How to get customers to be even more loyal than your dog

Here’s a great new book on how to create a business that drives customer loyalty: “I Love You More Than my Dog: Five Decisions that Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Time and Bad” by Jeanne Bliss.

In fact, I love the book more than my cat. Ok, not really – nothing can top that kind of love (for me) – but Bliss has taken on a great topic and offers tons of great real-life examples.

The book outlines 5 decisions an organization makes that defines the company and its customer experience. I like her examples of companies that make decisions that delight customers, including Trader Joes, Lush, and Zappos. What’s fun is that some of the companies she highlights will come as a surprise – hospitals, a bicycle retailer, an e-commerce website, and more.

I really like the foundational message running through this book: “Your decisions reveal who you are and what you value.” That’s so true. Your policies, your employee training, your communications and all the action of a company either make a good experience for the customers or they don’t.

The 5 principles Jeanne outlines are:

1.      Decide to believe (believing in employees, customers)

2.      Decide with clarity of purpose (clear about a purpose of supporting customers’ lives)

3.      Decide to be real (shed fancy packaging and be genuine)

4.      Decide to be there (be there for customers on their terms)

5.      Decide to say sorry

I especially love the quotes from passionate and loyal customers printed on the inside of the book jacket. That’s how the book was titled – based on an actual customer quote.

You should read the book, plus follow the author on twitter (@JeanneBliss) to get updates from the book that you can easily re-tweet and share with others.

What Would Google Do?

This is a great question to ask – after all, Google is the fastest growing company in the world!

However, this is more than a question -- it is a book by Jeff Jarvis.

I love this book. I’m telling everyone I know to read it.

The book cover offers a taste of the revolutionary ideas inside. The cover quote reads: “Google is not just a company, it is an entirely new way of thinking. Jarvis has done something really important: extend that approach to business and culture, revealing just how revolutionary it is.” -- Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail (a favorite book of mine).

Jarvis's book focuses on how Google approaches everything a new and fresh perspective.

What I found refreshing about Google's approach (but not revolutionary) is that they find a problem and then create a business solution for the issue. That's a refreshing change to the all-to-common approach of a company creating what it wants and then trying to keep persuading customers they should buy it.

Jarvis defines the principles of Google's ethos and then examines industries that could be transformed by thinking like Google. The industries include: media/publishers, advertising, retail, utilities, manufacturing, service, money, public welfare, public institutions, and then he outlines a few exceptions to industries that likely can’t be helped by a Google approach to business thinking.

I’d highly recommend you read this book – it’s about the revolution of business. And I think it’s fun and exciting. Check it out here on Amazon

Get a short summary of the book highlights with this short video from the author:

Make a roadmap for web 2.0

I like the points brought out in this article which points out that it is time for companies to embrace web 2.0 before web 3.0 arrives (not that everyone agrees on what that is yet).

The article outlines 4 elements that can make web 2.0 efforts more effective - and help in your roadmap for activity. I like their steps:

1. Listen (listening to customers, and potential customers)
2. Experiment (take small steps)
3. Apply (apply what you learn, engage with customers and make a better experience)
4. Develop (work on it, and keep on this loop)

Read the article for more details, then print, share and save a copy of this nice overview.

Customer experiences in cancelling service: Make it painless

Let’s use the example of switching cable/phone companies as an illustration of what to not do and what to do when a customer wants to cancel your service. (This is based on my recent experiences.)

Like many unsatisfied customers, I went searching for a new service provider and scheduled the installation. To ensure I wouldn’t experience any disruption in internet, phone, and cable service, I had Time Warner cable install my new services before I canceled the existing ones.

Then, at the end of the new service installation day, I went to ATT.com to figure out how to cancel with them. When I initially signed up for 3 services from them, I only had to dial one phone number and they did it all. To cancel, it takes 3 separate calls.

It’s too bad that nearly all companies force cancellation to be routed through phone customer service instead allowing online self-service. Most online customer service FAQs don’t even mention how to cancel. At least AT&T mentioned how to do it and listed the right phone lines to call.

Depending on your audience demographics, you may find customers willing to navigate self-service online. I’m always more than happy to help myself (which is cost efficient for the company) and get on with my life.

From a customer viewpoint, when the cancellation process is as frustrating as the service, negative word of mouth will just continue.

On the other side of the fence: from a (customer-friendly) company viewpoint, helping customers leave without a struggle isn’t a bad thing. Yes, you lose the opportunity for a last ditch effort to ‘save’ the customer, but when someone gets to the point of cancellation it is rare to save those folks and it can just make them more mad. (Also, some people will call and cancel due to the cost or other financial reasons, and they don’t want to feel embarrassed to have to state the reason they are leaving to a live customer service agent).

It was too late for AT&T to ‘save’ me as a customer even weeks before I switched as they had already sent out two engineers to try and fix my intermittent internet connection with no success – and no follow-up or follow through. One engineer left his card and said to call if there were further problems but he didn’t respond to our message about the persistent problem. (I did get a tweet from an agent right before I switched services -- it was too late then.) When I finally called AT&T, I was already using their competitor’s services.

This is an example to illustrate that at the point of cancellation, don’t fight customers, just thank them for staying as long as they did and, if you like, you can say you’d like the chance to service them again in the future. Leave things on a positive note – it will help on all fronts.

Your website keywords don't help you show up in Google

This is good to know, I was about to work on filling in keywords on a new site I just launched. Sounds like metatag keywords don't help you get found in Google (for the naturalized, or unpaid search results). But meta descriptions are a good thing to fill in. Check out this video and spread the word.

Enough is enough, AT&T, it’s time say goodbye

You may have read my past blogs about my bad customer experiences with AT&T (read a recent blog on this topic). I have blogged, twittered and called them too many times. They have sent 2 technicians to my home and still problems persist (our supposed high-speed internet service cuts out multiple times per day) and they continue to send weekly spam about their U-verse product.

And now I’m done with AT&T. If I can’t get reliable service and they can’t treat me like a person instead of a robot who loves spam, then this just isn’t a good match. After a mailing from the competition, I’m finally switching to Time Warner Cable. Right now, they are my savior. They have an extra glow around them because they are my answer to getting rid of AT&T. We’ll see how they hold up to my expectations.

While I don’t want to imagine Time Warner Cable as anything but perfect right now, it is going to take 2-3 weeks from the time I placed my order until I get their service (lame) and I will have to endure a 4 hour in-home set up so that the phone, internet and cable package works right. But I’d rather have that than AT&T right now, so it’s fine.

Key lessons for AT&T to learn here:

• Look at your outbound marketing efforts and how many times each week and each month your customer will get your messages. This is a key factor of customer engagement, customer-experience management and marketing today – also known as lifecycle marketing. I was talking with a company a few weeks ago about how many emails one customer could get in a week. They told me it was a very high number. Look at your marketing from a customer viewpoint – imagine how many times they will hear from you. If you send more than one message per month that is likely too much unless your product happens to be highly important to someone’s life.
• On a related note: Stop with the U-verse spam. I get weekly mail on this topic, every time I log into their website they push the ads in front of my path, and they call me at least a few times a month. During the last call, I told the fellow that AT&T was so bad that I was leaving them (even though he was a personable telemarketer). Everyone I know is getting overwhelmed by this product and its incessant promotion.
• Clarity of communication and follow through is important when customers have service problems. After the technician visits the customer’s house, there should be clear resolution or definition of follow-up of what the customer should do if the issue is not resolved. Because of lack of clarity and resolution, AT&T had to send a second technician to our home (a cost for them) and the issue is still unresolved.
  

This is the experience of a long-time customer. I know that means little to a company so big – and that’s why customers are frustrated, why they post blogs like this one. and why they tell friends to avoid the companies that make their lives more difficult.

In contrast, some large companies do get it. When I had a negative experience with the Amica insurance company and blogged about it, they called me to try to resolve the issue. Now that is great customer service – and it’s the reason I’m staying with them – they care.

Video: Social Media Revolution

This is a great video with key stats on the growth and ubiquity of social media.

It's worth watching the whole 4 minutes and 23 seconds - trust me.