Too much of a good thing

I made a mistake a while back.  I contributed to a political party.  The reason that was a mistake is now they will not stop calling me.   On a recent weekend (not during an election mind you), I got four calls asking for donations.  I have asked to be taken off of their call list.

(Photo credit: :: Wendy ::)

In a similar mistake, I signed up for something online that is supposed to support my high school alma mater. Very soon I was getting emails every day trying to sell me something.  I have stopped even looking at those emails.  They now get deleted as soon as they show up in my inbox.  I haven't yet taken myself off of the distribution list out of some sort of alumni guilt.  That is probably going to change soon.

With the cost of reaching out to customers and prospective customers falling to almost nothing, it is more important than ever that companies and organizations remember who bears the greatest cost every time they reach out to a contact.  The contact does.

Even with permission marketing, you can reach out too much.  Even with those who are already your fans or supporters or customers, if you call four times in one weekend, you are going to annoy them.

Organizations need to understand that there is a cost of time and attention every time they call or email someone.  They need to be sensitive to the fact that both time and attention are in short supply for most people.  IF they are going to contact you frequently, they should provide you something of value with that contact.  IF they are going to contact you frequently, they should recognize that it is easy to cross the line into annoyance and get put on the don't call list.

In the best of situations, organizations create reasons for their customers and supporters to reach out to them!  It's hard to overdo it when you have your customers contacting you!

Buddha Knows Customer Service

I came across a post on Facebook the other night that gave the 5 steps to happiness:

1. Smile more.
2. Think less.
3. Be present.
4. Give more.
5. Expect less.

The watermark on the photo indicated it was from a source called Buddha Heart.

I started thinking that while these were excellent steps for general happiness, they were also a nice, succinct guide to providing excellent customer service!

Smile more.

You cannot go wrong if you are genuinely smiling, whether you are answering the phone or talking to a customer.  A smile shows you are happy to be interacting with the customer.  That goes a long way to helping address customer needs and addressing problems when they arise.

Think less.

I think sometimes we are our own worst enemies when addressing a customer.  If we are busy analyzing "what she really meant" or "how can I get out of this situation" we are not focusing on the person and the issue in front of us.  If you ask many professional athletes, who are in the middle of a slump, what is wrong, many of them will say that they are thinking too much.  Like professional athletes, employees should develop the muscle memory to provide excellent customer service by instinct.  Without thinking.

Be Present.

A lot of excellent customer service involves problem resolution.  In order to help a customer resolve her problem, however, you must be present in the situation, you must own the problem as your own and you must take responsibility for ensuring that the customer leaves satisfied, or at least satisfied that you are trying to help her.  Customer service, and especially problem resolution, cannot be effectively put off until later.

Give More.
Customer service is all about giving.  Giving of attention , giving of status (you have my attention because you are important to me and to the organization) and giving of authority (the customer is always right.)   It is extremely difficult to give too much customer service.

Expect Less.
You cannot do excellent customer service with any payback in mind.  Customers should be able to expect good service.  Customers who have a problem will cease to exist as customers if they don't get some timely attention to their concerns.  At a restaurant, an excellent server does a ton of little things that you might not even notice to help make your dining experience special.  An excellent server is doing that because she wants to do an excellent job and help you have a special experience, not specifically with a tip in mind.

Buddha knows customer service!

Frozen Twinkies

Twinkies (Hostess Twinkies is a trademark of Hostess Brands LLC). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Before last winter, the most prevailing story, or urban myth, about Twinkies was the one about the guy who found a 20 year old Twinkie behind his couch and it was still soft and consumable.

Twinkies were right alongside cockroaches as the things most likely to weather a nuclear holocaust unscathed.

Then last winter disaster struck. Hostess, the company that made and sold Twinkies filed for bankruptcy.  More importantly, they announced the end of the United States production and distribution of Twinkies and several other brands.

Suddenly, Twinkies were the most popular formerly ignored snack on store shelves.  People stocked up with  cases and cases of the cream-filled sponge cake treats, anticipating a healthy black market of contraband snack cakes.  Besides, they last forever, right?

Then the white knight arrived.  Investors came and bought the Twinkies brand, as well as those of several other snack cakes, with the intention of returning them to production.

There was joy in Snackville...except among those who were sitting on cases of Twinkies.

Then strange things started to happen.  Hostess Brands LLC, the new owner of Twinkies, started issuing press releases that included terms like shelf life and talked about selling frozen Twinkies to some retailers to help extend expiration dates.  This was very confusing and contradicted just about everything I "knew" about Twinkies and their lack of a need for an expiration date.

I have come to the conclusion that the masterminds behind Hostess Brands LLC are actually marketing geniuses.  First, they manage to "rescue" a suddenly beloved brand from the expiration bin at fire sale prices, waiting long enough that a frenzy had been built up about the brand that hadn't been seen since the likes of New Coke.

Then, they wait six months to bring back the lunch box delicacies, further tamping up demand.  Then, announcements about the reintroduction include talk of expiration dates and freezing for selective retailers.  Suddenly, we are comparing Twinkies to more delicate baked goods instead of cockroaches.

Well played, Hostess Brands!  Well played!

They Just Don't Care About Apathy

I know many fine people that I greatly respect who work for the United States Post Office.  I marvel regularly at what they are able to do for the cost of one little stamp.  I sincerely hope that the Post Office will prove all the demise-predicting pundits wrong because I think it is an important institution for our society.

If the US Post Office ceases to exist in the next 10 years, it is my opinion its demise will not be brought about by Saturday deliveries or federal oversight that requires onerous pension payments and restricts its ability to compete with private firms.  It will not be brought about by budget shortfalls or cost overruns.

Rather, the US Post Office will be brought down by the most insidious problem an organization ever has to deal with.  Apathy.

I find myself frequently dealing with mailings of between several hundred and a couple thousand pieces.  This is the type of mailing that is often too small to send out to a full service printer but too large to be done internally without a fair amount of effort and time.  One of my practices, in order to streamline things as much as possible, has been to take a prototype of the mailing to the Post Office to make sure that there won't be any problems.

The problem has been that for almost 50% of the mailings I have done over the last few years, what I am told when I take in the prototype and what I am told when I bring in what I thought was a final mailing is different.  Sometimes VERY different.  It often results in a significant delay in my mailing and a loathsome amount of rework.  Just recently, I brought a mailing in to get the cost of postage.  I was told one amount by the clerk behind the counter.  The next day, I brought in the mailing stamped and ready to mail and was told by the same guy that I had the wrong amount of postage on the mailing.  The same guy.  One day later.

I understand that everyone makes mistakes.  It is a part of being human.

I also understand that one of any organization's best chances to provide excellent customers service that is remembered by a customer is when a mistake has been made.  When a mistake has been made and identified, how your organization responds will have a huge impact on whether the customer walks away for good or not.

How your organization steps up to or runs away from problems has almost everything to do with whether the customer experiencing the problem feels that they are important to you, that you care about them as an individual customer, or whether they are "just a sale."  How much customers feel respected by the offending organization has a direct correlation on positive or negative word of mouth, active antagonism or even law suits.

When I told the Post Office employee that he had told me a significantly different postage rate just they day before, that I had asked him twice if he was sure because I "didn't want to have to do this a second time" and showed him where he had written the wrong amount down for me, he just said "sorry."  When I asked him and the other clerk who was present at the time what my options were, they just shrugged their shoulders with a slight smirk on their faces.  It was obviously not their problem.  They were apathetic to my issue.

I know that the Post Office, as a pseudo-governmental agency, might have limited options.  I know that they weren't going to be able to let me mail my mailings with insufficient postage.  But I also know that neither of the clerks who were confronted with this issue took this on as their concern.  I know that neither of the people I was dealing with cared if they had cost me a weeks worth of work and significant amount of money and a deadline I was pushing to make.  

Perhaps the Post Office can afford apathy.  No one else at the moment can send a letter across the country for 46 cents (except email which can do it for free.)   No one else can deliver bills and magazines and personal messages right to your mailbox for pennies (except for the internet which delivers it to your computer, in the house, for free.)

Perhaps the Post Office can afford apathy but no one else can.  Including their customers and former customers! 

Please let me know of experiences you have had with excellent, and not so excellent, customer service in the comments below!  Thanks!

Related articles

• Another trip to the Post Office

Republished: The 5th of July

A Fourth of July fireworks display at the Washington Monument. Location: WASHINGTON, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA (DC) UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (USA) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

July 5, 2013

Yesterday was the 4th of July.  The 4th of July is a special day in the United States for many reasons.  It is the birthday of our country and a celebration of our nationalism. It is a holiday of summer, sitting as it does smack dab in the middle between Memorial Day and Labor Day, the traditional bookends of summer.  It is a holiday of contradictions, with military parades and fireworks as well as beer and carnivals.  For example, this year in celebration of the 4th, I had a deep fried peanut butter & jelly sandwich and went to a wonderful symphony orchestra concert...at the same venue!  For the record, the symphony orchestra was better!

The best thing about this holiday though, is that everyone is patriotic, at least for the day.  For at least one day of the year, we all stand shoulder to shoulder and boldly proclaim our love for our country.  It makes me wish, sometimes, that we could bottle a bit of that national pride for the other 364 days of the year.

Anytime an organization hosts an event or a celebration, one of their goals is usually that participants still look fondly on it the next day.  In many ways, the success of the celebration is based on how it is remembered the next day.

With that in mind, I wish you a very happy 5th of July!

The Broken Promise of the Internet

"As an advertising medium, the web is like communism. It's never very good right now, but it's always going to be great some day."        Bob Hoffman, The Ad Contrarian

The promise of the web is intense, amazing, awe-inspiring, breath-taking, mind-blowing, [insert wonderment adjective of choice here].  The reality of the web depends on who you are and what you hope to get out of it.

To the casual user who likes that disputes can be instantly settled with a Google search on their smart phone, the internet meets its promise and then some.

To the teacher who is looking for new tools to excite his students with, the internet meets expectations, even though bandwidth doesn't always.

To my Dad, who knows that he would enjoy the wonders of the internet, but he is a little afraid of doing something wrong and breaking something, the internet represents a tantalizing mystery.

To businesses, who are trying to figure out how to use it as a promotional tool, the internet is often more than a little frustrating.  Banner ads and pop up ads don't usually live up to their promised effectiveness.  Facebook page "likes" and Pinterest "pins" often (usually) don't translate into sales.  

For a business, its all about generating sales.  For businesses born in the time of the internet, like Netflix and Amazon, the internet has been awesome.  For most businesses that had a brick and mortar existence before the era of Google and You Tube, the internet, while awe inspiring, has been less than awesome.

Many companies that were around before 1980 that have had financial success on the internet have basically moved their catalog operation online (think Lands' End).  A few industries have transitioned to providing their services online (such as H&R Block).   

Regardless, the internet hasn't been the land of milk and honey that so many were predicting in its infancy.   It HAS transformed business and the way we communicate and gather information.  It HAS transformed whole industries and created new ones.  It just hasn't been the advertising panacea that some were claiming it would be in the 80's.    

And it certainly hasn't proven itself as an advertising powerhouse as many expected and some promised.  Clicks and likes haven't translated to dollars and cents.  For many, if not most online advertisers, the promise of internet advertising appears to be a broken promise.

Happy New Month!

"Happy New Month!"

In my family, we have a ritual in which we try to be the first to wish each other Happy New Month.  The tradition is so strong that those who dare to marry into the family are quickly usurped into the ritual.  The funny thing is that there is no prize, no keeping of a tally, no punishment or hazing is brought onto the losers.  It is simply a monthly inter-family burst of friendly competitiveness that is forgotten on the 2nd of every month.  The joy is in the execution of the tradition, win or lose.

There is a value in tradition and ritual in families and in organizations.  Participating in traditions and rituals are one of the ways we feel a part of the group.  They are also ways to pass on organizational values and beliefs and to make the group, whether its a family or a company, a unique and special group.

But traditions and rituals can have a dark side.  From an organizational standpoint, traditions can stand in the way of change and progress.  Any one who has tried to enact significant change in an organization quickly learns about the traditions or sacred cows that can't be touched.

"We've always done it that way!" or "We've NEVER done that before!" are telltale signs that your organization has tradition-itis.  The same qualities that make for a charming and endearing tradition when they are a simple ritual like providing employees a cupcake on their birthday or trying to wish your sister "Happy New Month" before she wishes you the same, can be maddening if you are trying to go against the grain of a tradition and enact some change.

Organizations, it turns out, crave structure and organizations.  Structure and organization are perfect breeding grounds for traditions and rituals.

The best way to break through traditions that have become roadblocks is by getting buy-in for the change by the same people who are practicing the traditions.  Through information and conversation, it is possible to get past people's strongly held beliefs and traditions.  While that is much easier to type than it is to do, it is possible to enact change and who knows, maybe even create some new traditions!

In the meantime, Happy New Month!  And if any of my family are reading this, I got you this month!