In the customer world, it is, and should be, what can you do to help make your customers life easier, better, more efficient, more productive, more profitable, etc.  This is the way it should be – helping your customer be better at what they do by using your products or services.  If you stay focused on this, you will win out above your competitors that don’t play by this same rule.

However, if you are engaged in Social Media at all, you realize it is about “what am I doing right now”, or “what is on your mind” or “saying something about yourself” type of questions and comments.  Thus the dichotomy.  We are in the “ME” generation which makes it all about me.  But that doesn’t translate well at all to the customers world very well.

I believe you can in fact make the translation.  I believe you can take a world that focuses on you and focus it on your customers.  I will talk more about this in my next several posts.  The Social Media Revolution is upon us (visit my Social Media Blog to learn more) and I believe those that can make this connection between the customer (all about me) world and the individual (all about me) will be the magic that sets companies and organizations apart from each other.  Stay tuned…

Blaine

Blaine Millet

Customer Experiences Inc.

twitter: @BlaineMillet

Why was I there?  They were interested, like many other CEO’s in the area, in learning more about the Social Media Revolution and how his new phenomena of communications could impact their businesses.  They were eager to hear my message about what the “tools of Social Media” are and how they fit together to become this powerful business communications force.

I shared the concepts and advantages of blogging, social networking (myspace, facebook, LinkedIn, and twitter) and the other elements that make up this powerful suite we call Social Media.  By sharing a number of examples about how companies are using these today, they were able to understand how Social Media will be changing the landscape of how we communicate, build relationships, improve the customer experience and achieve business goals faster and cheaper than ever before.  The group responded very favorably and asked some excellent questions.

The Bellevue Chamber of Commerce, led by Betty Nokes, CEO and President, is really looking ahead to how they can personally use Social Media to build even more value for their members and the businesses in the Bellevue community.  I commend Betty for her willingness to allow us to share a somtimes shocking message about how dramatically this landscape is changing.  I also want to personally thank Jim Frank of Human Capital Resources, a human capital solutions company, for introducing me to Betty and the Chamber.  Jim attended one of our early seminars and became “enlightened” and felt this was an important message to share with his fellow EBRT members – thanks Jim, the members are all a little better off today because of your willingness to share our message.

I also wanted to recognize a few of the members of EBRT that I had the opportunity to talk with at the event.  Donna Shirey of Shirey Contracting, sponsors of the Zero Energy Idea House  (check this out – way cool), Nancy Cho, President and CEO of Oki Golf, Dave Ferguson, CEO of Click Engineering, Jim Hebert, Hebert Research, John Parkey, and George Bartell of Bartell Drugs - just to name a few.  What a great group of people.  I would encourage anyone to join the Chamber and in particular the EBRT group.  Definitely call Betty if you are interested.  This group will definitely make things happen in our area…

Blaine

Blaine Millet

Customer Experiences Inc.

twitter: @BlaineMillet

This is an executive networking group that has been around for 90 years and has a very rich history and heritage for helping the members build new relationships in the community and help each other out in growing their businesses by sharing opportunities.  The executive Director, Glenna Thomas, was really looking out for her members by allowing us to come in and talk about a very leading edge and yet at times controversial topic – Social Media and Social Networking.  My hat goes off to her and Dennis Tyler of DialPro Northwest, for taking the chance on having us speak to their members and introduce some leading edge information. 

The group seemed to really enjoy being exposed to how Social Media is the next REVOLUTION in communications and how it can be used to help them in their businesses.  This was our 7th seminar on the topic of “Social Media for CEO’s” in the past few months and as usual, much of the information was very new to the audience.  I was very encouraged at how receptive the owners and executives were to how this could transform their businesses.

If you are in the Seattle area, I would strongly encourage you to contact Glenna and get more information about the group.  While we didn’t get a chance to meet everyone, we did meet a few great people afterwards, some of which were: Peter Frix of Frix Technology Group, John Kane from Kane Environmental Inc., Jim Conway from The Farwest Group, Diana Ehli, Dexter Barnes from Seattle Dental Associates and Linda Bianchi from both Windemere and the Vashon Island Chamber of Commerce - just to name a few. 

Again, THANK YOU Glenna, Dennis and The Seattle Executives Association for allowing us to crash your luncheon – much appreciated and very enjoyable.

Blaine

Blaine Millet

Customer Experiences Inc.

twitter: @BlaineMillet

What we need is for the media to point out all the things that are RIGHT and GOOD for a change – where are those journalists and media people when you need them.  Well, I found one and I wanted to dedicate this post to him and his publications/media.  His name is JOE KENNEDY, publisher of EastsideBusiness.  I just read his column, “Words from the Publisher” and I was so pleased and excited I wanted to CONGRATULATE him and HONOR him for taking a stand and leadership in this area – WAY TO GO JOE!!

Allow me to quote some of what he says directly from this column.

Despite the type of news you may be getting from other media outlets, Eastside Business and Eastside Life newspapers are choosing to stay positive – it sure beats the alternative!  in fact after almost 4 years in print, I finally made my first company policy – we will not use the “E” or “R” words in our publications.  We will stay positive and want you to as well.

Joe, I can’t compliment you enough – this is AWESOME. Does this mean everything is fine and all the bad will go away – certainly not, nor is he saying it will.  But while we are sitting in all the muck, why not look up at the sunshine and the sky and enjoy the beauty around us – that is what I believe Joe is saying.  None of us will be better off for continuing to talk about the problems – only the solutions.  I, for one, will be the first one to walk behind Joe.  Attitude is everything and we have shown that as a nation we don’t let this kind of thinking and talking take us down.  So to ALL the other media sources out there – GET A LIFE AND GET THE MESSAGE – we don’t want to hear about it any longer.  Thanks Joe.

Blaine

Blaine Millet

Customer Experiences Inc.

What we ARE going to do is EXPAND upon what we have been talking about over the past year by adding one of the HOTTEST and most TALKED ABOUT aspect of the market – SOCIAL MEDIA.  We have been working in this area for a while now and there is such a natural connection between Customer Loyalty, Customer Experience, Employee Retention and building a dominating competitive advantage we decided it was time to bring you, our readers, kicking and screaming into this world.  You might ask  yourself, “Why are we doing this now?” 

Simple, we have always tried to be on the leading edge in helping our customers and readers – give them tools that help them be “first to market” and leaders rather than simply following their competitors.  This is one of those areas where one of three things will happen.  The train has left the station and you get to choose whether you jump on it, watch it go by or get run over by it – your choice.  For our loyal readers and all the new ones, we want you to not only be on the train but driving the train in the direction you choose and not in the direction your competitors choose – make sense?

So what does all this mean to you?  It means we will now share with you our thinking, our experience and insights into what the latest thinking and developments are in this area.  Our goal is to help move you along both the “learning curve” and the “execution curve” so you can come on board at whatever pace you choose and become part of the social media revolution at the level you can absorb.  Regardless of what you choose to do, you will be more educated and knowledgeable and understand the benefits of moving more into this new direction.  Suffice it to say, it is here and it is going to be staying around for quite a while.

So stay tuned, hold on and fasten your seat belts – its going to be a fun and profitable ride for you and your organization.  As we begin to launch into this, please let me know what you think and where we can focus our education as we begin to bring you leading edge content.  You can either leave a comment on this blog or shoot me an e-mail at bmillet@ceinc.info.  Either way, I would love to hear from you.  Thanks.

Blaine

Blaine Millet

Customer Experiences Inc.

However, if you are looking to capture “competitive” or “nuances” or “deep” information about your customer, ABSOLUTELY NOT!  Customers have been and still are being constantly bombarded by surveys by everyone – from their recent oil change to purchasing flowers.  But they just keep sending them.  I am convinced the more I talk with companies that this isn’t something they actually expect to give the good information, they just don’t know (or don’t want to expend the effort) to do something else.  To most, it is the “path of least resistance” and it gives them at least some metrics to work from. 

I try to ask a very thought provoking question when I am in the discussion over survey’s.  You might try this one in some of your conversations as well.  It goes like this, “Would you rather have “metrics” of mediocre information that doesn’t give you much insight or no metrics on information that is deep and different than what your competitors are getting?”  You be be the judge.  I think you already know my answer.

Too often companies are so anxious to report they have a 4.2 in customer satisfaction that they forget why they are “really” talking to their customers.  Isn’t the reason you survey them to understand more about them so you can continually improve the relationship, hoping to build more trust and loyalty?  I thought so, but I am constantly surprised that this is not the intent at all.  It is to get a SCORE so they can report how wonderful they are doing and how much they think the customer likes them.

I talk to customers all the time.  I am here to tell you this is NOT what they are really saying.  Most of the time they give you pretty good marks because they don’t really care.  What?  Yes, you heard me right, they give you good marks because they don’t care.  If they gave you what they really thought, you would call them and harrass them until you gave them higher marks and then you would leave them alone again.  In reality, they are giving you good marks because they want you to leave them alone because for whatever reason they don’t think you can deliver what they really want.  Change your perspective a bit?  I hope so because i really want you to see that the final marks you get might not really be the way your customer really feels.

Contrast this to the company that doesn’t send them these lame survey’s and actually TALKS to their customers and uses tools the CUSTOMER really wants to use to communicate back to you.  If you actually asked the customer what they truly wanted, what promises they want you to keep, how they want to be treated, how they want to interact with your company, what customer experience they want to have, you wuld hear completely different information than anything you get from your survey.  If you also make it easy to provide “realtime” feedback that is icing on the cake.  Do you have a blog?  Can they interact with you via your blog?  Make it easy for them to work with you and you will see a change in both the relationship and the quality of information.

So, moral of the story is don’t survey them to death and expect anything of value – except unhappy customers.  Talk to them (preferably using outsiders since they generally get more information than you will get) and make it easy to build a dialog when it is important to THEM.  The differences will be dramatic.  Trust me on this one – it will change the way you interact with your customers forever – and they will love you for it!!

Blaine

Blaine Millet

Customer Experiences Inc.

As most of my readers know, I believe “Social Media” is here and just beginning to make its impact on businesses.  I didn’t say “Social Networking,” I said “Social Media.”  There is a difference.  I won’t go into the differences today but save that for another blog entry.  Suffice it so say, Social Media is in its infancy and something if you aren’t paying attention to you should.

With that as a backdrop, Fast Company Magazine recently released its “Top Ten Worst Social Networking Sites” for all of us to enjoy.  I encourage you to watch all of them and see what Americans (and others) are spending their time doing at nights and weekends.  This is amazing – and these were just their Top Ten.  There are thousands of these kind of sites out there – just be careful you don’t “step in” one of them – you might have to clean your keyboard.   Enjoy…

Blaine

Blaine Millet

Customer Experiences Inc.