blogs Archives - Page 7 of 8 - Christopher Carfi

December 10, 2004

The Cowards And The Clueless

The CEO Blogger’s Club had a nice bit on “sales people who are afraid to blog.” (hat tip: scoble). The gist of this group of sales folks:

“The first reaction of the sale team was negative, as they are afraid to see their client talking about prices or problems they might have when using company’s product, rather then sharing together feedback that might be much more constructive and usefull for the sale team itself.

What better CRM tool can we provide than a blog to get immediate inputs, feedback from users ? If a company has to choose one single kind of public to talk to , who should it choose ? Client of course. And who speaks to the client: sales team.”

I agree. Hang it out there. Learn. Listen to what the customer has to say. Implement the suggestions if they make sense. Say “no” if they don’t, and then explain why. Have a rational discussion.

Now, there are some sales people who are blogging…and who I would be hard-pressed to do business with. From a quick skim of his blog, Frank Rumbauskas appears to be one of those people. Don’t know him, never met the guy…but I was so put off by this piece that simply seethed with utter disregard for his customers that he’d have a hard time ever gaining my trust:

“Not in my house. My company gets calls all day long from people who want extra guarantees, names and numbers of references, previews of my book, etc etc before they buy. Instead of catering to these people, my customer service reps are instructed to say, “I’m sorry, but we cannot provide that. If you feel that way then don’t buy it.” Why? Because I would lose money having my staff spend time on these people.

When I sold telephone systems there were those customers who paid full price and those who drove hard bargains and wound up negotiating the price very low. Guess what – the customers who paid full price had my full attention whenever they needed help. I was always happy to drive out to their offices to assist them. Those who got deep discounts were simply told to call the 800 number. Not my job, sorry.”

I read this and I think “this guy is out for the quick buck, not the relationship.” I think “he’s trying to sell units of whatever he’s selling, he’s not trying to help me solve my problem.” I think “he’s not trying to partner with me. He’s not going to be there for me down the road, he’s going to be thinking about whoever his next ‘big kill’ is.”

I also note that he has trackbacks turned off. Pity. He might not even know this conversation is taking place.

December 2, 2004

Forrester Research on MSN Spaces

Charlene Li has her perceptions of MSN Spaces up here. Buried in the last paragraph is a gem:

“The next wave of bloggers is going to look very different from today’s blogger – their motivation will be on sharing experiences rather than having a place for their ideas and opinions. The integration puts the blog in context of other communications, such as email and IM. If you’re about to email me, you’ll see my latest post/photo – instant context setting…”

IOW, from the social customer perspective — it’s another place and another way to build the relationship between the individuals within and without organzations.

Right on, Charlene.

December 1, 2004

A Conversation About MSN Spaces

On Thursday, Microsoft will launch MSN Spaces, Redmond’s entry into the crowded market of blog publishing. There are already a bunch of folks kicking the tires on it, and it will be interesting to see the reaction of users and customers who start to make it their online home (vs. Blogger, TypePad, Userland, etc.).

Many of the usual suspects are already conversing over at Scoble’s place. However, it would be very interesting to hear the point of view from actual users of the system. So, if you are a user of MSN Spaces, what are your thoughts on:

– business vs. personal usefulness
– ease of setup
– ease of configuration
– features
– likelihood of making it your “primary” blogging platform
– technical capabilities
– etc.

In other words…from a user/customer perspective, does Microsoft have a winner on their hands?

(via dave, scoble)

UPDATE: Feedback from other sources:

“Ugh! I was not impressed in the least. The tool is overly simplistic, although it did have a few nice (although not unique) features, like customizable music lists. The designs are limited; in fact, the only variation to the visual elements is of the background and second color (one is always white). Plus, the weblog is powered by ASP.NET, so it’s difficult for search engines to index.” – willsblog

“I am sure it will improve and will be acceptable by 3.0 if MS follows its usual track record (which should be around 2006 🙂 !). No thanks. If you want a free blog, use Blogger or LiveJournal, I see no compelling reason to use MSN spaces at this time.” – Roland Tanglao

“Oh my God. Blogger is going to have it’s hands full with the new MSN Spaces which premiers today…I have to say I’m pretty darn impressed. For anyone who who’s been apprehensive about creating a Blogger site because of all the html coding and such, run…don’t walk to MSN Spaces. You’ll be up and blogging in no time flat.” – theShu, Greensboro Is Talking

“It looks like a very good first effort, with heavy borrowing from Typepad and Blogger, plus some ActiveX links to photo and music tools, and integration with their IM client, for showing presence.” – Stig Hammond

“As usual with a Microsoft 1.0 offering, this gets them in the game… but it certainly isn’t sufficient to get me to leave Blogger (despite its hideous warts), nor for me to recommend it as a solution to others.” – Tony Gentile

“MSN spaces is not a credible option for lawyers looking to blog as a way to market their legal services. The blog sites are set up to share personal information and do not have the necessary features of a good blog, including archiving content by categories and unique domain names.” – Kevin O’Keefe

Additionally, it looks like Feedster just added a Spaces-only search (Hat tip: Tony)

Another update: Xeni does some fine investigative journalism here.

November 28, 2004

Blogosphere Crucifies Target Stores Just A Little Too Quickly

Ok, so the picture does look, shall we say, a little incongruous:

(and yes, in addition to marijuana, Target is apparently selling crack as well.)

A number of blogs have called this out (one two three four five… ) as a PR crisis in the making for Tarzhay.

It must be said that it is rather strange. So how has it happened? What’s the reason for this? Is it the work of hackers? Was it done by a disgruntled employee? Or were these items the Mountain-Dew-and-pizza-addled cries for help of programmers being worked to within a hairsbreadth of their physical and emotional limits?

Nope.

Whilst this very much appeared to be a customer and PR nightmare for Target, it turns out it was completely intentional and that Target really is selling these items. The people that are going to be supplying Target with cannabis for sale better learn how to grow a bigger cannabis yield as people will surely be flocking to Target to buy cannabis products…little do they know they can probably get better deals on it online, and find more of a variety of items to enjoy it with. Take a look at this site for example https://www.kingspipes.com/products/12-triple-honeycomb-bong! I suppose the good thing about these items being sold at target is that they can see them in the flesh before they buy.

Shocked? We were too. But it’s not as criminal as it first appears. Or rather, it’s not criminal at all. Target is indeed selling marijuana and crack, but they are actually… the titles of, respectively, a book and a DVD .

Panic over. Unless of course, you were looking forward to being able to get your fix from target. Whilst crack is illegal (for very obvious reasons), you can purchase marijuana just not from Target. If you would like to purchase marijuana seeds to grow your own plants, then you could visit i49.net/Michigan. Otherwise, hit up a dispensary close to home. With laws changing across the US, getting hold of hemp-related products, including CBD for help with reducing things like anxiety, depression, and pain, has never been easier and they may be able to look towards retailers such as Pure Hemp Farms in order to acquire such products. The medicinal benefits are constantly being corroborated and there are plenty of studies freely available online that you can read if you want to verify such claims.

UPDATE: Target no longer finds this as funny as we do. (via BoingBoing)

November 17, 2004

Tearing Down The Walls In Spokane

(via Ed Cone, Dave Winer)

Kudos to the Spokane Spokesman-Review for grabbing the clue by the horns and adding "citizen-journalists" to their team to fill in and add depth to their news coverage. These bloggers are covering nearly two dozen different beats that the Spokesman-Review would certainly not have the time or budget to cover themselves.

That’s awesome, and a great way for the S-R to put a toe in the water. Now for the really cool stuff.

What’s not been pointed out anywhere else is that the editorial board of the S-R has set up a blog to interact directly with readers and defend a number of their editorial decisions. How’s that for "transparency?" Just one example…good stuff here:

Question:
Why do the editors present their endorsement for elections and candidates? I would expect the SR to have some obligation to remain silent and/or neutral and give the news, not influence the voters. I
would assume their picks would be to further SR’s climb up the economic ladder. I know we all vote for the candidates and issues that personally affect us and our family, but the paper has a obligation to
the public, even if it is privately owned. Their endorsements, I hope, is to benefit the City of Spokane and the surrounding areas.

Answer: Daily newspapers traditionally offer election endorsements on their editorial pages. Those pages are built around the presentation of opinion. Editorial endorsements are not connected to news coverage in any way. Reporters and editors responsible for covering the news are not involved in endorsement decisions and don’t even know which candidates will be endorsed until they read the editorials in the paper. Endorsement decisions take into account candidate stands on issues on which the board has previously taken positions, take into account how cadidates match up against our published editorial values and, significantly, take into account the candidate’s ability to address the needs to
citizens in communities we serve.

In the just-completed election, we endorsed 15 Republicans and 12 Democrats, indicating our
party allegiance may be somewhat less predictable than some would
expect.

October 18, 2004

Interview: How One Manufacturer Uses Blogs To Interact With The Social Customer

I was fortunate to trade emails last week with a number of individuals who understand what it means to engage with the social customer. Whether through blogs, social networking systems, or wikis, these companies understand what it means to give customers real transparency into the organization, and to interact with them not as “assets,” not as something with a “lifetime value,” but as people. Over the next couple of weeks I’ll have the opportunity to share the results of these interviews, as well as some more thoughts and context on this trend.

What follows are comments made by Scott Benish, Brand Manager for Clip-n-Seal. Thanks for your time, Scott!

These guys get it.

Christopher Carfi, Cerado: Why did Clip-n-Seal decide to embrace blogs?

Scott Benish, Clip-n-Seal: For us, it was a no-brainer. We’re bloggers by nature, and we were blogging even before Clip-n-Seal. So when we brought Clip-n-Seal to market it just make sense to blog about it and tell our friends (many of whom have their own blogs) about it.

At the same time, being involved with blogs, we realized the power and potential of tapping in to blogs as a way of spreading the word about our product. So we embraced blogs because we were bloggers, but we also knew it made good business sense to embrace this community and utilize this burgeoning communication channel.

CC: Is there an example (or two) of an instance where Clip-n-Seal feels it has gotten closer to its customers as a result of the blog initiative?

SB: There are probably more than that. Our entire marketing so far has been based on blogs and we’ve had tremendous success in that space.

Last April we emailed an Industrial Design blog about our product because we thought they might find it interesting. They wrote a post about us and within a week 3 other relatively large and prominent blogs had posted about us or linked to us. There was a huge spike in site visits and orders.

Of course it’s not necessarily that easy. We had a product that was of interest to these audiences and we approached them in a low key, honest way. So it fit really well. It’s not as simple as just emailing a bunch of blogs and sitting back and waiting for the traffic. Blogging is a very personal medium and it requires a personal approach. People coming from mass media who want to hop on the blog train will almost certainly fail to see this and fall flat on their faces.

Another specific example is a blog contest we did:
http://www.blogstakes.com/news/22265311/
http://www.blogstakes.com/blogstakes.asp

In addition to all the brand building and orders that came from that, one of the winners wrote us a glowing letter telling us about how much she loved the product, loved the prize we sent and was planning on telling all her friends about it. Those kinds of fans that champion the product to their friends are worth their weight in gold.

CC: What have been the challenges / downsides to Clip-n-Seal as a result of blogging?

SB: None that I can think of. Not for us anyway.

I guess one challenge is keeping in front of people. You have some blogs post about you, and you get a bunch of traffic, but then 6 months later most people have sort of forgot about you. So how do you get back on the radar, catch some new blog readers, remind people you exist, etc. It’s the same thing as any sort of marketing, but it’s a bit harder. With traditional advertising, you just run more ads. With blogs, you can’t email your friend and say “Hey, orders are down, post about my product again”. Well, I guess you could, but that’d be lame. So you just need to keep things fresh, introduce new promos, products or contests. Which is not a bad thing at all, just a challenge.

CC: Are there any other things that you would suggest to other organizations that are considering blogging as a part of their business?

SB:Well, there are a lot of things. More than can be reasonably covered here. Like most things, it’s way more complex than it seems from the outside.

The biggest thing is probably that it’s unlike any other medium and you really have to know your audience and tread lightly. It’s a fickle, critical audience and if you are clearly there just to make a quick buck or shill some lame product people will see that and they will tell the world. If you make a lame TV ad, no one hears the groans – but if you make a misstep in the blogosphere you’ll get called on it and could end up doing more harm than good.