Dear Marketing,

I know we haven’t always gotten along. In fact, I’ve been pretty critical of you over the years.

I’ve complained that you’re not doing your part to get us business. I’ve blamed you when our new offerings fail to achieve their anticipated success. I’ve accused you of being out of touch with what’s really going on with our customers and prospects.

The truth is, I don’t want to be the fall guy when I don’t reach my numbers. You don’t either. In fact, you’ve been just as hard on me as I’ve been on you.

You’ve criticized my salespeople’s skills, telling everyone in the company that we’re unfamiliar with the concept of selling “value”. You’ve griped about our bonuses, whined about our expenses or grumbled that we don’t work hard enough.

Enough already. We need to stop this blame game or neither of us will be successful.

Personally, I’m out of patience. It’s harder than ever to reach our quotas, and I don’t see things getting any easier in the future – especially when I talk to the people who buy our products and services.

You may not realize this, but most of our prospects today suffer from a severe case of Frazzled Customer Syndrome. This is a debilitating condition brought on by excessive workloads, lack of down-time, information overload, no sleep and job-related stress.

…

To read the full, original article, go to
http://www.manticoretechnology.com/qmaguide/dload-qmag-s1-jkonrath.asp.

It takes only a few moments to demolish a customer relationship that took several years to build.  The best way to retain your existing customers is by being diligent in your everyday dealings.  Given below are the top 10 customer service turn offs (as researched by Global Response) and ways to turn these around to reinforce and strengthen your customer relationships.

Amateur Staff

Nothing irritates a customer more than a customer service representative with half-baked knowledge.  Even if you have a small team of customer service agents, it helps to train them adequately so that they can represent your company appropriately. It helps to understand that, each and every customer service agent is the face of your company for the customers, and hence should be knowledgeable enough to give correct information and provide suitable solutions.

Trying to Win an Argument:

You can certainly win an argument by defending your company and reacting to your customer’s complains, but you cannot win his loyalty by doing that. You can only win his allegiance and loyalty by empathizing and apologizing (and that holds true even when it is not your mistake!!).

Rigid Policies:

Sticking to stringent policies can be the fastest way to lose customers. Depending on the strength of the customer relationship, you should be willing to bend policies for him, or at least try to identify ways of bending policies to strengthen customer relationships.

Futile Commitments and Promises:

Only promise when you are hundred percent confident, that you will be able to deliver within the committed time. For some reason, if you realize that you cannot deliver within time, then have the courtesy to call your customer and inform him of the reason and the time when the commitment can be fulfilled.

Diffidence:

Any customer would like to do business with a company which is accessible. If you have not kept your customer informed about the point of contact during an hour of emergency, then it is more than a probability that he will soon shift his base to another company. If you want a customer to return to you, then you must provide him with accessibility and warmth.

Poor Acknowledgements:

If you fail to acknowledge your customers with appropriate comments, then your customers are bound to feel ignored and neglected, which will inadvertently lead to loss of business. If a customer is unhappy about a personal or professional loss, you should be caring enough to acknowledge and comment suitably.

Poor Records:

The same goes for titles as well. Referring to Mrs. Thomas as Mr. Thomas, or Mr. Jackson and Mr. Johnson is only going to worsen your bond with the customer. Constantly misspelled names and inappropriate titles discourage customers to come back to you.

Ignoring the Basics of Customer Service:

Simple acknowledgements such as “Thank You” and “Sorry” still mean a lot to majority of the customers.  If you ignore these basic phrases, you can be quite sure of losing your existing customers.

Call shuffling:

This is indeed the worst and the most common customer service turn off. If a customer’s call is being transferred from department to department, and if no one is ready to take the responsibility, then it turns off even the most patient customer. On the contrary, if you are able to provide your customer with ‘First Contact Resolution’, then you can be assured of a returning customer.

Apathy and Failure to Listen:

Last but not the least, apathy and failures to listen are two of the most unforgivable customer service mistakes, and are often taken seriously by customers. Sometimes, you can simply make your customers day by listening to him attentively.

In today’s tech-oriented, increasingly uncongenial business world, you can win the hearts and loyalty of your customers by avoiding the above 10 customer service turn offs.

Here’s a very good example of putting viral techniques to good use…

Who? What? Why?

The SSRP (Sussex Safer Roads Partnership), in South East England, is currently promoting Embrace Life, a campaign designed to remind individuals of the importance of wearing their seat belts.  Started in February 2010, it has quickly become an internet phenomenon. Embrace Life broke 1 million views in less than two weeks, is being shown in front of James Cameron and BIll Gates at the Ted.com conference in Long Beach, California, and may also be screened on international TV stations from the Arabic Gulf to Canada, the USA to France. It currently sits at 5.8 Million views on YouTube and growing daily!

If you haven’t seen Embrace Life yet, log onto the dedicated website – www.embracethis.co.uk and don’t forget to join the Facebook group set up by one viewer to lobby for Embrace Life to appear on national TV!

I’ve never been more excited for a US Census…EVER! They’re doing a perfect job of marketing to our generation. This television ad is part of the U.S. Census Bureau’s national advertising campaign to boost mail participation rates in the once-a-decade population count. For every percentage point increase in the 2010 Census mail-back participation rate, the Census Bureau saves about $85 million in follow-up costs with households that failed to return their forms. The advertising campaign represents the most extensive and diverse outreach campaign in U.S. history, with advertisements appearing in 28 languages

The 2010 census is the most ambitious count ever of the nation’s population. Did you know that a census is required every 10 years by the U.S. Constitution’s Article 1, Section 2? I didn’t, (but that doesn’t say much)!

What Peaked My Interest?

I was still a bit weary and un-interested, but at this point, I not only felt obligated…I was actually excited! And then I got this letter…

…I couldn’t help but think “Woah, I’m actually excited to fill out this census!” Can’t speak for anyone else, but assume other people felt the same way.

Use of The Internet/Viral Campaign

The commercials went viral and their web-presence was growing, but how effective was it overall? Their YouTube campaign (Youtube.com/user/uscensusbureau) was helpful, though their channel has only received 100,000 views. That’s less than “David After Dentist” which has over 54,000,000+ views on that 1 video alone. It doesn’t imply anything about our country, but for something this important, I feel they should have had more views. STILL…they deserve credit for Blogging, Tweeting, Newsletters and more. They’ve done everything possible to reach us and make us interested, now it’s time to do our part…

For more information, visit 2010.census.gov.

Lady Gaga Goes Super-Viral…

According to Viral Video Chart: It was Discovered 12 Mar 2010, have been 15,683,005 views, 3,910 blog posts (+ this one),  and 9,588 tweets. All of that in a matter of 3 DAYS!!! It seems to be slowing down. (Slowing down in this case is going from Super-Viral to simply Viral, which by any standard, is still amazing!)

Gaga Will Sell Your Product!

Want your product noticed? Have Lady Gaga promote it and I guarantee you’ll see results! This 10 minute video plugs at least 10 separate brands: Virgin Mobile, Diet Coke, Polaroid, Wonder Bread and more…! And not only that…SHE MAKES THEM SEXY! Next time I see Wonder Bread, I’m going to think of this video and Gaga 1/2 naked with star patches for a bra. “The corporatisation of pop seems to have reached a different order of magnitude with Telephone, and I can’t help thinking it fundamentally alters the relationship between pop star and fan.” (Guardian – UK)

Is Lady Gaga Too Sexy For TV?

Despite the prison fights, lesbian kissing, 90% nudity and mass murders, according to CBS-News, “the video for the Lady Gaga-Beyonce collaboration “Telephone” has not been banned by the music television channel, despite previous reports that they would not air the clip.” The rumors that it wouldn’t be on MTV resulted from a “segment that aired on CNN on Sunday in which reporters Fredricka Whitfield and Jacqui Jeras discuss the video — which at press time has been viewed more than 14 million times on YouTube since its release late Thursday — and say that MTV had banned the clip.” (MTV.com) There is no proof of this on the CNN site, but you can find the original clip on MediaIte.com.

In Conclusion:

I would encourage all pop-stars to try and take their videos Super-Viral, but leave the product placement at home. Otherwise, the future of music will be one giant glorified set of commercials. There needs to be a distinction set now, before that ‘fine-line’ is broken. Now stop reading this article and watch the video if you haven’t already: Lady Gaga – Telephone Music Video Premiere

Axe has officially stepped up their marketing efforts…it’s a whole new ball-game! (…Ignore the pun) Their new slogan: “There’s no nook or cranny that the Axe Detailer can’t reach”.

The best part of this video, a truly touching moment (get your mind out of the gutter)…where they help shine up Mr. Hackerman’s dirty old balls.

I find it amazing that drinking games can be applied to pretty much anything. Buttttt…for all of you binge-drinking enthusiasts out there, here’s a game that can only be played once a year: The State of the Union Address Drinking Game!

Rules

The general rules of this game are no different from any other drinking game. Every time President Obama says a certain word (ie: “change”) or phrase (ie: “make no mistake”), you take a drink/shot. A drink is either a shot or a good gulp from a beer (or cider). All you do is watch the speech and play along. If all goes well, you’ll be unconscious by the time they show the other party’s response. For an extended list of keywords, phrases and rulesa, check out their website or their Facebook Group. This year, President Obama’s State of the Union address is scheduled for Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 9pm (Eastern). It should be broadcast on all major networks and cable news/political netorks. For online coverage, go to http://www.c-span.org/executive/stateoftheunion.asp.

Game History

This drinking game dates back to when George Washington gave the first State of the Union address on January 8, 1790. I’m pretty confident there’s no evidence of that fact, but I’m pretty sure it happened. On the other hand, I do know that is when the State of The Union Address began. As for the drinking game, the website (DrinkingGame.US) says nothing about it’s history. “I’m sure there are other people who have made similar games, but I think most people play by our rules,” Marc Melzer, one of the creators of the State of the Union Drinking Game and now a lawyer, told AFP. (Yes, they were interviewed by the AFP as well as The JDF.)

I decided to do a little research of my own. WhoIs information for the site says the domain was registered in 2004. I decided to contact the owner, Marc Melzer and a few questions myself. “We did it our senior year of college in January 2002, mostly for fun. We were on the campus and thought this was a great idea to distract us from work. We hosted it on a college site and people responded with over 50,000 hits…in 3 days. In 2003, we saw more like 500,000 hits in a matter of a week. We ran into trouble with bandwidth issues. In 2004, it found it’s final home on DrinkingGame.US (how appropriate!). ” (Marc Melzer, Co-Founder of DrinkingGame.US). When I asked him about the other sites that promoted their own versions of this game, he said that there was nothing they could do. It was a matter of an impossible Copyright.

It looks like this game has gained a lot of popularity since 2002. Major web publishers have put out their own articles about this game, and GAVE NO CREDIT TO DRINKINGGAME.US!

1. Huffington Post
2. San Francisco Chronicle (which was also published 4 hours later on Huffington Post)
3. Digg!

(Entertaining) Disclaimers…

And what kind of game would this be if there were warning labels attached to it? After researching the sites that promoted this game, I decided, that instead of posting my own disclaimer, I’d simply post theirs. Enjoy:

DrinkingGame.US:

Please note that we do not now, nor have we ever, encouraged irresponsible use of alcohol. It is important to know your own limits and to act accordingly. We discourage improper use of alcohol.

Mahalo.com:

Disclaimer: This overview of the State of the Union Address Drinking Game, is, given the problem of Binge Drinking on college campuses, a controversial subject. Note that these sites contain adult-oriented content and should all be considered potentially unsafe.

HuffingtonPost:

NOTE: The Huffington Post in no way encourages binge drinking. This is the comedy section. If you actually drank as much as we suggested you would die, so do not do that.

For five minutes last Monday, the bread aisle at Gourmet Glatt became an avant-garde musical theatre.

Customers were surprised, to say the least, when 7  students broke into a song and dance routine to the tune of “Be Our Guest,” from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. They did it to help drum up online publicity for NCSY’s 18th annual auction. The six dancers are all NCSY alumni.

They seem to have met their goal: the recording was the most-viewed video last week in YouTube’s non-profit category, according to NCSY’s marketing and PR director, Duvi Stahler, who came up with the idea. As of press time Tuesday evening it had been viewed over 9,000 times.

Stahler hit upon the idea of a musical interlude from this year’s top prize: a year’s worth of free groceries from Kosher.com, the online supermarket that operates out of Gourmet Glatt’s Cedarhurst facility.

“The idea was to do something as a grand prize that [people] need, not luxuries, something people have to spend money on,” he explained.

While the number was heavily rehearsed, the recording bears a touch of improv nevertheless. The video shows an elderly woman who insisted on disrupting the performance, pushing through the dancers to get a loaf of bread.
[*Original Article Above Found On The Jewish Star.]

Of Course They Made #1…

What did you expect? Of course this idea worked! According to Duvi Stahler, the concept for this video was inspired by ImprovEverywhere’s “I LOVE LUNCH” prank. Every one of their videos is an immediate success, so by following their guidelines, Duvi was confident this video would work as well.

I have a feeling the inspiration for this video also came from ImprovEverywhere’s “GROCERY STORE MUSICAL” (1 Million+ YouTube views) prank, Published 3 weeks before “Supermarket Takover”. Though Duvi claims originality, it’s not an issue. The point I’m trying to make is that Viral Videos like these work!

In Conclusion…

I guess if you’re a small business or niche organization, and you want to go Viral, just copy ImprovEverywhere. No, seriously…just copy them…Until you can come up with something original, do them a favor and give them credit at the end of the video.

The game is called World of Goo, and it’s really an awesome game. Normally it costs $20 to buy the game but right now they are having a promotion that allows you to pay anything you want for the game. Let me repeat that…PAY WHATEVER YOU THINK IT’S WORTH!

It’s not free…but they’ve found a new use for all those pennies hiding around the house. You have to donate at least 1 penny but otherwise its up to you. And this isn’t some low-level, under the radar, game. “Brilliant, stunning, and ridiculously fun … World of Goo is so good that it oftentimes feels like a title developed internally at Nintendo” (IGN). The game itself is fairly simple. World of Goo is a physics based puzzle / construction game. The millions of Goo Balls who live in the beautiful World of Goo don’t know that they are in a game, or that they are extremely delicious.

All versions of World of Goo – Windows, Mac and Linux – are on sale until October 19 for “whatever you think it’s worth.”  Just go to 2dboy.com, click the “GET IT” link. That’s it!

Viral Marketing Genius’s

This is simply marketing genius. They’ve allowed the consumer to decide on a price and once this campaign is said and done, they’ll have a better idea of their average buyer. Oh…that’s besides the fact that their sales will probably have gone through the roof and once the users get hooked, imagine when the next release comes along. Want to start a revolution? MAKE IT FREE!

Still not convinced, then watch the promo: