Recently, someone posted a kind comment on my Facebook Wall, saying how special I am and how much my friendship means to them. At first I thought, “Wow, I’m really glad that person is my friend!” and started to post back a thank you for the warm and friendly post. But then I noticed where the comment was generated from.
You know how Facebook tells you when something’s been posted from HootSuite or Ping or a mobile application? Well, this one was posted from a tool that acts much like an e-mail list management tool that lets you insert “%firstname%” into the body of your text so that the person’s actual name appears. For example, when I write my weekly e-zine, the software I use allows me to write something like, “Hi %firstname%, Welcome to No Suits Allowed!” and the e-mail that the subscriber receives, says, “Hi John, Welcome to No Suits Allowed!” Well, this software allows you to do the same thing, but with social media. So you can write something like, “Hi %firstname%, I just wanted to let you know how special and amazing you are, and to say that I really treasure our friendship,” and send it to a thousand people.
Efficient? Yes. Totally against the entire point of social media? In my book, pretty much.
Social media isn’t designed to be a mass enterprise. It’s designed to form and build relationships and connections among people. Whether you’re talking about Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, social media is all about a conversation that takes place between individuals. If you want to leverage social media to its greatest advantage, you have to actually participate in that conversation.
I’m not entirely against time-saving tools for social media. In fact, I make great use of them myself. I use Networked Blogs to automatically post my blog posts to my Facebook and Twitter accounts. I use HootSuite to load in links to articles I’ve written, to maximize visibility of those articles over a longer period of time. And I recently started using the feature in my e-mail newsletter software that allows me to post my weekly e-zines to my Twitter account.
But the automation stops there. If I automate personal messages, how, exactly, am I building high quality relationships, and how can I bring true value to my friends, followers, fans, and associates? How can one form an authentic connection, if one starts by deceiving people by posting what seems like an intimate and individual comment, but what turns out to be a generic message which was actually posted to several (or even hundreds) other people?
Back to the individual who posted this message to my Wall…I looked at this person’s Facebook Wall, to see what response she was getting from others. Many people had posted and thanked her for the message she posted (and a little detective work proved that indeed, it was identical to the one posted on my Wall), and it’s pretty clear to me that most didn’t know (or didn’t care?) that this was the exact same message she’d posted to everyone else…and that she hadn’t visited their Facebook pages to learn about them, but rather had just clicked a single “Submit” button to send one message to many.
So maybe this tool provides a jumping-off point for forming a relationship? But…no. Because as I suspected, the person in question hasn’t responded to a single one of the people thanking her on her Wall, which is what you’d think someone would do, if they understood the point of social media and were truly interested in forming those connections.
Folks, social media isn’t about collecting followers and friends. The numbers aren’t what’s important - the quality is what matters. If you have thousands of friends, how much good does that really do you, if you don’t talk to them or engage in a dialogue with them? How does it serve you to have that many friends you don’t have a relationship with, and more importantly, how can you possibly serve them?
If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times…social media is about engagement and it’s about the conversation. If you post to your Wall or tweet and you get no response from your friends and followers, there’s a reason why. You’ve got to get to know people to know what will interest them. You’ve got to get to know your friends and followers to know what they want to hear about from you. And if you don’t bother doing that, you’re wasting the incredible business and personal potential that social media puts at your fingertips.
Now, if you’ve got thousands of Facebook friends and Twitter followers, obviously you won’t be able to have conversations with each and every one of them every day. But what you can do is post things that appeal to your friends and followers, and engage in a dialogue about those things. Different things will appeal to different people, which means that over time, you’ll get a good mix of many of your friends and followers involved in the conversation. People will talk to you and they’ll talk to each other, and you’ll create a little community, just by getting to know the people who you’re connected to in social media. And that’s the point.
Customer service is one of the most important things in today’s marketplace. In this article, I’ll show you how one big company got their customer service wrong, and how you can learn from their mistakes and take your small business customer service to the next level.
Last Christmas, when Leo and I took the kids to Spain for the holidays, we experienced several hours of delay in London Heathrow Airport. After our delay, our flight was boarded then de-boarded, and then we spent several more hours in the chaos of baggage claim, trying to get our suitcases back. British Airways made no public announcements, made no real effort to provide accurate information (except to first class passengers, and even that effort was minimal, at best), and no one seemed to be in charge. Not only that, but my bag was lost for an entire week, and we received Leo’s bag a week after that, the day before we left to come home, and the entire time the bags were lost, no one at British Airways seemed to have a clue what was going on.
And believe it or not, that wasn’t even the worst part of the customer service catastrophe. After the holidays, on the train back to London, I filed the claims for our canceled flights and reimbursement for what we purchased while we awaited deliver of our lost baggage. I heard back from BA by February, but in March, they stopped responding to my e-mails. It took until May to get a response, and only because I e-mailed the CEO of British Airways, and then it took another two and a half months to get them to issue a reimbursement check. The final insult? The check they sent covered less than half of the claim I submitted.
Where did British Airways go wrong here? Everywhere. So…what could they do better, and more importantly, what can you learn about about small business from my bad experience with British Airways?
The customer or client should be at the forefront of everything you do.
I’ve said it hundreds of times - your priority should be to meet the needs of your target market. You have to know who they are and what they want so you can design everything for them. When you develop your brand, ask yourself: will this appeal to my target market? When you have a web site created for you, ask yourself: will my target market be able to navigate this? When you set up customer service guideline and procedures, ask yourself: does this serve my clients and customers?
I’d wager that when BA execs sit down to plan something new, they don’t consider the customer at all. It’s evident in their hard-to-navigate web site, their lack of easily-accessible customer service phone lines, and their lack of consideration for the customer in virtually every aspect of travel. Make sure you don’t make the same mistake.
Have emergency backup plans in place. No matter what business you’re in, there will always be moments when something goes wrong. If you have a contingency plan in place before things go wrong, you won’t have to scramble to figure out what to do. Your response time will be faster and your customers will be satisfied sooner…and you won’t feel frazzled, because you’ll know exactly what’s going on and what to do about it.
If British Airways had an emergency backup plan in place for what happened when we traveled back in December, there would’ve been BA personnel telling people what was going on and what to do next, and no one would’ve spent the night sitting in baggage claim.
Keep your customers informed. The worst thing you can do when things go wrong is to cut your customers out of the loop. Maintain regular communication with your clients and customers, even if you can’t tell them what they want to hear. They want to know that you’re working on solving their problem.
A great example of this is how American Airlines handled a problem I recently had with a ticket. They’d made a mistake and ticketed something wrong and I was on the phone with their customer service agent, trying to solve the problem. The agent had to put me on hold for a very long time so his supervisor could work with another department to fix the issue. Every couple of minutes, though, he’d come back and say, “I’m sorry this is taking so long, Mrs. Baroncini-Moe, but I just wanted to check in and let you know that we’re still working on this and I just need to have you hold a bit longer. Is that okay?” And because I knew what was going on, I was fine with the lengthy hold.
British Airways could’ve gone a long way with customer service by having someone in the baggage claim area telling people they weren’t sure what was going on, but they were in the process of finding out and were going to let us know just as soon as they had answers, having someone call my hotel to let me know they were still trying to get our bags to us and updating me on their progress (even if there hadn’t been any), and, instead of going for three months without replying to my e-mails, having someone contact me to let me know they were researching my receipts and working on figuring out the reimbursement, which brings me to my next point.
Respond quickly and communicate regularly. When customers contact you and let you know there’s a problem, respond immediately. Let them know you’re willing to take action to resolve the issue, and you are on their side. Your goal is to preserve the relationship, and one of the ways to do that is to keep the lines of communication open. Make sure they know you’re continuing to work on resolving things and keep them updated on your progress.
Obviously, if British Airways had communicating effectively and regularly from the start, we wouldn’t have spent the night waiting for our suitcases, and obviously I wouldn’t have spent three months trying to get them to respond to e-mails. Beyond that, if just once, a member of the BA staff had picked up the phone and called me, instead of relying on the impersonal medium of e-mail, I think I would’ve felt like they cared a little.
Go an extra step beyond to satisfy your customers, and apologize. Be exceptional. Go overboard. Do what it takes and go beyond just what you “have” to do to resolve any problems. British Airways sent me reimbursement for half of what their mistakes cost me. I would’ve been happy if they’d sent me exactly what I spent on replacement clothes, toiletries, and, as this was our Christmas trip, replacements for the kids’ Christmas stockings and stuffers, but do you know what I never received, even to this date? An apology. If, at any point during this process, anyone from BA had called me to say, “We are so sorry for how this has been handled, and we’re going to make this right,” I wouldn’t have felt so frustrated and angry as I practically forced them to resolve the problem.
My point in this post is to show you exactly where this big company went wrong in their customer service, and how you, as a small business, can do better. Good customer service matters - people talk about that. So make your customer service about caring for your clients and customers in an unparalleled way. Go the extra mile, and dare to be exceptional. Put yourself in the shoes of your customers and clients and ask yourself, “What can I do to put this relationship first and delight this person?” Do that and you’ll find your customers becoming more and more loyal, until you have your very own volunteer marketing team.
For the first time ever, I’m running a contest! I’m running a one-week-only contest and giving away free Power-Up sessions to three lucky small business owners. Entry is easy and the pay-off is huge!
What You Win: An hour-long, one-on-one Power-Up Session with me, Susan Baroncini-Moe, CEO of Business in Blue Jeans, also known as “The Micro-Entrepreneur’s Mentor.” In this session, I’ll determine the three biggest mistakes you’re making in your business and provide personalized strategies for powering up your business to grow profitability and achieve success.
How To Win: Write one paragraph. Topic: “If I Could Wave A Magic Wand and Change Something About My Small Business, It Would Be…..” Post it on your blog or Facebook page with link back to http://www.businessinbluejeans.com/contest.html (or to this blog entry…makes no difference to me).
Then, e-mail contest@businessinbluejeans.com with a link to your entry (or just e-mail your entry to contest@businessinbluejeans.com). It’s that simple!
Contest Rules: Three winners will be chosen at random on February 22, 2010. You’ll be contacted by me right away.
So…go write your paragraphs! It shouldn’t take too long and you just might win a freebie Power-Up Session with me!
I have five cats. And no, I’m not a crazy cat lady. Here’s the deal: My oldest cat is Kate. Kate came to me about 18 years ago, and had been fully declawed — not my thing. The other four cats were feral, born in my dad’s garage about four years ago. I brought them home to socialize them for adoption and of course, I fell in love with all of them and they’ve been here ever since. They’ve still got all 72 claws (18 claws per cat) and a tendency to rile Kate up, which doesn’t do too much for her “old lady” heart condition. So while all five cats pretty much have full run of the house during the day, at nighttime and when we’re not around, we keep the four rambunctious “kids” confined to a spacious sunroom. Now that you have the background, I can tell you how four of my fur babies taught me a little business lesson recently.
Sometimes in the morning, I sit down with my coffee and breakfast and forget to open the door to the sunroom right away. Scooter, of course, is quick to remind me to open the door. He pads at the door until I come over and let him in. Scooter runs right in, looks up and makes eye contact with me, and he’s quick to hop up on my lap for a morning cuddle. The rest of the cats, Lance, Agnes, and Grandpaw, are slower to emerge, and take their time connecting with Leo and me throughout the day.
The other morning, as I was letting Scooter in, it hit me: by being at that door when I’m ready to open it in the morning, by letting me know he’s there, and even scratching on the door to remind me, Scooter is just using smart marketing. Basically, if you translate this into micro-entrepreneur terms, Scooter’s connecting with his target market (me), letting his target market know what he’s up to, and putting it out there that he’s got something to offer me when I’m ready to open the door and let him in. And as soon as he’s in the door, he’s already working with me, connecting with me, and showing me he’s glad I let him in.
In contrast, the other three cats laze about on the sunroom sofa and chairs. They gaze out the window, watching leaves blow around, watching the snow fall. Occasionally they come up to the door and look in, and it seems like they wish they were inside. But they only take action when I open the door and coax them inside, and then it takes them awhile to mosey by for a quick scratch under the chin. Translate this into people terms, and you’ve got all the micro-entrepreneurs who say they want clients and customers, but who actually don’t put themselves out there or market themselves properly.
Here’s the lesson: You have to market wisely and once you’re in the door, you have to deliver everything you’ve got. It’s about relationships and putting in the effort to get in front of your audience and make yourself known, then when you get your foot in the door, deliver, deliver, deliver.
My latest post on LifeHack.org, published March 26, 2009:
How often do you get that lazy feeling? You know the one. It’s that heavy feeling that weighs down your entire body so the only things you really feel like doing is watching TV, surfing the Internet, or playing your Wii. Or, maybe you just feel like doing something fun instead of working, when you know you really need to get some serious work done. These are serious productivity killers, especially for home-based business owners…but there are ways to fight back. Use these tips to get back to work and see your productivity soar.
First, plan ahead. You can’t always predict your moods, but you can plan ahead so you start out with the right state of mind. If you wake up without a concrete plan for your day you can easily waft into checking e-mail and social networking sites before doing any actual work. This is the sort of time-sucking activity that can eat up half of your workday (if not all of it!). If you develop a plan of action and go to bed with a strong commitment to wake up the next morning and get to work, you’ll do exactly that.
Second, as part of your plan, wait until late morning or early afternoon to open your e-mail software or check any social networking sites. This is something that Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Workweek, recommends. If you check your e-mail, there’s a strong chance that there will be something in your Inbox that will require action on your part, and you can bet you’ll feel compelled to deal with that e-mail before you get to work on the tasks you had planned for the day. Talk about derailing your productivity! Even more importantly (especially if your work requires you to check e-mail first thing), keep your personal and work e-mail accounts separate, and only check your personal accounts when your work is done for the day.
Third, once you’re ready to work, minimize distractions. Turn off the TV and the phone ringer and disable any chat or text/instant messaging software. I have a client whose productivity is regularly disrupted by phone calls from friends and family members throughout the day. It’s especially important when you work from home to make sure your friends and family know when you are working, so you can maintain a consistent, productive environment.
Fourth, if you’re trying to work and keep getting distracted by thoughts of something else, take care of whatever is distracting you and then come back to work. If it’s “fun” that’s distracting you, take a half hour out to go do something enjoyable. My husband and I regularly break to take walks outside on a pleasant day, or to bake a loaf of bread. Sometimes you just can’t focus, and if that happens, it’s best not to try to force it. In fact, the stress and pressure can make it even harder to focus and you may end up doing poor work. So take some time out, have a little fun, relax, and then come back with a fresh, new perspective.
Fifth, for some, it works well to build in a system of rewards and punishments. Generally, most people recommend positive stimuli only. But sometimes you want to avoid something just as much as you want to gain its opposite. So the reward and punishment can actually be two sides of the same coin: if you accomplish your task, you get to do a particular fun activity and if you don’t accomplish your task, you don’t get to do that activity. This can be a powerful motivator (but if you really are struggling for motivation, see my article from last week).
Finally, there’s the powerful “just do it” strategy. Once you start working and getting in the groove of productivity, you’ll find that it’s much easier to stay in that “productivity zone.” And once you’re in that zone, you may find that you can get more accomplished in an hour than you might normally get done in a entire day. Sometimes you may have to do some real self-direction to get to this place. One technique that works well to get you into the productivity zone is the “act as if” exercise. In this exercise, you think of someone who you respect and admire who is good at whatever it is that you want to accomplish. Then, you envision what that person is feeling at that moment, step into their shoes, and “act as if” you are them. It’s not enough to act like them, you actually want to act as if you are them. This enables you to temporarily leave the you that isn’t “in the mood” to work behind and in essence, be someone else for awhile.
Use these tips and your productivity will be high with consistency. You’ll avoid the time-sucking, distractions and derailing attitudes and “I can’t believe the day is over and I didn’t get anything done,” will be a thing of the past.
My latest post on LifeHack.org, published March 19, 2009:
Maybe you’ve been trying to kick-start your business and it just hasn’t worked yet. Maybe you’ve just started but you’re already frustrated. Or maybe you’ve wanted to hit that next level for years and haven’t been able to get there. Regardless of your situation, getting motivated and on-track isn’t difficult. It’s staying that way that’s the trick. And when you’re struggling to “make it,” sometimes it’s even harder. You find yourself wandering, letting yourself get distracted, and wondering if you’ll ever really make your mark. Want to end the cycle of struggle? Master these tips and you’ll be virtually unstoppable.
First, know that this is a temporary state. It doesn’t matter how long you’ve been where you are. All that you need to know is that nothing is permanent. All things change, even if it seems that they don’t. It’s simply a law of nature — nothing stays the same forever. The universe is constantly moving, evolving, and changing, and so are you. So instead of seeing this as a neverending path into darkness, know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and every day, it’s getting closer. And as soon as you get a new client, sell your first product, or hit that next target, everything within you will shift.
Second, remind yourself what you’re fighting for. When you’ve been trying to make something happen for awhile, you can start to lose sight of the end goal. Instead of focusing on the reason you started this journey in the first place, you begin to focus on smaller, more immediate outcomes. For example, if you started your business so you could eventually free up enough time to spend with your family, but you’ve been working for a long time and haven’t seen the results you’d expected or hoped for, your goal may have shifted from “be with my family” to “make my business work.” This has exactly the opposite effect than you originally intended. By shifting your priorities, now you’re probably spending less time with your family.
Sometimes it’s helpful to create tangible reminders of the reason you started down this path. A vision board may be useful, or just a statement, penned boldly and tacked to a bulletin board near your workspace. If you want to remind yourself of a forgotten goal and reintegrate it into your thinking process and mindset, set your alarm a few minutes earlier each morning and spend that time meditating on what you’re working towards. Reaffirm what you’re fighting for and you’ll find the will to fight is restored and renewed once more.
Third, believe in yourself. It can be hard to believe in yourself when you’ve been trying to make something work for a long time. Sometimes you just lose faith in your own ability to make it work or see it through. One of the best ways to stay strong in your belief in yourself is to keep track of your successes, even the small ones. When you’re feeling down on yourself, go back to the list of successes and review them. Remind yourself that you are capable and you can make this work.
Another way to rebuild your confidence involves something social psychologists have known for decades — that our feelings about ourselves are frequently a reflection of how we think others perceive us. So take advantage of that! Read through your client testimonials and e-mails. Ask your clients for periodic evaluations and you’re bound to receive some fantastic feedback (and if there are some negatives, folks, that’s a great learning experience — it tells you exactly what you need to do to improve and make your clients happy). Even if your faith in yourself falters, others still believe in you.
Finally, get help before you’re in crisis. If your business isn’t where you want it to be, if you aren’t making the leaps ahead that you want to be making, there’s obviously something going on. Before things go too far, before you get lost and become totally unmotivated, get help!
The problem may be with your business — it could be a branding issue, a marketing issue, or maybe just you aren’t giving your clients what they want. Hire a consultant who can turn your business inside out finding ways to improve your results. The problem may also lie within — you yourself might benefit from some “fine-tuning.” Hire a coach and work through any roadblocks that may be getting in the way of your success. Hire a mentor and model his/her behavior. Or if you’re struggling with self-discipline and need a budget solution, ask a reliable friend to be your accountability partner so you both can improve.
As you begin to master the ability to keep your motivation high, it will become easier to stay on-track. Moments of frustration will be fewer and farther between and, as you master your mindset, you’ll find that you actually achieve success and reach your targets faster.
