Would you change anything about your store or office if you knew that your customers were recording their experiences, and could post them folr all the world to see?
Well, it’s happening. Check out the cell phone camera slide show from Paul McEnany’s visit to Kohl’s. Thanks to Church of the Customer for turning me on to this.
Whatever you’re doing — good or bad — is fair game for the internet.
…for quality and training purposes.”
How often have we heard that line? It generally happens when we call a large company’s customer service line — and it’s the company doing the recording.
Let’s turn that on it’s head. What if you’re the company, and your customers are doing the recording. To hold you to your promises; or gather information in order to sue you; or even post the call on the internet?
The folks at the Landing The Deal Blog have a post about an organization offering to help customers do just that.
What would you change if you knew your customers were recording your calls?
On a refrigerator in suburban St. Louis, Missouri is a magnet. The magnet has schedules for the local football teams, along with a slogan from the Realtor who provided it:
Go With Gordon — The Hard Working Nice Guy!
Can you think of a less-remarkable nickname? Especially since Gordon gave it to himself? Amazingly enough, a Google search reveals that this is a common slogan in the real estate business. There’s a Hard Working Nice Guy in Orlando, FL; a Hard Working Nice Guy in Chicago; a Hard Working Nice Guy in Chilliwack, BC and Yuba City, CA.
“The Splendid Splinter” is memorable.
“The Godfather of Soul” is remarkable.
“The Axis of Evil” stays in the mind.
“Portland’s Finest Media Rep” is remarkable — if you’re a Portland business owner, and I can convince you that I’m Portland’s finest media rep, I’ve got a good chance of getting your business.
How excited can you get about the chance to work with a hard working nice guy?
The expression’s been around so long, it’s hard to believe a real person actually came up with it. But an article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine says that man was Arthur Schiff, who died last year at the age of 66.
According to the article, Schiff wrote scripts for more than 1800 commercials, including the famous Ginsu knife ad. He also coined the phrase “Now how much would you pay?”.
I’d love to leave a legacy like that.
In Sunday’s Oregonian, Steve Duin’s column takes the Army National Guard to task for a deceptively-packaged direct mail campaign. According to the column, the envelope appeared to be a credit-card solicitation. Upon opening, the recipient finds a piece of plastic that is “not a credit card. This is money in the bank.” The pitch implies that there’s up to $60,000 to be had by signing up for the National Guard.
At least one of these pieces went to a 14-year old boy, whose parents tipped off Duin.
As the parent of another 14-year old, I find this more than a little alarming. Especially since the solicitation asks for the target’s cell phone and email address. It’s my job as parent to screen these sorts of things and decide what offers he gets to consider. I can’t keep the outside world away from him — I can only slow it down. When I was a kid, if someone wanted to contact me he had to call the house, where the phone would probably be answered by my parents. Now, a cell phone allows anyone who gets the number to cut me out.
On the other hand, I’m more inclined than Mr. Duin to give the Guard a little slack here. Although the mail piece was definitely over the line of decency, they have a few things in their favor:
1. A firm spokesperson was adamant that if the kid had filled out the form, the name would not have gone to a local recruiter, because it’s against the law for them to talk to 14-year-olds. So this is not the first wave of a campaign aimed at high school freshmen — it was more likely an honest mistake.
2. Unlike the tobacco companies (also mentioned in the column for some deceptive offers), the National Guard represents the good guys. They do a lot of good in the state, and that mission will continue whatever happens in Iraq. I don’t think anyone would argue that they shouldn’t be recruiting new members.
2. Because of Iraq, it’s a whole lot tougher to recruit now than it used to be. And a lot of people who might have listened to a recruiter’s pitch before now won’t even come to the phone or open a straighforward mail piece.
3. Which leaves the Guard with this question — how can we get a conversation started?
Unfortunately, the answer they chose — get ’em to open the envelope by disguising it as something else — wasn’t the right one.
But similar techniques are used by direct mailers all the time. We’re all looking for ways to get past the screener, and get our prospects to pay attention to our message. We do it — most of us, anyway — because we believe we have something of value to offer, and that the prospects will come to the same conclusion if we can just get them to talk to us. In its misguided way, that’s all the National Guard was trying to do.
In this case, the Guard is the marketer, and my kid (who eventually will be be old enough for a recruiter to call him legally) is the prospect. I, for once in my life, am the gatekeeper. And I resent anyone who tries to get past me using deception or tricks.
This is a great opportunity for those of us in the persuasion business to look at our efforts from the other side of the reception desk.