Talk It Up!

The Morton's story: not about customer service

If an influencer tells the tale of one-time customer service heroism, is that great customer service or just great marketing?

When Peter Shankman Twittered that he wanted a steak from Morton's, he was kidding. When the company drove 24 miles out of town to deliver it to him, he was floored and gushed about the company's exceptional customer service. Something bothered me about this story from the beginning, but it took a bit to put my finger on it.

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Random acts of kindness vs influencer engagement

Roger Drake, senior vice president of marketing and communications at Morton’s, reported in a SmartBlogs on Restaurants interview that the company has a "random acts of kindness" policy that encourages employees to go above and beyond. He gives an example of employees returning jackets that customers leave in the restaurant. And he acknowledges that "we know [Shankman] and have communicated with him over the years. He has a huge following on Twitter, he knows us, dines with us, he has attended events." 

But the company did much more than return a jacket or commit a random act of kindness. The act wasn't random at all. They responded immediately with a valuable gift to an acknowledged influencer who "has a huge following on Twitter." They didn't deliver steaks to just anyone who Tweeted that they wanted one.

The results were impressive:

Because of this and [Shankman’s story] — and other comments on Twitter — Morton’s gained 800 followers on the national Twitter account. Immediately after the excitement, we awarded a random person who tweeted with #SteakThankYou. Once you’ve engaged them, keep them engaged.

Marketing, not Customer Service 

Perhaps I'm just crotchety in my social media old age (I've been blogging since 2005 and Twittering since 2007), but this move strikes me as a clever marketing opportunity, not customer service. This isn't really a replicable customer service strategy. And since the results were measured in Twitter followers with the langage of engagement, I feel pretty comfortable assessing the move as a marketing technique, not a customer service one. Shankman wasn't even complaining; he was joking about a steak.

Liz Strauss tells a tale of exceptional customer service in an experience she had with FedEx 25 years ago in which her FedEx guy went to heroic extremes to pick up and deliver a package on time. That is a tale of customer service. The Morton's story isn't. Here's what could have happened in order for this to be a customer service anecdote:

• A Morton's customer who had a bad dining experience receives a surprise steak dinner the next week
• A Morton's customer who had to leave before completing dinner due to a delay in the kitchen receives a steak the next week
• A Morton's customer who mentions that his father is homebound sees his father receive a steak dinner the next week
• A Morton's customer who cancels a reservation due to a family member being taken to the hospital receives his meal at the hospital

See the difference? In these instances, each person is a customer who has had a recent experience that needs to be improved upon.

As a marketing move, it was an effective one. And the idea to give a steak to an additional follower under the hashtag was also a clever and successful way to drive engagement.

Heroes don't scale

So if it was clever and effective marketing, what is bothering this marketer? As Bruce Temkin noted, while the story has garnered a lot of exposure (marketing/PR exposure) for Morton's, it's not a tale of effective customer service. He points out:

I often tell companies that “heros don’t scale.” Great customer experience (and customer service) is demonstrated by repeatable processes, not by periodic heroic behavior.

I'm a big believer that the "extra mile" is less important in customer service than developing a deep understanding of how your customers (all of them, not just the influencers) define quality. I'd be more inclined to be impressed from a customer service point of view if I'd had a consistently good, timely and friendly experience at Morton's. As Harvard reviewers have reported, most customers don't actually want to be delighted or amazed. They just want a good, consistent experience. That would bring me back. Hearing about how some other guy got a free steak? Not so much.

But in spite of all that, I still firmly believe that delivering a consistenly good experience that meets expectations is the best customer service. Whistles and bells aside, most of us just want the basics.

In the end, I'm with Temkin. Periodic heroic behavior with a high-level influencer is great for marketing engagement, and I salute Morton's for it. Well done! It's just not an example of the kind of customer service the rest of us really want on a daily basis.

In the wake of Google+, Facebook finally makes privacy easy

Facebook adds simple, transparent privacy controls. Too little, too late?

It took Google+ to get Zuckerberg's attention, apparently. After months of complaints about Facebook's complicated privacy controls and overwhelming cries to make privacy and sharing on Facebook more transparent, it's finally happened.

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After Google+ gathered 10 million users in the first two weeks and hit 25 million users by July 24, just shy of a month after launch. Not quite to 750 million of Facebook, but the rate of adoption must be chilling for Facebook, which took 36 months to reach 25 million users.

Zuckerberg, you listening now? About damn time.

Now, magically, sharing can easily be controlled for each status update. A quick tour:

 

Step 1: Tagging. Tagging friends in a post means that they can see the post and their friends can see the post as well. Easy peasy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 2: Now that Facebook has admitted Foursquare's supremacy in the area of location-based services, Places has been killed. However, users can still add a location to any status update. Adding a location is optional for every status update.

 

 

Step 3: Ah, the pièce de résistance. Finally, finally users can easily control who sees each post. Putting up a photo of your kid? Limit to family or friends only. Showcasing your last charity event? Make it public and easy for others to share. File this under About Damn Time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why weren't these implemented before, when people fed up with the lack of privacy control were leaving in droves? Because losing a few users wasn't enough to get Zuckerberg's attention. However, a competing product that makes privacy and content control simple, easy and fun is.

What you need to know about who opts in to text campaigns

In the rising world of SMS marketing, there are a lot of questions. Questions such as can we import our phone list and how is it different from Twitter?

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But before any of that, it's useful to know who opts in to text campaigns in the first place. The guys at Tatango did a survey, and it looks like it's not such great news if you are trying to reach teen girls or adults over 55. But if your primary audience is men or women aged 25-35, you're in luck: that demographic is the most likely to opt in to a text campaign.

Of course, none of this matters if your content doesn't provide specific, unique and timely value. But it's a good place to start.

Click Image to Enlarge

Source: Tatango SMS Marketing

Your tablet isn't a "mobile device," says Alaska Air

Alaska Airlines offers free wifi for mobile devices. But hold on; your iPad or tablet isn't a "mobile device"

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What is a "mobile device"? This question came up on a recent flight. Alaska Airlines, the hometown favorite airline of Seattleites, announced a change in its in-flight wifi access policy that would provide free wifi for mobile devices through September 30th. On my flight back to Texas last week, the flight attendant announced that our mobile devices could access the internet for free during our flight.
 
So, what is a "mobile device"?

Previously, internet access on Alaska came at the price of $6.95 for a mobile device or $9.95 for a laptop, each for the duration of the flight. This could cause a bit of an issue if you're as big a geek as I am. If I pay for the laptop access to work but want to up my geek cred by checking in at 20,000 feet on Foursquare, what then? (OK, well, you can go to the mobile site and check in, but it's not nearly as handy as on the mobile app, now, is it?) In-flight pictures taken on a smartphone couldn't be immediately posted without purchasing access for the smartphone as well. Oh, the humanity!

So Alaska had a great idea: provide free access on mobile devices. Give your email address, and you can Foursquare, Twitter and Facebook away from a two-and-a-half-inch screen.

But this begs the question: what is a mobile device? A laptop is mobile in the sense that it can easily be carried around, but it's not mobile in the sense that it requires access through a wireless carrier phone plan. My traveling buddy fired up her iPad, one without a wireless carrier plan. Turns out it's not a "mobile device;" in-flight access is priced at $12.95. The next questions: what if the iPad did have a wireless plan? What about micro-tablets, the Samsung Galaxy Tab and the Velocity Cruz, with seven-inch screens? What determines the definition of a "mobile" device, at least according to Alaska Air?

Courtesy of the free internet provided via iPhone, "mobile devices" are defined as "web-enabled smart phones and iPod Touches." No tablets, no readers, no microtablets, no in-between third screens.

All well and good and perfectly reasonable on the part of Alaska Air, an airline that I enjoy flying frequently. But the question got me thinking. Outside of the amount of material one might download during a flight, therefore taxing the wifi system, what is the difference between a smartphone and a laptop? How are the in-between devices, the tablets and microtablets, blurring the line between a full workspace and a simple communication device? A smartphone isn't really a phone anymore; the running joke for iPhone users is that the iPhone does everything really well... except make phone calls. And the more than a seed of truth is what makes that joke resonate.

Will these new categories of mobile devices redefine the words we thought we knew, such as "phone" and "laptop"?

 

Topsy real time search

For monitoring: Topsy, a real-time search tool

In the realm of free monitoring tools, Topsy is head and shoulders above Twitter search. More sophisticated information, more analytics and more options for narrowing searches. Plus a great tool for social media marketers: the ability to find the key influencers on a topic at a glance!

Topsy launched as a real-time search engine in 2009. While the focus is on microblogging sites such as Twitter, the site also evaluates Tweeted links while considering the influence level of the person citing the link. For real-time search on a developing topic, such as a hot hashtag or a live conference, Topsy is a nifty little tool. It's even referenced in Twitter's official guide for journalists as a tool for researching news topics!

What's different about Topsy is that it gives preference to Tweets posted by influential Tweeters. In this case, "influential" means Twitter accounts that are reTweeted or mentioned with a higher level of frequency.

Sample search

I did a quick search on the #Blogwell hashtag, having recently attended the event. At a glance, the weighted preference for influential Tweets rang true:

The Experts Tab

In the left sidebar, the Experts tab shows influential Tweeters whose posts about the topic are often cited. This is an incredibly valuable tool for marketers and a speedy way to determining the most influential posters on a topic or hashtag at a glance.

Sample Analytics

Interestingly, Topsy provides some valuable analytics. I tested it out with a hashtag we track at Spoken Communications. We provide cloud call center applications, and I blog, comment and Tweet a substantial amount of content surrounding customer service, call centers and IVRs. So I did a quick search for a common Twitter call center hashtag, #cctr. 

The analytics box in the right sidebar provides daily, weekly, monthly and all time analytics for mentions  of the search query term. Interestingly, the term #cctr tends to spike at 8:00 AM and secondarily around noon to 1:00 PM. The valleys (not surprisingly) are on Saturdays, with Sunday evening growing to peak volume on Mondays.
The pattern is repeated relatively consistently every week:

In terms of content creation, these analytics would provide insight that for this hashtag, Monday through Wednesday at 8:00 AM is the best time to post content. Analytics such as these are a great way to test timing for new content.

Has anyone else tried Topsy? What are your experiences? Is there a real time search tool you prefer?

Podcasting without a mic

What you really need to know before you start a podcast

"I want to start podcasting. What kind of microphone do I need?"

If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me this... er... [insert witty quip here.] I'm asked this question at least twice a week. And while this query may be logical in theory, this is not the right question to ask when considering starting up a podcast. Anyone can buy a microphone, shoot her mouth off and post a show. What will prevent the burgeoning podcaster from podfading after the fifth episode or into a lifetime of obscurity has absolutely nothing to do with the microphone.

Think of it this way. Would you ask Gabriel García Marquez, "I want to be an author. What version of Word do I need?"

No, of course not. Because the tools used are secondary to the far more strenous process of writing an engaging story with compelling characters and a tight plotline. With podcasting, it's easy to get wrapped up in the technical requirements and forget that a podcast, like a good book, gains success and an audience based on its engaging content.

A content strategy

The question a podcast hopeful should be asking is, "I want to start podcasting. What is the best way to create a content strategy?"

It's pretty easy to come up with good, solid content for one show. But what about next week's show? And the week after that? And the month after that? A podcast should have a mission statement, just as a business does. And the reasoning is simple: there must be a very strong force driving the host to create show after show, week after week, year after year. What will inspire you to do that?

Consider these content statements:

• Escape Pod - The premier science fiction podcast magazine. Every week we bring you short stories from some of today’s best science fiction stories, in convenient audio format for your computer or MP3 player.
• The Drabblecast - Strange stories for strange listeners. Audio fiction podcast of short stories at the far side of weird. Science fiction, fantasy horror and everything in between.

• For Immediate Release - Weekly commentary on the collision of PR, technology and new media
• Marketing over Coffee - Weekly audio program that discusses both new and classic marketing

Before you choose a microphone, define your content. Make a list of the topics you'd like to cover and guests you'd like to bring on. Crowdsource it to your friends and community. Create a poll of the top 20 topics and create episodes in the order of popularity (which would also reflect the order of relevance to the community). Create a production schedule, find your voice, and hone your interview skillz.

And then, get a microphone. (Yes, you actually do need some type of audio input device.) A Shure SM57 with a mixer, a Snowball, PodcaStudio, Zoom H2 or even just the iTalk app on your iPhone will do. Just get that first episode out of the way. It's not going to be a work of art, and you will one day look back at it and cringe. Just get that cringeworthy first episode out of the way so you can begin to shape your content, engage with your listenership and have fun steering the podcast.

How smartphones are making us smarter

Pew study shows Americans use their mobile devices to connect and research

Americans are using their smartphones to text their friends, send photos to their friends, and look up information on the internet. Doesn't sound like we are becoming more isolated or more stupid from using a smartphone.

Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project did a survey this spring of over 2,000 American adults, asking about how and why they used their mobile devices. The phone survey revealed that the two most popular activities for both smartphone and feature phone users were texting and sending pictures to friends. The third most popular activity was accessing the internet to look up information on the spot, and that activity was differentiated among smartphone users (84%) and feature phone users (15%).

Not more alienated; more connected

The first two activities would counter the argument that constant access to a communication device and the internet is making people as a whole more alienated, less connected and inclined to ignore the world around them. While some folks may be running into lamp posts while looking down at their cell phone, the activity that is driving them is communication with another human being. While they may not be as engaged as they used to be in walking down the street, one can clearly make the argument that the primary activity they are driven to do is to connect with other people. Sending a text is communication; sending a photo is communication.

Score one against the mobile device alienation camp.

The teachable moment

What I found most telling was the #3 activity: looking up information real time on the internet. I find this the best habit I've picked up from having a smart phone. Over the past few months, I've looked up the following in the course of casual conversation:

•   What year Pat Benatar recorded Heartbreaker
• A photo of a goat
• What a cheese press is and how to make one
• When the Victoria Clipper leaves
• How champagne is made and designated as "champagne"
• The population of Seattle (over 600K, BTW)

Lazy and stupid? Hardly. Having the information at one's fingertips does provide what in the pedagogical world we called "the teachable moment." By way of background information, I spent two years teaching French at the University of Texas at Austin and five years thereafter developing French textbooks for Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

And as any teacher will tell you, the act of looking something up oneself makes that bit of information more likely to be retained. Instead of wondering what the facts are during conversation or relying on the other conversant to supply them, now mobile device users can actively look up the information themselves and get the facts immediately. And what's fascinating is that the act of looking up the information oneself makes the user more inclined to embed and recall that information at a later date, versus passively absorbing the information through lecture or conversation. The fact that mobile device users now take the time to look up data means they are more inclined to absorb the information and use it later.

In short, stuff we look up ourselves in a relevant context is more likely to be retained.

Score one against the "internet makes us stupider" camp.

What have your experiences been? Do you feel more informed from having instant access to information? Or do you feel more alienated when others text during live social interactions?

Podcasting tip: converting unfamiliar audio file types

How to convert unusual audio file types for podcasts

I ran across a bit of a podcasting dilemma this week: a listener sent in an audio file he'd recorded via a program on his Blackberry, and the file came across in an unfamiliar format with an .amr extension, a codec used primarily for GSM phones. AMR requires a special player and converter and cannot be played on iTunes, nor opened or edited with Audacity.

I'm sure there is a fancy program that would convert the file. But it was 9:00 PM on posting day, and I still had a few hours of work to do for my day job at the startup.

So here is the quickie solution: if you can get the file to play using any program, you can hijack that program using Audio HiJack Pro (Mac users only; sorry PC folks). The file would play using QuickTime, so this was a quickie workaround:

1. Open up Audio HiJack Pro.
2. Under Input tab, choose Source Type > Application.
3. Choose QuickTime from the application menu.
4. On the Recording tab, choose a destination and file tags as usual. Choose a file format. In this case, I chose to record as an mp3.
   
   
5. Hit Hijack then Record.
   
   
6. In QuickTime, click Play on the file you'd like to hijack.
   
   
7. When file has finished playing, in Audio HiJack Pro, click Record to stop the recording then Hijack to stop hijacking.
8. Go to the file destination and open in the audio editing program of your choice.

 

Et voilà! Now you have an mp3 (or aiff) file ready to drop into your podcast.

Is Facebook good or bad for student engagement? It depends.

Facebook and education: is Facebook driving campus engagement or driving students away?

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A recent study published in Computers and Education attempt to draw correlations between student engagement and how much time students spend on Facebook.

Not surprisingly, the conclusion was "it depends." (Shel Holtz would grin.)

Facebook, like any social media site, is a tool. Its use is more likely to reflect students' attitudes towards studying and engagement than direct them. Mashable reported on the survey's findings (emphasis mine):

Playing games on Facebook, for instance, correlated with low scores on a 19-question version of the National Survey of Student Engagement, which measures both participation in campus activities and in the classroom. Creating or RSVPing to Facebook events, on the other hand, correlated with high scores on the same assessment. And although the study found no relationship between time spent on Facebook in general and time spent studying, it did find a negative correlation between Facebook chatting and time spent studying.

This survey is very telling, both about social media behavior and about how it reflects different students' attitude toward social media. Students who kill time playing games and chatting use the tool to avoid studying and engagement in IRL activities. However, students who use the tool to connect with friends and find out about events are using the tool to further engagement. Notice that the differentiating factor is not the tool but they way students choose to use it.

An apt comparison is television. Remember when TV first came around, and it was the evil Boob Tube? Well, sure, anyone can use TV to put off studying, procrastinate on a project or generally waste time. And we have all done that at some point. However, in my dormitory, we gathered around the TV once a week to communally watch a popular drama. (I won't say which one, as I will severly age myself by doing so!) It was a time to socialize, eat Oreos and catch up on the activities of that social circle of friends.

Likewise, Facebook can be used to avoid campus engagement or to enhance it. It depends on the student using the tool, and the way Facebook is wielded will reflect that student's attitude and level of desire for campus engagement.

A case in point: I use Facebook not only to showcase my own personal brand, but also to connect with the local social media community and with friends who share my interests. Earlier this year, I created a closed Facebook group "Seattle Salsa" for coordinating salsa outings with my fellow salsa-loving friends. Members post when and where they are going to go dancing, and we gather as our schedules allow. Last week, my fellow Facebook salsa friend Felix announced he was going outdoor salsa dancing at Occidental Park downtown, and I, along with a few other friends, used the Facebook group to coordinate an outing. It was a wonderful time, dancing in the open air! I took this short video of a special performance that afternoon (no, not me dancing):

The point is that, while I could have spent a workday afternoon playing Farmville, putting off my substantial workload and avoiding actual engagement, I didn't. That's not what motivates me to use Facebook; making real connections with real people is. The user determines whether the tool facilitates engagement or not.

The conclusion from the Mashable post: "More clear is that how Facebook is used, rather than how much, is important in understanding its relationship to education." And to marketing, local business and not-for-profits, I would add.

Why would anyone Like, follow or +1 your brand?

Why would I Like, Follow on Twitter or +1 my yogurt?

In this video, Brian Solis joins NBC’s Scott McGrew, Jon Swartz of USA Today and Dr. Moira Gunn of NPR on press:here and use the question, "Why would I Like, Follow on Twitter or +1 my yogurt?" to launch a spot-on discussion of brand engagement in social media. In just 11 minutes, they cover the issues that plague every organization that feels the need to participate in social media channels but isn't quite sure why or what to do. I think every brand should watch this, and I found the information so valuable that I summarized (and editorialized) it here:

Why Like, follow or +1 anything?

Solis begins by pointing out the phenomenon that tortures every social media consultant: most businesses have not asked their customers why or what they expect from their interaction on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ but rather use the social networks as broadcast mechanisms. What social media channels offer is a chance for brands to become a media property and "sell without selling" by creating an experience rather than simply giving a coupon or one-time discount.

Relationship overload

Sure, there are some brands some people are passionate about--Saturn, Apple, Coca-Cola. But how many brands can we really have relationships with? Who is really passionate about their yogurt? Considering Dunbar's number, what kinds of relationships do we have with stuff that doesn't fall within that number? Solis gives an interesting tease of an insight by saying that perhaps we are redefining what a "relationship" is.

 How will brands use Google+

A great example of brand use of Google+ was Michael Dell asking his followers if Dell should provide customer service on that network. Simply asking the question and being engaged in the response gave Dell value in the network and helped to build relationships. In the end, Solis posits, the value for Google+ is the search box - what and where and with what sentiment are people discoverably talking about your brand? 

Blogwell case study: SMB Project REV brings branding, better products and more revenue

Blogwell case study: Deluxe's Project REV

The original live blog post is on the Blogwell blog. This is my more narrative version of the session. If you've never attended Blogwell, the sessions are tight, 20-minute case studies with 10 minutes for questions after.

The speaker  Deluxe Corporation’s SEM and Social Media Manager, Nathan Eide. He is the kind of guy that inspires going out for a beer after work: down to earth, humble and open-minded.

The company Deluxe is the largest check printer in the country but wants to be known as "the easy, affordable brand that helps small business grow."

The project That desired shift from being perceived as a printer of checks to being known for small business support was the inspiration for Project REV, a year-long marketing lab that took place from summer 2010 to summer 2011. Fourteen hundred initial applicants were pruned to nine winners, who each received $5,000 worth of marketing products and services from Deluxe. REV project goals included generating brand awareness for Deluxe as a small business expert and gaining insights and feedback on the product line.

The social media strategy Initially, Deluxe simply made Twitter and Facebook notifications for the launch, both on their own pages and through their partners’ social media accounts (SCORE, Ink Magazine, etc.) The original strategy involved using a spokesperson to be the face of the REV social media presence, which was geared toward sharing general stories and tips about small business.

Turning strategy to stories The spokesperson and generic business knowledge strategy fell flat. What Deluxe discovered was that by far the most compelling and popular postings were the personal challenges, struggles and stories of the nine contest winners themselves. The REVers' personal business challenges became the story, and the spokesperson was phased out. One REVer even ended up on the Martha Stewart Show!

Result 1: Speedy product innovation In one instance, the REVers shared a problem with one particular product offering, so Deluxe solicited additional  opinions about that product on their Facebook page. Instead of going through a lengthy internal process, Deluxe was able to crowdsource instant feedback on the troublesome product and deliver a speedy change back to engaged users.

Result 2: New business offerings  After the project, the REVers were invited to a post-project brain dump. In two days, they came up with four new high-value business offerings for Deluxe. The result? Deluxe improved their product line.

Result 3: Revenues In terms of monthly revenues, Deluxe increased monthly revenues from $128K to over $262K.

For the Deluxe review of the project, the blog post is here. Interestingly, Stephanie Chandler points out in that post that statistically, at least one of the businesses should have gone out of business. But rather, in a down economy, they all thrived.

Run a small business and interested in Project REV? Currently, Deluxe is taking applications through the end of September for this year’s REV, which is giving away an increased $15,000 in services to each winner.

Blogwell - Social Media Ethics: How to stay out of trouble

 Blogwell session by Andy Sernovitz, CEO of SocialMedia.org

Ethics aren't a tack-on; they are fundamental to what the brand wants to have happen.

The difference between honesty and sleazery is disclosure. And that difference can be summarized with the phrase, "and now, a word from our sponsors." Clearly disclosing the difference between genuine word of mouth, marketing content and paid endorsements is essential. This is not an ethical issue; federal law requires disclosure.  And the law isn't new or specific to social media; hiring people to endorse your product without disclosing that relationship has always been illegal.

The FTC expects organizations to follow three basic rules:
    1.    Disclosure is required.
    2.    Monitor the conversation and correct mistakes.
    3.    Create social media policies and training.

Sernovitz' personal rules:

1. Never pay.
2. Real disclosure.
3. Don't lie to your mom.

Sernovitz' general rule for disclosure: state up front on the original post and make it "clear and obvious to the average user." Bloggers, reviewers or paid social media advocates must state who they are, whether they were paid, and whether they are posting an honest opinion based on a real experience.

The biggest chance of #fail is lack of training for employees. The FTC has declared that gaffes and errors committed by employees are not the responsibility of the organization if the organization has provided social media training for those employees. However, if the organization hires an agency, the organization is responsible if the agency breaks a law.

In general, if you have to ask if it's ethical, the answer is no.

Which comes first: employee satisfaction or customer satisfaction?

Which comes first, employee satisfaction or customer satisfaction?

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Originally posted at the Spoken Communications blog

A fascinating question. As Chief Conversation Officer at Spoken, I have Google Alerts set up for "customer service," "customer experience" and several variations thereof. I spend a lot of my mornings skimming over inane articles and posts in which the writer claims that teaching agents to smile or a bit of extra training will make a substantial difference in the customer experience.

There is a strong correlation between employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction. It's a symbiotic relationship; one can't exist without the other. Above-average and excellent customer service levels can't be achieved without engaged, empowered employees. A few training sessions, a feeble motivational contest with free pizza or a cube-decorating contest do not bespeak a pervasive corporate culture that values the experience and knowledge of its frontline agents. In the absence of a corporate culture that promotes frontline employees as empowered and valued team members, customer service will suffer.

Consider this: 40-80% of customer satisfaction and loyalty is determined by the customer-employee relationship and a one-point increase in annual ACSI score for a company is equal to an increase of 11.4% of ROI and a $654 million increase in market value of equity. Researchers have shown that the drivers of of employee engagement are satisfaction with job security, satisfaction with benefits and opportunities for promotion.

Case #1: Zappos

I apologize for trotting out the supremely obvious example, but Zappos is an excellent example with ood reason. Zappos requires that every employee, from the C-suite on down, spend a month on the phones with customers. They offer to pay their agents over $2,000 to quit training to make sure that everyone is dedicated to customer service and in it for the long haul, not just a paycheck. They empower their agents to change their workspace, their processes and even the overall culture. Maura Sullivan, the senior manager of Zappos' customer loyalty team, said in an interview with Greg Levin:

"More than anything I think the key to retaining team members is the environment you create for them to work in day in and day out. Answering phones eight hours a day is a tough job, and we want our employees to feel engaged and empowered – and to have fun!'

Too often executives pay lip service to the idea of customer service standards without providing a pervasive corporate culture to support it. If an employee does not get the message every day that good service, initiative and creativity will be rewarded, then the company will be left with unmotivated employees who show up for a paycheck.

At Call Center Week, Jane Judd, a Senior Manager of the Customer Loyalty team at Zappos, spoke on customer loyalty. She told an anecdote of an agent who had the longest call on record: over eight hours. The staff came by to bring the agent food and drink and spell her for bathroom breaks, but she refused and stayed on the call until the customer was happy and the call ended, eight hours later. Now tell me, are your agents that dedicated?

Case #2 HCL Technologies

HCL Technologies is a global IT services company with $2 billion in yearly revenues. In 2005, the CEO, Vineet Nayar, adopted a new philosophy and even wrote a book about it: Employees First, Customer Second. A great slide deck detailing the pervasive changes to the corporate culture is posted; I encourage you to look at it in more detail. Some of the changes that HCL instituted?

• A smart service desk for employees that raises 31,000 employee concerns each month
• The CEO reverse blogged--posted questions to employees
• An annual event takes strategic discussions out from behind closed doors
• Councils to promote common interests and unleash creativity
• Recognition for "extra mile" employees

The key to the transition was an insistence on radical transparency from the top down. A summary of the internal logic in five basic tenets, excerpted from the book (emphasis mine):

1. Transparency ensures that every stakeholder knows the company's vision and understands exactly how his or her contribution assists the organization in achieving its goals.
2. Transparency helps to ensure that every stakeholder has a deep, personal commitment to the aims of the organization.
3. For the Gen Y members of our workforce transparency is a given. They post their life stories in public domains; they expect nothing less in their workplaces.
4. In a knowledge economy, we want customers to be transparent with us, to share their ideas, their visions for the future, and their strategies for solving core problems. Without such transparency, how can we create the technology solutions that will accelerate their growth and strengthen their businesses?
5. The only way these outsiders [lateral hires brought on for specific projects] can get up to speed quickly and be as effective as possible is through sharing of information and complete transparency about the strengths and weaknesses of the assignment.

The results? Attrition dropped, and now the CEO spends seven hours a week answering questions posed by employees. That is the difference between paying lip service to customer satisfaction and instituting a culture of empowerment and employee engagement: the CEO himself takes a substantial amount of time every day to engage with employees.

Companies must engage their employees if they have any hope of being competitive in the area of customer satisfaction. To differentiate the organizational brand in both market performance and financial returns, companies should take a long, hard look at their corporate culture and question their own transparency and engagement.

Doing an SMS campaign? Read this first.

Running a text campaign? Avoid lawsuits; make sure each consumer opts in

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As texting overtakes calling as a preferred communication channel for many age groups, marketers are seeing the allure of SMS text campaigns. And why not? Text messages are immediate, attention-grabbing and a phenomenal tool for local business.

Often, the question arises of whether an organization can use an existing list of phone numbers to kick off a new text message campaign. As with email spamming, the answer is an unqualified "no." Consumers must opt in to receive text messages from an organization, just as they must opt in to receive email from an organization or face fines or blacklisting for spamming.

Unsolicited text messages fall under TCPA, which is enforced by the FCC. A provision of the TCPA gives consumers the right to sue for TCPA violations to the tune of $500 to $1500 for each call, fax, or text received. Yes, that's $500 per message per consumer. More information on the TCPA.

And the legal ramifications are real. Derek Johnson of Tatango (a wonderful and ethical SMS marketing company, BTW) has compiled a current list of real lawsuits faced by real companies who sent unsolicited text messages and suffered the legal consequences. The fines are stunning: Twentieth Century Fox paid $200 per phone number it spammed in a class action settlement totalling $16 million; Timberland paid $150 per phone number for a settlement of $7 million.

It's more likely a organization would be sued than fined, but neither outcome is desirable. The point is that ethical marketers would never send text messages anyone who hasn't voluntarily opted in. Even if the consumer provided the organization with a phone number in the past for some other reason, it is not legal or ethical to send that consumer text messages on that phone number. It's spam.

As with other marketing efforts, there is no substitute for creating a compelling marketing campaign that will provide real value to consumers and have them rushing to opt in. For more information on how to conduct a kick-butt SMS campaign, check out Derek Johnson's Social Media Breakfast podcast interview, which is chock-full of advice on opt-in techniques, high-value text messages and successful SMS campaigns.

Or just take a look at this nifty infographic the Tatango folks put together:

Text Message Marketing

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