Author: Christopher Carfi

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BusinessWeek Business Blogging Cover Story Nails It

The cover story of the current issue of BusinessWeek sums it up well: “Blogs Will Change Your Business.”

Reading through the article, the one quote that resonated (and continues to do so) was this one: “Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later.” It definitely feels like we’re at the inflection point; about to hit Geoffrey Moore’s chasm with respect to business blogging.

A couple of interesting tidbits:

Tidbit 1 – BW has launched blogspotting.net, their own actual, honest-to-goodness blog to cover the emerging area of blogs and business. To Heather, Steve, and the rest of the BW team…nice job!

Tidbit 2 – They also did a nice job pulling together a quick list of things to consider when launching a business blogging initiative. (Unfortunately, BW buried the link in a place requiring serious excavation in order to find it.) The highlights:

  • Train Your Bloggers
  • Be Careful with Fake Blogs
  • Track Blogs
  • PR Truly Means Public Relations
  • Be Transparent
  • Rethink Your Corporate Secrets

Boilers are stoked. Pressure is right. It’s time for this train to leave the station.

Although the quote noted above is spot on, the customer angle, and the “how are people really addressing business blogging” aspects were glossed over a bit in the article. (However, considering the article’s breadth, that’s understandable.) That being said, still would have like to have seen more case studies, and more examples of the different ways organizations are using blogs to connect with customers.

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PRspeak-to-English Translator of the Adobe-Macromedia Merger FAQ

Heh. Here’s the whole thing.

A few excerpts:

Question: What is the mission of the combined company?
Answer: “Adobe’s mission remains the same — to help people and businesses communicate better. With the acquisition of Macromedia, Adobe strengthens its mission through the combination of leading-edge development, authoring and collaboration tools — and the complementary functionality of PDF and Flash.”

Translated Answer: “Where by ‘complementary’ we mean ‘the two leading technologies that irritate people when they’re used in lieu of regular web pages.’ Note that we’re using PDF to serve this very FAQ — in our synergistic future, perhaps we’ll serve our FAQs in a hybrid PDF/Flash format. One can dream.”

Question: How many employees does Macromedia have?
Answer: “Macromedia has approximately 1,450 employees worldwide.”

Translated answer: “Please note use of present tense.”

Question: How many employees does Adobe have?
Answer: “Adobe has approximately 4,000 employees worldwide.”

Translated answer: “Ditto regarding use of present tense. Please also note that PDF is an excellent format for sending out résumés.”

Read the whole thing. (hat tip: john)

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Corporate Logo Tattoos: Literal Corporate Branding

When branding becomes “branding,” I s’pose.

Excerpt: “In an attempt to form personal and social identities, consumers begin to identify with the dominant discourse of consumer culture. Corporate logo tattoo consumers are thus expressing collective representations of consumer culture, not individual representations of individuality. “

The whole thing is here: Corporate Logo Tattoos: Literal Corporate Branding

What do folks think about this? I’ve always viewed tattoos and other types of body mods as a sort of the ultimate personalization, taking something that has been given to you (via genetics and heredity), and hacking it in a way that makes it even more uniquely yours. (I still think the mark I’ve seen that has struck me as the most personal is that of a good friend who has “DNR” tattooed on his sternum…a crystal clear reminder to self that anything can happen to anyone at any time, and to make every day count if there ever was one.)

I suppose I can even see the point of tattooing as a mark of identification with a small, unique group; a shibboleth of sorts. A tangible, permanent show of community membership. But something like this? I don’t get it. Corporations are the exact opposite of individuality and getting a tattoo of their logo surely just makes you a human advertisement expect you don’t get paid for it. I understand that some people can feel weirdly fond and even passionate about a business, but in that case, just use a corporate t-shirt printing service to create some t-shirts of their brand. Why would you permanently disfigure yourself with a tattoo? Can someone ‘splain?

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Can You Hear Me Now? I Said “Our Customers Can Piss Off.”

Seidenberg, table for one? Your clue-by-four is ready.

Alert reader Dan Jewett sent in a link (thanks, Dan!) to this past weekend’s SFChron interview with Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg. And a doozy it is. The choicest quote:

“Seidenberg, for instance, said people often complain about mobile phone service because they have unrealistic expectations about a wireless service working everywhere. Verizon Wireless, a joint venture of Verizon and Vodafone, is the state’s largest mobile phone provider.

‘Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?’ he said. ‘The customer has come to expect so much. They want it to work in the elevator; they want it to work in the basement.‘

Seidenberg said it’s not Verizon’s responsibility to correct the misconception by giving out statistics on how often Verizon’s service works inside homes or by distributing more detailed coverage maps, showing all the possible dead zones. He pointed out that there are five major wireless networks, none of which works perfectly everywhere.” (emphasis added)

Wow. I’m not a Verizon customer. Nor is Sunil Pandey, but here are his questions for Seidenberg:

“Ummm.. Mr. Seidenberg, I’m not a Verizon Wireless customer, but those who are, are *paying* for the service, you’re not doing a charity for them! obviously they will have expectations! Calling them unrealistic is basically insulting your customers, and I don’t think anyone can stay in the business for too long by doing that. If too many customers are complaining about something, perhaps there is something wrong with you, not with them! … So, what comes next? ‘Why in the world would you think your DSL should be faster than dial-up?’ ‘Why in the world do you think your land line should work 24 hrs a day?'”

“First you have that ‘can your hear me now’ ad campaign and now you are giving lame excuses?”

It also appears that the folks over at Gawker have been having problems with them for a while, too. A really long while.

Any other good Verizon stories out there?

Offtopic Shiny Thing: The word “doozy” derives not from from Duesenberg, but from “daisy,” through this etymology.

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CSL: The List You Don’t Want To Be On

First tripped across Jory Des Jardins through her association with the upcoming BlogHer conference. She’s started a great regular feature, centered around real experiences that customers are having with companies. She describes it thusly:

“I think it’s important for companies to understand the grief and not think I’m some crazy trying to pull together a griping militia. It will also be open to anyone who wants to send me a gripe–with one caveat: I want a story. I want emotion, and DETAILS (‘Microsoft Sux’ won’t cut it). I want to feel your pain.

“Despite my penchant for volume, your anecdote needn’t be long, or well-punctuated for that matter. My objective is to create healthy conversations about products and services”

To date, Jory and her readers have had a few thousand choice words for Michael Dell’s company, in particular. The most recent entry contains a particular saying that needs to be tattooed, in reverse, on the sternum of every person on the planet who makes his or her living in PR or marketing or sales:

“Life is too short to have to deal with people who read from scripts.”

Right on.

(Oh, and Jory…here’s a story for you as well. Check the comments, in particular…)

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It’s People!

Over the past couple of weeks, have been fortunate to have had conversations with nearly two dozen C-level execs, about how they choose their business partners (in this case, suppliers). And from this set of conversations, what’s important to them?

  • Is it “price?” Somewhat, but not so much. “Just be in the ballpark.”
  • Mind-blowing technology? Not really. Not so much.
  • Process. Yes, to a degree. Have a plan to show what’s going to get done by when, and how it’s going to get measured.

But, almost across the board, they’ve been saying things that are much more surprising. Talking about “cultural fit” and using words like “comfortable.” Saying they chose Company A over Company B because Company B’s people “put on airs.”

Relationships aren’t dead. Not by a long shot.

Offtopic Shiny Thing: With a headline like that, how could I not link to this?

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Community Chat (Podcast)

Had the pleasure of a great conversation with Jake McKee (http://www.communityguy.com/) and Lee LeFever (http://www.commoncraft.com/) this weekend. Jake suggested it a couple of weeks back, it took a little while for us to get it set up, but here it is.

So, I suppose one could think of this as sort of a Gillmor Gang-type discussion, but with two differences:

  • The conversation is more focused around community and conversations, rather than the more IT-related issues; and
  • We’re still doing it (grin)

This is definitely an emerging area, and (based on feedback, natch) this may evolve into a regular gig.

Show topics:

– Intros
– BzzAgent, and its implications for ethics, customer communities and the media
– The Chuch of the Customer podcast
– A few bits on the recent Word Of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) conference in Chicago

Links referenced:
BzzAgent
Church of the Customer
CommonCraft
CommunityGuy
The Social Customer Manifesto
WOMMA

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Does “Word Of Mouth Marketing” Poison The Well?

So, back in December, the Concord Monitor (Concord, NH) unwittingly broke one of its own ethical guidelines, by publishing two reviews submitted by a BzzAgent.

From the Monitor (8Dec2004), in an article entitled “Feeling The Buzz…New Marketing Tool Is Testing Ethical Limits Of Advertising“:

“Deep in an article in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, we learned that the Monitor, and perhaps you, had unwittingly been buzzed by Jason Desjardins of Bradford, one of the company’s [BzzAgent] most successful buzz agents.

Desjardins wrote two brief reviews of books he received from BzzAgent. He submitted them in response to the Monitor’s standing invitation to readers to send us brief comments about books they had read. We published them.

By telephone yesterday, Desjardins said the reviews of [ed. – let’s call them “book one” and “book two”…no sense in rewarding this behavior] reflected his honest opinion and he had no intent to deceive us or our readers. He did not realize that reputable newspapers would not knowingly publish anything that was part of an advertising campaign without saying so.” (emphasis added)

Therein lies the rub.

Something new that inspires interest, spread by word-of-mouth from friend-to-friend => great.
Something new that is spread by word-of-mouth from friend-to-friend as part of a compensated, premeditated strategy => potential ethical dilemma for every party involved.

What are newspapers, broadcast media, bloggers to do? Does every comment that comes in need to be vetted for ulterior motives? Do newspapers, broadcast media, bloggers stop taking unsolicited input altogether? (unlikely) Does every piece of communication need to have a caveat?

No easy answers here.

Offtopic Shiny Thing: “Therein,” as typed in the paragraph above, is only one letter away from “theremin,” the coolest musical instrument, ever.

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The Customer Service Experience, From Both Sides Of The Phone

Doing some end-of-the-week catchup, and just came across a fantastic conversation between Alan Herrell and a customer service supervisor who only identifies himself as “Greg.” Three stops on this bus so far, and I actually hope there will be more.

It starts with a rant from Alan, Blogging Customer Service by Phone. A wonderful screed, that starts with the problems with website “self service” for customer service issues, and neatly analyzes the steps that a frustrated customer typically goes through before even picking up the phone to dial a customer support line. The pull-quote:

Alan, the customer: “Using the telephone is not only so 20th Century, is the last ditch effort to get our issues addressed, provided of course that website actually provides a number we can use. It is surprising how few companies provide a customer service number. You can find out everything else out from vapid statements of vision from the CEO, stirring mission statements, press releases, marketing materials in any number of formats for your viewing pleasure, SEC registration statements. Shareholder information, and so on.

At this point we are still willing to do business with a company despite having been ignored with the request form, under the assumption we were willing to fill it out, which did not solve our issue, the simple email, which was not returned, both which could have resolved the problem before we pick up the phone…So we call.”

Read the whole thing.

Alas, Greg, who is “a senior customer service rep on the phones for a consumer tech company,” disagrees. Violently. Seven long ‘graphs of pseudo-statistical rationalization of why phone based customer service is horrible. (Here’s the paraphrased Cliff Note version: “If customers were smart enough to solve the problems themselves using the tools we gave them, they wouldn’t have to call us.”)

The pull-quote:

Greg, the customer service rep: “So in reality, my experience is that about 1.5% of people who get through the voice recognition system actually have real issues that aren’t addressed on the website or in the manual. It is the other 99% of the calls that get to a breathing human being that create long hold times.”

Alan picks up thread, runs with it.

Alan: “I want to think that I received value from your product for my money. If there is a question, and I do end up on the phone, the value diminishes in a direct proportion to how much time it takes to get an answer.

If I receive value, I will tell my friends which will in turn sell more of your product to pay your salary.

Do you see how we are all joined at the hip, despite the fact we have never met, will probably never meet, but do share a desire to feel good about the choices we make, knowing that there is someone who we can turn to if there is a problem?“

Alan also has a great lead-in to any phone experience. (Clip, save, put next to the phone. It doesn’t matter if you’re a customer or a service provider. This is a gem.)

“I am calling you because your company already made the sale, but it’s value is diminishing rapidly with every moment I spend waiting for you.”

Greg, in response, sticks by his guns.

Greg: “And as I said, MOST of the calls my unit gets are easy-to-handle issues that wouldn’t require a call if the customer was willing to read and follow written instructions they already have.” (Also a great bit in here about customer service reps who do their jobs “despite the presence of chronic complainers and scam artists.”)

Both sides make their case. Chicken, meet egg?

No, I don’t think so.

Greg, it may be frustrating to deal with “chronic complainers and scam artists,” but, c’mon…what percentage of the population really falls into that category? Don’t you think customers want to get on with their lives, as opposed to spending time on the phone with customer support? Isn’t all the upfront hassle, driven by some combination of poor product design and/or communication breakdowns (could be from manuals to the website to, I suppose, even unmet customer expectations) really the driver to all this?

(hat tip: doc)