Church of the Customer Blog

WOM won't wait 'til Monday

2009-07-01T13:27:46-05:00

Buzz isn't scheduled, especially bad buzz.

Thanks to Twitter, it can snowball into an avalanche of angry buzz after hours or during a weekend, just in time for the Monday morning news, as Amazon and Motrin recently learned. (Recent bad buzz for Domino's began on a Monday evening.)

The bigger the company, the more likely the inevitable unhappy Tweet that could begin Saturday morning. Then what? Who's monitoring your brand Friday night to Monday morning? Your social media manager? PR agency? Ad agency? Your social media intern?

Do you have a process to monitor and respond to weekend online word of mouth?

Let us know in the comments.

Hype vs. excitement

2009-07-01T08:48:05-05:00

Hype is:	Excitement is:
An impossible promise	A realistic promise
Sales-driven	Value-driven
Exclamation points	Passion
Obnoxious	Contagious
Cause for mistrust	Cause for belief
Overuse of adverbs	Adverb-free
Narcissistic	Optimistic
Segway	Bike Friday
Contrived	Authentic
Unsustainable	Fuel for the future

How would you describe hype vs. excitement?

The secrecy tax

2009-06-23T13:15:24-05:00

Apple apparently goes to great, almost CIA-like lengths to maintain secrecy.

It includes mazes of security doors, numeric codes to enter one's office, which is constantly monitored by security cameras, red warning lights when secret devices are unmasked, and the deliberate spread of misinformation inside the company, according to the Times.

Secrecy isn't a communications strategy at Apple. It's part of the company's cultural DNA, and it generates staggering levels of free press and PR.

That makes many companies want to emulate Apple's culture of secrecy, but the company is and always will be an anomaly. It has spent 30 years refining its secrecy culture. The physical and mental costs must be enormous, creating what surely must be a secrecy tax on its products.

So unless you have the world's most gifted engineers, designers and marketers with a track record of creating products that will sell a million units a year along with a gifted, messianic founder, then a culture based on transparency, truth and openness are a lot easier, and less expensive, to manage.

The intern trap

2009-06-17T16:34:05-05:00

Would you let a company intern:

Man your customer service line?
Be your receptionist?
Be your spokesperson to the Wall Street Journal?
Be the main contact for your most talkative customers?

If not, then why do companies put, or think of putting, interns in charge of their social media presence?

"Let's put an intern in charge of our corporate Twitter ID" is heard a bit too often.

Interns can obviously be smart and bright and with the right training, can do things well. But interns are usually temporary; making one the face of your company on social media sites does them, and you, a disservice. Better to assign a longer-term and experienced member of customer service, account management, or technical support in a visible, and increasingly important, social media role.

An emerging metric: the GoodGuide score

2009-06-15T15:24:14-05:00

A non-profit website founded and staffed by academics and researchers is scoring consumer products based on health, environmental and social impacts. Based on its purpose and how easy it is to use, GoodGuide could usher in a new metric: social value.

You could say social value is how well a company practices good corporate stewardship, something the typical may not concern himself with in the aisles of Walmart, but early adopters, buzz-spreaders and health-involved purchasers often do. For GoodGuide, good corporate stewardship includes product ingredients free of carcinogens, aren't brought to market via cruel animal testing and whose packaging is environmentally friendly.

For instance, here's how my deodorant, Dry Idea, stacks up on GoodGuide. It scores a 7.4 out of 10. Not bad, but Dry Idea is dinged for containing "controversial ingredients" aluminum zirconium and fragrance.

"Aluminum has long been known to have neurotoxic effects in humans and other animals," GoodGuide says. "Most aluminum used in deodorants and antiperspirants exists in either aluminum salts or aluminum-glycine complexes. Researchers continue to disagree about the risk of aluminum use in deodorants and antiperspirants, particularly the correlation of aluminum and other compounds and cancer in the upper quadrant of the breast near the underarm." Then it cites the research.

Fragrance, GoodGuide says, "is considered a trade secret, which means the company doesn't have to say what's in it - but generally fragrances have strong allergy and immune system toxicity concerns, and they often conceal the presence of toxic phthalates." Both explanations are enough for me to look at, and purchase, the highest-rated product in the category, Tom's of Maine Natural Deodorant. It, too, has "fragrance," but no aluminum, which has always worried me through the years.

"What we’re trying to do is flip the whole marketing world on its head,” says Dara O’Rourke, the University of California professor who launched the site last year. “Instead of companies telling you what to believe, customers are making the statements to the marketers about what they care about.”

The implications of what GoodGuide could mean for not just marketers, but big company culture, could be significant, especially in how people talk about products with one another, especially in families, where consumer product good decisions are often handed down generationally. If the free, non-ad-supported, easy-to-use (and easy to understand) GoodGuide starts showing up in research of big manufacturers of why their market share is suddenly slipping, it probably won't take long for companies to adapt.

The roots of word of mouth

2009-06-10T14:38:36-05:00

Where does word of mouth come from?

A good experience, says Forrester.

A trustworthy relationship with peers, says Big Research.

A purple cow, says Seth Godin.

They're all right, but the bigger question is: What binds all of those source elements together?

The answer is almost always hidden within a company's culture.

Companies with great word of mouth tend to operate by a simple, yet inspiring purpose and well-defined values. They have created a cultural constitution, and every employee is sworn to abide by it, so help them God and the HR department. They understand that a purpose-driven company helps clarify decision-making while inspiring longer-term unity. They know that abiding by community-driven values compels employees to think of customers first, company second. They see the benefits of inspired, evangelistic customers and how company culture is the feeder river for streams of word of mouth.

When companies shun purpose and adherence to values, that's usually the source of trouble. Just look at credit card providers, health insurance plans, Internet service providers and TV service providers, whose four industries recently appeared in a Forrester report as generating more bad word of mouth than good. The primary interests of companies in those industries often are, in order of importance: company executives, institutional shareholders, Wall Street bankers and analysts, then customers. They stealthily raise fees, add hidden clauses to purposefully complex operating agreements and cut customer service before rolling back excessive executive compensation. It's not surprising then, that the government is now proposing standards to rein in excessive executive pay at publicly held companies.

Indeed, building word of mouth is bigger than simply paying employees well, much less leaving its function solely to the marketing or engineering departments. For creating good customer experiences, a company hires smart and empathetic people who believe in the company's culture and provide evidence of believing in its values. It does not hire talented jerks, regardless of education or work history. It expunges those who acted their way through the hiring process.

For building trustworthy customer relationships, a company makes decisions according to its values. They do not rely on bad profits, the kind which trick customers (often used by the industries in the Forrester report). A company with great word of mouth is consistently fair and honest with customers, employees, suppliers, vendors and competitors. They do the right thing and right their wrongs quickly, often going above and beyond what's necessary.

For creating purple cows, a company fosters creative thinking within tightly defined sandboxes to maintain elegant simplicity, a process that can be difficult but is ultimately rewarding to customers (and employees, especially), who crave simplicity in an age where complexity is daunting, worrisome and exhausting. Simplicity itself, especially with traditionally complicated products or systems, can be a bountiful source of word of mouth. Elegant simplicity is a form of art, and fans will gather to pay it homage.

10 new rules for credit cards

2009-06-04T13:07:47-05:00

Since a large, taxpayer-bailed-out bank recently doubled the interest rate on my credit card without notice and tightened the fluctuating payment period to something like six hours, it seems highlights of the Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights Act that President Obama signed into law the other week are worth sharing and spreading:

Prohibits retroactive rate increases unless the cardholder is at least 60 days behind in paying the bill. If a person does fall behind and the rate on past buys is increased, lenders must restore the lower rate after six months if the cardholder has paid monthly bills on time.
Requires lenders to post their credit card agreements on the Internet and customers must receive 45 days notice before interest rates are increased.
Requires anyone younger than 21 to prove that they can repay the money before being given a card or have a parent or guardian promise to pay off their debt if they default.
Prohibits over-the-limit fees unless a cardholder elects to be allowed to go over a limit.
Requires lenders to say how much time it would take and how much money in interest would be paid if only the minimum monthly payments are made.
Requires that gift cards remain valid for five years.
Bans "pay-to-pay" fees, which are charged when someone pays the bill by phone or on the Internet.
Requires banks to give customers a reasonable time, such as 21 days, to pay the bill before it is considered late. Due dates must be the same date every month.
Requires banks to give customers 45 days' notice before raising interest rates on new purchases, even if the customer is late or delinquent in paying the account.
Prohibits retroactive rate increases. Does not include a provision that would require lenders to reduce the rate after six months if the person pays on time. Also would prohibit double-cycle billing.

Are you an enlightened stupid marketer?

2009-05-28T15:30:03-05:00

Kevin Nalty aka Nalts explains the difference between stupid marketers and enlightened stupid marketers. In this video, Nalts explains "A non-marketer might be looking at this and saying, 'Stupid Marketer...isn't that an oxymoron."

"I say no, enlightened stupid marketers are at a fork in the road. Keep being stupid or be stupid but conceal that fact. I have several proven strategies for this."

Check out the strategies in his video.

Note: long time readers of this blog will remember Nalts from our post about his "blogger buzz" video back in 2007.

15 pounds lighter

2009-05-28T12:23:03-05:00

I learned earlier this month that my right kidney had been highjacked by a 12-centimeter tumor. On top of that, my gall bladder was failing, too. Fun times.

A week later, both organs were removed during a four-hour surgery. Less than a week after that, I'd dropped 15 pounds on a diet of broth, Jello and apple juice. Take that, Valerie Bertinelli. I have 6-8 weeks of recovery ahead and barring any complications, that should be it. The physical ordeal is over. I'm not so sure about the mental and spiritual ordeal. All in due time.

If you're curious about renal cell carcinoma, or kidney cancer, here are the highlights: The disease grows stealthily. It doesn't show up in standard check-up blood tests. Symptoms often do not appear until after it has spread beyond the kidney. Unchecked, RCC can spread to the lungs, liver or lymph nodes. When that happens, life gets tougher. Like my diagnosis, it's often discovered in unrelated CT scans or x-rays. My RCC was caught before it spread, but that meant sacrificing my right kidney, a not uncommon treatment. Inexplicably, RCC afflicts men more than women. That's bad news for doctor-averse men. I've been semi-averse for the past 10 years; the only defense I can offer is that I've been healthy my entire life; no surgeries, no health problems. I can't remember the last time I had the flu. For the past two years, I exercised 4-5 times a week. Am I doctor-averse now? No way. Life is too short.

Twelve days after surgery, life isn't much different with one kidney. All functions are normal. That's one of the amazing aspects of our blood-cleansing kidneys: even one by itself works like a part-time consultant, at just 60-70% percent capacity. The bright side of life without a gall bladder is that my body no longer produces bile, which helps break down food. Bile is that bitter taste that sometimes seeps up from the stomach after eating too much. Without a gall bladder, the liver simply takes over. That means I'm free to eat and drink whatever I'd like. As one of my surgeons told me, "As far as I'm concerned, you can eat cheeseburgers dipped in Crisco." Not that I will; I don't want a heart surgeon. (My gall bladder was removed at the same time as my kidney because a CT scan showed it was filled with gall stones and was about a week away from causing a major attack. If there's such a thing as fortuitous timing with expendable, failing organs, I nailed it.)

My prognosis is great. The pathologists have been engaged in a spirited debate on whether my kidney was overtaken by a simple mass or a more aggressive, yet benign, mass. Either way, my primary surgeon, Dr. David Phillips, said on the day of my discharge from the hospital, "My gut tells me you're cured." I could tell it was gratifying for him to say that as gratifying as it was to hear it. It may sound like hyperbole, but the highly skilled and personable Drs. Phillips, Peter Ruff and Bob Markus saved my life. I can't think of a better recommendation.

Also gratifying, and humbling, was how my family and loved ones stepped up unselfishly in my time of need. I'm forever thankful and grateful to them; I have no idea how to repay their love, concern and kindness. I was astounded by the many blog post comments, emails and tweets of well wishes, prayers, offers of help, as well as the flowers and gifts from friends old and new. It's remarkable how all of that gave me strength and courage by making me feel less alone. Any form of outreach for someone who's ill is an act of healing. Thank you.

Because everything happened so quickly, I haven't fully processed this brush with mortality. Writing about it is cathartic, so I hope you'll forgive this indulgence. I do know that if my recent experience proves anything, it's how quickly things can change. How quickly things will change.

It's just a matter of when.

Joint Communicators Luncheon, Dallas, June 16

2009-05-26T16:29:58-05:00

Most of our speaking engagements are private, for associations and company events. So I wanted to let you know of a public event where I will be speaking in a few weeks, if you are interested.

Five communication organizations in Dallas -- IABC Dallas, AWC Dallas, The Press Club of Dallas, NIRI DFW and PRSA Dallas -- are holding a Joint Communicators Luncheon in Dallas on June 16. I will be doing a keynote entitled "The One Percenters: Twitterers, Bloggers and Facebookers Who Influence Opinions about You." A copy of "Citizen Marketers" is included in the registration. More info is here.

Hope to see you there!

Surgery update

2009-05-17T13:41:07-05:00

Ben's surgery on Friday went well. They removed all of the cancerous kidney as well as a sick gall bladder. Pathology tests next week should help determine the all-clear on cancer. He is still a little groggy today but has been walking very slowing around the hospital hallways. He thanks everyone for their well-wishing comments and emails.

9 am

2009-05-15T09:28:20-05:00

It's 9 am, the day of my cancer surgery.

Cancer surgery. Typing those words still doesn't seem real, but it's getting there. I've been up for nearly 3 hours. I'm not wracked with worry or anxiety, more like rumbling nervousness, like my empty stomach. The magnesium citrate which I was instructed to drink yesterday is still doing its volcanic work. In my head, I keep replaying the conversation I had with a hospital nurse yesterday.

"Were you instructed to be on a fluids-only diet?"

"Yup. I've been following that. Drank my magnesium citrate, too."

I'd opted for the lemon-flavored generic mag, which tastes like 7-up mixed with PineSol and the ashes of 13 cigarettes. I drank it all, over ice in a cocktail tumbler. I'm a good patient. I want everything to go smoothly, without complications. I follow instructions, even if they are delivered with a certain vengeance.

"OK, you had better follow that liquid diet because if you show up here and your urine and stool aren't clear, we're going to give you an enema."

She said this with something approaching a Nurse Cratchett sadism. Sure looking forward to that hospital check-in!

This morning included another phone chat with the hospital, which insists on having its patients pay for their portion of surgery in advance. The woman whom this unfortunate duty falls upon is pleasant and empathetic, one of the few so far. She says the hospital is all set to "pamper" me. That might be stretching it. No one goes to a hospital to get pampered. That's what spas and strip clubs are for.

Welcome to the real world

2009-05-13T15:03:20-05:00

"We have to talk," the doctor said, stonefaced.

It's always those words, no matter the context, where you just know a serious bomb is about to be dropped.

I'd found myself in the emergency room of Brackenridge Hospital in Austin last week because my abdomen was aching. I'd played a demanding tennis match the weekend before and felt like I'd pulled a muscle in my abdomen, but the pain wore off several days later. So I went through a rigorous fitness training Thursday to stretch and loosen my body (and mind, I suppose) but the next morning my stomach felt like it had been punched hard. Plus, I was drenched in an unfamiliar cold sweat at 7 a.m.

Dude, go to the emergency room, the smart part of my brain told the clueless part that avoids doctors and the medical system.

After several hours and numerous fondlings by various doctors checking for hernia or a red-lining appendix, and having had my first CT scan (it's like being inserted into the middle of a giant Krispy Kreme donut, sans glaze waterfall) the attending ER physician came into my curtained-off room and dropped his word bombs.

"You have cancer."

I could tell he was trying hard to keep his composure.

Gulp.

Well, I tried to swallow. The next moment was like a movie scene where I saw myself standing in a doorway as the walls around me wobbled then melted. It was the doorway between certainty and uncertainty. Dream-world and eye-poking reality. Patient and everyone else. Maybe even life and death. It was a Matrix moment for sure and not what I expected.

Then I had to remember to breathe.

"You have renal cell carcinoma, and it has produced a grapefruit-sized tumor on your right kidney," the doctor said. "We need to take care of this as soon as possible."

Like the majority of people with a cancerous, funked-up kidney and no obvious symptoms, mine was discovered accidentally. Perhaps the difficult body stretches I did the day before upset the tumorous squatter enough to pull the fire alarm of cold sweats. Nonetheless, that day in the ER was an early beginning to a very weird week, but I'm lucky and grateful to have family and friends who immediately volunteered to become my support system while I keep waiting to wake up from this dream.

The prognosis? So far, it's good. My capable surgeon, Dr. David Phillips, himself a high-level tennis player, which made me like him immediately, will evict this tumor, this cancer, this hobbit, along with my entire kidney, on Friday. He says indications are it's confined to the one kidney, and I should be strong enough in 4-6 weeks to work, work out and have a nice, productive life being a one-kidney man. I never thought I'd be glad to say I have two kidneys in case one of them freaks out.

So there you go. If I make only sporadic appearances for awhile, you'll know why.

Share of wallet in a recession

2009-05-05T11:29:42-05:00

From the always insightful Tom Fishburne:

Tom writes:

"I've been thinking about how consumers are spending (or not spending) in this environment. With wallets under lock-and-key, one might think that a premium brand wouldn't have much of a chance. This is a time when consumers are evaluating where their money goes. With low consumer confidence, there is less that is being spent in general. What is being spent is carefully considered. Yet Apple still managed to blow away iPhone expectations this last quarter."

More here.

Keywords that matter

2009-04-30T11:56:43-05:00

Last week, I had a small problem with a movie I rented via iTunes. Apple cleared it up quickly and all was well in Jackie Land. I hadn't responded to the company's last email when this email arrived:

Dear Jackie,

This is Stacy, with a courtesy follow-up. I haven't heard from you and wanted to make sure that your request was handled to your satisfaction. You've truly been a remarkable asset to the iTunes Store Family and as such I don't want to leave you without any type of resolution, so if you do not respond, I will be closing this request. I hope that you continue to enjoy the iTunes Store and would like to thank you for being such a wonderful member of our family.

Please remember if you require any further assistance I'm only an email away. Have an awesome day!

Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to assist you. You may receive an AppleCare survey email; any feedback you provide would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Stacy
Tier 1 iTunes Store Support

Sure, it may be something of a form letter, but it's a really good one. It's not a stilted, lifeless form letter from a big corporation, and that's because of Stacy's intelligent use emotional keywords:

truly
remarkable
family
wonderful
awesome

Those keywords create emotional context. They are Pavlovian bells that remind us of our emotional attachment to Apple. Formal language need not be a standard formality, as Stacy's letter aptly demonstrates.

Now if her email had contained a thumbnail pict of a smiling Stacy, or a link to her Twitter profile, that would've been over the top, further cementing an already strong emotional connection I have with Apple.

A fun ad, for real

2009-04-27T18:02:40-05:00

If TV pitchman Ron Popeil has taught creators of TV commercials anything, it's be entertaining.

So the makers of SlapChop, the kitchen tool advertised endlessly on late-night TV (here's why it must advertise), might have been given the gift of a longer lifespan thanks to a citizen marketer-created video/song remix.

If I saw this "ad" during my late-night viewings of the Tennis Channel, I'd turn the sound up, not down.

How to apologize

2009-04-24T19:06:21-05:00

Over the years, we've featured several ways to apologize for service problems.

This is my all-time favorite apology.

Beth introduces us to Ramon De Leon, who owns several Domino's Pizzas stores in Chicago. Ramon apologized to a customer named Amy recently when one of his stores fouled up her order.

What I love about Ramon's video apology:

He's not reading from a script.
He includes the general manager of the store in question, who performs his video penance well.
He apologizes with flair, not like a corporate drone.

It's the flair, of course, that pushes this video apology over the top, making it something Amy, her friends, co-workers -- and those of us immersed in customer experience minutiae -- are sure to talk about, if not love.

Why Susan Boyle captured our attention

2009-04-24T09:05:27-05:00

Tina Brown on why the fast-spreading Susan Boyle YouTube video, which could end up as one of the most-viewed of all time, touched a multi-cultural nerve:

Susan Boyle is another avatar of global yearning. Her angel voice soaring from the unkissed mouth of that scrunchy-faced, eyebrow-enforested, unprepossessingly dumpy representative of anonymous humanity was (an) irresistible message to us all to get over ourselves. Until things get better, we will all go on being unusually receptive to such epiphanies from the news. They remind us what uncomplicated strength of character looks like.

The Susan Boyle story is an affirmation of the power of talent plus humility. There's always cheering capacity (and less friction) in the spreadable market for the striving, and unlikely, underdog who lets their talent do most of the talking.

Crisis 101: now measured in minutes

2009-04-16T11:54:13-05:00

The AmazonFAIL and Dominos word-of-mouth crises spread globally in hours because of Twitter. The net effect on Amazon is the loss of some hard-earned goodwill. The net effect on Domino's may be more significant. (Update: Survey results indicate some damage.)

If these two experiences teach CMOs and agencies anything it's that your crisis communication plan should include responding within minutes on Twitter, if even to say "Yes, we're aware of the situation." That won't necessarily neutralize a bad situation, but it will demonstrate a company that's keeping up with the times. When opinions are being influenced by digital-driven word of mouth, that's worth a lot.

Amazon and the hero's journey

2009-04-15T15:52:43-05:00

Strategic moments don't happen often but when they do, they're an opportunity for transformation.

Amazon's big strategic moment was with the AmazonFAIL controversy. With thousands of Twitter messages, blog posts and media stories creating a white-hot spotlight of attention, the next step was how Amazon would lead itself out from a mess of what was being called censorship, the worst form of paternalism, etc.. Practically leaping from the pages of a Joseph Campbell book, it was a hero's moment ready for the making.

And Amazon flubbed it.

Amazon was a flinty Dirty Harry when it should have been an introspective Luke Skywalker. Amazon's curt "ham-fisted cataloging error" explanation for how it miscategorized thousands of gay- and lesbian-themed books may explain why opinions about the company's intentions are raw. Silence feeds suspicion. The pervasive disappointment and anger at a company that people generally respect, even love, is surprising, but that'll happen if what's considered paternalism isn't neutralized with pathos. Really, could it have been so emasculating for an Amazon spokesperson to have said, "Wow, we really screwed up. This may be too much detail for some of you, but here's exactly what happened..."

Amazon's bad buzz is the penalty of unfulfilled expectations. Amazon became the category leader in online retailing because it has created so many new expecations for online experiences, and it almost always meets or exceeds them; its Net Promoter Score ranking is 36 points above the median in its category. Category leaders are cultural leaders in business, sports, non-profits and government. Strategies, behaviors and some lives are modeled on category leaders. It's a perk and a responsibility. It's heady and scary. The cost of reticence is goodwill.

Fifteen years ago, a problem like this might have lingered in a company for months, but the tools we shape are now shaping us. We're increasingly becoming an instant-feedback society, and that's changing expectations for nearly everything that everyone does.

For Amazon and anyone who finds themselves suddenly under fire with a problem, the audience knows continuous perfection is a lie. No need to lie to yourself. That's part of the hero's journey.

(Image: National Coalition Against Censorship)

Anatomy of the #AmazonFAIL protest

2009-04-13T04:16:03-05:00

We've written many times on this blog about how quickly bad word of mouth can travel online and the importance of responding quickly. Amazon is the latest case study.

Amazon recently deleted the sales rankings of hundreds of gay- and lesbian-themed books. Writer Mark Probst blogged about the de-ranking and was told by an Amazon representative that the company will no longer include sales ranks for "adult" material on the site.

Reaction was swift: anger over lumping gay-themed books with pornography accompanied by cries of censorship.

Probst's blog post was dated Sunday, April 12 at 2:08 am. In 24 hours, here's a quick look at how things developed:

Twitter. Users begin using the hastag #AmazonFAIL. It was the number-one trending topic on Twitter search all day. After an Amazon spokesperson told CNET news that the de-ranking was "a glitch in our system and is being fixed," Twitterers responded with a new hashtage: #glitchmyass.

Blogs. Over 5,000 blog posts about the news. It was the top story on the widely read Techmeme.

Facebook. The AmazonFail Group launched, quickly gathering 1,200 members out of the gate.

Online petitions. Online petitions sprang up protesting the "adult" policy. One gathered more than 9,000 signatures in a few hours' time.

Google bomb. A blogger launched a campaign to redefine "Amazon rank" on Google. It's working. This page is #2 in the search rankings.

Hacking. Protesters started tagging the de-ranked books on Amazon site with #AmazonFAIL. At last count, 882 books were tagged.

Logos. People created logos for the protest.

Merchandise. #glitchmyass boxer shorts, t-shirts and other apparel are for sale!

Complaint templates. Customers wanting to complain and who need writing help can use this pre-crafted complaint letter.

Boycotts. Customers on Twitter and blogs are talking boycott.

How has Amazon responded to the building PR crisis besides the "glitch" comment? Nothing so far on the Amazon.com front page, the company's Twitter account, or the CTO's Twitter account.

The anger of injustice spreads quickly and can take on a life of its own. For a company that helped pioneer using customer comments to sell books in a flattened, democratized context, this sure seemed like a fail moment for Amazon.

(Feel free to post any items or updates I may have overlooked or tell me on Twitter: @jackiehuba!)

UPDATE:

Follow the real-time Twitterstream for the #AmazonFAIL and #glitchmyass tweets here
The list of de-ranked books that have been tagged by customers as #AmazonFAIL is now 1,137 1,335 books.
Online petition is close to 16,000 signatures.
Over 335 mainstream media articles related to this story, including Wall Street Journal, Wired, and NPR.

UPDATE: Amazon has released a statement calling the issue a "embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error." The spokesperson said it wasn't just gay and lesbian titles that were affected, but also the error included 57,310 books in a number of broad categories such as Health, Mind & Body, Reproductive & Sexual Medicine, and Erotica. Amazon also refuted the rumor that a hacker had caused the glitch.

There are still a lot of questions that were not answered here. How did the cataloging error occur? Was it man-made or computer-related? Regardless, Amazon waited too long to address the building outrage with some kind of explanation.This is a great case study for PR professionals on dealing with today's 24/7 real-time Twitter-fueled word of mouth world.

UPDATE: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer says that the "cataloging error" was the result of a single Amazon employee in France who flipped the wrong switch, causing over 50,000 books to be flagged as "adult." This is according to an anonymous souce inside the company.

Fun is contagious

2009-04-07T13:03:44-05:00

Many movie theaters say they're in the exhibition business, which is one reason why many movie theaters are not entertaining.

But the Alamo Draft House movie theater in Austin, Texas continues to inspire with its innovations of fun, which it calls signature events.

Two examples within one week:

1. Renegade karaoke.
The Alamo rented a bus to drive around Austin filled with customers who, with the assistance of a mobile sound system, sang karaoke amidst surprised onlookers at Starbucks, a police station, a fitness class, and a busy intersection. The theater brought along a video camera to record the fun and compile a 4-minute highlight reel which will, naturally, be shown as entertainment before movie showings. One of the most fun parts of the video: a Starbucks employee who tells the singers with all seriousness, "The police are on the way."

2. A secret world premiere of the new Star Trek film.
It was billed as a big-screen showing of the 1982 Star Trek classic, "The Wrath of Khan," with an opportunity to see 10 minutes of the new "Star Trek" film. But 10 minutes into the showing of Khan, that film mysteriously "broke." Out walks Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy. He suggests the theater show the entirety of the new Star Trek film. It was all a ruse to host an unexpected world premiere among hard-core fanatics of the franchise. How fun is that?

Fun is contagious.

Fun spreads.

Fun inspires loyalty.

Fun opens wallets.

On being a chief evangelist

2009-04-06T10:56:05-05:00

Betsy Weber has been chief evangelist of software company TechSmith for six years. Her role is to listen to customers, determine their needs, sift that data and put it into context for TechSmith's software developers.

At the same time, she's also building a passionate fan base for TechSmith by meeting customers and being the warm, caring person she is naturally.

We asked her to put her six years of work into numbers:

Met 7,000 customers in person
Attended nearly 200 conferences (30 per year)
Picked up 3,000 followers on Twitter
Maintains regular, personalized contact with about 1,000 people

Has it paid off? TechSmith has done well in that time: double-digit revenue growth every year, totaling 259%. It's one thing for your company to say, in blog posts and email newsletters, that it loves customers. It's another thing to go out and do the hard work of brand grassroots-building and demonstrate it face-to-face.

(If you're interested, Betsy will explain how to be a company chief evangelist officer in a SWOM webinar this Wednesday.)

"Be interesting"

2009-03-31T14:42:25-05:00

It's a common piece of advice among word-of-mouth circles: Be "interesting."

But that's like telling a horse: be more like a zebra.

It's more practical to create an authentic zebra from scratch than paint black and white stripes on a horse. Everyone will know they're fake, and they'll just wash off anyway. Stripes aren't part of the DNA of a horse.

So, if you're a horse, I think better advice is to "Revisit your purpose. Ensure it's well-defined and strong. Then demonstrate it daily."

Twitter & advertising, part 2

2009-03-25T02:26:16-05:00

It's hard to appreciate the enormous pressure Biz and Ev must face to develop Twitter's business model. Selling ad space might be easy and fast but in the most conversational of all mediums, but I'd love to see Twitter help businesses by developing:

A menu of dashboards with real-time analytics that help companies monitor tweets about their company or brands (or those of competitors).
The ability to monitor multiple conversation threads and track their spread over time and across websites, perhaps marrying it with offline data from Gallup or IRI.
A CRM program for companies who use Twitter for customer service; make it easier for the Fords, Intuits and Comcasts to identify, categorize and respond to help requests.

Twitter is certainly awash in vast amounts of data, especially in how memes start and spread, which can be of tremendous value to companies that want to understand real-time sentiment. Getting into the enterprise can be pretty valuable, as Microsoft or Oracle or SAP might tell you.

UPDATE: Looks like CoTweet. may have beaten Twitter to the punch on the CRM functionality.

Twitter & advertising, part 1

2009-03-25T02:17:00-05:00

People love Twitter because it's a non-stop cocktail party of conversations. It enables community and idea-sharing, which help form opinions, which create influence.

Advertising has always been about a positive, sometimes over-promising message in the form of an opinion. The one-way nature of advertising prevents dynamic influence, those small, adjusting steps carried out by actual people who reduce the friction of doubt about a product or brand.

Twitter's ability to reduce the friction of connection between company and customer, company and prospect, is its great promise. Those interactions can have ripple effects on forming opinions. For-profit or non-profit, it's not too late to know what people are saying about you on Twitter.

Which leads us to Twitter rolling out its first money-making program.

On Tuesday, it launched ExecTweets, a partner site with Federated Media that aggregates tweets from executives of companies. With Microsoft as its sponsor, ExecTweets featured 77 executives, four of whom were women.

Unsatisfied with this paltry 5% representation rate for a high-profile program (after all, 53% of the people on Twitter are women), I tweeted about it. That provoked a conversation with the hashtag #exectweetsFAIL. Fail is to broken as fail whale is to Twitter being temporarily down, which happens.

Others jumped into the gender-sensitive conversation except @exectweets, which never responded publicly to those of us chatting away. @exectweets did send me a private message: "sorry we don't monitor #exectweetsFAIL."

Sounds like an anti-listening campaign, I replied with a bit of a wink.

"We promised our followers to 'only share the good stuff,'"@exectweets replied, again, only to me.

Hmmm. Only the good stuff. Like an ad campaign.

You can't create a walkie-talkie and expect it to be a bullhorn. Twitter's profound promise is as a central network of conversational synapses that simultaneously spread and influence business, cultural and civic chatter. To stick an advertising billboard in the middle of this beautiful brain, if you will, is to misunderstand its potential.

UPDATE: Check the comment stream for a comment from Federated Media.

18 cool things at SXSW

2009-03-18T18:10:24-05:00

SXSW Interactive is one of my favorite conferences. There's plenty to learn, and smart people have shared their takeaways.

For my report, here are some random, off-beat things I learned for the first time.

Smurfs know how to party.
Guy Kawasaki can do a dead-on Sarah Lacy impersonation.
There are more interactive marketers in Minnesota than anywhere else in the world.
BJ Novak should be my new boyfriend.
The Salt Lick makes great cobbler.
The guy who invented Obamicon works for Paste Magazine.
Viral marketing doesn't work. Tell everyone you know.
Ford has an un-Ford-like car called the Flex.
Dell has an un-Dell-like laptop called the Adamo.
Stuff White People Like is funny.
Passive Aggressive Notes is funny.
Fail Blog = LMFAO.
The word "freetard" makes me laugh.
Stephanie Klein lives in Austin.
Peter Kim is younger than I am. Don't ask.
Zappos does over $1 billion in annual sales, one-third of which is returned.
If you're not on the VIP list for SXSW parties, you end up waiting in a long, long line.
Pastries + Pasties = crazy delicious

What would you add to the list?

Fly higher, faster

2009-03-18T13:28:23-05:00

A few months ago, I gave a company developing one of the coolest ideas ever -- a flying car -- some advice (or grief) about its boring brochureware website. There were too many hurdles just to see the dang thing, and it turned out most pictures and videos were of computer models.

The update is that, Terrafugia, recently demonstrated its flying car in action. Even better, its website is now plastered with photos and videos of the actual car. Good start.

Here's the video:

Here are two more ideas to make this idea spread:

Put the YouTube video of your inaugural flight on your home page, front and center, along with the code for people to embed it in their blogs. Evidence, evidence, evidence. Plus, if you give people the tools to spread your news, the true believers will build your network.
Create a giant "Sign up!" button on the front page that makes it easy for people to join your journey. Call it something like the personal aircraft revolution. We're not buying a flying car, we're buying a transportation lifestyle. Then put my name on the list.

The bigger point here is that companies put unintentional hurdles in their way by being too protective. The age of word of mouth and evangelism means openness, literally and figuratively.

Values worth repeating

2009-03-15T13:19:05-05:00

Zappos spends more time focusing on its culture than most companies. That approach isn't for everyone but then again, very few companies are like the customer evangelist-powered Zappos, which does over $1 billion annually since launching in 1999.

Values are platitudes unless they're backed up with action. Zappos' values are worth spreading. (The links go to the company's explanation of each one.)

Social media and the big company, part 1

2009-03-13T14:48:26-05:00

In larger companies, there's a lot of hand-wringing and worry about monetizing social media. How do we generate ROI from getting involved with blogging, online communities or Twittering?

That's one approach, and it can be fraught with internal battles over legal matters, positioning, PR and brand identity.

An easier path is to think less about social media as a sales and marketing function, and consider it more of a function of operations. Customer service and support is a natural pathway to introducing social media to a large organization. At most, that means transitioning already trained support people into using a different set of tools.

Just the idea that your company is represented in social media forums is a word-of-mouth-worthy. The work they'll do in solving the problems of those influential one-percenters who are heavy social media users will go a long way to helping you understand what to do next.