posted in Technology, The Future, social media | 3 Comments »

If a Brand Falls in the Forest… the power of social listening

April 12th, 2010

By Doug Stephens

There’s been an incredible amount of talk over the last few years about social media.  And frankly, most of the talk is about talking.  In other words, using social media as a vehicle through which brands can talk to consumers.  The more enlightened might refer to the talk as “conversation” but the gist is the same – social media is often represented foremost as a means of speaking to consumers.Listen

When we hear social media advocates speak, it can be a hyperbolic litany of statistics, stories and case studies that leave the audience feeling that if they don’t set up a Twitter profile and begin blogging immediately, they’ll be washed away in a sea of radical change. 

The problem with this approach to social media adoption is twofold; first, it can lead to paralysis.  That is to say, companies can literally become overwhelmed at the idea of having to create and distribute digital content.  Questions about who will create it, where it will be distributed and how it will be measured abound.  Concerns about approvals, security and brand reputation also percolate.  They wonder how the expense can be justified when they don’t even understand how to measure return on investment.  In the end, many companies simply decide to wait on the sidelines. 

Equally detrimental is the scenario in which brands, so eager to leap into social media, naively transport their current marketing strategy and messages into the social space.  In their haste, they often neglect to rework their messaging for this new and decidedly different media channel.  The results of bad social media can be devastating with brands actually losing equity and loyalty.  In the end, these same brands will often dismiss social media as the culprit and label it a waste of time and effort.

Start By Listening

What we hear much less of in discussions on social media is that listening is in fact the first best step that brands can take.  No blogging, tweeting, Youtubing or updating… just listening.  In fact, the power of social media as a listening tool closely rivals its benefits as a publishing tool.

Listen to the conversation that’s already taking place about your brand, product category or industry.  You might be amazed at what you learn from the social echo. 

Connecting with consumers in the social space is much like exploring the universe.  Before you begin travelling into space, it’s important to know which of these social planets actually support life – and preferably life in the form of your target consumer.   There’s no point in pouring time and effort into a Facebook initiative if most of your customers are interacting on Flickr.  Secondly, you need to learn the language that’s being spoken on these planets before you attempt to converse within them.  Nothing resonates less than the wrong message in a social network.  Most importantly, you can gather a sense of what really matters to your consumers and what will capture their interest. 

Along the way you’ll even develop familiarity with key influencers and voices of authority in the space – the people who can really help  spread your message if you craft it properly.  You’re also likely to build a sense of the consumer’s attitude toward your competitors which is always invaluable.

From Observation to Conversation

Once you develop a clear sense of the social networks where your customers are most active and  learn what they seem to find most interesting, you’ll have a much clearer sense of the kind of content you need to develop to engage them.  This will allow you to better calibrate the manpower required to develop it and approximate cost of your program.  The basic awareness earned through listening puts the entire social media initiative in perspective and gives it a clearer sense of intent.  Most importantly, with the insights you gather, the likelihood for a successful program increases exponentially.

The world really doesn’t need another blog, tweet or fan page.  What it does need is valuable social interaction that informs, excites and engages.

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Posted in social media | 5 Comments »

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