Momentary Lapse of Reasoning

Entries tagged as ‘Customer Relations’

May we send you a newsletter, please?

May 29, 2009 · Leave a Comment

be_polite
Image by ropesandpulleys (License)

Sometimes you only have to ask nicely.

This morning I received a mail from YouTube. It was a happy mail, a nice mail, a mail that didn’t make me angry but to like YouTube more and feel there are real people writing me these mails.

So, what makes people read a mail anyway? Of course one thing is a right kind of header. The header in this message was something that may have some importance to me, My YouTube Preferences. Of course this could be some kind of a phishing attempt, but I as a professional emailer [a smiley face here] know this isn’t one [they're not asking me to open anything and there's no attached files in it – is a good sign on that one].

The letter itself starts like this, and I quote:

At some point, you opted in to receive a weekly newsletter from YouTube. You may have noticed that we actually haven’t sent this newsletter in quite a while, although we assure you we’ve been quite busy during that time!

What a nice way to put it! No, I actually didn’t notice that you haven’t ’spammed’ me even once after the day I registered to YouTube [maybe a couple of years ago], but that’s OK, now I realize it.

The tone in the beginning of the message is personal, natural and even with a slight self irony in it. A class example how to start your message if you want someone to read it.

The message continues with describing whatfor they’ve send me the current message: they are announcing that they are beginning to send out more newsletters in the future and if I like to have them to my mail I don’t have to do anything.

This Taoist ‘do nothing’ is a very pivotal point here. If I’ve once subscribed to a newsletter, there shouldn’t be any reason to bother me with a new subscription. Users are often lazy, don’t try them out.

If the YouTube staff wanted to be annoying, they would’ve put out a message where was a link like “Re-subscribe”. This could’ve been a good place for YouTube to do a survey using the data on, for example how many users clicked the link.

Right after this point in the letter they are also describing, with a sentence, how I should proceed if I don’t want these messages in the future. So that one’s cover too.

So what else one would like to bring up in a letter like this? When you’ve shuffled through the trouble of getting the customers/users/ reading your message, why not tell them where they can read more about your service? Yes of course: from our blog! ‘Here’s the address if you would like to read it sometimes”.

And then shut up and close the letter; thank the customer of using your services and invite them to check out the new stuff you’ve created for them by providing the address to your service if they have somehow lost it. And ‘Sincerely yours’ as a cherry on top.

A newsletter doesn’t have to be that more inventive or unique than this to stand out and be worth of reading. Keep it small, introduce what you got to say [and have something to say] with a clear and solid way – don’t bore the reader. And talk nicely. The tone of ‘would we’ isn’t sucking up. It’s called c-o-u-r-t-e-s-y.

Categories: Advertising and Marketing · Business · Customer Relations
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Teachings of a stand up comedy night: make them lol

April 24, 2009 · Leave a Comment

make_em_smile

Image by CharlieGentle (Licence)

Last night my friend [his earthly&nerdly blog can be found here – sorry again to those non English speakers, it's in Finnish] had his first stand up performance at Tampere Teerenpeli. This was his second in a row; the first one was at Helsinki On the Rocks the night before. He pulled his thing off nicely and the jokes were even funny [yes, it was a relief that I didn't have to fake the laughter and afterwards praise him when thinking in my head 'Don't go quitting your day job']. He even had planted a name ‘Marko’ to one of his sketches so could it be more perfect for me?

But of course as I’m mostly writing about dull things like advertising and marketing, I had to find something to say about them from yesterday’s situation too. Well, what I was thinking afterwards was that the standard stand up crowd consists of many different kind people; you have the suit guys [who got most of the targeted jokes on them – surprise surprise], the basic working class people, the artsy fartsy people [where I slightly consider myself in, very slightly], and so on.

So what is the unifying element they all have; why are they there? No matter what other things they like or prefer to do, they all like laughing. People usually [even in Finland] like to laugh and feel themselves amused. I believe this is one of the most biggest things, a business benefit at the customer care business, one should understand and take under consideration.

For example, do you want your presentation to have a feel similar to a funeral, or a feel-good thing where all are getting the most out of the situation? How you create this good meeting, is in your own hands and it starts from you being a natural funny easy going person you are [like we all basically are, right?]. And not either suck up and bend in front of every little request the customer is making, and in the other end, not being this ‘highly creative artsy bastard’ either. Stop taking everything so seriously and relax.

Now someone there is thinking, ‘Well, but often the customer can be a real arse who thinks he knows my job better than I do, and they’re the ones that are often grim and boring’ [this isn't my thinking at all, I just somehow invented this. Hello to all our customer who might be watching. :D ]. So what, I say? You cannot control how other people act, but you can at least try to slightly and quietly direct the feel of the encounter to somewhere ‘nice’, with your actions and reactions.

As many spiritual men, for example like Gandhi and Dalai Lama have often pointed out: one cannot stay in hatred if the other is always reacting with kindness, understanding and calm. This is a BIG statement from guys being kicked in the head for few times in their lives. And they still keep [Gandhi of course in past tense, rest his soul] calm.

And yes I know it’s hard. It’s sometimes hard to suck up that sense of professional pride of yours and say ‘I don’t know about this’ or ‘I have to find out’, or even ‘I think you may be right’. When interacting with a customer that is.

And yes, there are times when they bombard you with their ‘evil email’, asking you questions that may sound stupid and you aren’t that eager to once again spend that precious time of yours to answer the same ones you thought you already had clearly answered.

Well, that’s called customer care. I’m not saying the customer is always right, he isn’t [yes, I dare to state that publicly] and the attention they desire isn’t always reasonable. Like my friend starting his stand up career has stated: ‘I’m the guy you’re always calling to when your printer screws up, and that sometimes pisses me off. Do you think I’m some kind of a clairvoyant or something!’.

But still, the only real way for us to succeed in this godforsaken rock is to try to get along, in every situation. And the following thought I’ve stated before, could help: Everyone is a customer in some point and everyone is in a customer care in some point; it is only a matter of time and situation. Oh, behave!

Categories: Customer Relations · Self-development · Them Reasonings
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The power of the demo compells them

April 17, 2009 · Leave a Comment

power_of_the_demo
Original image by sean dreilinger (Licence)

This is a post inspired by a recent nice post by Jari Parantainen at Sissimarkkinointi.fi. If you know your Finnish, go read it here. The message in my post is basically this: show what you got and stop speaking too much that professional BS.

Many times I’ve encountered a situation in the new media scene, where client’s understanding of the terms or the so called web slang isn’t at the same level for example with the ActionScript programmers or the social marketing professionals.

This doesn’t mean that your client company’s contact would be dumb or just too simple to understand these things, but more of that he or she understands more what terms like ROI and other similar mean, and they buy services and knowledge from people who know what for example Flex means and knows why to and where to implement it efficiently.

Sometimes the new media people thrown to the mercy of a customer service situation forget the old famous saying:

A picture tells more than 1000 words told in a professional slang no one else than you and your nerd homies understand.

When you pick up something solid to show, something concrete like a demo or a previous preference showing how your concept could work or look like, then it mostly doesn’t matter to the client with what technique you’ve done it [not talking about how much something can cost or how time consuming it can be], as long as it works and the client got what they came for.

Most of the time you’re not selling them a technique but a solution. And efficiently and robustly sell you must, or those neat project ideas you’re having in your sketch book, won’t ever see a light of day.

Delivering a clear message with something ‘cool’ [again I dare to use the professional word 'cool'] in these situations often determines the outcome betweend will they say ‘Yes, let’s do that!’ or ‘Err… I don’t quite get this. Let’s stick with the old tune.’.

And another free advice to nearer the possibility of success to those who can’t stop speaking the web slang to their customers in a wrong place; pay attention to persons when you are speaking to them. Listen to what kind of terms they use when they speak about the subject at hand and try to fit your language to their world instead of showing off your language skills when talking about Nings, Twitters or even maximum CPU speeds [unless it's preferred and OK in the situation – which is probably not a client presentation, but a get together with those before mentioned nerd homies of yours].

If your client seems like sweatting, distracted and his eyes are rolling because of the language you are using, it just might be better to change the tune you are singing the song. And show him something already!

Categories: Concept design · Customer Relations · Self-development · Web & Social Media
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Clear communication as your business benefit

March 16, 2009 · Leave a Comment

two_way_street

Image by  ﴾͡๏̯͡๏﴿ /streetart#+_♥.tk www.ALT3.tk (Licence)

Who is responsible of your customer understanding what he or she is buying? You are. What if delivering the message fails and the customer feels she didn’t get what she came for? You better hope it’s not your fault and try to relieve your customer’s disappointment, because there’s no worse customer than a one who is shouting ‘They won’t deliver what they offer!’.

It’s sometimes hard to buy things you don’t really understand; for example, you may sometimes need help in choosing which computer suits best for your needs, what’s the best marketing plan for your company or what CMS to use when putting up a new website. These are united by the fact that they are often things when you need someone professional to help you with the facts you need to decide what you are eventually buying.

You, as a professional or as a sales person [who should know what he or she is selling], have a huge responsibility, but also a potential business benefit. You have to do everything in your powers, so that the client truly understands what is that you are offering; what is your product and what it is not.

This ultimately affects how the customer sees the end product and how satisfied he is. If he feels he got the thing he originally was buying, it raises the customer satisfaction level. But if he feels you didn’t deliver what was offered in the first place, it all may end up in a feeling where he thinks he has been betrayed. Even if there’s nothing wrong with the end product, merely he understood differently what you were presenting.

So here’s a couple of pointers trying to emphasize the importance of crystal clear communication in a situation where you are explaining what is that you are offering [well wasn't this a crystal clear sentence]:

  • Make sure that YOU understand your product. Talk with your granny about it. If she understands it as you explained it to her in five minutes, you just may understand what you are talking about. Remember; if the communication can fail, it probably will. -Yes, a cliche, but also a cold fact.
  • Determine what you speak about the product. No need to go so deep. Customer needs to know the overall picture, not how your cool XML works with the API and reduces the download speed 143 kB [or something]. Of course if the customer is someone who needs to know that, you can tell this. Otherwise: deliver a message suited for the need and the context of the client.
  • Show some real life examples, they tell more than just words. Show how your product has relieved the life of others, what is does and how it will eventually look like.
  • Ask if they understood. Most times people have questions in their head, but won’t ask them. You take the initiative. Make them talk.
  • Summarize the concept/the product/the deal [in written] and set clear guidelines what it includes and also if possible, what it doesn’t. It is a painful situation if your client suddenly starts asking more features than you originally sold him, and you have to do them overtime and free. This may end up in many more hours that your originally designed for, just because you weren’t paying attention and didn’t take the time to write things up.
  • Always try to better and invent new ways of crystallizing your message and getting it through with an increasing rate.
  • Ask for feedback on how you and/or your team worked. Process it. Learn from it.

Overall, one should always remember: Communication is a two [or more] way thing. You deliver something and you get response to it. Many times the lack of understanding occurs because of people presuming too much. Don’t presume, better to know for sure.

Categories: Business · Customer Relations · Interaction & UI · Project management
Tagged: , ,

The definition of ‘meeting’

March 11, 2009 · Leave a Comment

business_meeting

Image by  llawliet (Licence)

What I’ve noticed is that it doesn’t matter how much you try to hide that you think something sucks, people can sense it. If you feel like that, ask yourself: why am I doing this job? This post is basically some random thoughts about customer relations, but, in depth, about unselfishness and about confronting people the right way.

Next time when you are in a meeting and you notice that instead of trying to solve your clients problems you are dreaming about the beautiful sunsets of Rio, ask yourself why am I here? Why am I not interested? And why is this customer paying me?

We all have times when we are tired or a bit down, but mostly that is a question of attitude. If you are working with someone and doing work for them, you most likely should be actively there.

So what if it’s hard? The customer is bitching [yeah, using the word 'bitching'] about the last campaign being boring, or the great fair department you designed [you thought was soo cool] was stated ‘Really awful’? How can you ever work with people like that?

Well, sometimes it can be like that but think about this; would you rather fight or be pleasant?

What else, than just small time satisfaction, you get out of fighting or whining? In the worst case the client leaves and tells everyone he or she meets that you are a very hard person to work with.

Some may want to have a reputation like that, but then you have to be a top notch designer, and most likely there’s no use to be an asshole then either.

So what to do if you want to be a greater person to meet? One simple exercise can be this:

Act as if meeting new people and clients, and the old ones too, were a game. A game where you, no matter what happens, cannot loose your good feeling or thoughts or the control of the situation. No matter what. And in addition: you have to keep smiling the whole time.

As in many other play based learning styles, you will eventually turn from ‘acting’ to ‘being’, and you may end up liking what you used to hate. One of the biggest reasons people state so eagerly “I hate to do thing X” is that they are afraid. So, dare to jump and see what happens.

And also, if you are in the advertising/creative/whatever business, it’s easy to give something more to the client than he or she expects. Actually, a lot more. You have a room of possibilities, because you are “from the ad agency”. Even something strange isn’t that strange from you, because you are “creative”.

It doesn’t have to be anything that special or over the top. Usually the small things matter. You don’t have to take your pet wolf to a meeting or dress as Elvis, but you can, and most likely they won’t change the agency. If an accountant would do that, he would be kicked to the kingdom come. But not Mr. or Ms. Ad Person.

But back to the point. Friendliness, open mindedness and being interested can most likely be enough. Unfortunately, they aren’t that common anymore, and people who can be like that, will prevail.

In order to dive deep into your clients world, you have to be interested about your client and what they are doing. They aren’t just an account nor those who just bring the money to the house.

Also, offer them more. If you have fallen to the awful ravine of just executing tasks, stop! They will see it in your work and in the meetings. If they come up with the ideas, and you just implement them, they can get someone else to do it cheaper. So, be a step ahead.

Basically, if you for some reasons won’t like meetings or are intimated about them, remember this: Everyone is a client, and almost everyone is a service person. It’s only a matter of place and time, when the roles change. So apply the golden rule and enjoy the both parties.

P.S. Can you ever find a more awful picture than that one up there? Please fellow designers out there, don’t ever ever offer image bank pictures like that. And if your customer forces you to put an image like that, forget what you read in this post and tell him how it is!

Categories: Advertising and Marketing · Business · Customer Relations · Self-development
Tagged: , ,

Do You listen to…

January 18, 2009 · Leave a Comment

Won't listen

Image by Vanessa Pike-Russell (Licence)

…your clients?

The thing is, that we, the people of the marketing and advertising industry, sometimes have this omnipotent symptom where we think that we [should] know everything about advertising and marketing, and our visions should dominate the relationship with our customer. This affects our ability to hear what the customer may have to say.

This way of thinking may lead to this: Sometimes, when our client tells us coherently what she needs, it makes us feel bad. We feel we’re a failure, we feel “You don’t know anything about marketing, stop trying to tell me how I should do my job”. Baaad mistake.

What I mean here isn’t the same what I wrote in the post about open mindedness in using social media as a marketing tool. What I’m trying to say is, that sometimes, often, your client knows the way of the game in her field much better than you – it is a cold fact.

She lives and breathes her business all the time; you are just visiting there once in a while, helping to better market her awesome and outstanding product. Do you want your visit to be cocky or truly a client oriented experience? – Client oriented here does not mean the same as crawling in her feet and acting like an amoeba and submitting in every caprice.

You are professional when you get the client speaking about her wishes and needs, and pick up the useful information and knowledge from that.

Naturally same rules won’t apply in every situation. The statement about the client coming with a good pallet of needs is something that happens now and then. We all probably know the opposite type who doesn’t know a bit what he wants and in addition to this it’s awfully difficult to get any ideas through.

Getting through this is, again,  a matter of your professional abilities of trying to get him out of his shell and guiding him to the finish line. The important things here are respect, open minded atmosphere and really, a truly customer oriented approach.

When you go and see the advertising business websites, almost all of them are telling they come with a “customer oriented approach”. I wonder how true that is? It should always be true, you shouldn’t even have to advertise this as an agency strength.

Of course it isn’t always as dandy and easy as written here, but what else can you do? You choose how you react in potentially difficult situations – do you whine or deal with them?

If you have to say “Piss off, I’m through with you.” you have lost the game, and most likely the expected revenue. And during these trying times, that isn’t the way you want it to go, is it?

Categories: Advertising and Marketing · Self-development
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