March 2008
The Truth About Language
March 8, 2008 | by Max IsraelLet me start by admitting that I was totally caught off guard by how some of our clients looked at our plans for this.
Our upcoming multi-language functionality is one of the coolest things we’ve come up with in a while. Essentially, every aspect of our software, from customer-facing survey pages to employee-facing reporting, will be viewable in a selection of languages. Participants can easily switch on the fly.
We originally conceived this feature to better serve our client companies who have international operations. But when we sat down with some of our favorite front-line managers to get their thoughts they had a totally different take. For them, the bigger language hurdle was Employees in the US for whom English isn’t a first language.
The subject can be awkward, but we’ve got to be open about it. The fact is that a huge part of how a customer will grade your company has to do with how they felt they clicked with the employees they dealt with. That chemistry’s just got to be there.
It isn’t necessarily about speaking English, either. Last December we spent some time working with a franchise client whose quick serve restaurants struggled to get good grades on questions relating to customer-employee interaction. When we really dug down, we discovered that their non-English speaking employees had a tendency to work heads-down and not make eye contact with customers. It turns out, this was mostly out of self-consciousness.
We spent some time connecting with franchisees and front-line managers and eventually figured out that practically none of the Spanish-speaking team members were reading our Store Reports. Helpfully, these reports were printed in English and posted on the back room whiteboard.
Would you grade this store?
March 11, 2008 | by Max IsraelWe’re right in the middle of an implementation for Road Runner Sports‘retail stores. I love these guys and have been a customer of theirs for many years and many triathlons! (Note: Ironman Arizona coming up on 4/13!)
This week we spent some time with Road Runner Sports’ marketing folks to answer their question: “How are we going to get our customers to grade us?” Getting this right is extremely important. Once you have a system in place for your customers to grade you, you should always be inviting them to tell you how you’re doing. There are lots of opportunities to do this, and you always want to be using a mix of at least 3 of them at any one time.
Here are some great ways to let customers know that you’re looking for feedback. Remember, at any one time we’ll only see about three of these in play.
- Window clings on the shop doors
- Counter clings at the cash-wrap area
- Signage in an acrylic frame at the cash-wrap area
- Printed message on receipt tapes
- “Grade us!” message with website printed on bags and other consumables
- Inexpensive printed collateral as bag-stuffer
- A visible button on the website.Check out how Tully’s does this.
- Monthly or quarterly blast email to internal customer list, especially if we can send specifically to customers who recently purchased
I’ll post more later about the specifics of crafting this invitation – including offering an incentive – but for now let’s look at just the impact of having a mix. When Tully’s Coffee Company first launched their Customerville platform – telltullys.com – they soft-launched using only a message printed on table tents located around their stores. In the following weeks, Tully’s rolled out a graphic link on their own website which invited customers to grade their experience and then, some weeks later, new and better signage featuring an enter-to-win drawing. Each additional step resulted in a 300-400% increase in customers taking the time to grade their experience.
Customerville’s clients typically mix up their 3-prong approach several times a year to keep things fresh. This communicates both to customers and front-line employees that listening to customers is always a priority.
Are Your Smart Employees A “Plus”…Or a “Minus”?
March 19, 2008 | by Max IsraelJust a few weeks until Ironman Arizona, which means lots of training and lots of time and money spent in my local bike shops!
I keep seeing examples in these stores of a situation that offers much promise – and so much peril – for store chains who sell technical products: Smart employees can help you…or they can hurt you.
Bike retailers are such a great example of this. A customer walks through those doors looking for “a bike”. That’s often all they know. And learning about what bike to buy and why can be intimidating.
Explaining any technical product to a customer needs to be done in a way that’s approachable to the customer. Bike shop sales floors are filled with guys who know a ton about bikes, but not enough about the right way to convey that information to the customer. You can just see customers stiffen and shut down when a sales associate starts spouting techno-jargon. It’s almost like they’re trying to show how smart they are. Your customer’s nodding as if he agrees, but really he’s just feeling intimidated or – worse – kind of dumb. He’s looking for any excuse to exit the conversation. And the store.
Employees who explain the product need to learn to ask the right questions first, listen carefully to a customer’s answers and then explain why a product or service meets the customer’s needs. And they need to do this with a bare minimum of techno jargon.
Mike Olson owns the Trek Bicycle Superstore dealerships in San Diego. You’d be hard pressed to find a better place to buy a bike anywhere on the West Coast. Part of the reason for this is that Mike places such a premium on explaining their products in ways that don’t make newbie customers feel self-conscious. I asked him the other day whether he’d rather have a new employee who had a talent for connecting with a customer, or one with unusually deep technical expertise. Mike: “The connector guy. It’s not even a close call.”
Is It Really About The Prize?
March 25, 2008 | by Max IsraelEnter-to-win sweepstakes drawings are a fantastic way to get customers interested in grading your business. They’re quick, fun and easy to implement. Here are some good things to know about getting this right.
Keep the Farm. I recently saw customer feedback reward drawing for $250,000 and just about went bananas. Let me tell you, if you need to offer your customers a quarter million dollars to tell you what they think of your business, you’ve got problems even we can’t solve!
Our clients nearly always find that a gift-card drawing in the low hundreds of dollars works like a charm. What’s more, you can do the drawing as frequently as you like. Customers tune into the gift card amount, but generally don’t care how frequently you do the drawing. You marketers can almost always find a great PR opportunity around giving the award, too!
Know How To Message. When you advertise or distribute collateral in your stores or restaurants, be sure to get the message right. We usually see the best traffic when the message starts with the headline: Win $XX, and then says “We’d love you to grade us”. The website address should usually be last in line on the page.
Get the Legalese Right. You’ve got to include the rules, and they need to pass muster with your State’s sweepstakes laws. Drop me a line via myprofile email link if you’d like our boilerplate version and I’ll make sure you get it.
Is It Really About The Prize? Here’s the biggest surprise: No. Customerville’s system allows our clients to use either a sweepstakes drawing or a printable gift certificate. The redemption rate of the gift certificates is a tiny fraction of the number issued. In speaking with our clients’ customers, many of them express to us the sentiment that it’s not really about the prize. They love shopping with you and just want to be included, listened to and valued!
A well planned sweepstakes drawing or printable coupon is like a warm “hello” when you meet someone new. It’s not essential to the conversation that will follow, but it sure goes a long way toward whether or not they want to talk.
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