How Should You Work With Customers?

Are the rules of customership the same, no matter how small or large your business? We’ll let you vote first, since this is your business and your customers. One thing remains the same and that is the title CEO. If you are a business of one, the owner of a business with fewer than 50 employees or the head of a company that has many employees and customers, your business card probably says chief executive officer, president or some “C” label that says you are top dog.

 

John Quelch has a terrific blog on Harvard Business Online—How CEOs Should Work With Customers and states the mantra we live by, here on Customers Count,: “Customers are the source of all cash flow.”

 

If you don’t believe it, try going without customers, or lose too many and you’ll understand the gap between saying you are customer centric and actually getting out of your office or factory to get out and meet customers on their home turf—in their homes, in their offices, on their job sites, where they create value and generate revenue.

 

“How much time should you spend with customers?” Quelch asks and offers three specific strategies with instructions on what do to and why. Read his blog and gauge your activity in each of the areas.  Find out why running around visiting customers is not enough.

 

What does the current economic downturn tell you? If your answer is conserve cash by not traveling, not investing in new services and products and bunkering in your comfort zone, you’ll just make things worse, even faster.

 

If you were paying attention to the political campaigns for the past 21 months (how could you not notice?) you saw that customer insights and knowledge comes from listening to a lot of them, first hand, at a somewhat exhaustive pace. Leadership strengths tell you how much time to spend balancing the work on customership inside your business and how much to spend on the outside.

 

Customers vote every day with their wallets. They may not buy as much in the months ahead and that’s why it’s important to focus on what they will do. The cash flow reality is customers don’t go away; they just go to someone else. They may buy differently based on their economic circumstance, but they are someone’s customer.

 

The main question you ought to have now is How do I grow my business in a time when thing around me appear to be shrinking? The answer will come from one source—customers. Someone’s business and customer satisfaction numbers will grow and thrive this year. We hope it’s yours.

Summer Reading Rather Than Recession

The news is full of disaster and it could get downright depressing if that becomes your focus: A deepening recession made somewhat permanent by the appetite for energy, oil and living with a roof overhead and indoor plumbing.

Fortunately, I am surrounded by customers and they remain our best source of reality and a constant reminder of abundance.  When you feel stuck or even consider the possibility of withdrawing, not spending money on marketing or otherwise shooting yourself in the foot, go talk with some customers. 

Here's two great pieces of advice from my customers this week.  One said it best when he said, "I choose to not participate in this recession.  I don't have to make that many trips or use as much gas as I once thought necessary. I don't have to consume as much as I once did. If I just spend time with my customers, I'll find a lot of the satisfaction I really need to advance my business and life."

Another customer told me, instead of reading all the bad news in that pile of newspapers you get everyday, how about switching to your summer reading program?  What a great idea!  It's nearly Memorial Day and so I got myself to Barnes and Nobel to focus on leadership.  After all, this current situation calls for leadership, not a pity party.

Into the bookstore I walked with conviction and enthusiasm.  Going to the kiosk that tells me all the books possible, I typed in "leadership" and here's my reading list for the summer:

Good to Great (have it already...will read it again)

Now Discover Your Strengths (love the first one so I bought the sequel book --2.0)

A Whole New Mind (fabulous, fast read that tells us exactly how to prosper in any economy)

What Got You Here Won't Get You There (what leaders know about sustained success)

Blue Ocean Strategy

Execution--The Art of Getting Things Done

Several books by Maxwell, such as the 360 Degree Leader, Developing the Leader Within You, the 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

Speed of Trust

Duct Tape Marketing (bought 100 of these and gave them to 100 customers and business colleagues...you gotta live this book)

All of this reading and thinking brings us back to the central theme of this blog.  Economic conditions are temporary and ephemeral.  Only one thing is real--customers.  They count and they are not going away. They will go to someone else if you don't serve them well, talk to them, keep asking what they value, etc.  But they don't disappear; rather, they take their constantly GROWING needs to someone who can take care of them. 

Finally, focus on this.  Someone is going to make a lot of money in the months ahead.  Someone is going to prosper and use this summer to put themselves in a better position, business wise, than they've ever been before.  It could be you.

Feed your mind and get some perspective on the bigger picture.  Try summer reading and time with customers. 

You have the abundance of the sun.  More daylight now and that means light for reading and light for getting out for golf, lunch or whatever your customers like to do for the next four months.

Customers Expect Kina'ole

Tough times call for the power of Kina'ole. This is a valuable lesson learned during a week of business meetings in Hawaii.

Considering the price of gas and the value of your time, we'll save you expense of the trip to Hawaii and deliver this gem of information immediately--today.  If you take time today, Sunday, to sit with this concept--in a quiet place, with your marketing plan in hand, then bake it into your business and your commitment to customers, it may be the most affordable, effective and simple thing you can do to attract customers.

Many years ago, great customer satisfaction weighed in at "99 and 44/100 percent pure" and today it's more like "over the top and more than 100%" if you want to attract customers, wow them, get a positive word-of-mouth referral, or keep them coming back to you.

Kina'ole is about flawlessness.  The traditional definition of kina'ole is:

Doing the right thing in the right way, at the right time, in the right place,
   to the right person, for the right reason, with the right feeling, the first time.

In ancient Hawaii, if you were skilled, trained or a professional in any line of work or service, the specific tasks or activities that you engaged in were expected to be performed without defect or flaw. 

Kina'ole is a powerful philosophy to adopt into your business, your customer relationships and your life.  It's based on constantly rising standards. As you do your best, you make improvements and positive changes to work towards flawless performance.

Can you think of any business or customer situation today that is not rapidly evolving, technologically speeding up or pushing the limits on standards?  Me neither.

Is this about the always-futile attempt at reaching perfection?  Not at all, because we know that is unrealistic.  This is about doing your best--and knowing that is your best.  This is about making improvements and driving positive changes--not waiting for someone to complain. 

When you ask your business buddies, "How's business?" and the answer is "No complaints" what does that tell you?  Wouldn't a better answer be "kina'ole" which means "I'm doing my very best, striving for improvements and could always use a great referral from you."

We can challenge ourselves to value and be guided by kina'ole because it will always stimulate our desire to be the very best we are capable of, not only for ourselves but for everyone we work and play with.  This attitude ensures superior customer service for those we serve -- our customers and partners and everyone we touch in our community.

Red Carpet Customer Service

It seems so obvious and simple that you wonder why you need to buy a book to guide you.  It's the golden rule taken to the next notch up and it's called The Celebrity Experience, Insider Secrets to Delivering Red-Carpet Customer Service by Donna Cutting.

We talk about and hear about "the customer experience" and the question for you is, do you know how to replicate that in a consistent, systematic way?  Chances are when you were being treated like a superstar or grand celebrity, it wowed you so that you were just soaking it up and not taking notes.  For sure, you will never forget it and that's a good start.  Now go back in your memory and start detailing that out so you can do it to others.

Maybe you do not always get celebrity treatment, Donna points out, but there is no excuse for failing to provide such an experience for your customers.  There's two great reasons to focus on this and practice it every day--you and your customer feel great and it's profitable.  You can stop haggling price or worrying about low bidders when you get good at treating customers as superstars.  Before we go on about how to improve your customer service performance, you get this great rule to live by when it comes to price.  The truth about price is it puts you at the mercy of your most stupid competitor.  People who don't know a thing about staying in business will drop a price so low they are bankrolling their  own customer's projects.  So concentrate on differentiating yourself and focusing on what makes your customers feel like the hundreds of celebrities and "celebrity handlers" that Donna interviewed and included in her book.

Affordable, effective and simple--that's the Duct Tape Marketing way.  The same formula works when creating exceptional customer treatment. Practical, profitable tips and success stories included in this book came from interviews with celebrity personal assistants, public relations representatives, concierges, television executives, producers, image consultants, hair stylists, agents, red carpet escorts, craft service providers and more.

So, what happens if you think you are giving great service?  First, we say bravo, followed up by "are you sure you are doing all you can do, easily, and consistently?"  If you think all of your customers love you already, then there is a double reason for reading, then living The Celebrity Experience.  National statistics tell us there are a lot of owners of small businesses who have plans in writing or in their head and never implement it fully.  That's because it's easier to bump along from day to day without being held accountable.  Read this book and notice all of the specific tips and solid information on what works--every time.  Hold yourself accountable or get a customer experience buddy in your organization or network of close business friends and ask them to help you get in the groove and stay there on this Exceptional Customer Service track.  You'll have fun.  You'll learn what works better than what you think you are doing perfectly,

You'll make more money--a lot more than you are thinking of right now,  because of customer retention, loyalty, referrals and repeat business.

Social Media Snake Oil

For nearly two weeks we've been up to our hips in the quicksands of Social Media and if you find yourself slip sliding away, too, then this blog's for you.

So much has happened all at once so let's start with some truth from the top of the mountain by our trusted advisors at Marketing Profs.  We love the Daily Fix and this one on Social Media Marketing: Who's Full of Hot Air? Who's The Real Deal?  will make you feel like Dorothy, going behind the curtain to discover the real Wizard of Oz.

That story takes you to B.L.Ochman, the publisher of What's Next Blog and president of whatsnextonline.com, an Internet marketing strategist.  From B.L's lips to your ears, "While there is no shortage of consultants who blog, talk, present at conferences, and preach about social media marketing, only a handful in the world have actually created successful campaigns for actual clients."

Well, thank you B.L. Ochman!  The moment that statement hit my brain, I realized I'm in that handful who actually do this and know it's not easy.  It is essential and it's where the customers are,so learning this and doing it well is not an option.  Failure is not an option either--for me, for you, for our customers.

What hit me recently is that I've been doing this social media for as long is it's been a concept and practice.  So let's get that on the table before I tell you about my Social Media Immersion lately.

What qualifies me to guide you? I a proud to be a pioneer/consultant with Peppers & Rogers Group/Carlson Marketing, and pioneer/authorized coach with Duct Tape Marketing--both were doing social media marketing before it had that name.  That means before it was the hot buzz of 2007 it was happening on a less massive scale inside visionary companies and organizations for more than a decade (1995-2007).

It gets better.  How about this? "I will dedicate my next 100 posts to a specific mission: helping you grow the value of your social media and social networking efforts. "That comes from Chris Brogan,Vice President, Strategy & Technology, CrossTechMedia, who advises businesses, organizations and individuals on how to use social media and social networks to build relationships and deliver value and tells us, in Cafe Witness

There's nothing involved in social media that isn't already obvious to the average person. There's nothing awe-inspiring about aggregating followers, spreading a message or spurring individuals to action. We like to think there is but, truth be told, humans have been doing that since the Stone Age.

Even so, there is a feeding frenzy going on.  My customers and everyone else I know can't get enough of anything pitched in the name of social media. For example, in the certification industry, which is all about community and the value of a credential, went wild over the social media presentation by Chris Carfi, a speaker at the December 2006 Certification Network Group.  A year later, the group wants more and invites Kevin Jerge of The Port Network to bring social networking and practical examples of what works, to the gathering of 100 or so decision makers.

Also at the first of December the American Society of Association Executives and the Center for Association Leadership comes out with a printed, special insert on "Social Media" to their 23,000 members--mainstream business as represented by every profession and industry on the planet. My friend, Andy Steggles, fellow ASAE member and Chief Information Officer, Risk & Insurance Management Society, Inc.,volunteers his time and expertise to share his experiences and success stories with social media with us. Andy is out there as the pioneer on Facebook doing an association of association space.  So in addition to our traditional networking through a dues-paying association, we also have the association community on Facebook and all that costs is our time and commitment to come back and keep the community vital.

Social media--we're doing it and making it vital to our marketing efforts, every day.  There's a lot to learn, a lot to practice and a lot of snake oil salesmen pitching social media marketing.  So let's come back here for further discussion on this, shall we?

Comment if you are wondering about social media marketing or if you have the answers.

Big Challenges, Big Contacts

Spiderman 3--I can hardly wait to see this latest movie.  It reminds me of this blog and our never-ending striving to succeed, no matter how difficult or impossible the challenge seems. 

Take the quest for contact management, project management and firm management all in one package.  Just because the big companies achieve this with something called CRM, we keep thinking smaller businesses with 50 employees ought to have this too.    If you've put this blog in your RSS feeder or like to paddle over here to feel better about your own situation, then you know about our quest to achieve one (and only one) database that everyone in the company would use to find, attract and keep customers.

Because BaseCamp proved to be such an immediately valuable package of software as a service, we had really high hopes for a customer contact program by the same company.  It came out recently and it's called Highrise.   We went for it.  It took just one week to realize that the primary reasons we use software with our customer data is to communicate with them--by phone and email, mostly.  Highrise couldn't handle that.

Within weeks of loading our data into Highrise, we got the Introductory Offer from Big Contacts by email and thought, Could this finally be what we've been waiting for? Sort of a Salesforce or Netsuite or RightNow Technologies customer identification, interaction and customization tool , sized for our business (not chopped down) and priced for our business--not $5,000 to $10,000 for every person in our company. Could this be real and not a fantasy for special effects presentation--like Spiderman?

So far... rather impressive. Bordering on brilliant and our strong favorite --APO (the Art of the Painfully Obvious).  And, yes, it looks like we are not the only ones asking about the Highrise comparisons.  There's a blog out today that addresses that exact issue.

Big Contacts has extensive reporting capability and integration with Excel. That means we have the often-used path between our daily updates with customer data and mail merge.  We need this--like air and water,  to stick with the one thing all customers expect today--individually addressed and customized information, just for them.

Customer is in Control (Still)

If we knew it was going to be this crazy, we would have kept score of all of the meetings for the past 10 years involving business owners, marketing strategists, web developers and technology systems types (aka geeks), in "creative sessions."  Everyone acted like they knew what was going on and ambiguity, punctuated with someone saying "cool" is all you remember. Does this sound familiar?

Is it just me or is this happening to everyone else?  Do people really go through days and days of conversations full of jargon and thin on connecting vision with web pages, blogs and email marketing messages?  If you are the business owner or executive, or the customer, and you are nodding your head up and down, then you will be glad to discover Deborah Schultz.

If you have her blog--Deborah Schultz. Technology- it's people --in your RSS feeder already, then you know how refreshing and validating it feels to experience her words of truth and common sense commentary.  If you don't know her that well yet, today is your day to start. 

If any of the following gems from her posting The big guys join the party? connects with you beliefs and attitude toward customers, then you will really enjoy the whole posting:

• The big advertisers and marketers are waking up to the fact that the consumer is indeed in control. This probably has a lot to do with visions of dollar signs dancing in their heads.   
• Page views and banner ads alone will not cut it in the new marketing universe and there really are no shortcuts.  New metrics and a new cultural shift is needed.
• Engagement is more than asking your customers to create content for you.
• Markets are conversations.
• The timing is right to get the geeks and the marketers together for an old fashioned "throwdown" on getting past jargon and discussing how to get this done to the benefit of BOTH sides.

My personal favorite is "engagement is more than asking your customers to create content for you" because that is where the conversations in those thousands of hours of crazy meetings go into a zone of grandiose myths and misperceptions.

What I have found to be true in the past 500 or so meetings as the communications consultant or executive retreat facilitator is this:

• Web folks get deep in their coolness and then turn to the client and state, "you just need to provide the content." 
• Business owners and executives, wondering where "content" comes from say, "If we build it they will come and the search engines will suck them right into our website, where customers and prospects will then spend time and create content."
• Customers want to be served by people they know, like and trust.  They are not going to create your content or do your work for you.   

As much as we would all love for someone else to pay our bills for us, that's a myth too.  The huge industry called The Lottery is based on this one belief--someone else will come along to pay your debt or fund your dreams.

A Year Late or Just In Time?

Back to back bonuses--that's what we got with a Monday in 2006 and another Monday--a week later, here in 2007.  Give me two Mondays off in a row and I'll show you some miracles.  We used this gift of time, without To Do lists, without conference calls, and very little email trickling in on Christmas Day or New Year's Day, to read.  That's right--reading, without interruptions or time wasters.

At the bottom of my reading stack we found two more bonuses: 1) A January (last year) white paper from McKinsey Quarterly on the Ten Trends to Watch in 2006 and 2) the beautiful wood of my desk.

Resisting the temptation to just feed this to the paper shredder next to my credenza, I read it all, wondering how right or off the mark this might be. Quickly, it became clear that this was great information about trends--macroeconomic, social and environmental, and business and corporate, that will shape your world of business for the 10 years you are living now.  If the headline didn't say 2006, you might have thought this just came out today.  For many of you, this information comes just in time

Here's a look at a few of those trends and a comment or two to stir your curiosity.  If this makes sense to you, then take some time, before next Christmas, to read it all and see how it fits your dreams and drive for bigger and better business results this year.

Trend: Centers of economic activity will shift profoundly, not just globally, but also regionally.
Who-eee close to home! No longer can you say trends are something that happen to other businesses but do not move your customer needle much one way or the other. Where do you think the United States will be in terms of who will have the largest share of absolute economic growth in the next two decades?    This matters if you are 40 year old or younger.  These will be your decades to realize dreams or get blindsided. Yes, you want to find out more about this trend.

Trend: Public sector activities will balloon, making productivity gains essential.  Who is going to do the extra work and overtime work to pay even more taxes that provide the state-provided protections such as health care and retirement security?  The big hit on public sector activities that we've all tried to ignore for the past 50 years is coming as sure as the ball drops in Times Square another year.

Trend: The consumer landscape will change and expand significantly.  Be careful what you wish for.  If you just said "A whole lot more customers" this trend assures you there will be a billion new consumers in the next 10 years. They will have more spending power.  Sounds great, until you notice it may not fit your current business plan or way of working.  Consumers will be different--older, Hispanic, Chinese, etc. They all can find Google and have faster, greater access to the same products and brands. In the long run, this may say there's nothing special about what you offer and nobody knows you anyway. A lot is riding on what you are doing with this information now.

Trend: Technological connectivity will transform the way people live and invest. Doesn't it seem like there is a ton of technology information we are all digesting and learning at the speed of business?  Authors Ian Davis and Elizabeth Stephenson tell us we are at the early, not mature, state of the technology revolution.It's going to get crazier.  Do you know what that means for your business and how you will find, attract, serve and keep customers?

There are six other trends--all worth thinking about and using to further polish that business plan for 2007 you worked on so strategically and cleverly.

Your business needs to understand the implications of these trends alongside customer needs and competitive developments. "Long gone is the day of the 'gut instinct' management style," Davis and Stephenson tell us.

We have a sister saying that goes with that.  Long gone the day of seat of the pants marketing. You better have a system, a strategy and a wowser of a website or that burning smell is your business because you're toast.

Lucky for you there is a great book, available today from Amazon and set for official release on January 9th--Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch.  It's the immediate cure for seat of the pants thinking and is the best thing you can do for your customers and your business.

Okay, maybe today is the first time you read this blog and you don't know me from boo.  How about INC Magazine or the business publishing empire found at www.inc.com? They (like moi) got an advance read of Duct Tape Marketing and are making strong claims - like this:

"I have never read a business book that is as packed with hands-on, actionable information as this one. There are takeaways in every paragraph, and the success of John's blog is living proof that they work. Duct Tape Marketing should be required reading for anyone who is building a business, or thinking about it." --Bo Burlingham, editor-at-large, Inc. magazine

Customers & Conversations

Succeeding in business is not as hard as many try to make it.  As long as you start with the customer in mind and keep that central to everything you do, you will do just fine.  This blog, my business and my professional path, from the time I checked into the Social Security office at 16 and picked up my shiny new Social Security card, is all about customers.

A west coast colleague, Chris Carfi, founder of Cerado and award-winning blogger (our favorite and most recommended blog is his Social Customer Manifesto) is working with our customer-creation team at The Communicators this week.   We are connecting more than 100 of our favorite customers to us and each other with a Haystack Network.

While working and talking about customers and blogging, Chris introduce me to Deborah Schultz - Blogging, marketing and tech from East to West and everywhere in between.

She seems to have a great pedigree, impressive resume, great blog and writes deep truths such as this: "As reported in the NY Times today as well as on various marketing blogs, it seems that the big advertisers and marketers are waking up to the fact that the consumer is indeed in control."

That's music to our Customer Counts ears.  It also looks like Deborah Schultz has seen and experienced plenty when it comes to geeks and marketers getting in each other's way and making it challenging for the customer to have a conversation with the business owners and managers.  She writes, "It sounds to me like the timing is right to get the geeks and the marketers together for an old fashioned "throwdown" on getting past jargon and discussing how to get this done to the benefit of BOTH sides."

Do you want to weigh in on this?  Please comment on this blog.  What is your story about geeks vs marketers and who wins? And if you want to know how that story and your story ends, it's with the customer, most of the time, always.

Excuse me? Is this rock taken?

In the beginning, at the dawn of the online community, there was Larry Chase with his Web Digest for Marketers.  Now there is John Jantsch, who also speaks in the native tongue of marketers.

Imagine my delight and then angst when I digested the lastest offering (August 7 issue) from Larry(Web Digest for Marketers--WDFM) about the top 12 websites for marketers.  I was speeding right through Larry's gems for everyone who needs to do marketing (that includes only those who actually need customers, so they can call their daily enterprise a business rather than a hobby).

Then the big point hit right between the eyes: Micropersuasion

Do you know what that means?  Me neither. Micropersuasion is a blog about how social media is transforming marketing, media and public relations. The WDFMarketers goes on to say, "For those of you who have been under a rock lately, social media refers to people-driven content, community and marketing on line, such as blogging, RSS, social networking, mobile marketing and more."

We got a taste of this future that is about to hit us when we looked at Zaadz and joined their communities. This is a good example for this social media that is people-driven content and about community.

Just so you know what you are looking for as you come out from your rock, too, this is what Zaadz says they are all about: "The Plan. Ours involves Capitalism. Spirituality. Enthusiasm. Love. Service. Inspiration. Leaders. People CRAZY enough to think they can change the world. And courageous enough to do something about it. And committed enough to stick to it when they feel like giving up.

"The quick version of what we're gonna do: build THE most inspired community of people in the world... Imagine social networking with a purpose, a community of seekers and conscious entrepreneurs circulating wisdom and inspiration and wealth and all that good stuff."

For those of you who have been basking on the sun on top of the rock, instead of under it, I would expect you to have recommendations on some of the other Zaadz type sites which will help us all reach this micropersuasion nirvana.  Would you please tell us about it in the comments area below?