Seth mentions Don Bradman!

https://youtu.be/qs-gJU7O-Oo

 

Elite level Customer Service

In the past 12 months my eyes have been opened to what world class customer service really is and what a difference it can make to your experience of almost anything.

Last year we took a family holiday of a life time and spent time in California - Orange County and the Disneyland precinct to be precise. My eyes were opened to a world of truly first class customer service. I literally commented out loud, several times, at how wonderful it was, not just to experience service from staff that genuinely wanted to make your day better, but to experience this service, from every working person you encounted. From bus drives, concierges, ticketing staff, receptionists, waiters, tour guides, it didn't matter. The importance to them, of serving you, of making your experience of, not just their company, but their place in the world, enjoyable and remarkable, was obvious, and was not being faked. It was also remarkable how the massive, multi-national companies, managed to ensure this attitude permeates right throughout every aspect of their operations.

Now I guess, if you don't buy into this culture, you just don't make it in this, the customer service capital of the world. This is not new, I know, but it really hit home during our holiday last year, and I started to pay attention to this, in other areas of my personal and professional life.

I'm assuming that Disneyland (and surrounds) is the major league for those people making their living in customer service. A hotel concierge at the Hyatt in Orange County, is probably the top of the tree in the concierge game - so we were experiencing the best of the best. Never-the-less, like watching the best of the best in anything - sport, music, business, whatever - it was inspiring.  This was quite literally, World's Best Practice.

I recently experienced this yet again, in a situation which to many could appear creepy, but due to what I'm sure was no accident, the company in question, HubSpot had picked their target perfectly, no doubt as a result of the world class analysis and underlying algorithms, and the result was mighty impressive....

I was browsing their web site, again, this time, just to get some ideas for our blog layout. My desk phone buzzed, and the call was put through. The details were vague. I took the call anyway, expecting a Telly marketer.

"This is 'HubSpot' , we think there's something we can do to help....".

It sounded reasonable, "That's a coincidence, I was just on your website".

"Well, no really a coincidence. I can see you've checked out information on out site several times...."

This is fantastic! Some think it's creepy. I have no problem with it. If I visit a store, multiple times, looking at the same stuff, why can't the store attendant pick up on the fact that I'm interested. I can where a disguise if I really want to hide (read Google Incognito) but this really helped. I learned stuff from the ensuing conversation, about a topic I was clearly interested in. And the guy on the phone wanted to help. This was service.

Customer Service by con-artists feels cheap, manipulative and dodgy. It leads you to feeling ripped off.

Customer Service by elite, world class service providers makes you feel like you've got a friend who you've just dropped in on at work.



Seth Says...The only purpose of customer service is to change feelings! I guess if you change (or set) feelings, you profit. So the cynics can say, the only purpose is to make money. That will always be the bottom line, won't it.  But truly great customer service and profit are a self fullfulling (positive feedback) loop. It's not just about making a profit for your company either We can all do better for ourselves (financially if that is your ultimate goal) by lifting our games - becoming linch-pins . It may just be that you become the best concierge, fruit shop attendee, burger server, in your neighbourhood, but you'll still profit. And the better you get, the more you'll profit.

So here was all this world class customer service I was experiencing. It was not a TED talk on what we will be able to do 10 years from now when technologies align and systems are built - this is happening now, this is here, and this is very quickly becoming the new norm. It has opened my eyes to what is possible now, and what will be expected tomorrow. We will begin to expect this not just from Disneyland or HubSpot, but from the corner store, the supermarket and our local sporting club.  It's time to get on board, quickly!

Some great snippets of gold from Seth....again

I thought I'd seen most of Seth's talks, lessons, videos and so on. I even saw him live, in Melbourne last year, which was a great bucket list moment.... but today, I stumbled across one I hadn't seen before, and I'd like to add a "placeholder" for it here, because I want to listen to it a few more times, just to let some of those nuggets sink in....

https://youtu.be/5F6eiJ2bWHw

The Crowded Shortcut of SEO Tricks

SEO tricks are like sales tricks!

Delivering value and earning trust for your company and on your website circumvents the need for any SEO techniques and any dodgy sales techniques. Optimising your site for content, like selling a good product or service, should not require a trick. There are clearly some things you shouldn't do, or neglect to do, like considering the audience you're after, writing content that will resonate with that audience, and publishing it in a way that best extols the virtues of your delivery medium (the Internet - and Google)

It seems, there is a fine line between extolling the virtual of Google's search algorithm and attempting to play it. I read the other day that "the perfect subject line for an email, and the perfect title for a blog post, take the form:
Odd Number - Adjective - Verb / Adverb - Emotional Outcome "

I actually heard this advice this past week. It seems to be true too - or at least many people believe it - so many blog posts you see have this, or a very close derivation of, this formula. Although you must wonder I guess, which came first? The Internet is flooded with this vacuous content that makes it's way to our inboxes and browsers every day.

But something strikes me as wrong about these techniques, both the click bait, blog post heading, email subject line, and equivalent manipulative sales techniques employed by cold calling pundits. They are all geared around coercing or manipulating an innocent party in a unsolicited conversation to do something they didn't ask to do.

Does there need to be a secret to driving huge web traffic? Do you even need huge web traffic, or do you just need to right people to find you. If selling 70 copies of a product ensures a good financial year, surely there are better ways to find 70 great leads, than by generating 10,000 "nibbles". Maybe I'm naive. Seth Godin would say, build a remarkable product, and then allow all those remarks to drive "interest" your way. And he should know. I don't see pithy, click bait headlines or any semblance of a social media presence from him, but Google "Seth" and see what happens. Surely this goes to show, that like most things, there's a right way, that is foolproof but hard, or a "short cut" that every other person is on, crowding things up to the point where the short cut, doesn't end up getting you there at all...not such an attractive short cut anymore.

[caption id="attachment_42" align="aligncenter" width="464"] SEO Tricks are becoming like a short cut, so crowded, that it's not short anymore[/caption]

But then there's the scenario where you're talking to someone you are stating your case with permission. Recruiting, replying to s call, presenting.... This is sales too right? There will be times when those techniques (tricks) for countering objections are useful, but surely it's your message that is important, and if you have permission to communicate your message, go for it, with all the tactics and techniques you can muster, but it's permission first, techniques later.

Disrupted Communications - Creepy or Inspired?

It's not unusual to make a phone call,, perhaps an I.T. support call, a sales enquiry or customer service request, and have the person on the other end direct you to their website, and talk you through an answer, downloading an app, filling out an online form, or simply show you a product range online. They may even follow this up with an email or instant message on one of the social media channels.

I'm sure many people will have received a phone call after sending an email, a text or even a customer service related tweet to a company.

As more channels of communication open up in our every day lives, more communication naturally follows. When that communication is targeted and well  delivered value is added - for both parties.

So why was I so surprised when, a few days ago, one such communication happen in "reverse"? While browsing a company's web site - one I'd been to many times in the past months pursuing a growing interest in the field in which this company happens to be world leader - I received a call from a sales representative from that very company, asking if there was something they could help with.

They knew I was there again, and more than likely interested in their product, based on my shopping / browsing history. I'd used some of their services before and downloaded from them - they knew me. I'd "walked" into their store, and they'd asked "can I help you". Virtually!

This is the world we live in.  Cold calling still exists and still annoys us. Spruikers still wander the shopping malls and shop fronts broadcasting their specials for the day, people still sell and service. What is changing is people's / company's ability to use technology to do a better, more targeted job of communicating.

When I'm browsing in a clothes store, there's a fair chance I'm interested in clothes. The shop attendant doesn't know how interested, or what type, but they can take a guess based on how often they've seen me there, and what I keep looking at. Then, they can approach and say, "can I help you", or, better still, they can give me some information I'm clearly interested in, based on the fact that I've looked at the same shirts 3 times in the last month.

This is what just happened to me in the online world. There's no rule that says, a company cannot reach out to me when they see me on Twitter, on Facebook, or browsing there web site.  And surely that reach out is better than a call during dinner time selling me insurance/greeting cards/a new power plan or light globes!

Some say it was a little creepy to be called by a company who's website you are browsing. That was my reaction too for the first 10 seconds. But I quickly realised, due in a large part to the caller's professional, non-salesy approach, that this was fantastic service. We had a great chat - we communicated - and we both learned something. For him, unfortunately, it was that he couldn't make a sale right then. For me, it was eye opening. This communication (this conversation) has continued too, via email, at my instigation this time - and more value has been added.

We are more connected than ever before. The ways in which we deliver our messages and touch our tribes are growing in sophistication, but that's not creepy. It's empowering. There have always been, and will always be those that do it badly regardless of the medium. There will always be those that do it well.

(NB. It is easier to browse and shop anonymously online that it is, in person, with your browser's "incognito" or "private" mode.)

Social Media - bigger, stronger, faster.

While Facebook and Twitter are the synonyms for the current day "social media", one thing is for sure, trends, fads, popular apps - even those as successful as Facebook - come and go. Remember when My Space was "the only place to be online"!

Just ask a teenager, who is Instagramming, Snap Chatting, Periscoping.... about Facebook. They don't want to be seen hanging out with their parents (or Grand Parents!). And if you're not getting sick of Facebook deciding what you can and can't see on your News-feed yet, I'm sure it's just around the corner. The second post on my newsfeed is always a suggested post that is "sponsored". I don't want that. I know, it's free, me and my eyeballs are the product that Facebook is selling to those advertisers. But like all services reliant on popularity, it's lifespan will not be infinite.

Like all services that attract eyeballs, commercialism will never be far away - it's well and truly entrenched with Facebook now of course. It detracts from the intitial attraction and so a move occurs. Likewise, neither will opportunities for all our businesses to promote, attract attention and add value (hopefully not noise!). And there are many services all falling under the banner of social media, that are attracting eyeballs.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not here to predict the downfall of Facebook just yet - and I'm sure it has many "re-inventions" left in it. But one thing is for sure, social and commercial interaction on line (Social Media) has democratized society and leveled the publishing playing field. This new form on connection, tribe building and communication is here to stay.

In 2016, new players, new apps and new services will rise to prominence. Twitter is morphing slowly - watch for more and more graphics, and heaven forbid, even longer messages.
Team collaboration tools combined with dramatically easy to use, real time video and messaging systems will continue to expose the weakenesses of email in the business world. With that, the lines between "personal social", and "business social" will continue to blur. As an employee, your skills to demarcate and compartmentalise the two will be important. As an employer, your ability to harness the power of these tools and engage your employees as they use them have never been more important.

That's an opportunity not a threat - business networks have always been important. Those with good ones, will still be valuable, just like always. You won't need an exclusive Men's club or Country Club membership to develop one though - you'll just need to turn up, regularly and consistently add value (not noise) that others would miss if it was gone.
Just as images are now a vital component in online messaging and publishing, video will soon become the norm.

To me, 2016 looks like more of the same in social media and networking, only faster!