I like nothing more than acknowledging great customer service, and I have been known to make job offers on the spot to those who have given me great service because they are the type of person I want working for my company.

I almost always take the time to tell companies when their service falls short. I choose to believe they simply aren’t aware that their people need more training. I know its difficult to monitor everyone who delivers service, and in their shoes, I’d want to know if service isn’t what it should be.

Training for great customer service is difficult because great customer service requires three key attributes: empathy, creativity and good judgment, and admittedly these are difficult to teach. However “good” customer service can be taught, and when I see the basics lacking, I wonder, not about the people delivering the service, but about the culture of the company and it’s senior management who have clearly lost touch with the most important people of all – THEIR CUSTOMERS!

So this story of my experience with a park warden on my canoe vacation is a reminder to all managers to 1) check in with your customers and ask them how they feel about your product or services, 2) read as many emails, letters, blog posts and tweets about your company as you possibly can, 3) dip in to your customer service organization and sample what they are offering – use a mystery shop service, listen to the voice recordings of their calls, or check out their emails in your CRM system.

How will you know if you don’t take time to listen?

Here is a story that illustrates what I am saying.

The other week, my son and I and 7 friends went white water canoeing for 6 days in the fabulous Algonquin Park. Good campsites are few and far between in the back country and about 3 days in we found our reserved campsite taken by 4 park workers who had not radioed to see if it was taken and who 1) did not feel it was necessary to acknowledge that we were the customer, 2) did not offer to vacate the site in favor of their customer, 3) did not come up with any other suggestion other than for us to continue on down river. We finally suggested that we share the site with them and they reluctantly agreed.

The next morning they came over and issued us a $90 ticket for having 4 tents. Apparently the maximum is 3. No warning, just a ticket for $90. We showed them our reservation receipt made out by Park Staff that accepted and listed our 4 tents which suggests that it was not against the “rules”. Did any of this matter? Nope.

So, we all wrote to his supervisor, polite emails explaining the situation and suggesting that the judgment used in this case was perhaps not the best. We also pointed out that this rule was not posted anywhere. We did not mention that the justice of the peace agreed with us and that the ticket was thrown out when we went to court to fight it.

Here was his answer.

Dear Ms. Yeomans and Ms. Partner

Thank you for your e-mails concerning your recent trip down the Petawawa River and the issue of 4 tents on the campsite at Bypass Falls, it has been forwarded to me to investigate further.

When reserving interior campsites, in most cases it is not possible to reserve a specific campsite. When a reservation is made, a campsite in a particular zone (area) of the park is reserved. Sites in that zone are then occupied on a first come/first served basis. Not all of the sites in a particular zone are reserved/sold, to allow campsites to be available for emergencies or unforeseen circumstances. In the case of Bypass Falls, the sites at either end of the 200m portage are considered to be in that zone of the Petawawa River.

When the Ontario Parks staff arrived at the falls, both campsites were empty and they chose to set up at the site at the bottom of the falls. You indicate that when you arrived, the upper site had been occupied by a camp group. The group could not have had a permit for Bypass Falls.

After considering the time of day and the time required to break camp and safely find another campsite downstream, the Ontario Parks staff decided to vacate the site and set up for the night in the area behind the site.

The park warden indicated that at this time he over heard a discussion concerning the setting up of 4 tents at which time he issued a warning that only 3 tents were permitted on a campsite and that only three tents should be set up. It has been a long standing park regulation that only 3 pieces of shelter equipment are permitted on a campsite.
The next morning he observed that 4 tents had been set up and issued a Provincial Offence Notice for the offence.

A summary of park rules and regulations is printed on page 30 of the Algonquin Park tabloid, which is available at all park access points. In that summary it indicates that the limit of 3 pieces of shelter equipment applies to backcountry and campground campsites.

Should you have any more questions, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,

Brent Frederick
Achray Group Leader
Algonquin Provincial Park
613-732-5553

It’s not the fact that the warden lied about giving us a warning that got me upset.

It’s not the stupidity of suggesting we should all read at least to page 30 of a tabloid at the park entrance after we’ve registered, packed our gear and driven several hours to get there

It’s the utter lack of awareness of us as the customer, much less a valued customer. Note to file: ALWAYS acknowledge the value of your customer, without them you don’t have a busines.

It’s the “not my fault” attitude suggesting that the people on the other campsite were to blame. Note to file: Blaming other people NEVER makes the customer feel better.

It’s the lack of judgment in taking an uncomfortable situation for everyone (we certainly didn’t like asking them to share the site) and then making it worse by issuing a ticket instead of a thank you for sharing and have a great trip. Note to file: Your job is to make the customer feel better, using your best judgment. Choosing to punish the customer is almost always the wrong decision.

You owe it to yourself to check in on your customer service team – chances are they could use your help.

From 2008 sometime…….

The other day I got an email in my inbox. It said in part….

Dear Lynda Partner,

Hi, this is Nick Longo the CEO of CoffeeCup Software, you have been selected
as one of the few that I would like to personally invite to become a CoffeeCup Ambassador. This is an exclusive club of our biggest fans, best users, and closest friends.

If you would like to become an Ambassador please Click Here:

……..

Please join us today. We need you as a Fan and Evangelist to spread the word
about CoffeeCup Software.Thank you so much for participating. I am honored to invite you.

Nick Longo
———–
CEO | Founder
CoffeeCup Software

My first thought was “I don’t know any Nick Longo”. My second thought was “How did this person get my email address?”

Sound familiar?

It took me awhile but it turns out that when I opened a web hosting account recently, the hosting provider offered a free download of Nick’s software. I  did not download it.

So how did they get my email address and why were they sending me emails I didn’t want that did not even have an opt-out link.

Fearful that my brand new, shiny clean email address was out in the big bad world of impolite marketers, I wrote back an equally personal email to my new friend Nick.

Dear Nick
I did not opt-in to receive email from you. Please remove me from your list immediately and confirm that I have been removed.
Thank you
Lynda Partner

OK, so maybe I wasn’t as flowery was he was in his email, but why waste his time with marketing speak? At least I was clear, and, giving him the benefit of the doubt, didn’t come right out and call him a spammer.

The answer came two hours later

Lynda
When you selected to download the software from CoffeeCup you became a user of our software. You can unsubscribe from our e-mail news letters at www.coffeecup.com/email
Scott

Hmmmm, looks like I’ve been bumped off the special CEO list. Nick has passed the baton to Scott. Now if you read the beginning of this article, you know I did not download any software. Even if I did, downloading software is not opting in to get email. I am now a bit peeved – when someone writes to you telling you they didn’t opt-in and requesting that they be removed from your list would you not remove them and send a nicely worded email apologizing?

I decide to pull out my credentials to see if that makes any difference. As my husband says “My, what big credentials you have dear.”

Scott

1) I did not download your software
2) Sending me emails that I did not request is called spam
3) Your unsubscribe link does not work

Why won’t you just take me off your list and confirm back to me?

Lynda Partner
- Founder and former CEO of GotCorp – permission-based email marketing software
- Past Board member of CAUCE Canada (Coalition against Unsolicited Commercial Email)
- Member of the Anti-Spam Task Force for the Canadian Federal Government
- CoFounder of the Email Service Provider’s Coalition

So now Scott has an unhappy well-informed person emailing him 1) that his unsubscribe method is flawed or at the very least unclear to the person using it, and 2) that for the 3rd time they’d like his company to remove a name from their list

What does Scott do next? I know you are waiting with bated breath…

Hi

As I said you did download the software. The IP address information all
matches up. I would agree that many you did not know what you were
downloading, but never the less the download occurred and this is how you because a CoffeeCup member.

You can also unsubscribe at any time through http://www.coffeecup.com/email
Scott

What would possess him to use  “As I said..” in a customer service email. Is this guy well? How many times would one of your prospects have to ask to be removed from a list before you’d do it for them? And signing someone up as a member does not give you permission to send them emails.

I confess at this point, I am no longer hoping he’ll do the right thing and restore my faith in him. I may have been a bit terse in my next email to him.

Did you even read my email?

I clicked your unsubscribe button. I want you to confirm
that  (email address spelled out) is not in your database any
longer – Today please or I will be obliged to report your company to
the many black list spam sites in my database

Lynda

At this point he does write back confirming I have been removed from his list and because my mother raised me to be polite and I am a little ashamed of my last outburst, I send the following

Thank you – after 5 requests we are finally where I wanted to be before I ever heard of your company.

I strongly suggest you change your practices – they are going to come back to bite you, especially if I ever get another unwanted email from you.

I figured we were done right? He finally did the right thing and removed me from his list. But no, a few minutes later I get the coup de grace.

I would also suggest you contact LP (the hosting company they are partnered with) because we show clearly that your account accessed and downloaded our software. You should have them cancel your account or you will still receive e-mail from us.

Scott

So I need to cancel my hosting account to avoid being spammed by a third party software vendor?  What can I possibly say at this point, except dear readers, the importance of following best practices (or even common sense) when sending emails to your prospects and customers. If not, it could be your company in a blog posting.

Such a little thing, such a big negative impact.

1. Your CEO or client says “Let’s get a blog going”. You ask who is going to blog about what. They say “Nobody has time but we can just summarize or talk about other people’s blog posts”.

2. Your CEO or client says “Let’s get on Twitter”  You say OK, what will we tweet?”  They say “Our press releases and product info of course, what else would we tweet?”

3. Your CEO or client says “Let’s get on Twitter” You say OK, who will tweet?”  They say “Everyone in the company, but we’ll need legal to approve each tweet first.”

4. Your CEO or client says “We need to get everyone talking to each other” You say OK, what do you have in mind? They say “We just sent out a link to < latest corporate social media platform >, that ought to do it.”

5. Your CEO or client says “Let’s get on Twitter” You say “OK, are our customers and partners on twitter?”  They say “Why does that matter, we just need to say we use social media”.

Here are 5 questions to ask when they say they need to get some of that social media stuff going.

1. What part of our corporate strategy does this contribute to? This is the key question, ask it first and don’t go any further till you agree on the answer.

2. Who is the intended audience? Are the people we want to reach (customers/prospects/partners/influencers) using it?  If they aren’t, who do you think will hear and engage with us?

3. What do we want to accomplish with our use of social media? Is it to nurture leads, provide support, do market research?  Knowing this is critical.

4. Are you prepared to invest in this program for the long haul?  Social media is not free, just like real life relationships they need ongoing nurturing and engagement from the company.

5. How will we know that our programs have been successful? Spend the most time on this question – be sure everyone agrees before you start.

The answers to these questions will tell you 1) if you should be using social media, 2) if you are ready to use social media, and it will start you down the path to deciding what form of social media makes sense to you.

The bottom line is that social media, like all marketing programs needs a plan, a budget, and an ROI. It is not just something you just start “doing”.  We know it, now we just need to share this knowledge before too many companies waste more time and money.

Logically I know I was reading a description of what XZY company does, emotionally all I heard was “Blah Blah Blah”. I had no idea what this company did, none! Be honest, you’ve done it too right? Read something and had absolutely no idea what the product was or why you might benefit from buying it. You’re probably like most of us, who don’t admit this for fear of looking dumb or uninformed.

How easy it is for many marketing people I know to pump out words, they can jump right up and start writing, often on their first day on the job or project. Their words simply flow onto the page, looping into just the right sized paragraphs, nicely spell checked and usually containing an abundance of the latest buzz words.

These words turn into product brochures, web sites, press releases, white papers and blog posts, and prolific marketing writers are praised for their ability to “produce” and “deliver”. They measure their clicks and down loads and honestly believe they’ve done well.

I beg to differ.

In 1868, writer Mark Twain said “Anybody can have ideas–the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph.”

In an age where attention spans are shrinking, and 140 word sound bites are all you are allowed on marketing vehicles like Twitter, it is once again time for writing less to become a valued marketing skill.

Writing less actually requires more work, not less, but here are 10 tips to help you along.

1) Start with what your company does and describe your company’s focus in no more than 3 words. Yes, you heard me correctly – 3 WORDS, not 30 and not 300. Mine is “Results-based marketing”. Disney’s is “innovative story telling”. Coca Cola’s is “liquid refreshment”.

2) Before you start writing your next piece, write a summary using less than 100 words. Make sure you don’t cheat – less than 100 words, and then make sure that these words support the 3 word focus phrase you came up with in point #1.

3) After you’ve done your summary, go back and highlight the one thing that you want your reader to remember after reading your piece. If you can’t find the one thing, go back and rewrite your 100 word summary.

4) If your document is going to be more than 500 words, write an outline before you start to keep your thoughts organized – your readers will thank you for it.

5) Use simple words. If you make software, say you make software. The people who like software will want to read more. If it takes me an entire paragraph to figure out that you make software, even if I like software, I won’t be reading it. People don’t like their heads to ache when they read and they don’t like feeling stupid because they can’t figure out what you are saying.

6) Once you’ve written your piece, cut at least 1/3 of the words out. The best place to look is the first paragraph, for some reason it’s usually the weakest. If you can’t cut your precious words, ask a colleague to do it for you.

7) Count how many times you used your product or company name or the word “we” , if it’s more than once in every 500 words, ask yourself if you are writing about you or for your reader. For every statement you write, answer the question “what does this mean for my reader”.

Find a way to add words that complete this sentence “what this means to you is…..” after every statement you make.

9) Let your words sit before you finalize them. It’s amazing how much easier it is to edit your work after you’ve stepped away from it for a day or two.

10) Go back and chop some more – yes you can do it!

I won’t tell you how long it took me to write this blog post and it’s still not even close to crisp enough, but I hope I have hunted down and eliminated anything resembling Blah, Blah, Blah. If not, I hope you’ll tell me!

Things got even worse 11 days later when Twitter support finally got around to sending me an email (luckily to my new email address!) that included a new password and that I should log in and reset it. Predictably the password didn’t work and I got a message saying that my account had been temporarily disabled because of too many attempts to access it even after one attempt. After using up my entire swear word vocabulary in a 5 minute rant, I finally calmed down, used the “forgot my password” feature and had a new password sent along. Of course, had I not sorted out my first problem with a dead email address on file, I’d still Twitterless almost 2 weeks later.

Consistency and reliability are key components of any marketing campaign, yet to have your Twitter voice suddenly silenced without warning, to suddenly stop answering those who tweet you is sending a message you don’t want sent. Your followers may interpret this inactivity as being unreliable or non-responsive, certainly not the brand positioning you’ve worked hard to establish.

So for those of us who use Twitter as a business tool, not just a plaything, a few interesting lessons come to mind.

1) Make sure the email you have on file is one that you have full and complete control over.

2) Write down your password and keep it safe (yah,yah, I know)

3) Encourage the makers of any great software product to develop a revenue model to keep themselves healthy. I know this might seem all wrong, but healthy companies make better products. I’d happily pay Twitter to take my support call and get me back up and running quickly.

In the meantime, I’m back tweeting again and happy to be here, even if my feathers are a bit ruffled.

I realized pretty quickly that Guy is, shall we say, prolific.  Tweet after tweet arrived almost 24/7. I started reading, and reading, and reading, and would often look up from my computer to realize that hours had passed while I was absorbed in Guy’s world of fascinating, often eccentric posts. I was addicted – who wouldn’t want to be handed already reviewed articles that range from “a wristband that tells you when you’ve had enough sun” to the “45 people to follow on twitter” to “cool iphone apps”.

As time went on my addiction grew. I was checking twitter and ignoring email.  I became the trivia queen thanks to Guy but then my friends expected me to have something fascinating to talk about every time we talked and I spent even more time following Guy.  Soon my kids were begging me to leave my computer just long enough to make dinner once every 3 days or so (ok, so at this point I admit to some exaggeration – but just a bit of exaggeration).

The bottom line was that Guy Kawasaki was killing me – and quickly too.  My work was suffering, my kids were suffering and I was giving up my daily runs to spend more time on-line.  I had to do something. I tried cold turkey – didn’t even look at twitter for an entire 24 hours.  Too painful.  I tried ignoring his tweets and focusing on the other people I was following.  His headlines distracted me every time.  Finally I summoned up my willpower and sat there with my finger poised over the “Remove” button. Minutes went by.  I simply couldn’t bring myself to give him up! There had to be a better way.

Now I use TweetDeck and I filter Guy’s tweets into a single stream, and once a day (after my work is done), I grab a coffee, set the alarm on my iphone and disappear into Guy’s world.  I haven’t quite kicked the addiction but I now think I might actually live through it.

And yes I’d love it if you followed me: http://www.twitter.com/lpartner