A guest post from Gina Lofaro – “wordmistress”

An Optus/Twitter case study

Most reading this would be aware of the awesome power of social media.  For me, Twitter is my weapon of choice in the war of messages as I find that it abundantly meets my needs in that regard. But the story I really want to tell today is about how Twitter connected me with a massive national company in a very ironic way, since I couldn’t get through to them – a telecommunications company – by phone!

What I learnt from my Twitter interaction with Optus (or, for the purpose of this story, @Optus), was that in order to get the attention of some big companies, all you have to do is mention them in a tweet!  I’ve had similar experiences with MYOB and Netregistry but Optus just beats all and I’m here to sing their praises.

The big problem

I had been experiencing big problems trying to have my parents’ phone installed at their new house. Imagine my disgust when I was told that there was a two-week lead time for a BUSINESS phone line! But that’s a story for another time. The point here concerns my inability to contact Optus on the day the phone should’ve been installed because Optus’s own phones were down!! I even rang a local Optus store to ask them to try to get through and they couldn’t either.

The plea for help

In my abject frustration, I tweeted some pretty strong (but civil) remarks! Within seconds – SECONDS, I tell you!

The response

This could be a really long post but I’ll spare you the intricate details of our Optus-related problems. But I can honestly say that I’ve never experienced such follow-through and dedication as I’ve enjoyed with my recent enquiries to Optus. A reply came back from @Optus asking me to click a link and send through my issue. I did that and within an hour received a phone call from Craig at Optus’s social media team. He assured me that he would get to the bottom of it and find out what was going on, AND GET BACK TO ME. And he did!

The follow-through

Over the following three weeks, there were many calls back and forth to the social media team as they became the only Optus ‘person’ or people that I would now bother to try to communicate with. When I say 3 weeks, I don’t mean the problem took that long to resolve. I figured while I was onto a good thing, I’d sort out a heap of other Optus issues I’d been avoiding tackling because it was always just too hard. I sorted out my sons’ mobiles and plans, upgraded mine to an iPhone whilst still under my old contract, streamlined my accounts, organised online log-ins for them all, disputed bills, dobbed in a fraudulent premium text provider, the works! And all the time, I only dealt with three or four different people and began to know them by name.

I was always surprised whenever I saw their number when my phone rang because it continued to amaze me that they would be so vigilant in sorting out my particular issues.

The Optus social media team

For the record, the social media team is a team of 10 Optus employees, all from various backgrounds in the company, and all highly experienced. So you never have someone saying “I don’t know the answer to that”. There’s always an answer, and it’s usually what you need to hear. All the team is articulate, dedicated, sociable and helpful. Their team leader, Nicole is accountable and approachable.

PR or customer service?

I’ve had others comment that this must surely be a marketing or PR ploy on Optus’s part. Who cares?? If I’m a consumer getting what I want from a company with whom I have dealt for years, I don’t care what strategy made it happen!

I must have taken up literally hours of their time (and mine) but the difference has been that it’s all been productive and enjoyable, not hours of sitting there listening to that awful, done-to-death Optus music-on-hold. I don’t care what other companies’ motives are, but @Optus IS everything I’ve said. And from having dealt with telephone companies (and others) in the past and getting absolutely nowhere, I know what I’m talking about. Well, I’m sure we all do. So when you see me (@wordmistressAUS) tweeting about @Optus and extolling their virtues, I mean every word of it.

The creation of a true brand advocate

It’s like that story of the lion with the thorn in its paw. “Just fix my problems and I’ll be your friend for life”, you know? That’s me and @Optus. I’ll hasten to add, I don’t mean the company on the whole. I mean the social media team. They truly rock! And they do it all with a smile.

I’m a pretty committed Optus customer anyway, thanks to their tie-in strategies. I have home internet, mobile, home landline, family mobiles and wi-fi broadband, all with Optus.  It’s just been easier that way.  And though of course I’m not their highest spending customer, I do expect appreciation and service in return. NOW I have it.

As for Optus’s use of Twitter, any time I need help, I don’t even have to pick up the phone. Seriously. I simply tweet @Optus and what I need, and I guarantee, within less than an hour, my phone will ring and the person on the other end will say: “Hi Gina, it’s Julz from Optus, how can I help?” (or any of the other helpful team members – Ian, Craig, Robbie, Rhys, David ….). They monitor Twitter, Facebook, Whirlpool, Yahoo Answers .. wherever social media exists.

Gina Lofaro aka ‘the wordmistress’ is a social media fan and Internet copywriting specialist. She runs Twitter beginners’ workshops, writes a food blog, owns a retail website and even professes to have a life offline!

Need a compelling reason to get your business’s social media strategy organised?

Need to put into context the reach and influence of social networks?

This video is it – again! (Thanks to Erik Qualman at Socialnomics for putting this together)

Since the last edition that I saw, Facebook has grown from the 5th to the 3rd largest country in the world, Ashton Kutcher has more followers on Twitter than the entire population of some countries and there were more Kindle ebook downloads than hard copy books sold at Xmas…

We’re running a Social Media for Business event  on Monday 19th of July if you’d like to find out more.

What do you think of the video?

This is an oldie but a goodie! Enjoy!

What do you think? Leave your comments for our Help desk guys!

I had a fantastic customer experience the other day with Sunglass Hut (Bondi Junction, Sydney) – so much so that I wanted to blog about it!

I have been looking for sunnies for a fair while and finally found the pair I wanted: Ray-Ban Aviators. I’d done some shopping around and found a place that was offering them for $15 less than Sunglass Hut (SH). Not a lot cheaper but enough to make me think twice. I was on my way up to the cheaper shop when my mum said “You should go with SH. They are bigger and so will be easier to deal with if you have any issues”. That comment made enough sense for me to go and ask about it and here’s what happened…

Firstly I tried the sunnies on again and told the assistant that I’d like to buy them. She started to get things organised and I mentioned the cheaper price I’d seen upstairs. Her immediate response was “Sure. I’ll price match them for you”. No questions asked. I didn’t have to show a written down price, didn’t have to say which store it was. Easy.

Secondly, she told me about their Breakage Protection Guarantee: If anything happens to the sunglasses – even from just wear and tear – in the first year from purchase, SH will replace your broken shades for half price. Sounded like a good deal to me and what a way to address my concerns about breaking my brand new sunnies!

Then she told me about the warranty: any sunglasses with manufacturing defects will be replaced on the spot with your receipt. Fairly standard.

The assistant brought over a form to fill out for my contact details. I went immediately into defensive mode (I hate giving out my personal details) but what came next though was the deal sealer for me…

As she handed me the form she said: “If you fill out your details, we’ll retain a record of your purchase in our system so you don’t have to worry about losing the receipt and that way you can exercise your Breakage Protection Guarantee or the Warranty simply by bringing the damaged goods up to any Sunglass Hut store.”

ANY store!!! How useful is that!!!!!??!! So simple but so USEFUL!

And of course, on the form in brackets next to my email address there was “(there may be a little surprise for you on the special day!)”.

I’m thoroughly impressed.

1. It was easy to get the better price.
2. They addressed my problems: breaking my sunnies, losing my receipt.
3. And they added value: make me feel special on my birthday.

What does Sunglass Hut get out of it?

Me: A freshly converted raving advocate who blogs about the experience and tells all my friends. Next time I go to buy sunnies, SH will be the first place I look. As Seth Godin would say, they won my permission to market to me. They captured my details offline in the store, so now they have the chance to build the relationship with me online.

Cap tilt to Sunglass Hut. It’s a great case study of solving my problems to capture my business. And it’s a brilliant way to use in-store business processes and systems to enhance their web strategy.

I’m looking forward to watching how they handle the relationship from here on!

Web Strategy Sydney: If you’d like to find out more about web strategy or permission marketing, or how to integrate what you’re doing offline with where you’re headed online, then please visit our website or call us on: 1300 258 394.

Sentis have been voted as the 5th Best place to work in Australia by BRW magazine!

You hear a lot about Jack Welch, CEO of GE and responsible for bringing GE’s market capitalisation from $14 billion to $410 billion.

I read his book “Winning” recently and got some really interesting points from it. The one point that really stands out in my mind though is his philosophy of “candour”.

What is candour? I liked this one from Princeton:

candour: the quality of being honest and straightforward in attitude and speech

This is something that I’ve really come to appreciate in business and something that we are looking for from all of our team in our internal relationships and in our relationships with our clients.

It’s about telling people where they are going right and where they are going wrong. It’s about accepting the harsh reality of the situation and then doing everything in your power to embrace the change that’s required to turn it around. It’s about actively seeking change and continually improving even in those areas that are already going well.

I can definitely say that’s it’s a characteristic of all of our business mentors, but it’s also a characteristic of other people I admire. I also know it’s something that doesn’t necessarily come naturally to me but that I look to practice every day.

If you want to see candour in action, then here’s a video of Jack talking about the book – there is no doubt he tells it like it is (or like he thinks it is!) and for me, it’s something to aspire to. His comments on candour are in the first 3 mins (it’s 1:02 hours in total) but I watched the first 15 minutes and enjoyed it thoroughly. I think I’ll go back and watch the rest now!

I’ve been doing quite a bit of reading (as Verne Harnish says: we all need to out read the competition) and the first book I wanted to review was “Mastering the complex sale” by Jeff Thull.

Jeff explains that the sales process has evolved from selling your product (era 1.0), to responding to your prospect’s problem and solving it with them (era 2.0), to what is now the sales era 3.0.

Sales era 3.0 recognises that most of your prospects can’t even define their problem or may not even know they have one! Because of this, it is very difficult for them to understand where your solution delivers value. Also, as the solutions become more complex, prospects don’t have the expertise, the experience and the criteria to evaluate the relevance and usefulness of your solution to their business. And that’s when you end up in a price war for the part that they do understand!

Check out this video for a 3 min explanation from Jeff Thull himself (interview courtesy of Verne Harnish):

These are some pretty daunting starting assumptions when it comes to selling your product… So Jeff offers a few really critical insights in his book:

1. You MUST have a “value hypothesis”
   You need to be able to analyse your prospect’s business and, based on your experience and industry knowledge, realistically assess the value for a prospect. He really stresses the point that if the value isn’t there then you’re wasting the prospect’s time and importantly, your own.
2. Single decision makers are obsolete.
   Decisions on complex solutions require buy-in from all of the impacted business functions. Each of these people needs to understand the value for their part of the business as well as the overall value to the company. There may be one person signing the cheque, but they’ll need all of those others to be driving the change and the implementation.
3. Value does not end at the implementation!
   True masters of the complex sale, are absolutely committed to ongoing “value extraction” for their customers. How many times have you heard about the dream solution being sold, then the implementation simply not measuring up and everyone feeling let down by the experience? Businesses have an ongoing commitment to help their customers extract all the value they possibly can, in a true win/win situation.

In terms of your web strategy, you need to consider:

1. How can I assist my prospects and customers in calculating the value of my offer on line?
2. How can I ensure that there is useful and relevant information for all of the impacted business functions?
3. How can I continue to serve my existing customers in such a way that they are able to continue to extract value from my solution?

To start your own web strategy, download our 1 page web strategy plan tool or enquire through our website.

I was blown away this morning when I opened my inbox. Here’s the first part of the email I received from Mitch Stewart at BarackObama.com that made me sit up:

Toby –

At hundreds of events across the country, everyday Americans are sending an urgent message to their senators: Pass strong Wall Street reform.

With a Senate vote on reform expected as early next week, the bank lobbyists are rallying — trying to water down the bill by sneaking in a wide array of loopholes.

But pressure from people like you is changing the equation.

Just days ago, Republicans in the Senate were standing firm with their Wall Street allies, voting repeatedly to block the bill. Then you spoke out, generating more than half a million actions in support of reform. And Senate Republicans caved.

In these final days before the vote, we need to continue ramping up the pressure. We must ensure the Senate bill stays strong enough to do what’s necessary to rein in Wall Street and protect American consumers. Take a minute to tell Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning today to stand up to the big banks and support reform.

Speak out for strong Wall Street reform now by calling your senators — and then please let us know how your call went. Please call:

– Sen. McConnell at (202) 224-2541
– Sen. Bunning at (202) 224-4343

Pressure.

Regardless of whether you are American or not, this is an extraordinary example of how an ongoing web strategy has  been used to achieve an outcome.

From his presidential campaign, Barack Obama was able to build a list of approximately 13 million email addresses.

Now years later this email is sent out. (There have been plenty of others but this one just hit my buttons!)

A very simple call to action is clearly stated on the email – call the senators.

The office phone numbers are provided right next to the call to action – all of the information you need to complete the action.

If you click through the “please let us know” link, you are provided with a reminder of etiquette for the phone call and a very simple phone script to follow.

If you make the call, then there is a very simple mechanism to provide feedback on the response – 2 drop down boxes with 3 selections.

Simple. Clear. Immensely powerful.

I would love to know how many people take action and then be sitting at the office of the senators receiving the calls…

Hat off to them. David Plouffe, Mitch Stewart and their team changed the game in their use of the web and social media for political campaigning. If you want to learn about web strategy – sign up as a recipient of these emails.

Power to the people.

Adam’s post, Purple Cow in Cairns, on the Hotel Cairns was right on the money. A free car to use? A free room for the night if you spend over $100? Who wouldn’t tell a friend? After telling me how the presentation had gone, he said “Hey Tobes, guess what?!”…

I’ve just finished reading Seth Godin’s collaboration “The Big Moo”. 33 authors have contributed to the book with their thoughts on the question: “What is remarkable?”. The book is an extension of Seth’s marketing concept of the “Purple Cow” (how a purple cow would stand out in a herd of brown ones!).

One of my favourite quotes is on the back cover (I promise I read the whole book though!!):

Remarkable isn’t up to you. Remarkable is in the eye of the customer. If your customer decides something you do is worth remarking on, then, by definition, it’s remarkable.

Adam clearly thought the free car and the free room offer were remarkable. He’s no doubt told a few of his friends. He’s blogged about it. And that blog post will be sent out to a few thousand people on an email newsletter next time the Bluewire News comes out… Not bad coverage I would say!

I think this is the most important point:

Remarkable is in the eye of the customer.

In my last post, “What is the first priority of YOUR web strategy?” I wrote about 3 questions:

1. Who? Are you talking to… (Buyer persona/target market/audience)
2. What? Problems are you solving and what actions do you need your Buyer persona to take…
3. Why? Would your buyer persona take these actions…

As a very important part of “Why?” you’ll need to consider is the following group of questions:

1. Why are you remarkable?
2. What makes you stand out?
3. How are you truly unique?

And these questions are answered not by what you see, but by what your customers see.

If you say it’s the service, then why will a customer remark on your service?
If you say it’s the quality, then why will a customer remark on your quality?
If you say it’s the price, then why will a customer remark on your price?

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying these aren’t the reasons why you are unique, but you need to be absolutely clear what is remarkable about your business, you need to let people know and you need to give them proof that it is truly the case.

Homework: Go and ask your best 5 clients/customers why they think your business is remarkable. Then find a way to get every client thinking like that. They might just spread the word for you.

Remarkable is in eye of the customer.

If you need a hand working out what makes your business remarkable, please call Bluewire Media on 1300 258 394.

My grandfather once criticised me for saying it was a REALLY hot day… “You’re really good at pointing out the blindingly obvious.”

Zap.

OK, so maybe on that occasion my comment wasn’t necessary, but I’m going to take a punt and risk the “blindingly obvious” again…

The first priority of your web strategy has to be people. Your website, Facebook page, email campaign, tweets, that’s all important but it’s still secondary. It’s all about your people.

Who?

At the beginning it’s about figuring who it is you need to be talking to. What are they like? What positions do they typically hold? How do they operate? David Meerman Scott suggests naming your “buyer personas” first to make them more human, more real, than just a “prospect”. Straight out of John Jantsch’s “Duct Tape Marketing” comes the idea of then vividly describing them.

For the sake of this post let’s call this persona Frank.

What?

Doesn’t sound so people oriented does it? But there are two parts to the “What”.

Firstly: What problems do you solve for Frank? What are Frank’s issues that you can address? What keeps Frank up at night? If you’re not solving his problems, then he probably won’t be interested…

Secondly: What actions would you like Frank to take? Would you like him to sign up to your email newsletter, enquire, buy, follow you on twitter or watch your videos? You need to  understand this so you can being to assess the success of your marketing.

Why?

And why… Why will Frank take that action? Why will he want your product/service over someone else’s? Why should you be Frank’s first choice? So now it becomes a matter of convincing him. Frank will take that action if he believes that you’ll be able to solve his problem. Here’s a quick list of things that might help persuade Frank that you’re the one:

1. Authority - Qualifications, experience, presentations, industry commentary, articles, blog posts, whitepapers, books, forum contributions – in a word – content.
2. Guarantees - maybe you can offer a money back guarantee or a response time guarantee or an uptime guarantee.
3. Testimonials - written and video. Not doctored, not scripted, not faked. The real deal. Real people saying real things that will help Frank to be convinced.

If you can answer these questions with reasonable clarity then you have the core of your strategy. When it comes time to execute, that’s when you start looking at how best to use your website, your social media, your email marketing.

Workshop

We’re in the process of putting some tools together that will tie a whole lot of these concepts together into what (we hope!) will be a useful reference for you. Actually we’re going to be conducting web strategy workshop next Tuesday (27th of April). It’s called: “Your web strategy and topping Google”.

For more about prioritising people in your web strategy, call Bluewire Media on 1300 258 394.