August30

Giving Customers the Finger

By: Spike Jones

Over cocktails with colleagues this week, we were talking about the usual – agency life, working with clients and oh, yeah, how the Internet has become one big pity party with a lot of whiners and complainers.

This is nothing new. In fact, the amount of noise that complainers make is getting louder and louder. To be clear, I know there are MANY legitimate things that we can complain about. But because we live in the age where anyone with an Internet connection “has a voice,” we’ve become used to reading our “friends” posts about delayed flights. Bad drivers. How their coffee is too hot. Even complaining about all the complaining (guilty). I’m sure the human behavior scientists are having a field day with all the data they’re collecting when it comes to wanting to be heard and ego and on and on. After all, studies show that the number one reason people post things on social media is for ego-driven purposes.

But no, this post isn’t going to be about how bad customer service stories get shared more than good ones. And it especially isn’t going to be about how to turn detractors into advocates.

Instead, I want to talk about telling your customers (or A customer) to go screw themselves. First of all, this is not a luxury all brands can afford. In fact, it’s one that very few can pull off. The example that comes to mind is the Alamo Drafthouse (from about a year ago). If you haven’t been or don’t know, the Alamo is a movie theater that serves you food and drinks during a show. They also have quirky film screenings with themes like quote-alongs, sing-alongs, shooting cap guns during action movies, etc. But what I REALLY love about the Alamo is how, before every movie, they explicitly warn you that if you talk or are on your phone during a movie, you get one warning and then you’ll be escorted out of the building (“we’ll kick your ass out” is how they so delicately put it). Because, as they say, they don’t mean to rude, but if you’re gonna be, then so will they.

If you’re not familiar with the story, an intoxicated young lady got kicked out of a movie for being loud. She called and left a message voicing her disgust that she couldn’t believe such a thing would happen. That they ripped her off. That this is America, for cryin’ out loud. But did the Alamo apologize and invite her to come back for a free movie? No. Instead, they made an example out of her and turned her voice mail into a commercial.

It went like this:

1)    Brand has policy.
2)    Brand highlights policy outlining rules and consequences when you break the rules.
3)    Customer breaks rules.
4)    Brand gives customer the finger.

Like I said, not all brands have this luxury. But because the Alamo stood up for what they believe in and pushed back on a whiny customer, it not only endeared its current customers to love them even more, but they won new awareness and probably customers because of it.

Holy moly, this makes me giggle like a little schoolgirl. We live in a world of contingency documents and crisis planning. We prepare for the worst-case scenario. We cringe at the stories of vigilante customers and fear the almighty social media influencers.  Brands spend half their time trying to figure out how to engage with their customers and the other half preparing for the backlash of engaging with their customers.

Again, allow me to reiterate. AT&T can’t do this. Ford can’t do this. American Airlines can’t do this. But when it comes to niche brands with deeply loyal followings, there’s an opening. No, you shouldn’t be looking for opportunities on how you can tell your customers to go fly a kite. But if you have a set of simple, ironclad rules that come with your brand and someone breaks them, then a whole new set of opportunities opens up.UPDATE: Since penning this post yesterday, I was reminded of this tried and true story about Southwest Airlines from the book “Nuts.”


Jim Ruppel, director of customer relations, and Sherry Phelps, director of corporate employment, tell the story of a woman who frequently flew on Southwest, but was disappointed with every aspect of the company’s operation. In fact, she became known as the “Pen Pal” because after every flight she wrote in with a complaint. She didn’t like the fact that the company didn’t assign seats; she didn’t like the absence of a first-class section; she didn’t like not having a meal in flight; she didn’t like Southwest’s boarding procedure; she didn’t like the flight attendants’ sporty uniforms and the casual atmosphere. And she hated peanuts! Her last letter, reciting a litany of complaints, momentarily stumped Southwest’s customer relations people. Phelps explains: “Southwest prides itself on answering every letter that comes to the company and several employees tried to respond to this customer, patiently explaining why we do things the way we do them. [Our response] was quickly becoming a [large] volume until they bumped it up to Herb’s desk, with a note: ‘This one’s yours.’ In sixty seconds, Kelleher wrote back and said, ‘Dear Mrs. Crabapple, We will miss you. Love, Herb.’

Personally, I love hearing stories of brands fighting back. When it’s done “on brand” and is legitimate, it can go a long way. And who knows? Maybe one-day things will even out and the cry-babies will think twice before they post that negative comment about the tiniest thing.

We can dream, can’t we?

Posted in: brands, lessons learned, rants2 comments

June11

Likes Matter

By: Spike Jones

Any social media kid out there worth their salt will tell you that “likes don’t matter.” I even wrote a post over a year ago to explore “Life Beyond the Like.” We all throw hissy fits every time the number of Facebook likes is used as a measure of success in a case study and rail against the c-suite when they tell us that they want to reach a certain number of likes for this campaign.

But at the risk of having the social media kids come out of the woodwork, let me tell you something: Likes matter.

Back off a second and allow me to explain, will ya? You can’t tell me that you haven’t looked at a client’s or potential client’s or even a competitor’s Facebook page and said to yourself, “Hmmmm, they only have XX likes? That sucks.” You can’t tell me that the Chevy Camaro people don’t want more likes than the Ford Mustang people. Or that AT&T wants more likes than Verizon. Or that at least one metric of that project you did for your client isn’t the number of “likes” you garnered.

Let’s face it: People “like” your page if you have led them there because of a promotion. Or because they’ve been a loyal, lifetime customer. Or simply because you’re a beloved brand. Or because you’re “cool” and people want to be associated with you. Just like the people who have huge numbers of followers on Twitter tell you that the number of followers don’t matter, the same goes for Facebook. But it’s a lie. They do matter. Because it’s a measurement of visits and eyeballs. Yes, research shows that on average, only 1% of people who “like” a page interact with that brand on a regular basis on FB. I hear you. I feel your disappointment.

Instead, let’s start thinking about the “like” as either the beginning of a journey for some, or a point in time of a journey for others. What comes before? What comes after? How does that online action lead to offline word of mouth? There are many other variables, but a “like” is one of them.

In other words, “likes” matter. But so do a lot of other things in the mix. So before you go off on another rant about 1% engagement rates and the ROI of someone clicking that “like” button, think about how “likes” are table stakes now. They are expected. They are a part of what not only we are judged on, but what our client is judged on as well. Let me reiterate: it’s not the ONLY thing, or even a really IMPORTANT thing, but it’s a thing. So deal with it.

Posted in: lessons learned, marketing, rants8 comments

May29

Bridging the traditional/social gap with WOM

By: Spike Jones

There are many things that fascinate me about the communications space right now. Human behavior and social tools. The staying-power of great advertising. Yeah, there’s a list. And another line on there is the gap between the digital/social media kids and the “traditional” side of the house.

How many times have you heard the digital kids in your agency whine and moan about how the traditional PR/communications people “just don’t get” social. That they think it’s some plug-in tactics after everything is figured out. How the program would be so much better if social media had a seat at the table from the beginning. You know, when everything’s integrated.

But what I’ve found is that as much as that may be true, many of the social kids don’t really understand what “traditional” PR/communications people do. Like, at all. You’re probably nodding your head right now because you know it’s true. It’s not all press releases and pitching stories. It’s actually a WHOLE lot more than that. Just ask them.

So to be the Word of Mouth guy of the group has made me realize that WOM is the answer to bridging that gap between social and traditional. When my team and I talk about a word of mouth program or concept with the social kids, their eyes light up, because they can easily see the digital hooks. And when we have that same conversation with the traditional folks, they easily get it too, because it’s a natural extension of what they are already doing. (Yes, ideally everyone would be in the same room when that conversation happens, but one thing at a time.)

I’m not saying that WOM is always the magic bullet. But I AM saying that it can be the bridge. The word of mouth discipline has its feet firmly planted in both the online and offline worlds (this is the part where I remind you that 90% of word of mouth conversations still happen offline). Because, built the right way, WOM programs that engage people in remarkable experiences push people online. And the reverse is also true. It’s actually a cycle: online to offline and offline to online.

So when you’re starting to work on that new project or even when the word “integrated” comes up, remember that word of mouth can help bridge the gap between two worlds. It just may be the difference between just another campaign that falls flat and a powerful, successful engagement.

Posted in: marketing, word of mouth1 comments

May15

Social Business Means Cultural Change

By: Spike Jones

Social business. All the cool kids are doing it. Come on, you should do it to. Why? You’ll be POP-uLARRRR!!

Like victims of high school peer pressure, everyone in the digital world is talking about how social business is the next big thing. And I’m not here to argue if it is or isn’t. Brother Armano recently wrote a great post about the evolution of digital that lays it out very nicely and talks about the natural evolution of social media into social business. It’s the next logical step, really. In fact, we’re seeing more and more businesses come on the scene that not only are trying to crack the social business nut, but are actually calling themselves social business businesses.

That’s pretty bold.

In a conversation with Chuck last week, we were discussing the state of the digital industry. It started with the obvious: that social media is just that: media. Tools. Things we can turn on and off and plug in and unplug and dial up or down  – you know, just like advertising. It’s mechanical “things” – at least the media part of it. But social business – this idea that social will come in and permeate every singe section of a company – that’s waaayyyyy different. In fact, it can’t happen unless there’s a fundamental cultural change within a company.

And therein lies the problem. Impossible? No. Hard? Very. To walk in to a company and tell them that in order to become a social business, they’re going to have to fundamentally shift the way they think about everything they do – internally and externally – is a damn hard sell. Because changing the culture of the company is no easy task. Volumes have been written about it. But ultimately it comes down to a willingness to do it from all parties involved and a push from the both the top-down and the bottom-up.

I’ve been lucky enough to have been involved in word of mouth projects that have ignited cultural change within companies. I wish we could say that we set out to do it in the first place, but it was a result of a long-term, sustainable program that started under the PR division and then spread through marketing, advertising, HR, finance and so-on. It was amazing to watch and within 12 months, the entire company had begun to shift culturally.

So maybe that’s how you start. Small. Bit-by-bit. With something obvious that you know will begin to creep into the dark corners of a company and bring them into the fold. Telling a company of 400,000 people that everything is going to change is a lot harder than letting them see how you can take one section of a company, change it for the better and let them wrap their heads around it.

Change is hard. But when the right people (dare I say “influencers?”) within a company are dedicated to make it happen, it’s a beautiful thing. But before we go throwing around the term “social business,” let’s really be clear what we’re talking about.

Posted in: brands, marketing, word of mouth4 comments

April9

Maybe 1% is all you need

By: Spike Jones

Earlier this year, a report came out from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute that I’ve seen popping up again and again with people talking about how only one percent of people who click the “Like” button on Facebook actually engage with the brand. (BTW, if you don’t know who Andrew Ehrenberg is, you need to find out.)

There are SO many directions we can go with this report, like going down that deep and dusty path trying to define what “engagement” really means. Or talking about the value of a like or a fan. Or what brands should really be using Facebook for.

But I don’t want to go down any of those no-win rabbit holes. Instead, I want to talk about that 1% (and no, not in the Occupy Wall Street kind of way). I don’t see why so many people are surprised at this number…because this has always been the case. The social media kids are saying that 1% is a terribly low number and then they’ll show you 10 tips on how to raise that number. But I have to tell you that even waaayyyy back in 2006, the Creating Customer Evangelists kids, Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba, talked about the 1% rule by citing data from Wikipedia and Yahoo that found that 1% of the users overwhelmingly create most of the content.

Breaking it down even more, there’s the 89:10:1 rule, which says that 89% of people who come to your site will lurk, 10% will contribute and 1% will create content.

My point? Don’t freak out about only 1% of people engaging with your brand. Especially on common sites like Facebook. Now, if you create a brand ambassador program and you only get a 1% participate rate, you’re doing something wrong. In fact, the average participation in brand community sites is less than 10%. That’s not so great. And I can tell you from experience that if you build it the right way, you can get a 30%+ engagement rate, which opens all sorts of doors.

So before you go wringing your hands about only having a 1% engagement rate on Facebook, think about it differently. Like what you can do with that 1%. Ohhhh, the possibilities. These are hand-raisers. These are evangelists. These are the people that already spread word of mouth about you (hopefully in a good way). Create offline experiences with them. Ask if they want to engage deeper on other platforms. Or learn about the inner-workings of your company and products. So yes, in this case we’re talking about quality rather than quantity. Because, as we are quickly learning, on Facebook and Twitter, numbers – unless they’re sales numbers – don’t mean a whole lot.

Posted in: brands, lessons learned, marketing, word of mouth1 comments

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