Archive for category Unorganized Streams
38 Essential Social Media Resources You May Have Missed (via I am a Bridge (Hugues Rey Blog))
Posted by Tim Rueb in Unorganized Streams on August 8, 2010
Ran across this post and wished I would have wrote it. Lots of great Social Media Resource information provided.
Like a Post? Well Then, “Like” It! (via WordPress.com News)
Posted by Tim Rueb in Unorganized Streams on August 6, 2010
Anytime we have a new ability to measure our effectiveness, it’s a good thing. When I read this post I was reminded of one of my favorite sayings:
“You are what you measure”
Good Hunting.
Social Media: Reducing Customer Support Costs?
Posted by Tim Rueb in Customer Service, social media, Unorganized Streams on March 9, 2010
OK, there is an item in this chart that caught me off guard. 57% responded that Social Media is effective tool for reducing support costs. I would love to know more about this item. I can understand the others. We help help clients achieve many if not all of these claims, but reducing support costs is a shocker to me.
In many cases, Social Media is another skill set and talent set that needs to be created and matured and thus takes time and energy to grow into excellence. This time and energy is usually a new cost to any organization.
Source: New Chart: How Effective is Social Media in Achieving Target Business Objectives?
Merry Christmas!
Posted by Tim Rueb in Unorganized Streams on December 25, 2008
I just wanted to stop and post a special Merry Christmas to you all. I hope this year was good for you and your families. The ROI Hunters wish you all the best in the coming year!
Ban All Mirrors!
Posted by Tim Rueb in Customer Service, leadership, management, social media, Strategy, Tactic, Unorganized Streams on December 18, 2008
We handed out our traditional Christmas gifts to the contracted cleaning crew today. Nothing special, just some home made cookies my wife worked on for several days. One of the ladies, now a regular we have come to know and appreciate, made some funny statement like “Great, that’s all I need is some more pounds!” We all laughed. She explained she walked by a mirror in her house the other day and her reflection shocked her. My response – “Ban all mirrors! That would solve the problem!”
The Real Problem – Not Enough Mirrors.
In truth, we don’t have enough mirrors in our lives. In business, we become so focused on the next deal, the next deadline, the next pay period, the next ….. OK you pick. We lose sight of our reflection in the mirror. We don’t even bother to look most times.
Mind you, everyone else still sees us. Our employees. Our family. Our friends. Our Vendors. Our clients. They don’t see us as a reflection in the mirror. They have the luxury of simply watching us in our daily struggle to focus on the next thing.
Difficult Solution – Put up more Mirrors!
The strategy is simple, create an accountability network. The tactic is difficult to implement. There is a reason why peer accountability groups work. Left to ourselves, we are our own worst enemies. Finding a peer to trust is hard enough, finding someone you look up to is very bold.
Customer Service Mirror – find someone, maybe a trusted client, and review your company’s performance. What’s working, what’s not. What are they seeing your competitors doing. What do they wish you would do
Leadership Mirror – are you creating bold audacious goals for you and your teams? Who is reviewing them with you before you make your presentations. Who is raising the bar, making you think of options outside your comfort zone? Who laughs at you when you come up with a real stinker but you think it the next revolutionary idea?
Management Mirror – who is helping you improve you systems, processes, and staff? Who’s helping you develop a performance model that fits your team’s talents and abilities?
For the sake of this post leadership and management are defined this way. If a ladder was leaning against a wall, management would be focused on the most efficient and productive use of that ladder where it stands, leadership would be responsible for making sure it’s leaning on the right wall.
Social Media Mirror – it’s not just the people around you any more folks. As Matt Hames states in his Web 2.0 posts, now it’s also your digital presence that is being looked at. What you do on the internet, but also equally important, what is said about you on the internet becomes the new dimension to the mirror’s reflection. Do you have someone helping you with your global perception?
Conclusion
Wow, all this from a bunch of home made cookies for Christmas. I hope this post has a longer lasting quality then my wife’s baked goods.
I hope in the future when you walk by one of the mirrors in your life you are not shocked by what you see. And I hope, for your sake, that it’s not too late to correct what you see.
Good Hunting,
You with Risk: Mitigator or Instigator
Posted by Tim Rueb in leadership, management, marketing, Marketing Warfare, Strategy, Tactic, Unorganized Streams on October 30, 2008
How do you handle risk? Are you aggressive or passive with your campaigns? Do you think your job is to mitigate risk? Do you believe success is bred only when you instigate risk? Recently I read an article by Joseph Jaffe called Rewarding Risk and it made me contemplate how we think about risk, or rather how we should be thinking about risk.
Now I must be honest, Mr Jaffe is advocating risk in his article. He’s also writing for the United States Postal Service magazine and suggesting that companies be more aggressive with their direct marketing, and from this I assume their mailings. There is nothing wrong with that, but I want you to consider risk in a different light.
The Constant within Change
In times of change, risk is the only factor that remains constant. In today’s uncertain times, how you perform your role as marketer could be an important aspect to the success or failure or your organization. Doing nothing allows a competitor to act and take a position within your space. Taking aggressive marketing actions could cause you to dwindle your reserves and leave you weak when you may need to react to a competitor’s aggressive move.
So what is the answer? Do we focus on playing it safe? Do we become very selective in our approaches and try a minimalist approach until the economic times improve? Here is something I want you to consider.
The Mitigator Statues
OK, so how many are there? Someone point them out to me. Show me the place where we honor those fallen heroes of avoided risk. So how many statues, monuments, renamed schools or streets, plaques, or even little plastic trophies are out there for the following:
- kept their company safe from spending money that might not have been needed
- avoided a trip that may have been a disaster
- Kept a department happy and safe by avoiding the potential of failure due to a tough project
- never got fired because you refused to stick your neck out for something you thought was right
Let’s face it. We don’t honor the people who avoid risk. We like to keep them around so we have reminders of what not to be, but we don’t honor them.
I think Karl von Clausewitz stated this best:
“Some statesmen and generals try to avoid the decisive battle. History has destroyed this illusion.”
My Suggestions
Practice Marketing Warfare – Darwin’s survival of the fittest living out right before our eyes. The customer wins when the strongest company, product, or service survives and walks off the battlefield.
Fail Often, Fail BIG – If the next project you work on isn’t making your stomach churn with acid reflux because you have it all hanging out there, then quit marketing and join a PR firm. I hear they love working on Risk Mitigation.
Continuously Improve Yourself – never think you know it all. Never stop reading. Never stop going to school. Never stop teaching. Never stop!
Narrow Your Focus – apply your strengths and talents with the greatest possible force on the target or objective at hand. Go into every assignment with a superiority that assumes you will succeed.
Parting Quote
“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorius triumphs, even though checkered by failure… than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
Good Hunting!
Source:
Jaffe, J. (2008, November). Rewarding Risk. Deliver, 4, page 5
Digital Media from the Internet
Posted by Tim Rueb in Flanking Marketing, Internet Marketing, Internet Tactics, Tactic, Unorganized Streams, web marketing on October 25, 2008
Catching up on my reading. I got tired of reading on the screen so I switch to print for a while. I get some of my best ‘what-if’ ideas reviewing the metrics posted in periodicals or polls. This number caught my eye:
Percentage of Online Adults Who Download Digital Media
43% Download digital media
57% Do not download digital media
Business Opportunity
This tells me there is an opportunity to flank a lot of business with an untapped user base. Not only would a company have the position of introducing something new to a large audience, they would have them as a captive audience for a little while.
Source: Metrics (2008, November). EContent, 8
Customer Service Excellence Examples
Posted by Tim Rueb in Customer Service, marketing, Strategy, Unorganized Streams on August 17, 2008
My family took the typical last summer vacation before the beginning of school sports seasons and school. My wife planned a surprise two day trip that , which in theory, would keep our four boys, 14 year olds to 5 years old, entertained and exhausted. The location was Gurnee Illinois and the Six Flags Great America theme park with an overnight stay at KeyLime Cove, a new indoor water resort.
On this trip, three examples of customer service excellence surfaced.
Excellent Customer Service Example #1
Let me set the stage. It’s 9:45PM and the KeyLime Cove water park closes at 10PM. The tube slide lifeguard, a 6 foot something lean athletic looking young man, has been given the all clear that no other patrons will be coming down the tubes and he can begin his duties of stacking the double and single inner tubes that have just traversed hundreds of water park miles today. But first, he must deal with a small object, a third his size, our 5 year old son, Justin. The noise in the cavernous indoor water park is deafening and causes even people sitting next to each other to speak rather loudly so as to overcome the constant white noise of splashing and falling water.
Our Justin walked over and began a conversation with this end-of-day lifeguard. This young man spent 5 minutes (mind you that’s like 1 hour in adult time) face to face, sometimes only two inches apart, never losing eye contact, always smiling, asking for the occasional high-five when he thought it was appropriate. The young lifeguard probably couldn’t understand or hear the young boys declarations of how this day was just simply awesome and 5-year-old’s attempt to share it with someone. Somehow this young man knew (and maybe has seen this played out several times at KeyLime Cove) the significance of this little person’s desire to share, so he patiently waited while the little man continued expanding on his wonderful day.
We finally took pity on the young worker and asked Justin to return to our sides. I gave the young man a thumbs up and smiled. He also smiled and nodded his head, understanding fully that this was just as much of his job as making sure the patrons were safe while having fun.
Excellent Customer Service Example #2
No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service. We’ve all read this sign. It’s a typical health code requirement in all restaurants. In this case the “No Service” portion was replace with “Exceed your Customer’s Expectations” by the restaurant manager.
The above mentioned Justin had broken his cheap flip-flops during the day’s adventure. Our car was parked about a mile away from the front entrance of KeyLime Cove. I’m tired and I thought that since this was a water park that they would let us slide (no water park pun intended) on the rule. NOPE! They explained that we would have to come back with the correct attire. Something on our son’s face caused the manager to jump into action. She said we should go sit down and she would check if they had any extra flip-flops. EXTRAS?????? Well, I guess it was a water park.
A few minutes later, the manager returned after visiting the upstairs gift shop and placed on my son’s feet a new pair. We offered to pay but she refused, She explained that she noticed how disappointed my son was that we might not be able to eat at her establishment, so she couldn’t allow that to happen.
Excellent Customer Service Example #3
At the end of the long day, we still had one special event planned. Our traditional “Un-Birthday” celebration. This is simply a necessity because our families can not attend all the birthday parties of all the different families, so when we do get together, we celebrate one “Un-Birthday” to make up for it.
My sister-in-law brought a sheet of brownies and we wanted to eat it at the restaurant. You can image the typical response from most eateries. Not at this one. The same above mentioned restaurant manager focusing on customer satisfaction jumped in again and took the sheet over to the ice cream parlor area of the restaurant and had it decorated. Not just adding a word or two, but on the borders, and added fruit as well to give it some color. This was really over the top and just capped the end of this two day adventure with a sense of true customer service excellence.
In fact, on the 3 hour ride home, I began to form my thoughts for this post. This small family vacation trip, and the customer service examples forever etched in my mind. And I declared to my wife, “We will be going back there again!”
See also:
Customer Experience Investment Opportunities
Great Customer Service and Peer Recognition
Related articles
- How’s your social customer service? (socialfish.org)
- Customer Service Help (fullgamutworkshop.wordpress.com)
- Are customer service agents too rude? (eptica.wordpress.com)
- The Good and Bad of Customer Service (tinamwoodin.wordpress.com)
- Why Customer Service is So Important for Freelancers (businessns.tumblr.com)
Jott Thought: Flickr…
Posted by Tim Rueb in Jott Thoughts, Service, Tools on August 14, 2008
Jott Thought: Flickr – a great social media tool
Powered by Jott
Expanded Thought: I switched to Flickr from Yahoo Photo when Yahoo discontinued Yahoo Photos and have been very happy. Contacts are notified by email when new images are uploaded. There are Flickr groups to connect with like-minded folks. And I love the stats!
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