This anaylitcal curse gift, makes me a fantastic CEO and I’m quite positive gives me some sort of super-human sales representative “aurora” value-add, that others may not have. With the current H1N1 paranoia running rampant through the world, I decided to put my analytical curse gift to good work by working with our health &safety committee to ensure we mitigate and potentially eliminate, the spread of H1N1 throughout our workplace.

In all seriousness, we have opted as an organization to focus inward on our employee satisfaction throughout this flu season. Certainly we want to protect our employees and customers, but we also want to manage the perceptions of those that work for us as well.   It’s clear that employee satisfaction has a direct correlation on customer satisfaction, therby we feel that by managing employee perceptions that they: “must come to work even when sick for fear of losing their jobs due to truancy” or “must send their child to school sick due to fear of using too many sick days” ultimatley from the top providing them the clear message that those perceptions are in fact false, will allow them to take a deep breath and follow our Flu Season protocol this year.

Are we managing and looking for potential rogue behavior that may take advantage of our new leanancy to sick days? Absolutely.  In the end though, our employees are starting to feel that we support them, rather than the feeling that HR is running down the halls with clipboards to stroke off another missed day of work.

Our current priority is employee wellness and by focusing on that with flu protocols, we are able to better serve our clients through happier employees.

In case you are wondering, here are a few of our published protocols for staff which must be adheared to this flu season:

-At first sign of symptoms employees are not to report to the office, or immedialtey remove themselves from the work place.

-Sanitization stations have been installed within the office building

-Every employee has been provided their own hand sanitizers for their desk

-In the event of an H1N1 confirmed case, the entire office is sanitized

-Employees are required to stay home for an additional 24 hour period after symptoms and fever have been 100% cleared

I hope this helps bring light to what we are doing here at Vital Insight Group, now if you excuse me my analytical mind is beginning to wonder why I feel slightly warm and fluey now that I have written about flu symptoms.

What are you doing to ensure optimal workplace efficiency along with preparedness for this years flu season?

1. I firmly believe well regarded social media companies skimp on traditional means of communication handling and customer service.  Twitter for example, makes no mention on their homepage or to the general population for that matter that they actually do, have a live body handling customer satisfaction for them.  For reference, you can find the wonderful Crystal here.  Although Twitter is actively in pursuit of bodies to assist in customer support, I think much of the brands damage has been done at this point due to their reactionary approach.  This reactionary point leads into point #2

2. The developer community of any popular application is typically regarded as a group of individuals who create exciting applications, to enhance the user experience.  In Twitter’s case, hundreds if not thousands of applications are in existence today or are in development.  That said, Twitter in particular has caused developers and myself a tremendous amount of grief over the last bit due to API tweeks, unannounced API issues etc.  Their ability to actively make an entrepreneur question whether or not they should continue funding or put funds into developing off of their API seems to be an art on their part, albeit in the wrong fashion.  For the record, I have been questioning this as of late with our Tweepular.com tool.

We have had many instances where the API throws weird errors or simply stops functioning due to Twitter over capacity issues or changes they have made without proactively providing their devs a heads up.  This certainly needs to change or attrition of the developer community will be futile.  This now leads into and 3rd point/comment..

3.  Freemium sites like Twitter, Facebook or even Tweepular for that matter are a service developed for the community to use and leverage.  That said, the site is FREE and currency does not exchange hands in use of the service.  So if that’s the case does the regular population have the right to chastise the service, spread organic expressions of distaste or even demand corrective remedy?  I’ve been struggling with this as of late.  On one hand the service is free, on the other it’s the goodwill of the user base that creates demand and a developer must protect.  Is currency these days uniques and repeat visits and how do developers leverage and protect this from the seemingly upward rise in the expectation of users using the services on a daily basis?

Thoughts?

Recently though, since working with well regarded local news outlets, politicians and National Celebrity figures on a daily basis, I’ve had to look into how celebs are using Twitter and push away, how their publicists “think” the service should be utilized.  This is not easy and I can openly state publicists need to re-think Twitters value and how their clients should be leveraging it.

Although Twitter has always provided tremendous ability to network and market yourself, celebs and their teams have woken up and realized, with the amount of followers they can attain, the service is the ultimate form of driving traffic for them, their people and who they represent.  Although this is certainly true, it can/will weaken what I call the “four corners” of the Twitter foundation:

1. Authenticity

2. Engagement

3. Transparency

4. Interaction

It’s no secret that in the past 15 months, hoards of celebs have ingratiated and flooded the Twitter service to “connect with their fans” The truth of the matter from a quick study into a few well known accounts is,  90% of celebs have figured out, like the previous business users that jumped onto the bandwagon, that they can push traffic to themselves.  Some in fact, really need to re-think their approach as they can appear just as spammy as some people we rant & rave about who should not be on Twitter.

Let’s rock:

The One-Sided, Public Relations - Because I have a New Album Coming Out, Account Winner Goes To…

Fantastic engagement with your fans, Eminem!  New album dropping? I won’t follow anyone YO!  I’ll just spam the world with confusing and hypnotic one-sided messages. That should work.

The YAY!!! I’m New to Twitter, I can’t wait to have 1 Million Followers Clueless Account:

You’d think a media mogul would a few people on staff which would show poor Oprah the value prop of their new Twitter account strategy is to engage and interact with her fans?  To add insult to injury, the only people she has interacted with thus far are Shaq, Hugh Jackman, Larry King, Demi Moore and well, twitter founder Evan Wiliams. Those 11 people she follows are celebs as well.  “They” (the folks at Harpo) did however, figure out she does need a custom Twitter background for branding…go figure.

@oprah, why not proactively engage your audience with upcoming segments, tips, show ideas etc and bring that into your broadcasts.  It will work much better than screaming at everyone in all caps.

P.S we don’t care you aren’t wearing a weave.

The I’m a new mommy with a new business account!

I’ve been following Brooke for quite a while now, to see how she handles her Twitterself.  It’s interesting, because she has a firm handle on providing insight and transparency into her life, uses 3rd party tools, yet fails to respond to the people, or in her case the HUGE target audience she could be tapping into…#WAHM’s (work at home moms) I set up a search to monitor the traffic of people attempting to interact with her and it’s tremendous. Opportunities missed, one sided communication… accomplished.

The I’m running out of titles, because all these celebs seem to make the same mistakes account:

Like above, Super Brad only sees value in following his celeb friends, hasn’t been shown the ropes of Twitter 101 and thus far has only posted one tweet of value to support a charity… although, that was his last tweet and hasn’t responded to people inquiring about the charity. Tisk Tisk!

And finally…

Extra! Extra! Mario has a fantastic opportunity to create viewership, drive ratings and interact with fans and viewers through his Twitter account. In typical fashion, he follows celeb friends, has no branding integrated into his profile and has not responded to anyone writing him recently.

Conclusion:

While it was exciting when celebs jumped into the Twitter pond, the shiny glamor is wearing off quickly.  The foundations described above are what keep people interested in following each other and one sided-communication to drive traffic for the celebs, is a flash in the pan tactic. Reach out, interact with your fans and you’ll see how fast your own customer loyalty, profile and viral velocity will take off.

Problem is, the majority of people looking to make money on twitter are using it so poorly, they come off like they entered a networking event wearing clown shoes, holding a huge neon sign with their business logo on it expecting to close everyone int he room, on the spot, no questions asked.

Do they capture attention when they burst in the room? Absolutely, but just as fast people are scampering away or avoid them like the bird flu.  This then begs the question:

If we all know this, then why do the majority of people do this?

For the life of me I really don’t know why and it seems to be getting worse. Tonight I added a few people to my network.  Random people that I found through people that I admire follower lists.  Of the roughly 100 people I added 83 of them had auto follow messages that instantly had self promoting link bait to the wares and services. Remember the neon sign?

Beyond this I looked into many of their streams and it was evident that people have clearly grasped the fact that this twitter thing is a great way to push messages or drive traffic to their blog, company site, etc.  Is there anything wrong with this? Certainly not, but I feel it’s time that someone publish a few points on what works and what doesn’t.  A “how to guide” if you will to help each other filter through the noise per se.

Advice Tip #1.  To make money on Twitter, you need to NOT want to make money on Twitter.

I know it’s counter intuitive, yet it’s the truth.  If you are using Twitter specifically to make money you simply will not.  The reason is because authenticity can’t be faked.  Although many of us are using the service (whether willing to admit it or not) to drive traffic or simply put the word out there on who we are or who our companies are, authentic relationships and community building are what matters most.  The requests for quotes, PR, etc are ancillary benefits to the time you invest.  If you’re after instant monetization it will elude you as the majority of your time will be spent aggressively marketing yourself or your service and people will instantly sense this and avoid due to lack of engagement and authenticity.

Advice Tip #2. You Aren’t Fooling Anybody

Recently I was asked by a follower to take time out of my day to help them with some social media tips to help their business.  I obliged and we set a date for a time and call.  This said date arrived and on time I received a call in my office.  I fully expected to engage and provide some advice gratis, that this company or individual could use for their sales teams and for events in their business. No dice.

The call was from said person’s company, however it was an inside sales rep pitching me on behalf of this individual.  At this nanosecond the company was doomed in my mind and I had written off the individual that set me up.  No authenticity = no success.  Worst part about it from a customer satisfaction perspective, was that I actually am sourcing bids right now for the services they were offering.

In Conclusion: If You Ever Get Confused, See Advice Tip #1 & 2. I have many other pieces of advice to add on this, but I’m curious to hear your thoughts on this before I do so.

What Do You Think? Am I wrong, Do you Agree/Dissagree? What works for you and what doesn’t? Chime in and share your thoughts.

Airlines have done a tremendous job putting together programs and features to enhance the “enjoyment” of travelers.  From airport lounges to rewards, all the way to WI-FI in flight, it’s obvious the head offices and strategic minds of these carriers are turning customer centric as a means to drive revenue and build customer loyalty in an attempt to capture precious market share.

The problem? All of the efforts can be instantly taken away and negated in the flash of an eye, based on one terrible experience and the inability to focus on the voice of the customer - in near real time.  Further complicating the issue, social media has entered the equation and with many companies struggling to either understand how to manage social media or even worse turning a blind eye to the new electronic movement.

Case In Point:

Yesterday I posted to my 5500+ followers a few real time quips as to the terrible experience I was having prior to departure on United Flight #7606 YYZ to IAD.  The net effect of my real time transmission resulted in hundreds of people responding to me in real time letting me know their expressions or “feelings” on the airline.  Regretfully, if a social media strategy had been in play at United, they could have immediately chimed in as fast as my followers had stamping out my sparks of defection before they ignited into burning brush fire which to this minute has ignited (accidentally) virally through the social media wires.

The synopsis of the events are listed below:

Boarding Flight:

- Flight attendant hanging out in cockpit laughing with pilots, no warm greeting upon boarding

- Placing Articles in Overhead Bins, Snide remark from flight attendant: “Suitcase is fine up there, laptop bag under your seat, Got it?”

Me: “Oh, is it a full flight tonight?”

Rude Attendant “No, It’s how United does it”

First Twitter to followers Yields Many Responses:

Some Of The Best Responses Received In Minutes:

Prior to take off:

Said Attendant approaches my travel companion and I and states: “I need you two to move forward to the front rows”

Me: “No thanks we are ok here”

Said Attendant “Look, just move ok.  I’m not going to ask you again”

In Flight:

Said Flight attendant deliberately skips over my travel companion and I while serving refreshments.

Upon Arrival Of Flight:

Flight attendant back in cockpit with pilots laughing, with no thank you for flying with us.

United Airlines Response?

None, due to the fact they inadvertently are not monitoring their customer satisfaction beyond traditional means of surveying and statistical analysis AND by embracing Social Media .

Conclusion:

Certainly, one bad flight doesn’t indicate the overall tone of a brands customer satisfaction level.  After researching the brand briefly it is important to note they actually ARE a forward thinking airline when it comes to providing customer service and a painless experience while flying.

They are the first airline to offer door to door baggage via a recent partnership with Fedex, are among the very few airlines that maintain a web-portal based customer satisfaction survey platform and are doing many other things to enhance the flying experience.

That being said, it’s evident that United does not currently employ a social media strategy to scan and ensure that their customers expressions are being intercepted to reduce defection in the hugely competitive airline vertical.  If they had employed this type of a strategy, a representative from say “United_Cares’ could have chimed in just as quickly as my followers and sent me a message saying “Anything I can do to help?” That, would have been a wow and undoubtedly would have resulted in me congratulating them for extending a hand.  In reality they didn’t, now resulting in viral transmission crossing the wires here and hitting as far as the UK.

Is the entire airline to blame for two flight attendants terrible attitude? Not-at-all.  However what they didnt know is I am an Air Canada Super Elite passenger who was traveling on a United code share flight.  When it comes to repeat customers and brand loyalty there isn’t anyone higher in this snack bracket than me and it’s awful that this one experience has tainted my view on the Airline.  Will I stop traveling with them? Probably not, but what I am most interested in is preventing this from happening again to others.  To quote a recently blogged line by Kristen Victory:

“In this case, United doesn’t seem to have a link to bloggers, twitterers, or other social media outlets.  Hopefully, they will take the hand Jason Tryfon is attempting to outstretch.  United, he wants to help.  And, you need it”

Update: Feb 11, 2009

I was contacted by a United Customer Relations representative by the name of Marcy who was very, very nice. She was empathic and wanted to ensure me that United cares about every experience their traveller has.  While broaching the subject of viral transmission and employing a Twitter and social media strategy and how I could possible help United leverage this further, I was told that the economic situation could possible be a cause for additional resources to be added to further add to their (United’s) already hundreds of representatives in the customer relations team that receive phone calls, emails and letters already.  Admittedly Marcy was unaware of Twitter or how it could be leveraged and after a few times of trying to explain how a few existing representatives could be positioned to handle a “United_Cares” account it became evident that I should be speaking to a VP level contact to explain a strategy further.

The call ended with the representative informing me that United does have a group of people who search negative expressions about the brand and they certainly do care about all travel experiences, even though mine took place with “Shuttle America” who operates that flight path for United.  I informed Marcy I understand, however “United’s logo is on the plane and for all intensive purposes that represents who I am flying with, aside from the fact I bought the ticket full price through Air Canada who code shared it with United who then has a 3rd party operate the route” She agreed very nicely.  In conclusion I realized that to meet with the appropriate people at United to assist them would require an executive level contact in PR or communications that I could meet with and requested her pass on the following information to whomever that may be.

“I’ll invest my time and money and will fly to meet with an Executive contact on my own dime to assist in understanding how a social media strategy can be put in play FREE.” Marcy said she would certainly pass on the information.

So, aside from this, this seems to be the end of the story.  I was offered a heartfelt apology and ensured the information would be passed on to ensure training practices would be employed to prevent these things from happening in the future.  I am doubtful I will be taken up on my offer and although Marcy was incredibly nice and empathic I feel this chapter is closed, albeit a few words short.

What do you think? Chime in below with your feedback and feel free to share should you feel my piece is worthy.

Behind board room doors, the fundamental question to be tabled and focused on in the wake of disaster is:

“What are we going to do for these people in the wake of this near fatal experience they endured?”

The reality and short answer of this question is: No matter how much or how little the hand extended will be, the offer will never be right.

Opinions will be divided even with the individuals reading this post, let alone how the situation was handled, and that’s ok, because like the challenge put forward to US Airways - there really is no right or wrong answer.

Dealing with these types of situations, the important factor organizations need to take into account beyond their balance sheets is public perception and how the form of compassion & compensation is associated to the overall “perception” of the brand or airline. In this particular case, the conclusion was $5,000 and privilege to US Airways Chairman Preferred club.  The perks include among other things: automatic upgrades on mainland domestic flights, two upgrades on overseas flights, access to a special reservations number and double miles on every flight for survivors through March 2010.

Many reports show the general public is outraged with the compensation and even survivors of the “Miracle on the Hudson” have been quoted to say “the temporary tease of first-class perks is for the birds”

My Thoughts?

I believe the cash portion of compensation was in line with what would be deemed fair to the organization and the passengers involved.  The reality many airlines are currently faced with is that they are cash starved and simply cannot fork over the hard dollars.  That being said, if cash was not available the other forms of satisfaction then become drawn into the spotlight IMMEDIATELY.

The Chairman’s club offer went sideways the second they tacked on an expiry date and if I was consulting on the matter I would have encouraged a longer duration to be associated to these 150 people than 12 months if at all.  Certainly airline rewards come with a price and are in fact the most costly form of customer satisfaction for an airline, however, it probably would have avoided the negative press and perceived lack of caring to the passengers.

So in the wake of this - What are your thoughts? Was US Airways form of compensation fair and did it protect the integrity of the brands Customer Satisfaction?

Chime in.

Brand protection or Customer Experience Management as I like to now define it, is today’s art of the deal.  Prior to the web 2.0 movement traditional means of “Customer Service” represented a walk up desk in a retail store or a 1-800 number where operators are “standing by”.

“#1 in Customer Satisfaction” has become a term loosely thrown around by almost every organization, when the truth of the matter, the statistics driving that metaphor commonly used, is primarily driven off of an annoying telephone survey or a link on a big box retailers receipt inviting you to “Win $100 in groceries” for providing feedback to your shopping experience while buying diapers and sweet potatoes.

Much has changed in the past few years, yet a fundamental question still exists:

If So Much Has Changed, Why Then, Are Companies Still Providing Crappy Service?

The truth of matter is… companies simply do not know HOW to provide fantastic service.

True, that satisfaction is in the eye of the beholder, and everyone has a cocktail napkin story about how bad, a company is with their service, but at the end of the day, how is it, that the process of providing great service comes down to a link on receipt or a phone survey as you are sitting down to dinner and it’s justified as customer satisfaction?

It doesn’t & it needs to change.

Companies are fighting for market share, drooling wolves looking for the next kill per se, however the mechanism of obtaining customer feedback is only the first step in the process -  yet many end it here.

Secret Tip To Move The Needle From “Customer Satisfaction” to “Customer Evangelist”

It’s the resolution of customer issues that is what actually resolves the issues that are causing the negative expressions of satisfaction, but low and behold… organizations are analyzing statistics first and lack the ability to track, maintain, respond and confirm a customer issue is in fact “Resolved”

In conclusion:

Times of changed and so have our consumers.  In the blink of an eye the customer you have worked so hard to gain can be gone in a second and without the right method of:

First: Hearing what your customer is saying, in near real time

Second: Responding to them just as fast

Third: Managing the issue through a true “resolution process”

Fourth: Ensuring the issue has been appropriately handled to true customer resolution

Fifth: Then, Studying the metrics

Sixth: Saying you are the best of all time

Only have a few of the above covered?  You may be leaving your most precious asset on the table for competitors to feed.  Has your satisfaction program evolved to the needs of today’s consumer?

Good Question Right? What do you think?

Last night I decided to test the waters and sent out a quick survey to my 2200 followers with the simple question of: “Auto Dm’s YES or NO GO!” Without any surprise, I received hundreds of responses (immediately) stating a definitive NO to the question.

Has The Auto Direct Message Become A Sign Of Our Times?

Instant communication, Instant response, Instant connection, Instant gratification has, like-it-or-not become the paradox of our now “expectation economy” of: ‘I want it my way, on my time, in real time” and with economic uncertainty now a reality, organizations are faced with this fact while grappling with how Customer Satisfaction has evolved and “should” be tended to. The easiest conclusion derived? Add another form of “instant” communication through technological means.  In an earlier blog post I explained how the customer loyalty landscape has forever changed with the emergence of Twitter, and it seems since writing this “instant electronic personalization” has spilled over into individual lives as well.

My Perception On The Auto DM

I find many direct messages welcoming me to be an annoyance rather than a form of satisfaction in following the person and them welcoming me.  Like many companies we work with, it seems the personalization of the human component that is missing in most fundamental interactions is exactly what is causing the annoyance to most people receiving the message.  The personal touch associated with saying “thx for following me Jason, I enjoyed your latest blog post” rather than “thx for the follow @jasontryfon, click my link here to read my blog and see how you can lose 20 pounds fast” is essentially lost in translation thereby causing the dissatisfaction many of you experience.

The Net/Net?

True satisfaction is responding and interacting to people in near real time as we all are learning, however with some things we need to keep the K.I.S.S rule top of mind. Avoid using the Auto DM as a link to hype your own product or service and think of your new follower as someone you are meeting at a party for the first time.  If we were just meeting for the first time would you run up to me and jam a business card in my face with a 10 second pitch to your company?  Most likely not, as it would be off putting for the receiver.  Your interactions with your new peers electronically are no different, so be cognizant of the actual satisfaction element you are providing, as it may cause the opposite of what you think you are providing.

What do you think? Chime in and share it!

Short, brief, from the bottom of my heart answer that I hope you take advantage of:

Never & especially not during these economic times.

For the mathematicians in you, I have devised a simple yet detailed formula to explain.

Customers = Revenue, Revenue - Expenses = Profitability, Profitability = SUCCESS.

Few companies can afford to “Fire” a customer today.  In fact, I beleive companies should be SPENDING on customer retention strategies on how to better listen to their customers.  Beyond listening, you need to put action in place based on what it is your customers are saying and protect them as YOUR customer from the feeding frenzy of competitors in the marketplace looking to gain any type of market share that exists.  Why would you allow your competitor that opportunity? The days of picking blossoms from tress are over, sales organizations have transformed from delicate, soft spoken types who are masters of listening into excavators mining the earth for any nugget of sales gold and they are relentless (or should be)

In short, I’m well aware that there are many theories that exist whereby it’s prudent to examine your customer base and decide whether or not “You should fire them”.  I wholeheartedly disagree, and am providing you this opinion because I care about your business as the readers of my little blog.  If a firm is suggesting that you fire a customer…I strongly advise to think about it and potentially fire them… then give me a call.

I promise I wont fire you.

Jason

2. Your spouse has pamphlets circling around on how to handle a “Twittervention”

3. You are a walking thesaurus of Twitter acronyms - HT’s, RT’s, WTF’,s FTW!

4. You have RSS feeds set up keeping you plugged in to @garyvee, @scobelizer & @techcrunch’s real time tweets so you don’t miss a “sniffy sniff, a “WHO are YOU?” or a Crunchie update

5. Your spouse sends you DM’s on what to bring home for dinner - email just isn’t fast enough anymore

6. You insist all business meetings are now called “Tweetups”

7. Fail Whales require therapy and hives break out at the thought of not being connected to your followers

8. Your Rolodex now has handwritten Twitter usernames on peoples business cards

9. Referring to people in public as “@ their name” slips out regularly and goes uncorrected

10. You have designated times when twittering is ok with your spouse (mine is when the kids are asleep and my work for the day is done LOL)

11. You find yourself pitching Twitter any chance you get, to friends, family and…anyone that will listen

12. In the middle of a heated debate you’ve actually wondered if you can Unfollow & Block the person standing in front of you

13. You suddenly become a Suns fan because @the_real-shaq gave you a follow…even though you are a die hard Lakers Fan

14. You have so many followers you have categorized your community into 30 columns on tweetdeck and when new followers add you, you break out into a cold sweat as to what column to put them in

15. When your spouse joins Twitter he or she has to explain their case as to why you should intro them by way of a “please follow” to your followers

16. You spring awake in the middle of the night with a great new Twitter word to share with the “Tworld”

17. Instead of checking email at 3am when you can’t sleep, you are frantically checking your @replies in case someone gave you a re-tweet or sent you an “@” reply

18. Although you have never met 90% of your followers you are more touched they sent you an e-card for the holidays than an immediate family member

19. Your emails are starting to creep down to only 140 characters…OR LESS

20. You custom built a tool off of Twitters API to notify you the second your boss starts following you on Twitter so you can instantly block him or her

Add to the list by chiming in and sharing with your “tweeps”!