Monthly Archives: June 2015

June 11, 2015 · 11:36 am

Don’t Tone Me

My youngest child had an expression she would use when I would say something to her in a manner she didn’t like. You know – things like “wash your hands and come in to eat” or “don’t put makeup on the dog”. She couldn’t really find fault with what I was asking but she would look at me and say “don’t tone me.” Turns out it’s an apt business expression.

I was chatting with a former colleague this morning. Things aren’t going particularly well at his current gig and I had my life coach hat on trying to help. He shared some internal emails to illustrate some of what was causing problems and my mind was blown. Obviously I can’t quote them but the gist of the issue wasn’t what the guy’s boss was doing. It was the tone.

The memo I read was to a bunch of recipients who are not kids.  Most are over 30 and have lots of work experience.  The note outlined how they were to spend every moment of their working day and was focused on process not on results.  Well, that’s not true.  The results expected were filling out forms, making phone calls, and which font to use in presentations.  There was nary a mention of actual results.  The message was an obvious confusion of activity and progress.

More importantly, the tone was demeaning.  I don’t know the author but I found it offensive.  It would be one thing if it was a summation of what had been discussed in person as a group but this apparently came out of the blue.  With an emphasis on accuracy in the presentations the staff was to make, this note was written in multiple fonts (cut and paste job!) and had errors in it.

The takeaway is that email – and all writing – generally lacks nuance.  The recipient can assign whatever tone seems accurate and in this case vaguely threatening and demeaning seem accurate.  Moreover, never implement new procedures without a team discussion as to why you’re putting the new stuff in place.  People are willing to follow when they’re led; they’re much less willing to be pushed.  “Toning” them isn’t leading – it’s pushing (or kicking) them to a goal.  Getting out in front of them and showing them the way is a lot more productive.  You agree?

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June 10, 2015 · 12:11 pm

I Can Hear You, I’m Just Ignoring You

This social media stuff isn’t exactly new anymore, right? I mean businesses have been immersed in it for at least 5 years and many for longer than that. So why do we keep screwing it up?

This crossed my screen earlier:

Thirty-three percent of consumers who contact brands on social media with a customer service question never get a response, according to a new study released today by management consulting firm The Northridge Group. Based on a survey of more than 1,000 respondents, the study finds that 26 percent of consumers choose social media for customer service when they can’t reach a representative through another channel. When companies do respond, more than 30 percent of their responses do not meet the customers’ expectations. In fact, social media has the lowest percentage of issue resolution and follow up of all the channels.

Seriously?  Well, maybe the data isn’t as disappointing as the headline:

The survey also found that just 3 percent of consumers cite social media as the fastest channel for issue resolution, and only 2 percent cite it as their preferred channel. Additional findings from the survey include:

  • Sixty-three percent of consumers have to engage with a brand two or more times on social media before a customer service inquiry or issue is resolved.
  • Forty-two percent of consumers expect resolution within one hour when using social media for customer service inquiry or issue.
  • Thirty-nine percent of consumers say that companies resolve their customer service issues or inquiries on social media within a week or longer.

Oh.  I know from lots of experience that businesses are spending precious marketing resources listening to what’s going on out there in an attempt to understand their customers’ needs.  Bravo!  But as with any activity, if we’re just going to ignore what our customers are telling us – especially when they’re telling it to us proactively – we might just as well spend the money elsewhere.

You can get the report here but don’t bother if you’re not going to use it to improve how you’re providing service via social media.  No one likes to be ignored, especially customers with a problem.  Maybe you should be digging into how many contacts have been initiated by customers?  Maybe you should keep score on how many have been addressed and resolved to the customer’s satisfaction?  Actually, this is one instance where if you ignore something – your customers – it will go away.  Is that the result you’re after?

 

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June 9, 2015 · 10:16 am

Welcome To The Machine

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
Where have you been? It’s alright we know where you’ve been.

You might think from Roger Waters‘ lyrics he was thinking about privacy. His take was on the recording industry but the song came to mind as I was thinking about robots. I’m hoping today to get you to ask yourself about them as well. Specifically, are you better than one, or at least the one that can replace you in the business world.

Before you laugh that off, consider a few things. We have cars that are driven by robots and they will absolutely do a better job than a human driver most of the time. Sure, there will be times when a road is temporarily closed and the mapping software will be lost. The car will need some immediate human input but that’s probably the exception. Most trips will be safer and less stressful.  Bots don’t get tired or distracted.  Can you say the same?

Bots can write and do so in a way that is pretty indistinguishable from humans writing the same stuff. Around 10% of Wikipedia articles were written BY ONE BOT. How many people do you know that are that prolific? You’ve read sports stories both on the web and in newspapers that were written by bots interpreting statistics to produce a game narrative.  Financial reporting is being done by bots too.  They do an excellent job of sticking to the facts, uninfluenced by some PR flack’s spin.  I’ll admit that I get weekly reports on Google Analytics that are written by a robot.  They’re not great but they do a good job of calling my attention to things that require further investigation.  I imagine they’ll continue to improve.  Much media selling is now done by robots and programmatic ad buying is forecast to have robust growth as more publishers, advertisers and agencies embrace programmatic technologies. As a result, Magna Global projected that the volume of transactions will grow to $17B by 2017 in the US, of which $10.5B will be RTB-based.  Those are lots of sales, sales support, and media buying jobs going away.

Am I bringing this up to depress you? Not at all.  We need to think about how we can do many things – still – that can’t be replace by a machine.  Nested phone menus for customer service are a form of automated response – do you know anyone who prefers that over talking to a human for service?  Bots are only as good as the algorithm that drives them.  While we’re heading to a world of artificial intelligence and algorithms that will self-improve, I suspect that we’re a long way off.  That said, we need to emphasize the human parts of every interaction.  A bot could present the facts of this post but I don’t think it can provide tone and nuance (or ramble quite as much).

So that’s the question for each of us, isn’t it?  Can we be replaced by a bot or are we adding things that are uniquely human to our business – and non-business – lives? What’s your answer?

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