Tag Archives: Business and Economy

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 4, 2015 · 9:50 am

Where The Devil Lives

I received an email this morning which asked me to enter a sweepstakes. Since it involved golf I was all ears and quickly filled out the form – name, and email. This led me to a second form which read “Just answer the following four questions and your entry wil (sic) be complete.” Let’s put aside the typo for a second. That request was followed by a form with three questions, not four. After scratching my head, I answered and received a confirming email. That read, in part, “We’re announcing the winner July 31, 2015, until then we wanted to let you know how you can start…” Another typo/grammatical error.

I can hear some of you saying “stop being so picky.” Here is the problem and it’s one that affects anyone in business. These mistakes demonstrate a complete lack of attention to detail. They have me asking myself if I want to do business with this company and would I trust them with my personal information? If you’ve ever run a sweepstakes you know that everything must be scrutinized carefully – the FTC and others are NOT happy when you mess something up. Multiple people must have reviewed these materials and yet…

Ask yourself how many pitch decks you’ve seen with typos or errors in grammar. Then ask yourself how many websites you read with the same sorts of mistakes. I get apps updating every day for “bug fixes.” Sometimes they’re just fixing things that should have been caught in the testing and quality control phases of development.  You can’t QC something by releasing it, not if you expect to keep a customer base.

I don’t mean to be harsh here but the devil really is in the details. To me this stuff is like going on a job interview dressed in a t-shirt and cutoffs. It’s a horrible first impression, one that is usually disqualifying.

As businesspeople, standards are one of the few things we CAN control.  We need to make sure everyone on the team is clear about the standards and then we need to hold them to those standards, especially when we’re dealing with marketing materials or anything else destined for external viewing.

Details matter.  You can call that picky.  I call it putting your best foot forward.  Do you agree?

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