Category Archives: Consulting

August 15, 2014 · 9:50 am

Dirty Hands

Foodie Friday and this week I want to talk about two of my favorite kitchen tools.  You already own them and you’re probably not using them as much as you should while cooking.  I’m talking about your hands.  I’m not talking about using them to hold a knife or any other kitchen implement.  I mean using them to touch and feel ingredients and dishes as you go.  Yes, it means getting them dirty and this is why I generally cook with a towel tucked into my waistband – I’m constantly washing them.  But let me explain why you should be getting your hands dirtier more often.

I’m thinking specifically about pasta dough.  Many people dump the flour, oil, salt and eggs into a mixer and once the ingredients are combined they’ll switch to a dough hook to knead the dough.  That’s less effective than using your hands.  The warmth of your hands helps to develop the gluten and unless you are checking the dough constantly there is no way to tell when it had reached the right consistency (it should feel like Playdoh, by the way).  You can’t feel if it’s too grainy or too dry without working it by hand for a bit.

There is no better tool for mixing ingredients together in a bowl than a hand.  You can feel for pockets of ingredients that haven’t combined evenly and it’s almost impossible to mix together a meatloaf or form meatballs without using your hands to do so.  It’s an important business point too.

You can’t manage a business without tools but you must get your hands dirty as well.  I have worked with managers who considered their staff to be a set of tools that would do the work efficiently and they were right for the most part.  However, they never got their hands dirty by getting deeply into the work and two things would happen.  The first was that their staff came to see them as detached and aloof.  The second was that they had no feel for things.  Like the pasta dough, the only way to assess how things are developing is to get your hands into the work.

Anyone who claims they’re a cook and has long fingernails isn’t getting their hands into the food often enough (or is making people sick!).  Any manager who sits behind a closed door and reads reports isn’t getting their hands dirty either (which might make the business sick).   How dirty are your hands?

 

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August 13, 2014 · 11:31 am

Critics Vs. Trolls

Any of us who work in and around marketing understand that to a large extent consumers control our brands these days.

Troll in Trondheim

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ask any company that’s run into difficulty with its image due to a social media faux pas or to some bad consumer experience that’s gone viral and they’ll tell you.  I think that brands lay the groundwork – they shape the experience but ultimately consumers are the ones who refine that groundwork into the image the world at large has of a brand.

Given that, and given the need for brands to participate in the social world, they’re going to encounter people who have had either a less than optimal interaction with the brand or who just don’t like whatever it is that the brand is selling/doing.  Those people might use the social tools to let the world know about it since as we know it’s the less happy people who tend to lead brand discussions and not usually the staunch brand advocates (until they’re prompted somehow).  I think it’s important that the recipients of the criticism differentiate between the two main types of people who offer it up:  critics and trolls.  They need to be dealt with differently.

Critics tend to express their displeasure in a thought-out, rational way.  They usually have facts at their disposal and will listen both to other facts and promises to rectify whatever it is that irked them in the first place.  Think of a restaurant review – maybe they just didn’t like the food – that’s opinion.  Or maybe the food arrived cold and slowly – those are facts and problems which can be fixed.  Critics help brands make themselves better.

Trolls, on the other hand, tend to be deliberately inflammatory.  They are not trying to help fix anything – they just want people to respond, start flame wars, and get their jollies this way.  They usually lack facts, they usually direct personal attacks as part of their rants, and harassment and stupidity are the cesspools in which they live.

What does one do?  As we said the other day, you must respond to them both.  Don’t do so by attacking them.  Get your facts straight, point out opinions (which you respect) from facts, and accept that the critics might help you get better.  Trolls go away when no one takes their bait.  Good critics acknowledge improvement and it’s fair to reach out to them once you’ve fixed whatever was wrong.  Our constant focus on the customer means we need to allow them to help us get better even as we continue to shape the brand we want them to see.

Make sense?

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August 11, 2014 · 12:02 pm

The Ostrich Strategy

We’ve all heard the myth that ostriches bury their heads in the sand, particularly when they’re frightened.  It’s not true (hence a myth) – they’re probably turning some eggs they’ve laid.  We used to have a dog – a bulldog! – that would sort of do the same thing when he was scared or had done something bad.  He would turn his head away from you  – we were 100% sure he believed he was invisible: since he can’t see you, you can’t see him.

Many brands seem to be following a similar strategy when it comes to social media and customer complaints.  A few years ago, Bain Consulting conducted a study that  discovered that while 80% of companies believe they deliver ‘superior’ customer experiences to their customers, just 8% of customers agree.  Who is kidding themselves here?

It’s not an occasional problem.  Another study – this one by Social Media Marketing University – showed that 58.2% of brands receive customer complaints via social media ‘occasionally.’ 10.9%receive them ‘somewhat often’ while 4.9% receive them ‘very often.’  So what do they do, given that surveys reported in news media found that customers expect a response to a complaint posted on a brand’s social media account within one hour?  They pretend they’re invisible.  Is that a bad thing?  You tell me:

  • 58.2% of brands receive customer complaints via social media ‘occasionally.’ 10.9 percent receive them ‘somewhat often’ while 4.9% receive them ‘very often.’
  •  26.1%  of brands reputations have been tarnished as a result of negative social media posts; 15.2% lost customers and 11.4% lost revenue.

And here is the kicker:

  • 23.4% of brands not only do not have a strategy in place to manage negative social commentary, but do not have plans to develop one. 24.5% of brands are in the process of developing a strategy and 7.6% have strategies in place that are currently proving to be ineffective.

This isn’t the only survey that found businesses lacking.  Another one which comes from Sprinklr shows that 20% of companies rarely, if ever, respond to customer complaints made via social. The “ostrich strategy” is about the worst choice a business can make.  Putting your head in the sand doesn’t make the issues go away – it just makes it harder for you to hear them as they get louder and louder.  That’s my take.  Yours?

 

 

 

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