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More on Twitter… (I know, I know)
Author: Peggy Entrop
April 9, 2009
Take one moment to make some assumptions about what the typical Twitter user (Ok… tweeter?) is like… Got it?
Now, read the article about 10,000 young Moldovans that mobilized using Twitter as their media center of choice to protest against Moldova’s Communist leadership on Tuesday.
Does it surprise you that there are thousands of politically active Moldovans on Twitter? Maybe not, but it surprised me. I think I have some assumptions about what kind of person uses Twitter. The truth is that people from almost every walk of life are tweeting away.
Social Media has become a permanent fixture in the way people communicate with each other. The sites evolve and formats change, but there is a flexible, seemingly-uncontrollable communication mechanism out there, and if you don’t learn to tap into it, you are wasting an opportunity.
Tourism Kiosks at O’Hare Airport
Author: Peggy Entrop
April 1, 2009
According to an article on Chicagobreakingnews.com, “Fifty new computer tourism “kiosks” will be installed throughout O’Hare International Airport” to replace recently laid-off greeters.
The article emphasizes the economic benefits to the new system. While it is a sure way to save on expenses, there are other customer issues to explore.
Possible CE Benefits
- Since these kiosk computers can store an enormous amount of information, customers are more likely to get accurate, up-to-date information
- Many customers (like me) prefer to use self-help technology than speak to humans (notice the popularity of the grocery store self-check-out)
- Airports could potentially track the kind of information accessed by users and use that information to create better and more user-friendly communications
Questions to Consider
- Can these kiosks replace the translation services that greeters formerly provided? What languages will be offered?
- How frequently will the information be updated? Will they use the data gathered to improve future communication?
- What are the contingencies in case of an emergency situation?
- What about the environmental design? Are these kiosks easy to find and use?
- What if someone requires help or gets stuck? Is there some personal backup?
Kiosks also pose many concerns that directly affect the customer experience (as Vox President, Jeannie Walters outlines in her Woman vs Machine Blog Series). How clean are they? How secure do users feel? Where are they located within the building?
The bottom line is that providing more information in a new way can be great, but you can’t just put up a kiosk and assume that everything will be fine.
Follow Peggy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/entrop
Using Technology to Save Lives at the Grocery Store
Author: Luis Serpa
March 20, 2009
Why put the responsibility on customers to check out recalled products that can hurt or, sometimes, even kill them? Yes, companies (or interested parties) try all they can to push the information to all involved so they can take action before something happens, but why not use the power of technology to avoid a potential customer experience nightmare?
Well, some ideas around that are starting to brew among California lawmakers: program supermarkets computers to trigger an alert when recalled products arrive at the checkout counter. This would be a perfect way to stop tainted food from ever reaching the consumers’ table.
The idea seems sound and is actually not that difficult to implement. Most big chains already have systems in place to process marketing and loyalty promotion associated with products at checkout. Adding another trigger is mostly a matter of finding an effective way of distributing updated lists of recalled products.
Besides the obvious reasons to do this (say: saving lives!), it could save the companies a lot of money in handling after-the fact complains and, in the worst cases, negative publicity.
I can’t wait to see something like this being implemented outside of California and beyond just supermarkets and grocery stores. Don’t you?
Follow Luis on Twitter at www.twitter.com/luiserpa
First Impressions in the Online Customer Experience
Author: Jeannie Walters
March 5, 2009
My husband and I decided to take advantage of Chicago Restaurant Week, a promotion where several restaurants provide $32 3-course meals. We opted to try Aria.
Thinking ahead, Mike decided to check out the restaurant’s wine list and make a decision ahead of time. We’ve been learning more about wines, so he likes to do some research on what’s a great bottle to try. He found the wine list after some searching, and selected #351, single vineyard carmanere.
We were excited! We talked about it throughout the week, and he was anxious to try the carefully selected wine.
Once we arrived, though, we were handed a wine list which was completely different. Not only did it not have the specific wine we had look up in advance, it had nothing like it. The waiter, while vaguely apologetic, didn’t really see the importance. He said something like “The web site is probably outdated.”
While the online experience is not the primary reason we would ever select a restaurant, this just made it blatantly obvious that it was a total afterthought. Customers (like us) totally rely on the web for go-to information when planning an experience. This is true for restaurants, hotels, theatres, etc. The customer experience is built of individual blocks - sometimes the very first block is checking out a web site. Even if it’s not the MAIN focus of a business, it needs to be A focus. Keeping it updated is critical and not doing so is simply careless.
Overall, we still enjoyed a good meal and a nice bottle of wine. But it’s hard not to feel a little cheated out of that single vineyard carmanere.
Follow Jeannie on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jeanniecw
Connecting with Younger Banking Customers
Author: Peggy Entrop
February 9, 2009
I just read about Servus Credit Union’s Young & Free community. This online community is all about connecting with Servus’s younger bankers.
They found an engaging young spokesperson and heavily connected them to social media. The website is vibrant, multi-media and is not obviously about banking.
In Servus’s own words, they are “teaching young people about financial topics with videos that don’t suck.”
Well, I’m a young person (I think), and I’d like to thank Servus, because I really really really appreciate videos that don’t suck.
I also appreciate companies that look for new and innovative ways to connect with their customers.
More of Servus’s own words: “We launched Young & Free because we felt strongly that young people were not being well served by large faceless financial institutions. Young people in Alberta didn’t have a voice when it came to getting what they needed financially. So we launched a search for a spokesperson and gave that person a platform: the Young & Free Alberta website.”
Good work, Servus!
Follow Peggy on Twitter at www.twitter.com/entrop
The Humanity of Technology
Author: Bill Cusick
January 22, 2009
When I sat down at the Starbucks just outside Chicago to get some work done today, I noticed the person at the next table had a big loopy smile on his face, and was gesticulating wildly, waving, tapping his chest and shaking his head up and down and side to side. Of course, if you’re anywhere close to a big city, this is usually a sign that you want to move away quickly while avoiding eye contact.
Upon further observation, I realized the patron at the next table, a young man, was happily communicating via sign language through his webcam on his wireless laptop. He seemed to be oblivious to his surroundings, or the curious glances of passers-by like me (who should get a life). It was, I think, a really neat example of just what technology is capable of in the right hands. This wasn’t about efficiency or productivity, or even social media in the larger sense. It was simply connecting two people in a very real and emotional way who otherwise would not have the chance.
How cool.
We work with clients everyday that are trying to make connections with their customers using, among other things, technology. We all should keep in mind the incredible potential of making those connections in ways that create not just efficient, logical transactions, but valuable, emotional relationships.
Belkin puts a price on its Customer Experience: 65 Cents
Author: Luis Serpa
January 20, 2009
Some companies may say that a good experience is priceless, but it seems that someone at Belkin really thought that he could get a few good experiences for a lot less and now the company is paying a steep price to recover their customers’ trust.
The (dumb) idea was simple in concept: use Amazon’s Mechanical Turk Cloud Service to recruit “reviewers” for Belkin’s products. The hired reviewers’ task was pretty simple: give the highest possible rating available to the products as if they had bought them. The price tag for each review: just 65 cents! (see full description of the offer in the image below)
The history was first published by The Daily Background and then reported on TechCrunch. Looks like it was all the action of a Business Development Representative named Michael Bayard and not a company-wide strategy, but the damage it caused is still the same. After the spread of the article through the web, Belkin posted a reply taking action to fix the situation without denying or explaining how it happened in the first place.
The point of story here should be obvious but I will spell it out it anyway: A good Customer Experience CAN’T be produced artificially! It is always the result of good services and care provided to your customers and the results you get will always mirror your real intentions. Alienated and wronged customers usually spread the word pretty fast. The whole incident is being called now “The Mechanical Turk Shilling” and the negative comments about it on the Blogosphere and twitter have been growing exponentially since Saturday.
I am betting that Belkin will be paying way more than 65 cents now to fix the situation, and nothing guarantees that their product reviews will ever be totally trusted again…
Bank of America: Your Customers Are Talking. Are You Listening?
Author: Jeannie Walters
January 19, 2009
Any given day on Twitter, there is discussion about customer experience. Typically, it’s bad. Bad tweets about bad experiences on the phone with customer service people, standing in line for problems that shouldn’t have happened to begin with, bad bills, bad fees, bad bad bad!
Recently, a heated discussion spread across the Twittersphere thanks to Laura Fitton’s (pistachio) post about her experience with Bank of America. A series of Fitton’s frustrated tweets about fees, broken online banking and customer service disrespect led other customers to share their own harrowing tales. Oh, and all of these posted with the searchable hashtag #BOA for all to see and search.
It should be noted that Fitton is a force on Twitter. With more than 15,000 followers, she has influence in pretty much every industry across social media. She’s also seen as an expert on microblogging - the very thing Twitter is used for - and helps all of us get it right.
Eventually, the rant ended with this tweet from Laura: “while still savagely frustrated with BOA’s fees/long check holds/other cust service snafus, i gotta hand it to @bofa_help for jumping in.”
So, eventually, after literally 100’s of people posted about their own terrible experiences and 1000’s of people watched this unfold, a BOA representative on Twitter got wind of the trouble and reached out directly to Laura. This type of personal outreach can do a lot to solve a singular customer issue. But by then, untold damage had been suffered to the brand.
There are many blogs about how to use Twitter to monitor brand reputation. This isn’t one of them. The conversation on Twitter or blogs or Facebook does not just happen there. It happens with your customer service reps on the phones, with your branch managers and tellers, and with your customers who take the time (and are so angry) to actually write via your web site or even snail mail to the CEO.
What is Bank of America doing to listen elsewhere? And how are they addressing the perception of high fees without appropriate levels of service?
I would say a careful examination of their current customer experience is in order.
Is “Viral” a Dirty Word?
Author: Bill Cusick
January 8, 2009
Take a look at this interesting post on Seth Godin’s blog about viral marketing.
The important thing, that many marketers still unbelievably don’t get, is that - for an idea to be viral, it actually needs some inherent value, something that makes somebody want to spread it.
In the Year 2020, Wireless Devices Will Take Over the Internet
Author: Peggy Entrop
January 7, 2009
In case you were wondering whether progress would continue, a Pew study predicts that most people will be accessing the Internet via mobile/wireless devices (phones, smart-phones, portable computers, etc) by 2020.
What does this mean for business? It means that maintaining a forward focus on using the web to connect with companies in new and innovative ways is going to continue to be essential. This fad isn’t going away, people!
The study also has some interesting analysis on the evolution of Privacy, Property Law, Social Tolerance, User Interface Design and the mingling of personal and work time.
