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August 21, 2009

How To Blow $1 Million In Under 1 Minute

It all started with the AT&T customer service person who said "You need to call this other number and start your service call there." after I'd already dialed 6 previous numbers. In those few seconds when he uttered those words, all the advertising AT&T has been blasting my way became a big waste of money. Worse, I took out my frustration on blogs and Twitter, helping further erode the value of their marketing. As @MotrinMoms and others have shown, it takes only seconds to obliterate millions in marketing expenditure.

It seems bad service has become the cultural norm. Gas stations, grocery stores, home improvement centers, transportation centers...it is like we've perfected the art of surly service, bad service, or no service at all. I wasn't always that way. And as more smart companies catch on, the purveyors of service pain risk replacement by competitors who again realize that customer-centricity is more than a buzzword, it is a path to busines success. For companies like:

Zappo's (purchased by Amazon)

H-E-B / Central Market

Cabela's

service is a culture. Have you ever met a Cabela's customer? If they find out you are an outdoorsman, they'll practically throw you in their car and drive you to the nearest store. For them, a trip to the store is a pilgrimage, not a chore.

Compare that to my recent visits to regional supermarkets BigY, ShopRite, Stop&Shop and even local "superstar" Stew Leonard's, I felt a wide range of emotions: frustration (over item unavailability), anger (over product quality), amazement (over advertising practices), annoyance (over lack of service availability)...but only rare bursts of satisfaction. Trust me, I am not out singing the praises of these stores. Instead, I spend my time trying to outwit their pricing policies and wishing a Whole Foods would move in.

Day after day, corporate marketers spend hours in conference rooms plotting the next product campaign, the next promo, the next social media outreach. When great marketing is paid off with lousy service, all it does is punctuate customer annoyance. "AT&T. Your World. Delivered." I don't think so! How about "AT&T. Two Tylenol Delivered. (You'll Need Them After Dealing With Us.)"

I actually admire AT&T, a company that has emerged phoenix-like from the ashes of its all-to-recent fall. But like any other customer, I have a voice. And thanks to blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Consumerist, and on and on, when a company crosses me, I have a way to use it. And that is the formula that is turning traditional marketing on its head. Today, product performance and customer service matter more than ever...and failing the customer can undermine a million dollar campaign in under a minute.  

Posted by jcioban at 6:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 7, 2009

The "Real-time, Online Communications Revolution"

I am a facile and reasonably consistent blogger and social media user. Which is why I found the panic resulting from Thursday's Twitter outage to be somewhat amusing. At least a little part of me thought "These people need to get a life."

In fact, that may be the point.

In an article on CNN titled "Twitter blockout left users feeling 'jittery', 'naked'."  Marc Cooper, a professor of journalism at USC noted that the hysteria that resulted from the blackout may be the ultimate sign that "instant, online communication is here to stay."

"Fighting the trend would be like trying to stop the ocean's tides, he said, but it's unclear where the technology will take our society.

'The bottom line is that we don't know. All of this is too new,' he said. 'It's like sitting around in the year 1500 and trying to figure out where the printing press was going to take us.' "

What a great analogy. So, how did 40 million people increasingly addicted to a technology that is barely stable, let alone being solid enough to hinge our lives on?

In business, one reason is that thought leaders like Chris Brogan or David Armano, who once ruled the blog world of marketing and now rule the Twitter world, tell us its important. But these arbiters of "the next big thing" are people whose day job IS using tools like Twitter, and who wants to be told what to do? But, it is also because companies like Starbucks and Comcast have validated their advice and provided overwhelming evidence of its value in areas like customer service and consumer engagement.

In consumer life, the "arbiters" are the socially-active, who found yet another way to broadcast their lives. But beyond the mindless posting of questionably interesting personal data, it is also real people like the "Twitter Moms" who found out how easy it could be to rally support for a consumer cause (justly or unjustly)...in just seconds.

It is in part, because Twitter has "democratized" real-time information and made "newscasters" of everyone. Whether it was the plane crash on the Hudson or the protests in Iran, we've learned that no one is better at presenting the news...than us. Real-time news undoubtedly impacted the course of events in Iran, and will no doubt change how governments respond to similar protests in the future. 

And of course, there is the pragmatic lure of access to millions of minds. Sure, most of us have no time to either type about or read about lunch habits of the rich and marginally famous. But when we are stuck on a vexing problem, or perhaps just looking for advice on a place to eat in a strange city, who wouldn't want to tap the collective wisdom of the herd? When I needed to get a programming question answered recently, one place I posted to was Twitter.

And so, beyond the amusement, I also found Thursday instructive. First, because the impact Twitter demonstrated should be a real wakeup call to companies ignoring the "real-time, online communications revolution." Instead of always talking about Twitter, maybe if we refer to the trend that way, companies will be less likely to ignore it. And second, because so many of the panicked were not people wondering what Ashton Kutcher was going to have for lunch. Instead, lots of people with real jobs (journalists, customer service personnel, etc.), were displaced because their lifeline to "real-time, online information" had been cut.

Life doesn't happen in 140-character blocks. But obviously, lots of news, facts and fun CAN be communicated in those tiny tweets.

Posted by jcioban at 6:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack