Power of Customer Service and Reviews

So today I went to my favorite acai bowl spot here in San Diego called The Big Squeeze. Like any local business the people are always nice, their product is consistent and you feel good about giving your money to a small business owner as opposed to some chain. Well today was a bit different because what went from waiting 15 minutes lead me to Yelp to write a very authentic, unhappy review. So how did I get there?

• Waiting Time - 15 to 20 minutes is ridiculous for an acai bowl
• Unaware Employees - I not only waited, but the girl who was supposed to be making my acai bowl, continued to look over at me as she made 4 items for people who weren't even there.
• Incorrect Order - As she wrapped up my bowl, she forgot the blueberries that I now have to pay extra for.
• Cost - It's almost $8 for a large bowl now and they still charge you $0.30 for credit card transactions.
• Not Environmentally Friendly - They still use styrofoam bowls/cups on top of wasting 4-5 sheets of aluminum foil to try to wrap up my overflowing, soupy acai bowl

So would I have gone and made a positive review on Yelp if everything went fine? Most likely not and here's why. I've been going here for 6 years and I have expectations, not just because I'm a loyal customer, but because I'm a part of a generation that expects things done right and if not, for someone to at least be accountable and aware. So when I left I was empowered by this poor customer service experience and driven to log into my Yelp account. I read a few other posts which validated what I was feeling and decided to write up my own review, giving them 3 stars and explaining what went wrong.

Here are a couple tips for small business owners:

• Customer Service is King right now
• Be aware of the online review websites
• Engage your customers online
• Actively seek feedback to improve business operations
• Monitor your online reputation
• Think about the current economy and how you can ensure your loyal customers keep coming back

Customer Feedback Is Here To Stay

So as many of you know or should know, one of my previous roles was as CMO for SuggestionBox.com and in that role I was able to watch a market start to form around customers. These select group of companies like Starbucks, Dell, Zappos, Comcast and a few others were paving a path for others on how to leverage customer feedback in the areas of customer service, conversational marketing and innovation. Now if you look at blogs like Customers Rock or Experience Matters; you'd think ... "Why isn't everyone adopting these best practices?" or "How can I capture customer feedback and improve my customer relationships?" I'd say the answer is as simple as installing some type of customer feedback widget (there are tons) and then responding to every single one, but you have other things to do like run your business, pay invoices, interview employees, attend events, etc. For the purpose of efficiency, I want to make a recommendation to take 15-20 minutes out of your day and explore what Uservoice is doing in this space. Their recent funding news in WSJ shows that they are on the right track and will be around for awhile.

Customer Feedback Gets Interactive

Aside from covering conversational marketing tactics by other companies, I to have a day job like most of you. From 9 to 6pm or sometimes 7 or 8, I'm the Chief Marketing Officer of a new technology startup in Solana Beach, CA called Positive Digital Solutions. We're setting out to create some innovative platforms for changing the way companies and customers engage each other as well as some other areas for which I can't discuss yet. So for anyone part of a startup, you know the environment ... everything is a priority and there never seems to be enough time to tweak that last piece of code, move that pixel 5 more centimeters or brainstorm new copy for the homepage; then Techcrunch calls you and says they want to write you up. Everything pauses like time stood still and you take a deep breath and hope you're ready for the traffic.

Launching SuggestionBox.com has been a great experience in understanding what the user truly want AND the best part is ... now they have a place to leave us all of their feedback, suggestions and ideas, in one place. Outside of being a blatant "toot our own horn", I'm going to give the straight forward why SuggestionBox is good for your business. Yes we don't have an API yet, yes people have to sign up, yes you need the email of the company in order to contact them, BUT there's a lot of great features for those Small to Medium-sized businesses that want to get a feedback mechanism setup in a matter of minutes.

SuggestionBox is trying to fill the gaping void of "customer fulfillment" that exists from the online to offline channel. You submit feedback to any big website or put a comment card in a wooden box on the wall, what happens..? Usually nothing. You don't know who got it, if they are going to respond and if it ever gets implemented. This is the core of SuggestionBox.com. You submit an idea or suggestion to a company, they post it to the public and update the status. You receive a notification in your dashboard that it's been updated from New to Under Review, Under Review to Pending Implementation and so on. Finally, you're getting something in return! And that's why you sign up. Every company you wanted to submit suggestions to is in one place. What do you do when you want to pay for something online? Do pull your credit card out everytime or is PayPal an option; simply login and click pay. We know SuggestionBox.com isn't the standard yet, BUT we're positioning it to be something as simple as the name for SMB, Enterprise, Fortune 1000 to 50, etc.

For the marketers out there and being one I know, think about reaching out to your customers and letting them you're listening, willing to "engage" them and then having the ability to re-connect months from when they submit ideas letting them know you've implemented their suggestion. If you know anything about lifetime value, then you can see the value in re-connecting with customers instead of missing an opportunity and losing them to a competitor. If you're not putting the time in with them; you can bet your competitors are.

What about if you're in HR and you're trying to figure out why your front line employees aren't performing or aren't loving their job? You assign employees to various customizable categories. As you categorize incoming suggestions, these employees receive the idea and then can respond to customers directly or leverage the internal scoreboard to weigh in on the Pros and Cons of the idea. Employee Empowerment? Pretty sweet.

Go check out www.SuggestionBox.com and try it out. Leave your feedback in the suggestionbox.suggestionbox.com account and if you don't I'll run into you at the many events we'll be attending.

Chrysler Starts Listening

Chrysler LLC with help from its digital marketing agency Organic has integrated an online suggestion box into its corporate website that also features its blog, environmental practices, community initiatives and more. The new section is actually available at www.ChryslerListens.com, where they are asking people for their insights on how to improve their products and company.

"Submit ideas for future products, make current product suggestions or just tell us what would make us a better company."

Seems pretty simple and all you need to do is enter a zipcode and let them know if you already own a Chrysler. Seems to be a little market research going on there, but the process remains very simple to submit.

There are a lot of companies taking the leap into trying to engage their customers better and find ways to drive the conversation using various online tactics. My hat off to Chrysler for trying to get into the game and find ways to improve their relationship with their customer base and maybe even snag a few loiters from other competitors.

5 Classic Ways Companies Should Communicate With Their Customers

A company's success hinges on how it communicates, both internally and externally. Too much emphasis on interpersonal relationships can have a dire effect on outside interaction. Obviously, such a breakdown in communication between the company and its customers will greatly impact customer satisfaction and overall sales.

Businesses that regularly speak with their customers, whether it's directly or indirectly, will flourish. The advent of the Internet has obviously changed customer interaction for the better. However, one mustn't overlook some classic ways to touch base with customers, as some of them have certainly stood the test of time.

Below are the top five ways a company should communicate with their customers:

1. Telephone – No, I'm not referring to cold calls during dinnertime. I'm speaking of old-fashioned, remote customer service. When a customer has a question or concern, they will often want to personally connect with the company (and rightfully so). Whether this results in an inbound call from the customer or a friendly follow-up from the company, this keeps customer dissatisfaction to a minimum when executed properly.
2. Live Chat – Many people are glued to their computers these days, preferring digital communication to personal phone calls. A live chat option with a customer service representative is both practical and welcome in today's society, particularly if a company receives many inbound calls. No one likes to hang around "on hold," after all.
3. Newsletters – Newsletters are an excellent ways to keep customers abreast of new developments and, obviously, new products/services. Print newsletters aren't as common as they used to be, but they are still quite effective for small businesses. The electronic newsletter, however, is flourishing right now and helping many businesses to improve their customer relations. However, companies should make any kind of newsletter an opt-in service, lest it be viewed as "spam."
4. Company Blog – One of the newest successes in the realm of customer communication is the company blog. Often written by higher-ups within the company, it can make even the biggest corporations feel as if it's one with the people. Like a newsletter, it serves as a news service. However, it also encourages highly valuable customer feedback in the form of comments.
5. Customer Surveys – How will a company know what its customers want if it doesn't ask? Customers should be surveyed on a regular basis. However, companies should make this feel like a painless process for the public. Offering prizes to random participants is one of the most effective ways to garner a widespread partaking in a survey.


Companies should never stop experimenting with new technology, such as social networking sites and applications. However, the communication methods above are tried and true ways to keep communication flowing between a company and the widest audience possible. Perhaps older methods like the telephone really will become obsolete one day, but some of them are still quite effective.

By-line:
Heather Johnson is a freelance business, finance and economics writer, as well as a regular contributor at Business Credit Cards, a site for business credit card and best business credit card offers. Heather welcomes comments and freelancing job inquiries at her email address
heatherjohnson2323@gmail.com.

Customers Key To Survival During A Recession

I was on our flight down to Riviera Maya in Mexico to celebrate our 1 year anniversary and invite both families down to share in our joyous occasion, when I started thinking about everything I was reading about the upcoming recession and how the government was giving us back money only to have "us" being consumers go and buy unnecessary items. What it brought me to was this notion that with companies potentially limiting their spending or moreso being more cash-conscious, there were going to be areas that would still see significant growth from consumer spending and some areas that would be able to make use of their funds by leveraging those consumers and their insights. So here are my top 10 observations on how customers will lead you to the promise land during a recession:

1. Companies will downsize and outsource to create cost efficiency and at the same time lessen the control they have at certain customer touch points. Look for these companies to invest in ways to garner and respond to customer feedback.

2. Softening real estate creates opportunity for franchisees. Listen to your customers and bring your business closer to them in areas where dirt is cheap and getting access to former corporate managers gets easier with layoffs.

3. Companies, who can, will gain more market share and more customers.

4. Corporations will cut too quickly, require emergency outsourcing. Customer feedback is critical to this process, better have it in place.

5. Innovation will lead to product diversification, increasing the number of vendors you'll have to deal with also. Have a system in place to capture business critical data to ensure smooth transitions and that all those who need it are getting it. Look for an increase in Employee Feedback platforms.

6. SBA is trying to automate front end customer service. This will require employee ideas and suggestions.

7. Consumers cut spending, adopt better "green" products and initiatives. Players in this market will need ways to capture customer feedback to innovate on existing technologies and products.

8. Going Green = new processes, services & products = solution for capturing employee and customer feedback.

9. VC and Angel wells will start to dry in the tech industry. Getting to critical mass is one thing, but having a way of managing all those customers is another. Keep them happy and your word of mouth will spread; bring them discomfort and you'll have to pay to bring them back.

10. Entrepreneurs and Companies alike will look outside of their doors for new revenue streams in the form of partnership distribution channels. Gather the feedback on how it's going and take action.

As the election year 2008 moves on and we progress into this upcoming recession, look to your customers to help you shape and finetune your products, strategies and direction. At the end of the day they're the ones paying and keeping you in business.