As a regular at Pho in Soho, and as a social media addict, I was immediately interested in the Foursquare competition running at my local branch. It awards each month’s ‘mayor’ a free bowl of Pho noodle soup.
While angling for a free lunch (or at least a bowl of noodle soup), my colleagues and I asked about the deal. We were surprised when our waiter confessed that we’d never be in with a chance of winning, because the branch manager checked in religiously every day, cementing his position as location mayor. My Pho fetish would have to be fed daily to rival his check-ins.
Turning to Twitter I shared the negative experience, tweeting that in my view the promotion was far from fair or honest. In response, Pho Restaurant gave a defensive and rather rude answer, seemingly challenging me on my report of the experience.
Perhaps the waiter got it wrong and the manager really wasn’t trying to win the free soup, but regardless, instead of apologising and offering to find out more about the promotion, the response was defensive and disinterested -a classic case of bad customer service.
In contrast, when I tweeted about a negative experience I had in Tesco, the concerned and helpful tone of its practical response immediately turned a negative into a positive.
Time and again research and experience shows that something negative (or sometimes simply unusual) gets us talking, but this fundamental rule of customer services seems to be forgotten as often as it’s remembered.
This is not rocket science. And this is not about ‘knowing how to do social media.’ This is simple business sense. Face to face or via social media, a brand is really only the people who represent it, with all the complex emotions that drive their own behaviour. As we’ve discussed before, it’s important for brands to embrace their humanity. But to make sure the rough never gets served up with the smooth, the right checks and balances are vital.
Truth is, we don’t want brands to be ‘human.’ We want them to be great brands – more patient, courteous, helpful and charming than most people ever bother to be. Yes, it’s important for brands to find a personal way to communicate – but however ‘social’ the media, they need to be professional, too.
Inside the front hall is a lovely wooden stand (I have no idea why we have something so lovely, I sometimes imagine that a master craftsman lives in the basement). On this stand is all the post for the building.
That’s a bunch of bills, Amazon packages, love letters, flyers, magazines, demands from HMRC, postcards and wonderful news about pre-approved credit cards. It’s fair to say there’s usually a steady pile.
Every day when I leave the building (or when I come back if it’s an early start), I look through the post and pull out what’s for me. In doing so, of course, I leaf through the rest of the building’s post. Which, for the most part, isn’t much fun.
Which is a shame.
Lots of white or brown envelopes that may tease at what’s inside through a logo, or official looking font, but rarely more.
Which is also a shame.
Hidden within those envelopes are a wealth of information about people like me. People who choose to live in the same areas as I do, people who have similar resources to me, and broadly – given the area – are of the same kind of age and background. So wouldn’t it be awesome if that space was used?
Imagine the scenario… I’m a customer of BT Vision (and I am), through which I get my TV including Sky Sports (which I do). But the picture can be a little iffy (which it is). Downstairs lives Dave, he’s a Sky subscriber, and he doesn’t have any problems with his picture. Which means he didn’t miss last season’s Chelsea v Liverpool match (which I did).
So continue to imagine… I’m leafing through the post the day after I’ve missed a big match. I’m grumpy. I’m a bit miffed with BT (Actually, I’m not generally, just for the record). Sky know Dave lives in my building. Sky know BT Vision had problems in that area. Sky may even know that BT customers live in the building. Or at least people considering the purchase. So what if, when leafing through I see a nice blue envelope. It’s addressed to Dave. Inside could be anything, but outside is what’s important. It’s a message:
“Missed the match last night on BT Vision? Dave in Flat 6 didn’t. He’s on SKY. We think you’d love our service, but why not speak to Dave and see what he thinks? Inside this envelope is a voucher for a month free if you decide to switch”
OK, Dave may not want me to speak to him, but that’s to miss the point somewhat.
I’m ready for the message. It’s a moment I’m not expecting to be given such personalised, good news. It’s different. I might even think it’s quite clever.
But instead I get a letter from my bank. And I forget about the football. And I go to work. And I think about my bank.
Which is a shame.
Pick your moments to speak to me. And be clever about how you do it. Then I’m likely to listen. I don’t always like to find a flyer stuffed in my weekend Guardian.
By the way, if there’s any great examples of something along these lines, I’d love to see it, so drop them in the comments!
If you asked me to outline the perfect football match to go to as a spectator, then it would probably be Scotland playing Brazil 15 minutes walk from my house. So it’s funny that that’s exactly what happened on Sunday. Admittedly, in fantasy land Charlie Adam curls a free kick into the top left corner to seal a tight 3-2 victory in the 93rd minute but hey, 2-0 wasn’t exactly a disaster.
That all aside, holding a Scotland match in London is interesting. It’s interesting because it presents a whole new set of opportunities.
Me, in the Brazil end, looking at 35,000 Scotland fans…
By all accounts 35,000 tickets were sold by the Scottish Football Association for the game, with a whole kilt load more (myself included) picking up tickets locally. That’s a lot of Scots in one place at one time. A fact not missed by the News of The World who had shipped editions of the Scottish News of the World to N5 for the occasion. Complete with free Irn Bru.
But what else could have happened? A good chunk of the supporters I spoke to before, during and after the match were Scots born and bred, but a lot now lived down South. And a moment like this, for a weegie 10 years out of Glasgow stirs real emotion. At that moment I am a sitting duck for anything that cements that feeling.
Am I a big Dougie MacLean fan? Not really, but you could have quite easily persuaded me to buy a copy of Caledonia.
Do I have any need for additional financial products and services? Not really, but Scottish Widows could certainly have enticed me to consider what they have to offer based on name alone.
And of course, once I’m hooked, then I’m yearning to call home, to reconnect with my Caledonian brethren and to share my experience…
Emotion is such a key part of decision making that seeking out the pockets where emotions run high could well be the key to something clever, disruptive and even spectacular.
We’re all exposed to marketing messages in countless ways each day. But how many hit us at the right time? It’s feeling Scottish again, or feeling 18 again, or feeling in the first throes of love again; and it matters.
On Friday night I went, for the first time, to a particular Soho bar. The cocktails were good (even if I’m a bitter kind of guy – the drink that is) and the company was great, but I’m not going to talk about either. Today I want to muse on the two experiences that bookended that night. One walking in the front door, one that made us walk out…
At 1000heads we like things that drive conversation. Events, or items that trigger someone to share their thoughts. Walking into this bar there was a classic:
“Are you wearing a tie?” “Erm, no.” (I haven’t worn a tie outside a church for a good long while) “Great, you can go in then.”
A no tie policy. Now these aren’t unique, but they’re hardly common. Indeed none of our group had experienced one before and so, despite a nod towards pretentiousness, I knew this was something I’d mention over the weekend. And if the cocktails were decent, then it would be in a most positive light.
Conversation, good.
No entry for Angus…
So we enjoyed our drinks.
We discussed topics as diverse as wallet assembly, what Jack Bauer would get drunk on and the derivation of the word ‘trinkets’. We thought why not have another drink? And so two of our party went to the bar.
And then this happened…
“I need this seat” – a waitress approached “Oh, Sorry it’s taken.” “No, no I need it for one of my customers.”
There then followed a discussion, nay debate, on quite what she thought we were, the lack of grace in asking and suggestion that they become better stocked in chairs.
She didn’t get the seat. We kept the seat. But we left pretty soon afterwards for somewhere a little more interested in our custom.
Did I mention the tie over the weekend? No.
Did I mention the strange lack of service? Absolutely.
Conversation, bad.
The moral of the tale?
I’m all for something quirky. Something a bit different.
It draws me in, it makes me a little more interested than I otherwise might be. And then I talk, and then I share, and that might benefit you.
But I’d also like the minimum of service. I also want the product or service you’re selling me to be as expected. I don’t expect to have someone purloin a chair mid visit. Least not a staff member.
Yes it’s about fist impressions, but much more importantly, it’s about lasting impressions.
“On the occasion of World Water Day, BDDP Unlimited partner NGO Solidarity International, which specializes in coverage of basic needs (including water supply), has created an unprecedented public event: to better detect bystanders, the agency has devised a poster of a new genus, using water directly as a medium. A wall of water events was set in the very heart of Paris and delivered messages for one week causing the awareness of pedestrians on the damage caused by the non-potable water in the world.”
There was the time ‘my friend Dave’ got locked in a freezer, and slept surrounded by waffles. The time ‘my friend Graeme’ convinced the doorman of a club he was the Pope’s son and they let him in wearing trainers. And, of course, the time someone you went to school with stole an otter from the zoo.
What’s great about anecdotes is they’re never told the same way twice. But then that’s human nature. You have longer or shorter to tell your piece. You have different audiences to sell the story to. You have different moods. What doesn’t change however, indeed what never changes, is the central core of the anecdote. The bit that makes it awesome enough to share.
And we can extend this to jokes. Nuggets passed on, more often than not by word of mouth, but by different people and with local variations. Think about the classic ‘Englishman, Irishman and a Scotsman’ set-up in British humour. The same jokes exist elsewhere, but they change the wrapping. In Scandanavia it’s a ‘Swede, a Dane and a Norweigan’ and in Canada the butt of the joke becomes ‘Newfies‘. Why? Simply because the message (in this case a joke) carries much better when it can be easily repackaged by the party passing on the message so that it may gain maximum effect.
And this is important to remember.
James has been talking about Labour’s so-called Word of Mouth election recently, whereby the party have claimed – among other things – that it had recently made its one millionth relationship this year. Not only is that verging on impossible in any practical sense, it’s certainly meaningless. You simply can’t share your vision, your passion and the core of your story with that many people. That many people are a wildly varied bunch.
However, if you have something ‘anecdote shaped’ to share, then you can reach say 100 people. Probably in batches of 10, using 10 different methods. Pensioners have different takes on Labour’s vision than teenagers I’d wager.
And those 100 people can, if inspired, then reach their own group of people. If you start with 100 people of varied background and influence, that could be another 100 each. That’s 10,000 people having a meaningful conversation. And if they’re engaged because they’ve been talked to on their level and in a way that will help them react, then they’ll tell another 10. That’s 100,000. If they tell 10 more you could say you’ve hit your million. And mean it.
Taking Labour as an example, it doesn’t really matter if they reach every member of the electorate directly. They will still broadcast at everyone through traditional mass media of course, but this need simply enhance the personal discussion voters are having beyond the horizons of Labour HQ, not replace it.
If I’m being lobbied by my colleagues, best friends and the girl who works in the local cheesemongers about the future of the country, then I’m probably thinking a lot harder about my vote than when I’m watching three men bicker about policy.
This isn’t brain surgery of course, but it’s worth remembering. For Labour, for people trying to sell cars or shoes or insurance, for companies looking to build a decent reputation, for artists trying to get a name for themselves.
The Easter Egg. Not the chocolately ones (though rest assured we’ll crack those out when the weather warms up a bit) but the hidden messages in digital form buried deep with computer games, DVDs, websites and applications. They’re a great way to build a bit of underground interest in something otherwise not wholly exciting.
And it doesn’t just have to be digital either. Take James’ post on In-N-Out Burger. Hiding a little something extra, resevered only for ‘those in the know’ is exciting. It tickles a little part of us we like to have tickled, and that makes us want to share the info with the people we like.
If you want to revel in some hidden goodness right now, head over to Google (www.google.com – look, you never know) and hit the ‘I’m Feeling Lucky’ button without entering anything in the search box. Lo and behold, there should appear a countdown timer checking off the seconds until the end of 2009. Nifty.
Since James posted, I’ve been wondering – have you been driven to share any ‘inside info’ recently?
Today, 15th October, is Blog Action Day. A day when bloggers around the world combine to inspire discussion and debate about a worthwhile topic. For 2009, it’s climate change.
Now, I’m no expert on climate change, so I won’t get stuck into that (you can get started here however), but I do realise it’s an important issue. I also know, that I don’t know enough about it. Which means I know that I really should find out more, before this image is consigned to history…
Luckily, Climate Change is something people talk about. Five minutes with Google and a deft swish of the mouse and you can be knee deep in stats, thoughts and opinions – not to mention some healthy debate. And let’s be thankful for that. There are important issues in the world, things that require our attention, and encouraging conversation around such issues helps us all make informed and rational choices. Whether it’s how we live our lives, or what mobile phone we should buy, I for one am glad for people talking.
It isn’t just about issues (or products) though. Word of Mouth can spread other vital bits of information too.
What’s the best way to get over a hangover? How should you react when somebody makes a serous social faux-pas? What are you actually meant to do on your Wedding Night? Conversations spread this key information from person to person in ways commercial breaks, or hastily foisted flyers never could. Though I would love to see a pamphlet entitled ‘What To Do On Your Wedding Night’.
