How Craft Post Titles Can Make the Difference in Your Blog Readership

Those few words at the beginning of your blog post can be the difference between the blog readership and spread like a virus through the web like a wildfire and it languishing in your archives, barely noticed.

We’ve been talking about how to ‘craft’ blog posts and are looking at key moments in the writing of blog posts that it is important to pause and put a little extra effort into.

While there will usually only be a handful of words in your post title – they are the most powerful words that you’ll write because for most of your readers the decision as to whether to read the rest of your post rests upon them.

How Blog Post Titles Matter

Blog post titles appear in:

Search engine results
RSS feeds
Links from other bloggers
Social media sites
On your archive pages (depending upon how you format them)

On each of these occasions, the title can be the only thing that people see and the sole thing that people make the decision to visit your post on. Write a boring, complicated or confusing title and it doesn’t matter what you’ve written in the post – very few people will ever read it.

What should a Good Blog Post Title Do?

There are many techniques that copywriters use in crafting titles or headings both online and offline – but there’s generally one common goal behind them all. It can be summed up in the words of David Ogilvy who in Oglivy on Advertising (a great copywriting book) again and again echoes the refrain that:

“The purpose of a title is to get potential readers to read the first line of your content.”

This is one of the lessons that has helped me the most in my own blogging and I’ve seen its power again and again.

Write a captivating and intriguing title and you’ll draw people into reading it every time.

8 Tips to Craft a Blog Post Title

How do you craft a blog post title that gets people to read your blog posts opening lines?
There are many techniques for crafting blog post titles that will draw readers into them. Below I’ll outline a few (you won’t be able to do all of them in every single post).

Now that we’re taking our time – here are 8 tips that I use in the creation of blog post titles.

Note: you’d not be likely to use all of them in the one post (although for fun I did my best to get quite a few of them into the image title above). Different techniques will work better in different situations.

Communicate a Benefit

This is SO IMPORTANT. If a potential reader comes across your post in Google search results or your RSS feed or on a site like Digg and they see a title that promises to meet a need they have – they’ll click that link on almost every occasion.

Identify a need in potential readers and communicate that your post will solve this problem or need in your title. This is why posts with titles like ‘How to Hold a Digital Camera’ and ’10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits’ (LINKSSSSSSS) have driven hundreds of thousands of readers to my photography blog in the last year.

They are not clever or ‘cryptic’ titles – they simply SCREAM at those that see them what they’ll get if they visit the post. These titles don’t draw everyone that see’s them to them, but they’ll certainly draw in people with the needs that you’re aiming the post at.

Create Controversy or Debate

Another technique that can be very good at drawing people into a post is to set the scene for controversy, debate, or a strong opinion.

You need to be willing to back these types of titles up with posts that reflect the title – but controversy is one of those things that tends to pique people’s interest. Keep in mind that when you create controversy you’ll attract strong reactions in people.

Ask a Question

When you ask a question those who read it are wired to respond (or to see what the response is). I find that questions at post titles can be very popular at not only drawing in readers – but particularly effective at getting readers to leave comments – particularly if the comment directs a question AT the reader (ie use the word YOU in the question) rather than just being a random question. I’ll write more on personalizing titles below.

Personalize Titles

When you write blog posts you are potentially writing to vast audiences of many thousands of readers – however, readers can feel like the post is laser targetted in on their own specific situation, particularly if you personalize the language that you’re using.

One of the easiest ways to do this is simply to use the word you in your posts. I wrote a little about this in First Person Blogging about ‘You’ but mainly talked about using the word you in the post itself but in the title of your posts, it can have an even bigger impact.

Example – 21 Ways to Make Your Blog or Website Sticky.

Use Keywords

improve your keyword search — **Improve your keyword search.**

Keywords in titles are good for two main reasons:

Firstly they grab the attention of readers who are scanning content – I noticed this recently when I was in a buying mode looking to get an iPhone. Anytime any post in my RSS feeder had the word ‘iPhone’ it was like a flashing light and attracted my attention to it. I could hardly help it but because I was on the lookout for information to help me with that purchase the keyword was a great attention grabber.

Secondly – keywords are important for the long-tail life of your blog post as they tell search engines what your blog post is about and will help it to rank highly for those words. Search engines pay particular attention to titles to ascertain what a web page is about – particularly if you use the words in your page ‘title tags’ as well (read more on title tags and SEO).

So use keywords that relate to your post in your titles. This is a particularly useful tip if you write about products, people, or companies as these types of ‘names’ are some of the most searched for terms on the web.

One more tip for keywords – if you can include them at the start of your title they can have more impact with SEO than if you include them at the end of a title (particularly if the title is long).

Use Power Words

Not all words are created equal – some evoke a powerful response in readers and it can be well worth your while to find out what they are.

It’s difficult to compile a list of these ‘power words’ but a few that I’ve found that can work (although read my disclaimer below):

Free – there’s something about the idea of getting something for nothing that triggers a response in most of us.

Stunning – I use words like ‘stunning’ on my photography blog a lot. These words are ‘big claim’ words that draw people into the post to see if it matches up (see below for more on ‘big claims’)

Discover – everyone likes to make discoveries. Another related word is ‘revealed’.

Secrets – this triggers a response because it promises to show you something you don’t yet know. Similarly – you could use ‘Little Known Ways to…’ as an alternative to ‘secrets’.

Easy – similarly to ‘free’ – we all like ‘easy’ don’t we? – also use ‘quick’. Better still – what about quick and easy?

Disclaimer – power words can be very beneficial, however, they can also trigger negative reactions. Some people get skeptical when they see titles with these types of words and will resist clicking them – others will click them but get angry if the post itself doesn’t live up to the title. Proceed with caution.

Big Claims and Promises

I’ve mentioned this technique already but it does deserve a little further exploration as it is a definite way to draw people into a post. Making a bit claim or promise really extends upon my first technique – ‘Communicate a Benefit’ – but takes it to a place where the benefit being shared in the title just cannot be ignored.

These sorts of ‘big claims’ make guarantees that even people without a real need in your topic will want to check out.

The only problem with big claim posts is that if you can’t actually back them up with the post itself, you run the risk of putting readers offside.

Humor Titles

The humorous title is yet another technique that can be very effective at drawing readers into your blog – that is IF you pull it off.

The risk with humorous posts is that they can also fall flat on their faces and leave you with a post title that not only fails to draw loyal readers in but is not optimized well for search engines (unless you manage to incorporate some keywords).

Voice of Customer: Ideas to Supercharge Your Insights

Is a lack of your best voice of customer strategy costing your company customers? Do you know the answer?

Check out our thoughts on customer focus.

It is pardonable to be defeated, but never to be surprised.

Frederick the Great

Voice of customer strategy

Companies lose customers for a variety of reasons, some of which they never discover. Sometimes customers walk away after a single unpleasant experience. Other times they’re frustrated by a series of perceived problems.

The truth is, it usually takes significantly more time and energy to find new customers than it does to lose them.

Voice of customer examples

As a ski buff, I’m fortunate to live in an area where there are several small ski resorts located less than an hour’s drive.

What makes this especially nice for me is that I can take a few runs on a late afternoon or weekend and not make a large time commitment.

I buy passes through packages in advance to avoid ticket lines. Just park the car, put on my gear, and hit the slopes.

A positive customer experience for me is based on minimal wasted time in getting to the slope. I am sure I am not the only customer with this experience goal.

This is a story of a ski resort not anticipating customer needs and experience goals. The negative experiences could have easily been prevented.

Over the last Christmas holidays, I made plans to visit one of the local resorts. I had just enough time that afternoon to make maybe 6 runs. After taking one run, I got in line for another lift and as I did, an attendant asked where my ‘park pass’ was.

I didn’t know what he was referring to. He then informed me that it was a new safety requirement … all skiers were required to take a 10 question test on ski/snowboard safety via computer to obtain the ‘park passes.

The thought of a new emphasis on skier safety was a positive experience and well supported.

How it was implemented resulted in a very negative experience for me and other customers as we were not informed of the requirement and lost considerable time to have to leave the slope to return to take the test.

With a little thought of customer needs, the resort could have created a positive communication plan and perhaps even developed the course to be taken online at home.

customer experience strategy best practices — Customer experience strategy best practices.

Voice of the customer program … best practices

Companies that are proactively about managing all elements of their customer experiences (at all touch points) are most successful in achieving customer loyalty.

This resort only got part way to this goal, and as a result, ends up losing the customer experience they desired.

Let’s take another example, this one coming from Fred Reichheld, a Fellow at the management consultancy firm Bain & Company:

Another one of my favorite examples of this happened at Rackspace, the managed hosting and cloud computing company.

An employee on the phone with a customer during a marathon troubleshooting session heard the customer tell someone in the background that they were getting hungry.

As the employee tells it:

“So I put them on hold, and I ordered them a pizza. About 30 minutes later, we were still on the phone, and there was a knock on their door. I told them to go answer it because it was pizza! They were so excited.”

PF Chang’s Restaurant

My wife and I stopped by our local P.F. Chang’s Restaurant for lunch last month. It was a beautiful Florida spring day and since it was mid-week the restaurant wasn’t too busy, so we decided to sit on the patio.

However, when we asked the hostess to be seated outside we were told that it would be 15-20 minutes before we could be seated. However, we could be seated immediately if we wanted to sit inside.

When I asked why we couldn’t be seated immediately … since about half the tables were open, we were told that there wasn’t enough staff scheduled on the patio to serve more tables.

Clearly, this service staff did not have the decision making authority for creating good customer experiences!

My perspective:

If there were enough staff in the restaurant to serve the total number of customers, then why couldn’t they simply reallocate some of the inside staff to serve outside on the patio?

If the hostess was delegated the decision making authority to take initiative to make every customer experience a good to great one, then perhaps this might have resulted differently?

Our takeaway

While the cost of the gifts/actions is quite small, the human mind simply cannot refuse the construct of simple reciprocity.

Reciprocity can be summed up as our natural inclination to feel grateful for favors and our desire to “pay them back,” no matter how small they are.

The other thing that we consider about reciprocity is that research has shown us that the intentions of the ‘giver’ can affect the perceived value of the gift.

This is why random acts of kindness ideas work so well:

Customers perceive the service as a genuine act of kindness rather than as you trying to buy their affection with costly gifts.

So remember, it doesn’t take huge expenses to win customers over!

You can’t over prepare on continually improving your customers’ experiences.

Remember, customers create the most value for you … when you create the most value for them.

build value proposition — Does your business have a winning value proposition?

Like this story? Follow Digital Spark Marketing on LinkedIn for 3-4 short, interesting blogs, stories per week.

Please share a story about a creative customer experience design strategy with this community.

Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer experiences? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?

Call today for a FREE consultation or a FREE quote. Learn about some options to scope your job and pay for results.

Call Mike at 607-725-8240.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas to make your customer experiences better.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step. Call today.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way. Call us for a free quote today. You will be amazed at how reasonable we will be.

Customer Orientation … the Worst Customer Experience Mistakes

Customer Experience Optimization … 10 Employee Actions that Lower It

Building a Customer Experience Strategy for Business Success

Random Acts of Kindness for Customer Experience Improvements

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Customer Feedback: 14 Tips on How to Gather Quality Insights

Henry Ford once said: If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse. A tricky meaning to Henry Ford’s quotation? Not really. But understanding the secrets of why customers buy your products and services is certainly not straightforward, but important nonetheless. You need to put these secrets of quality customer feedback to work to fully appreciate why customers make the decisions they do.

Check out our thoughts on customer focus.

Putting a priority on customer insight analysis? The information derived from customers is vital to continually improve your business.

Yet many businesses either don’t put a priority on collecting inputs from their customers or don’t know how.

The objective of this blog is to give you some tips to more effectively perform insight analysis.

How much time do you and your business dedicate to gathering customer insights? Not enough is the answer we hear most often. One way you can find useful insights is to examine research in social psychology.

Here are some useful thoughts from customer insight analysis we have found and use with our clients. They should provide a useful stimulus for defining tactics with your customers.

Customer feedback … good service trumps fast service

Recent studies show customers cite rude, incompetent, and rushed service as their top reasons to switch brands.

Customers who receive competent, knowledgeable, and all-encompassing services are most likely to remember their experiences and tell friends about them.

Companies must maintain a clear and constant focus on the factors that represent the true health and sustainable growth of the company: the bond between the company and the customer.

Faster operations should only be pursued when they will result in stronger customer bonds. Anything else is a mistake, and one with lasting consequences.

In short, companies must bear in mind that the “speed of service” contains two critical elements: speed and service. Create both and then listen for feedback.

Quality customer feedback … time more valuable than money

Most people see time spent as a better indicator of who they are versus how much money they spent.

New research from Stanford reveals that customers have more favorable feelings of brands they associate “time well spent” with.

Memories of good time were more powerful than memories of great savings.

So, there is a reason that lowest price companies promote having a good time (such as “It’s Miller Time) rather than their lowest prices.

Forget Suze Orman. Time, Not Money, Is Your Most Precious Resource. Spend It Wisely. Ask what your customers think.

Never overlook details

Details are never ‘unimportant’. Until you put all the pieces of the puzzle together, it is difficult to know the importance of details.

Observe what customers are doing for great insights.

Consider an example of Internet Privacy

Running a business today almost certainly means having a digital presence, and being connected to the Internet.

While the benefits of this transformation are many, the security issues are still a daily challenge, with many solutions in the marketplace to address them.

Now internet service providers can sell the browsing habits of their customers to advertisers. The move, which critics charge will fundamentally undermine consumer privacy in the US.

Yes, internet service providers (ISPs) such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T are free to track all your browsing behavior and sell it to advertisers without consent.

ISPs have access to literally all of your browsing behavior – they act as a gateway for all of your web visits, clicks, searches, app downloads and video streams.

This represents a huge treasure trove of personal data, including health concerns, shopping habits, and porn preferences. ISPs want to use this data to deliver personalized advertising.

Check out this excellent VPN solution.

Money discussion makes customers more self-focused

When you prime people with money, they approach their social interactions in a fundamentally different way than they normally would,” said Nathan DeWall, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, who has conducted similar research on the psychology of money.

“Whereas when most people are presented with the possibility of having an interaction with another person, with anticipated rewards that accompany that, when you prime people with money, they just approach it in a socially disengaged and less rewarding manner. And this has profound consequences for their behavior.”

Research by psychologist Kathleen Vohs has shown that when people are primed with money issues, they become more self-focused. And less willing to assist others.

This fact can be used by businesses in selling luxury items. The subject of money should be avoided however with promotions associated with doing things for others (i.e. like Mother’s Day for example)

Customer feedback methods … look for insight connections

Find connections between seemingly unrelated observations. Keep iterating and building the puzzle of facts and their relationships.

Customer feedback examples … customers favor personalization

In a study from the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, researchers were able to increase the average tips that waiters received by over 23%, without significantly changing their service.

This was accomplished by having waiter’s follow-up with a second set of mints after they brought customers their check.

Waiters that brought mints but didn’t follow-up received an average of 7% less in their tips.

And from a different perspective, it pays to remember customers’ names and important information.

It turns out that people are more attentive and interested when they hear their names. When working on building relationships, use names when appropriate.

Few sounds are as pleasant as hearing our own names. And likewise, for example, nothing makes us feel less loved quite like a post-purchase email from ‘DO NOT REPLY’.

Connect

And then move closer. You learn most when you build close relationships with your customers.

And seek meaningful conversations with them.

Always dig deeper

Keep looking for ‘just one more question’. Each new fact that you discover often generates new information needs.

Think ahead and anticipate while you listen well.

Innovate through customer collaboration

MIT’s Eric Von Hippel conducted a study with the Institute of Management Sciences on the relationship of superstar customers and company innovation.

The result? Through a study of 1193 commercially successful innovations across 9 industries, Hippel discovered that 60% came from customers. Wow, that is something to think about.

When was the last time a customer helped you like that?

Immerse your perspective

Take multiple viewpoints using alternative roles. Try and eliminate the single role perspective at all costs and view things from as many angles as possible.

It will amaze you how much this helps.

Surprise with acts of kindness

One of the most memorable and talked about customer experiences is a surprise act of kindness.

When you use this, not only helps customers talk about you but also ‘to’ you with meaningful feedback.

Use your personal experience

Don’t be biased by this experience, however. Don’t let your values and views take charge of getting the true picture.

Loyalty programs can still be very effective

Consumer psychologists Dreze and Nunes were able to reveal just what makes a ‘sticky’ loyalty program, across all industries.

The researchers were able to show that customers are twice as likely to stay with loyalty programs if the programs if the programs appear to already have started.

Tasks that seem to be underway are more likely to be completed.

Customers prefer stories

Storytelling is most persuading so shows the research by Greer and Brock. Their research reveals that a well told story is one of the most persuasive forms of community.

They concluded that stories have the ability to take us to another place, permitting the story to be a marketing message without the marketing.

They are most helpful in creating conversation and feedback.

Validate and continually refine

The insights you have gained are never done.

Summary

Remember, this is your time to create remarkable experiences and valuable customer insights in order to create lasting customer relationships.

Lead with initiative … own the moment.

It’s up to you to keep improving your customer engagement and relationship-building performance and creativity.

Does your business put a priority on collecting customer insights and then putting them to use?

Do have any experiences to share with this community?

Do you have a lesson about making your customer insight collection better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Know Which of the Shipping Modes Will Suit You the Best

Have you started your business recently and are yet to decide which shipping modes you must choose to ship your goods to your customer? Then worry no more. We are here to help you to decide what would work best for you.

Goods are shipped worldwide using all three modes of transport – air, land, and water. A businessperson may select any of the three ways to deliver the goods to the customers. But one should keep in mind the factors like shipping expense, time consumed, safety, size of the commodity, etc. while choosing the shipping method. Read on to know about the various freight options you can pick for transporting goods.

Air Freight

Cargo planes are used to transport goods by air. No doubt it is the fastest mode of transport. Opt for this method if you want your items to reach your customer as soon as possible. For freighting perishable goods, this is the preferred choice of many shippers. But air freight has its limitations as well. It is expensive and cannot carry bulk goods.

Ocean freight

Different types of liners are used to ship goods across the ocean. They are the most convenient mode of freight for most shippers as they can carry loads of goods in one go and are cheaper. They are suitable for transporting any type of goods. But you shouldn’t consider this option if you want your items to reach their destination faster than usual.

If you are opting for ocean freight, consider availing of the services of the Matson shipping line. It is known to all for keeping its customers happy by providing them a wide variety of shipping services (including online services and customer center support).

Land freight

Land freight is the oldest form of shipping method. It is convenient to use this mode of transport while moving goods within a country or to the borders of the neighboring countries. Trucks are used for transporting commodities by road whereas trains are used for moving goods by railway. While using the land freight, you can use both the road as well as the rail to deliver goods to their destination. Transportation cost depends on the distance to be covered.

The capacity of trucks is much lesser than the trains. Road transport is used to send items within the city or state. Countries having a well-connected railway system can use it to transport materials effortlessly from one end of the nation to the other. But when it comes to shipping items across borders, you have to take the help of air or ocean freight.

Things to consider while choosing a shipping mode

Managing a business is a daunting task. You have to keep in mind various factors while deciding the benefits of your business. So, while choosing the best freight mode, you must consider –

Freight cost
Types of goods
Delivery time
Safety
Size of the shipment

Conclusion

Now, it’s up to you to decide which freight mode will suit you the best. Before finalizing, weigh out the pros and cons of each mode of transportation and then make your selection.

How to Build Successful Customer Influencing

Ever wish you were better at building successful customer influencing? You can be. All it takes is practice and desire.

influence skills — **Influence skills.**

I know this from experience. When I first got involved in the writing I quickly learned a few things about freelance writers. They’re (mostly) brilliant. They’re creative and articulate, accustomed to living literally by their wits. But for the most part, they are not joiners. They’re self-motivated, self-directed, and not inclined to go with the flow (or else they’d be working in an office somewhere). They’re individualistic and can be cantankerous. And here I was, trying to get them to follow my lead.

My first initiative was an internal market to match volunteers with volunteer jobs. It didn’t go well. The people giving out jobs either didn’t want new volunteers or didn’t want to put their jobs in my market. They didn’t want to hear from me or the volunteers I’d recruited. Despite my best efforts, the project fizzled out. I couldn’t figure out how to sway them.

It’s been 15 years since then, and I’m now president of Digital Spark Marketing, which is a job that still in large part consists of getting businesses to follow my lead. And sometimes to set aside their strongly held opinions for the good of the organization. I couldn’t do it if I hadn’t learned a few things over the years about how to get people on my side. Here are my best ten tips on improving influencing:

Spend lots of time listening

listen and observe — **Listen and learn.**

Even if you already know what people are going to say, and even if there’s no way you can do what they want, start by listening. Being listened to is one of the things they want–that’s true of just about everyone. That was one mistake I made on my first project: I had listened to people who wanted to volunteer, but not to those who had volunteer jobs to offer. I assumed they’d be happy to have new volunteers, but I was wrong.

Don’t fear letting your own guard down

It’s always tough to know just how much of your personal life it’s OK to share in a business context. Many people err on the side of caution by sharing little or nothing about themselves. Instead, decide what you feel comfortable having other people know, and then give them a few details. You’ll make other people feel safer and engage their human side.

Ask lots of questions

Not only because everyone wants to be listened to. Careful questioning will help you determine what people really want, which is often different from what they say they want. It will also tell you what they have to offer.

Give praise when you can

Most of us never get enough praise for the things we work hard to do. So if you want to influence someone, make sure to call out what he or she has done well and how he or she has contributed to your organization or your well-being. Do it in public if you can.

Make relationships matter

Look for ways to connect that have nothing to do with the work at hand. Maybe they have children the same age as yours, or they live somewhere you’ve vacationed, or you share the same hobby. Even if none of that’s true, you can still make a bit of a connection on the basis of universal experiences. For instance, right now a large portion of the United States is suffering through extreme winter weather.

Never miss a chance to say thank you.

Think hard about who’s helped you or put him- or herself out, and make sure to thank him or her. That makes it much likelier he or she will put him- or herself out again for you next time.

Never fear apologizing

If you hate apologizing, get over it. An apology is one of the most powerful tools you have for winning people to your side. If a decision you made caused someone inconvenience or upset, an apology lets him or her know that you care. That’s true even if you don’t regret the decision itself but only the harm it caused him or her.

(One word of caution: Don’t ever apologize, praise, or thank unless it’s sincerely how you feel. People can tell when you’re faking, and it will backfire.)

Strive to do what people want

Obviously, this isn’t always an option. But if you can figure out what people really want or need and make sure they get it, they’ll be that much more likely to give you what you need from them.

Always let people save face

Sometimes you know that someone would be disastrously bad at a job he or she wants. Should you say so? Unless you’re giving him or her feedback with a view to his or her being qualified later on, don’t. You’re better off giving that person a more palatable out. For instance, you’ve already promised the job to someone else.

Be the first to pick up the phone

Do you find yourself getting and making a lot fewer phone calls than you used to? With email, text, and social media, I do. But there are times when a phone call or face-to-face communication makes a big difference. One of those is if you have disappointing news to deliver. Another is if you are asking someone to take on a bigger role or added responsibility.

On the phone, you can answer any questions he or she has or listen to any venting he or she may need to do in real time. You’ve stepped away from your other duties to spend time with him or her. That lets him or her know you really care about whatever you’re calling for. It’s a powerful way to make him or her care, too.

The bottom line

“The value of an idea lies in the using of it .”

You have an influencing idea that will change the world? Well, it’s not worth anything unless you can turn that idea into a reality. So take the plunge and see just how far that idea can take you. Or, you can sit around trading advice over the internet.

The choice is yours.

Now, what about you and your business? What are some of your ideas for collaboration and potential partnerships?

And what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.

It’s up to you to keep improving the growth hacking of your business. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing ideas and or inspiration. Or maybe offering to collaborate. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

When things go wrong, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your growth hacking for your team?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find him on Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Check out these additional articles on local business and its performance in our library:

What Makes a Day at Brevard Zoo So Enjoyable

14 Walt Disney World Stories and Facts Not to Miss

7 Ways to Create a Customer Service Evangelist Business

Brand Advocates: How to Turn Unhappy Customers into Massive Growth

Chances are if you have been in business for a little awhile, you probably have received at least a few complaints. It can be all too easy to internalize and take these complaints personally and get defensive in your replies back. It is much better if you try to turn unhappy customers into brand advocates.

How to create a brand advocate.

The reality is, you should think that every complaint is an opportunity to make things right with that particular customer. After all, for every one customer complaint online, there is usually 26 other customers who feel the same way but don’t say anything.

Keep learning: My Best Examples of Customer Experience Stories

Turn unhappy customers into brand advocates.

The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers.

-Peter Drucker

So, ok … we have taken a small liberty on Peter Drucker’s quote. We added the part about who creates customers. We are pretty sure Drucker would agree with us. After all, building customer advocates are one of the most important jobs of the business.

Let’s remind us what an advocate is. An advocate is a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular business, cause or policy. For example, MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) and PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) are groups that work to publicize and find solutions for particular issues.

These advocate groups have a big impact on the issues they’re passionate about. Because of their passion, they have big power to influence how the public thinks and acts about responsible driving and animal treatment.

This simple change in mindset can often make the biggest difference when it comes to resolving and even turning unhappy customers into advocates.

That said, not all unhappy customers are created equal. There are certain responses and tactics needed for certain scenarios. In this post, I’ll walk you through several different scenarios and how you can de-escalate them.

Brand advocates … customer crisis

These are your most critical situations. They will most likely affect many (if not all) of your customers instead of just one or a few. This includes crisis communication issues such as these that you’ll recognize:

Outages
Security breaches
Major product bugs

In these situations, you should default to your specific crisis communications plan. If you don’t have a plan drafted already, I will encourage you to work with your support team, PR folks, and all necessary stakeholders to get a full response plan in place. Including a full list of emergency points of contact.

Brand advocates examples.

Product or support issues

These issues may or may not be your fault. They may be a product bug or a perceived injustice from the customer.

In these situations, we recommend a five-step process to de-escalate the unhappy client.

Listen well

The quickest way to take control and begin to turn around a negative customer experience is to listen to the client well.

A must! Pay attention: Losing Brand Attention: Simple Action You Can Take To Prevent It

Repeat back the problem

This may seem like an unnecessary step. However, so many situations wind up escalating because both sides are trying to solve different problems. Simply taking the first sentence or two to restate the customer’s problem can go a long way.

Classify the problem type

Is it an instance where you or your team made an error? In that case, your mindset should be what are you going to do to fix it. How will you make things right again with the customer?
Is it a product bug? You need to replicate and document the issue as thoroughly as you can, and then get it to your supplier or product team.
Is it a perceived injustice or a misunderstanding with the customer? Either you need to help them find a suitable resolution to their pain point.

Brand advocates … respond quickly

Customer crisis.

Your first response back to the customer should be within 24 hours, and even that is pushing it. In fact, according to Hubspot, 72% of people who complain on Twitter expect a response within an hour.

If you have a resolution for the client within that initial 24 hours, you should apologize for the issue. Then document out the full resolution in your reply.
If you need more information from the customer, your response should be one that reassures them. You should tell them they are in good hands and you will work with them to get this resolved.
If the issue is something more long-standing like a product bug, your response should be one that reassures the customer that your team is taking action. Then keep them apprised of the status

Follow-up after resolution

We recommend reaching back to the customer a couple of days later just to check-in. Even the most difficult customers will appreciate you taking the time to check in with them. This will go a long way in rebuilding trust with this customer.

Turn unhappy customers into brand advocates … product feedback

Feature requests and product feedback are other areas that can lead to some negative customer experiences if unchecked. You ideally should have measures in place to bring in ample customer feedback into your product development process.

In fact, here are ten great tips from Vimeo’s community team for how they organize their community product feedback. However, that’s probably not going to stop such occasional suggestions coming through. When this happens, it’s important to realize these are coming from power users of your product. Even if they aren’t shouting your product to the rooftops, these are the people who already value your product so much that they are coming to you with suggestions for how to make it better.

You should acknowledge and cherish these customers extra tightly. Here’s how you can reply to these customers in a way that makes them feel valued and heard even if they are receiving a “no” to their response.

As you get more product feedback streaming into your support team, you should set up a system where you can send feedback around feature requests to your product team on a regular basis.

Your advocates

My first job was working at a cashier at a McDonalds in a mall food court at the age of 16. While the job was far from glamorous, it did teach me a lot about how to handle the “regular customers.” In this case, these were customers who frequented this store on a regular basis. They ranged from being very picky about their orders to expecting the same meal/service each time. Then there were the ones who would scream at you for only giving them one napkin instead of 3.

Your support team probably has a few regulars of their own. They are the ones who frequent a particular channel on a regular basis and never seem to be satisfied despite whatever resolution you give them. These are the ones where it can be easy to take personally or just want to blow them off as the “difficult customer.” That’s rarely a wise move.

The best thing you can do in these situations is to try and isolate the root issue behind all of their concerns. Try using a root-cause-analysis. The key to this approach is you can get to the lingering, real root issue of the problem by asking up to 5 WHY questions.

For example, they might be a frequent complainer about specific facets of your product. However, their real issue is that they are trying to cast blame on these specific issues instead of the larger issue that’s impacting their satisfaction.

The 5 WHYS Approach

The vast majority of the time you can get to the root of the customer’s issue in a 15-minute phone call. The simple objective of the call is for you to listen. I can guarantee that you will learn something from the customer in that time and more importantly the customer will appreciate you listening to them.

If you are lucky, you will be able to resolve the problem on the spot. However, in many scenarios, this is probably something you can’t fix.

I love helping people and want to go out my way to help people fix their problems. However, in these situations, the best thing you can do for the customer is pointing them to the best, possible resources where they can get their issue resolved.

Antagonizers

This is a specific type of customer that you will likely only see within your online channels. They are the types of clients that thrive off fueling the biggest audience possible around their issues.

If left unchecked, these customers can create chaos in your community. It requires moderation. In any scenario, you should default back to your community guidelines and craft an email communicating the issue and why the client’s actions violate your community guidelines.

Legal issues

Even if you have tremendous trust in your support team to do right by your customers, you should escalate these concerns to your legal team right away. This isn’t something your support agents are going to be equipped to handle. The actual response process should be detailed in full in your crisis communications plan.

Really bad people

These are the customers, who are quite frankly just bad (not just challenging) customers. These are the customers who:

Make personal attacks on people, not problems.
Prone to non-constructive feedback, including excessive use of profanity.
Spiteful outbursts

Lots to learn: Disney World Customer Experience Design … a Difference Maker

In these scenarios, it’s absolutely in your best interest to nicely part ways with the particular customer.

Regardless of how dicey the situation may be, all scenarios can be made so much better by simply listening, acknowledging and emphasizing with the customer. This can go the longest way even when you are giving the customer an answer they don’t want to hear.

The bottom line

It shouldn’t take more than one unpleasant experience for a business owner to realize that proactive measures are more effective when it comes to customer service than having to respond to an unhappy customer. The tips mentioned here represent just a portion of the steps a business owner can take to set things right with a customer who’s disappointed, angry, or upset.

Although the situation might be slightly different when dealing with a customer who’s downright nasty, the principles applied are still the same: an unhappy customer will wreak havoc on a business’s reputation unless the business owner rectifies the situation.

There will be times when nothing can be done to satisfy an unhappy customer. But employees who handle customer service complaints quickly, efficiently and professionally will minimize those issues and will give employees a sense of ownership in their jobs and the company.

Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer experiences? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas to make your customer experiences better.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

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Disney World Customer Experience Design … a Difference Maker

Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Know What Customers Want: Why You Should Stop Pretending to Know

Sam Walton once said: The goal of a company is to have customer service that is not just the best, but legendary. Does your business go with its ‘gut’ to know what customers want? Or do you ask customers directly and use other means to gain useful insights?

It’s a question we should always ask, and yet we often find so difficult to answer. How an organization handles this question (and the answers) will determine its ultimate success.

If you consistently offer your customers what they want (at a price they feel is fair), you’ll have all the customers you can handle.

We usually start our client workshops on customer service with an exercise to list what customers want.

Here is a prioritized list from the majority of these workshops.

Listen to me.
Know more than I do (about your product or service).
Be easy to work with.
Help me get what I came for.
Smile.
Don’t treat me like I’m an interruption.
Show me you care.
Don’t waste my time.
Be honest.
Offer alternatives if you don’t have what I want.
High quality and low prices.
Don’t try to sell me. Just help me.
Do what you say you’re going to do.
Keep me informed.
Tell me your name.
Acknowledge my presence.

Consider these details:

Understanding

Always remember that little details can often create big experiences. Pay attention to and fully understand all the details.

Figure out the details that your customers enjoy and make them a routine part of doing business with you.

Sensitivity

Use language that demonstrates you are always thinking customer-centric. Put customer needs ahead of your own.

Design your processes and policies with your customer in mind.

Here is an example often overlooked. Always update phone messages to be customer-centric.

Helpfulness

Think creatively when solving customer issues. See your customer as someone who needs your help.

But to deliver WOW service, remember your customers are there because they want and need YOUR help.

And remember how good it feels to help someone in need! Go the extra mile.

Flow

No one knows what your customers want better than your customers. If you ask them with genuine interest, they will tell you.

So ask them and heed their advice. Go with their flow.

Satisfaction

Focus on what you can do, not what you can’t. Always follow up and follow through to increase customer satisfaction.

One of the biggest complaints people have is they often never hear back from sales or service employees. Someone promises to do something, and it never happens.

An easy way to thrill your customers is to simply do what you say you will. Whatever you promise, do it promptly, thoroughly and accurately.

Then do a little more. It thrills them every time!

Know what customers want … attentiveness

When a customer is telling you the issue, give them your complete attention. Customers consistently tell us they hate dealing with employees who don’t listen or pay attention.

When you begin talking with a customer, stop whatever else you are doing and focus on them.

Don’t multi-task. Don’t half-listen.

Write down what they are telling you and get specifics from them. Make appropriate eye contact, listen, nod, and show them you are paying attention.

Then confirm that you understand.

Knowledge

importance of knowing your customer — Importance of knowing your customer.

Use language that demonstrates you think customer-centric.

Put customer needs ahead of your own. Design your processes and policies with your customer in mind.

An example that is often overlooked. Update phone messages to be customer-centric.

Attitude

Be sure and set aside time to look at the big picture which controls your attitude. Things are never constant or ever as they seem.

Your big picture analysis is essential in helping you adapt to change.

To illustrate how simple things in customer service can happen without much notice, we like to use the following example.

We occasionally visited Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch. That was until a disappointment with a KFC takeout order which included soggy, unappetizing chicken and fries.

We called the restaurant chain’s toll-free number to complain but were told that complaints should be directed to the specific location’s manager.

One call is worth the effort for us, but not two. This is especially true if the company shows a lack of interest in the first call. We found it easier, given these two incidents, to find a new place for lunch.

KFC lost a customer without even knowing it had happened. You can bet your customers make “silent” decisions like this on a regular basis …so make it easy for them to complain.

Don’t rely on feedback forms. Ask customers for direct, face-to-face opinions. Do it regularly and have them know whom they can complain to if anything goes wrong.

“The most important concept that a market-focused organization pursues is that of result benefit. A common and well-established confusion in managers’ minds is between the attributes and features of a product or service and the real end-result benefits. These benefits are the ones desired by customers who may use that product/service.”

The customer is the reason we’re all here. So any company looking to provide great service must first and foremost try to look at everything from the customer’s perspective.

Because now more than ever, the voice of the customer is loud and public.

There will always be more than one way to do anything, such as providing customers access to important information.

Your sales team might have thoughts about how best to do this. I am sure the product team, and marketing might want it done a completely different way.

But what’s best for the customer? What will provide the customer with the best possible experience?

Here is an interesting new guide all about the customer experience to help you focus on improving the way customers interact with your business.

It’s one thing to talk about being customer-centric, but doing so means putting the needs of the customer front and center. That is, even when it’s at the expense of people within the company.

Taking this approach might lead to some difficult decisions, but customer service isn’t easy, remember?

The good news is that the opposite is also true: provide positive experiences and customers will tell others about and choose you, time after time. When this happens, anyone who advocated against the customer-centric approach will quickly forget they’d ever argued against it.

Below is an actual letter sent to a bank by an 86-year old woman.

The bank manager thought it amusing enough to have it published in the New York Times. Sound familiar?

Dear Sir:

I am writing to thank you for bouncing my check with which I endeavored to pay my plumber last month.

By my calculations, three nanoseconds must have elapsed between his presenting the check and the arrival in my account of the funds needed to honor it.

I refer, of course, to the automatic monthly deposit of my entire pension, an arrangement which, I admit, has been in place for only eight years.

You are to be commended for seizing that brief window of opportunity, and also for debiting my account $30 by way of penalty for the inconvenience caused to your bank.

My thankfulness springs from the manner in which this incident has caused me to rethink my errant financial ways.

The bottom line

What your customer perceives about your company is what determines whether they will stay with you. And their perception is built one contact at a time. Even one bad experience can taint their perception of you.

So make sure every contact they have is a great one. Create customer evangelists by caring about your customers and showing it with everything you do.

This list is your gold-plated ticket to increase customer loyalty. Make sure your company does all these things for every customer every time, and your customers will keep coming back again and again.

Ask your customers what they want and listen to what they say.

EMPLOY CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE — Employ customer experience, yes?

Need some help in capturing more customers from your marketing strategies? Creative ideas to help the differentiation with potential customers?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your marketing, branding, and advertising?

Do you have a lesson about making your marketing strategy better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

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Mike Schoultz is a digital marketing and customer service expert. With 48 years of business experience, he consults on and writes about topics to help improve the performance of small business. Find him on G+, Facebook, Twitter, Digital Spark Marketing, and LinkedIn.

Customer Insights: 13 Creative Ideas for Improving Feedback

Do you assume a customer who doesn’t complain feels he is getting quality service or product? Is it a happy customer? We are often surprised when clients make these assumptions. Customer retention strategies depend heavily on all customer insights … knowing who is happy and who isn’t. So using creative ideas for better customer insights from customers is critical.

Check out our thoughts on customer focus.

Quality in a service or product is not what you put into it. It is what the client or customer gets out of it.

–Peter Drucker

With the advent of the Internet, the number of marketing options available to both budding and experienced entrepreneurs has become staggering.

According to a Bain & Company survey, major companies typically lose half of their customers over a five-year period. Notice, it usually wasn’t ‘one year’ or ‘suddenly’. Customers have a tipping point. They get unhappy bit by bit and then it’s the last straw. So, if you make the assumption that all your customers are happy with you …you may be in for a surprise.

Related: Lessons from the Yale Customer Insights Conference

It’s never fun to hear what you’re doing wrong or just not being the best you can be. However, there are many reasons to pay attention to the customer insights:

By asking specific follow-up questions, you can create specific solutions that improve your business and satisfy a customer’s concerns.

Complaints and suggestions are free insights … much cheaper and more valuable than the research you pay outside vendors to conduct.

Finding a new customer will cost you eight times as much as keeping an existing customer. Be accountable for customer insights and complaints, it’s easy to proclaim ‘ I’m accountable’. It’s much tougher to say ‘Call my cell.’

Who can deny that gathering customer insights is crucial to providing excellent service?

However, it can be very difficult actually to go looking for feedback. You have to dive in headfirst, let go of your ego, and be prepared to swallow your pride to face some hard-to-swallow truths about your business.

You can easily ask customers more actionable questions to get the most out of those rare moments when you have the chance to ask them. Here are some awesome examples:

Customer insights examples … who do you serve best?

If there is an employee who stands out for helping your customers stay loyal, this is the perfect opportunity to find out.

Best employees … If the customer identifies an employee by name and does not offer any more information that often means this employee is best of the “just ok.”

If the answer includes sincere superlatives, details about WHAT is so great about this employee or says “You need to hire more like that one,” you have just found a very valuable, “model” employee. Investigate what your star offers to customers and replicate as much as you can.

Look for details … what specifically pleased you the most?

I once received an answer of “You do a great job communicating the state of the big picture.” The “big picture” was totally not the focus of the initiative or even what I thought worked.

The real focus was all about the individual touchpoints and micro-interactions, but I’m thankful I received this response. It presented ways I was able to build on and expand for future projects.

Customer insights … how could we make things easier for you?

Remove the constraints your customers have. Consider ways they can help you help them. We often assume certain things can’t change; then we sit frozen like deer in the headlights overcome with frustration.

If we lift those restrictions on our thinking, we can better visualize how things COULD be, which is liberating and empowering.

What would you like to see us add to our products or services?

We humans often don’t know what we want. Asking “what would make you satisfied?” leads to a lot of “um” and “I’m not sure” replies. “What should we add” encourages customers to think more about what’s missing.

Consider the issue of Internet Privacy

Running a business today almost certainly means having a digital presence, and being connected to the Internet. While the benefits of this transformation are many, the security issues are still a daily challenge, with many solutions in the marketplace to address them.

Now internet service providers can sell the browsing habits of their customers to advertisers. The move, which critics charge will fundamentally undermine consumer privacy in the US.

Yes, internet service providers (ISPs) such as Comcast, Verizon, and AT&T are free to track all your browsing behavior and sell it to advertisers without consent. ISPs have access to literally all of your browsing behavior – they act as a gateway for all of your web visits, clicks, searches, app downloads, and video streams.

This represents a huge treasure trove of personal data, including health concerns, shopping habits, and porn preferences. ISPs want to use this data to deliver personalized advertising.

Let’s start with understanding the definition of a Virtual Private Network (VPN) as a solution.

A VPN is a group of computers networked together over a public network like the internet. And these connected computers are a virtual version of a secure, physical network. They are linked together so they can share information by securing internet traffic with encrypted connections over networks that are less secure.

Essentially, a VPN ensures the level of security to systems that are connected is appropriate if/when the existing network infrastructure alone is not capable of providing it.

A VPN redirects your internet traffic to disguise where your computer, phone or other device is when it makes contact with websites. It also encrypts the information you send across the internet so that it’s unreadable to anyone who wants to intercept that traffic – including ISPs.

Ask both satisfied and unsatisfied customers for more details

For example: What can we do to improve the checkout process? Or what should we do to make browsing online easier?

Questions like this will lead to a much more valuable insight than open-ended questions like, what can we do to improve?

Customer insights and analytics … What have we forgotten that you might have needed?

Make sure everyone, including your customers and employees, is comfortable telling you when things are not perfect. It gives you the opportunity to apologize, to promise to make corrections, or at least to say “Thank you for telling me” in a more timely fashion.

When you have the rare privilege of communicating with any customer, it is your opportunity not only to make good on a poor part of the experience or transaction but to zero in on what might be an ongoing or common issue nobody bothered to complain about.

I like to say “Question everything and everyone!” It’s a way to get truly honest, constructive feedback when you may not know what truth you need to hear. People, in general, are friendly.

We like to see people happy and generally, hate to criticize things they are proud of. Look for as many ways as you can to open that door. You’ll learn amazing things as long as you listen with customer-centric ears.

Remember these simple suggestions to improve further gaining the best insights from your customers:

Better customer insight … never overlook details

Don’t overlook details … as unimportant. Until you put all the pieces of the puzzle together, it is difficult to know the importance of details.

Connect

Connect… and then move closer. You learn most when you build close relationships with your customers.

Dig deeper

Keep pressing … ‘just one more question.’ Each new fact that you discover often generates new information needs.

Use your personal experience

Put your personal experience to work, but don’t be biased by it. Don’t let your values and views take charge of getting the true picture.

Look for connections

Spot connections between seemingly unrelated observations. Keep iterating and building the puzzle of facts and their relationships.

Immerse your perspective

Look for different perspectives. from alternative roles. Try and eliminate the single role perspective at all costs and view things from as many angles as possible.

Validate and continually refine

You are never done with customer insights you have gained. Validate and continue to refine what you have learned.

What are the most actionable ways you receive customer insights? We’d love to hear.

The bottom line

Remember, customers, don’t care what you do. They only care what they’re left with after you have done it.

Do you have a lesson about making your customer focus better you can share with this community? Have any questions or comments to add in the section below?

So what’s the conclusion? The conclusion is there is no conclusion. There is only the next step. And that next step is completely up to you.

It’s up to you to keep improving your customer attention and focus. Lessons are all around you. In many situations, your competitor may be providing the ideas and or inspiration. But the key is in knowing that it is within you already.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new lessons.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new insights that you have learned.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitte r, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

Check out these additional articles on customer insights from our library:

Generational Differences … What Matters for Marketing Campaigns?

The Story of How JetBlue Turns Customers into Advocates

An Actionable Approach to Target Market Segmentation?

Complaint Management: Tips for Small Business Success

The complaint management process is an incredibly important part of the overall service experience you deliver. Here are some tips that can be helpful for small businesses.

Oftentimes, a negative experience that a customer has with your business can be salvaged and turned into an opportunity to win them over for life.

But being able to handle negative feedback in a positive way takes plenty of practice. Your business can get a head start by following established advice on interacting with customers in these less-than-ideal situations.

Below we’ll dive into some strategies on how you can do this, but first, we need to look at why handling these complaints incorrectly could be hurting your bottom line.

Why Customer Complaints Matter

Poorly handled customer complaints are one of the quickest ways you can destroy an otherwise stellar service reputation.

Consider the following statistics from the Jim Moran Institute and Lee Resources:

Resolve a complaint in the customer’s favor and they will do business with you again 70% of the time
Up to 95% of customers will give you a second chance if you handle their complaints successfully and in a timely manner.

So while you won’t be able to satisfy every unhappy person who contacts you, the returns that your business may see from turning an initially bad customer service experience into a “win” are immense.

Check out our thoughts on customer focus.

Below, we’ll look at many essential tips that will allow you to do just that:

Complaint management … give credence to customers

Treat every customer as if they have 10,000 Twitter followers.”
—Myers Barnes

Barnes’ quote drives home the overarching point that each customer should be treated as if they have a large following.

It’s a given that every once in a while you’re going to run across those “barnacle” customers who will never be satisfied enough to not complain. It’s good business sense to give them very little of your time, but you should still view every potential customer interaction as if the customer has a broad audience at their disposal. This will safeguard your business from many potentially disastrous mishaps.

Complaint management process … remember that complaints teach us something

In an article on Inc.com, Evernote CEO Phil Libin spoke about why he loves his angriest customers.

In particular, Libin addressed the need for balance between internal innovation and customer feedback, saying:

Customer feedback is great for telling you what you did wrong. It’s terrible at telling you what you should do next.

His point mirrors the one we made in our article on why Steve Jobs never listened to customers. Innovation needs to rely on your team, but customers shouldn’t be discounted in pointing your team in the right direction.

Record and organize complaints

No matter what business you run, you’ll almost always come across a customer that wants things for free or that thinks every single one of your price points is too expensive. You should take this sort of feedback with a grain of salt in most instances.

However, if multiple customers have told you that they simply cannot figure out how to use Key Feature X, you may have a serious communication problem on your hands.\u2028

In an earlier post, we showed you how to set up a simple, browsable, and easy-to-use feedback system with a few key tools; you don’t have to follow our workflow verbatim, but definitely make sure relevant complaints are being tracked!

handling customer complaints examples — Handling customer complaints examples.

Define each complainer

A recent academic publication on customer complaints presents a strong case for categorizing complainers through a selection of archetypes that most customers fall into when voicing their concerns.\u2028

The Meek Customer: Generally averse to complaining, but warrants a mention because you may need to inquire deeper to get them to reveal exactly what is wrong.

The Aggressive Customer: Outspoken and not shy about letting you know what’s on their mind. Your best bet is to avoid being aggressive back and instead react with “What else may I help you with?” Show that you’re ready and willing to hear them out.

The High Roller: Your “enterprise” customer; they likely pay you well and demand premium support for it. While no customers are fond of excuses, this customer hates hearing them.

The Chronic Complainer: This customer will contact you a lot, but that doesn’t mean that their issues should be dismissed. Patience is required here, but once satisfied this customer will have no qualms about singing your praises to others.

The Barnacle: Although the publication identifies this type as the “rip-off” customer, I find the barnacle label to be more accurate. This customer is never happy and isn’t really looking for a satisfactory response; they are just trying to get something they don’t deserve. Everything is not good enough unless they’re getting a handout, and your best bet is to maintain your composure and respond as objectively as possible.

As you likely noticed, these are the extremes that you’ll encounter. The average customer complaint will be far more moderate, but it’s important to recognize these potential personas when putting your tried-and-true customer service skills into practice.

Avoid being passive-aggressive

Hearing the phrase, “We’re sorry that you are having this problem,” is pretty infuriating from the customer’s viewpoint.

The thing is, many small business owners use this sort of language by accident. They’re trying to apologize to a customer, but coming off as demeaning or dismissive.

Just say you’re sorry. Even if the customer is being unreasonable, apologize outright and ask how you might help resolve the issue. And if you’ve come across a “barnacle,” then move on.

Transfer them but explain why

Please hold while we transfer you. Your call is very important to us.

Ugh. While you’ll experience less of this problem when handling support via email, it’s still important to get people to the right employee quickly.

Never miss an opportunity to briefly explain to a customer why this transfer will be to their benefit. It’s hard to get any customer happy or excited about being transferred, but consider the two choices you have:

You are getting transferred.“Well, this stinks!”
You will be transferred to our ____ specialist who can better answer your question.“Well … okay, then!”

Without this brief but relevant insertion, customers won’t know that you are actually trying to do the right thing.

Handling customer complaints … investigate with supportive questioning

There is a fine line between simply following up after handling a complaint and inadvertently inviting customers to complain even more.

Let’s look at the following two responses:

“Is there anything else wrong?”
“How else can I help you today?”

Asking a customer who just complained a leading, negative question such as #1 will lead to nothing good. Conversely, inquiring how you may be able to further assist a customer lets them know that you are willing to stick it out if they have any other issues to address.

Time is critical

There have been some pretty strong cases for spending more time with your customers, but you saw the data above … complaints are a slightly different beast than greatly benefits from being resolved quickly.

A customer leaving a feature request won’t sweat the fact that it took you a day to get back to them. However, unhappy customers want resolution yesterday, so you need to make responding to them a priority.

In almost every other instance I would encourage you to slow down your service, but in this case, you need to make moves to right the wrong as soon as possible.

Verify the resolution

Have you ever tried to contact customer service through an online form, and after you hit submit there wasn’t a single follow-up notification on whether or not action had taken place?

This is frustrating because you don’t have a clue where your issue—and any hope of resolving it—stands.

The same thinking applies to resolving customer conflicts via email or phone. You want to be absolutely sure that the customer is clear on the resolution that occurred and that it met their needs. So if you’re not ending your responses with an inviting question to do more, then start now.

Drop all formalities

Customers want to be treated with respect, but if you stop treating customers like regular people and start talking like a corporate stiff then they won’t interpret the interaction as genuine.

Research suggests that personalization is powerful when interacting with anyone, but especially with your customers.

Remember that you’re not speaking to the Queen of England, so refer to your “chat” with a customer rather than your “correspondence” with them, and speak as if you were talking with an acquaintance. A little familiarity can go a long way toward getting customers on your side.

Resolving customer complaints … involve them

You already know that you don’t have to “buy” an amazing customer experience, so throwing freebies at customers over issues that could have been resolved in other ways is a surefire way to lose your shirt.

Instead, if a complaint is genuine and the mistake is on your end, involve customers in resolution decision-making through phrases such as, “What do you think would be fair?”

Yes, the barnacle customer will try to use this opportunity to take more than they deserve, but this language brings out a reasonable side in most people, and you’ll likely get asked for much less than you might have offered if you hadn’t solicited their input.

Know when to stop

If a customer wants to cancel their account, do it for them right away. Better yet, let them cancel without having to call your company at all. It should be just as easy to cancel as it was to sign up.

Winning customers back with exceptional service is an important aspect of your business that you should focus on (and the thesis for this whole article!), but when customers already have one foot out the door let the parting be as frictionless as possible.

Customers aren’t necessarily done with you for good just because they cancel their account once, so don’t hassle them as they exit. Remind them what they’ll be missing by simply being sincerely helpful.

Get to where you can take action

People love to complain on Twitter, but it’s hard to successfully resolve a complaint within that channel.

Instead, refer people to an email address they can contact with their issue and assure them that you are ready, willing, and able to get this problem resolved the right way.

Trying to achieve anything more in limited spaces like social media just results in a public back-and-forth that rarely goes anywhere productive. The key to improving your service is to guide people into a channel where you can truly address their problems.

Don’t take it personally

You and I both have bad days from time to time, and your customers do, too, so don’t hold it against them.

Even with the absolute worst barnacle customers, you need to practice pushing their mistreatment aside and recognize that you can’t control how miserable people act—but you can control how you react.

Stay positive, knowing that the next amazing customer is likely right around the corner.

The bottom line

To be effective in this new era, we as marketers need to see our jobs differently. No more just focusing on metrics like clicks, video views, or social media shares. We must successfully integrate our function with other business functions to create entire brand experiences that serve the customer all the way through their experiences throughout the business.

We can do better. Much better. But first, we need to stop seeing ourselves as crafters of clever brand messages and become creators of positive brand experiences.

There can never be enough focus on continuous improvement on brand marketing, independent of how well the business is doing. It seems we all are looking to take our success to a new level. This is an excellent time to make a statement with their brand marketing. Changing before you have to is always a good idea.

Need some help in building better customer trust from your customer engagement? Creative ideas to help grow your customer relationships?

All you get is what you bring to the fight. And that fight gets better every day you learn and apply new ideas.

When things are not what you want them to be, what’s most important is your next step.

Test. Learn. Improve. Repeat.

Are you devoting enough energy to improving your continuous learning for yourself and your team?

Mike Schoultz is the founder of Digital Spark Marketing, a digital marketing and customer service agency. With 40 years of business experience, he blogs on topics that relate to improving the performance of your business. Find them on G+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Digital Spark Marketing will stretch your thinking and your ability to adapt to change. We also provide some fun and inspiration along the way.

What Little Things Small Businesses Can Do To Build Customer Relationships

Have you ever wondered why we move to the complex end of the spectrum at the beginning of solving a problem? I certainly have, especially after making the mistake myself.

In the field of designing positive experiences for customer relationship building, there will certainly be many designs that will take some serious thinking. But hopefully not at the expense of the little things you can do to build customer relationships. Such as what you may ask?

The customer engagement checklist starts with a foundation of little things that, when not done well, can make the more complex customer experience design actions a moot point.

Let’s examine a checklist of these ‘little’ items that Digital Spark Marketing recommends to its clients:

Acknowledge that I am there … as soon as possible. If you are busy with another customer, inform me you will be with me shortly.

Be personable … smile and introduce yourself.

Know more than your customers do … about your products and services. Always assume they have done their own homework and product research. If you don’t know, DON’T BLUFF, but do offer to do some research.

Don’t sell … use your knowledge and experience to help customers decide.

Listen to them well … and make sure you understand their question(s).

Help them complete their visit quickly … and hopefully, without seeking other help, or ‘handing them off’.

Be easy to work with … and exceed expectations whenever you can. If your business doesn’t have what the customer wants, off alternatives, including other businesses.

Be honest … and if you don’t know say so.

Always … do what you say (promise).

Follow through promptly … and keep them informed until you can close.

These are not things that we do not already know, of course.

Yet these little things list simply reminds us of what we already know but may have forgotten. Then it is up to us to put these lessons (or reminders) into daily use through persistence and practice.

Those few words at the beginning of your blog post can be the difference between the blog readership and spread like a virus through the web like a wildfire and it languishing in your archives, barely noticed.

We’ve been talking about how to ‘craft’ blog posts and are looking at key moments in the writing of blog posts that it is important to pause and put a little extra effort into.

While there will usually only be a handful of words in your post title – they are the most powerful words that you’ll write because for most of your readers the decision as to whether to read the rest of your post rests upon them.

How Blog Post Titles Matter

Blog post titles appear in:

On each of these occasions, the title can be the only thing that people see and the sole thing that people make the decision to visit your post on. Write a boring, complicated or confusing title and it doesn’t matter what you’ve written in the post – very few people will ever read it.

What should a Good Blog Post Title Do?

“The purpose of a title is to get potential readers to read the first line of your content.”

This is one of the lessons that has helped me the most in my own blogging and I’ve seen its power again and again.

Write a captivating and intriguing title and you’ll draw people into reading it every time.

8 Tips to Craft a Blog Post Title

How do you craft a blog post title that gets people to read your blog posts opening lines?There are many techniques for crafting blog post titles that will draw readers into them. Below I’ll outline a few (you won’t be able to do all of them in every single post).

Now that we’re taking our time – here are 8 tips that I use in the creation of blog post titles.

Note: you’d not be likely to use all of them in the one post (although for fun I did my best to get quite a few of them into the image title above). Different techniques will work better in different situations.

Communicate a Benefit

This is SO IMPORTANT. If a potential reader comes across your post in Google search results or your RSS feed or on a site like Digg and they see a title that promises to meet a need they have – they’ll click that link on almost every occasion.

They are not clever or ‘cryptic’ titles – they simply SCREAM at those that see them what they’ll get if they visit the post. These titles don’t draw everyone that see’s them to them, but they’ll certainly draw in people with the needs that you’re aiming the post at.

Create Controversy or Debate

Another technique that can be very good at drawing people into a post is to set the scene for controversy, debate, or a strong opinion.

You need to be willing to back these types of titles up with posts that reflect the title – but controversy is one of those things that tends to pique people’s interest. Keep in mind that when you create controversy you’ll attract strong reactions in people.

Ask a Question

Personalize Titles

When you write blog posts you are potentially writing to vast audiences of many thousands of readers – however, readers can feel like the post is laser targetted in on their own specific situation, particularly if you personalize the language that you’re using.

One of the easiest ways to do this is simply to use the word you in your posts. I wrote a little about this in First Person Blogging about ‘You’ but mainly talked about using the word you in the post itself but in the title of your posts, it can have an even bigger impact.

Example – 21 Ways to Make Your Blog or Website Sticky.

Use Keywords

Keywords in titles are good for two main reasons:

So use keywords that relate to your post in your titles. This is a particularly useful tip if you write about products, people, or companies as these types of ‘names’ are some of the most searched for terms on the web.

One more tip for keywords – if you can include them at the start of your title they can have more impact with SEO than if you include them at the end of a title (particularly if the title is long).

Use Power Words

Not all words are created equal – some evoke a powerful response in readers and it can be well worth your while to find out what they are.

It’s difficult to compile a list of these ‘power words’ but a few that I’ve found that can work (although read my disclaimer below):

Free – there’s something about the idea of getting something for nothing that triggers a response in most of us.

Stunning – I use words like ‘stunning’ on my photography blog a lot. These words are ‘big claim’ words that draw people into the post to see if it matches up (see below for more on ‘big claims’)

Discover – everyone likes to make discoveries. Another related word is ‘revealed’.

Secrets – this triggers a response because it promises to show you something you don’t yet know. Similarly – you could use ‘Little Known Ways to…’ as an alternative to ‘secrets’.

Easy – similarly to ‘free’ – we all like ‘easy’ don’t we? – also use ‘quick’. Better still – what about quick and easy?

Big Claims and Promises

These sorts of ‘big claims’ make guarantees that even people without a real need in your topic will want to check out.

The only problem with big claim posts is that if you can’t actually back them up with the post itself, you run the risk of putting readers offside.

Humor Titles

The humorous title is yet another technique that can be very effective at drawing readers into your blog – that is IF you pull it off.

The risk with humorous posts is that they can also fall flat on their faces and leave you with a post title that not only fails to draw loyal readers in but is not optimized well for search engines (unless you manage to incorporate some keywords).

Is a lack of your best voice of customer strategy costing your company customers? Do you know the answer?

Check out our thoughts on customer focus.

It is pardonable to be defeated, but never to be surprised.

Frederick the Great

Voice of customer strategy

Companies lose customers for a variety of reasons, some of which they never discover. Sometimes customers walk away after a single unpleasant experience. Other times they’re frustrated by a series of perceived problems.

The truth is, it usually takes significantly more time and energy to find new customers than it does to lose them.

Related post: Client Satisfaction …10 Secrets to Improve Customer Experience

Voice of customer examples

As a ski buff, I’m fortunate to live in an area where there are several small ski resorts located less than an hour’s drive.

What makes this especially nice for me is that I can take a few runs on a late afternoon or weekend and not make a large time commitment.

I buy passes through packages in advance to avoid ticket lines. Just park the car, put on my gear, and hit the slopes.

A positive customer experience for me is based on minimal wasted time in getting to the slope. I am sure I am not the only customer with this experience goal.

This is a story of a ski resort not anticipating customer needs and experience goals. The negative experiences could have easily been prevented.

Over the last Christmas holidays, I made plans to visit one of the local resorts. I had just enough time that afternoon to make maybe 6 runs. After taking one run, I got in line for another lift and as I did, an attendant asked where my ‘park pass’ was.

I didn’t know what he was referring to. He then informed me that it was a new safety requirement … all skiers were required to take a 10 question test on ski/snowboard safety via computer to obtain the ‘park passes.

The thought of a new emphasis on skier safety was a positive experience and well supported.

How it was implemented resulted in a very negative experience for me and other customers as we were not informed of the requirement and lost considerable time to have to leave the slope to return to take the test.

With a little thought of customer needs, the resort could have created a positive communication plan and perhaps even developed the course to be taken online at home.

Voice of the customer program … best practices

Companies that are proactively about managing all elements of their customer experiences (at all touch points) are most successful in achieving customer loyalty.

This resort only got part way to this goal, and as a result, ends up losing the customer experience they desired.

Let’s take another example, this one coming from Fred Reichheld, a Fellow at the management consultancy firm Bain & Company:

Another one of my favorite examples of this happened at Rackspace, the managed hosting and cloud computing company.

An employee on the phone with a customer during a marathon troubleshooting session heard the customer tell someone in the background that they were getting hungry.

As the employee tells it:

“So I put them on hold, and I ordered them a pizza. About 30 minutes later, we were still on the phone, and there was a knock on their door. I told them to go answer it because it was pizza! They were so excited.”

PF Chang’s Restaurant

My wife and I stopped by our local P.F. Chang’s Restaurant for lunch last month. It was a beautiful Florida spring day and since it was mid-week the restaurant wasn’t too busy, so we decided to sit on the patio.

However, when we asked the hostess to be seated outside we were told that it would be 15-20 minutes before we could be seated. However, we could be seated immediately if we wanted to sit inside.

When I asked why we couldn’t be seated immediately … since about half the tables were open, we were told that there wasn’t enough staff scheduled on the patio to serve more tables.

Clearly, this service staff did not have the decision making authority for creating good customer experiences!

Related post: 10 Ways to Employ Customer Experience for Influence

My perspective:

If there were enough staff in the restaurant to serve the total number of customers, then why couldn’t they simply reallocate some of the inside staff to serve outside on the patio?

If the hostess was delegated the decision making authority to take initiative to make every customer experience a good to great one, then perhaps this might have resulted differently?

Our takeaway

How do you craft a blog post title that gets people to read your blog posts opening lines?
There are many techniques for crafting blog post titles that will draw readers into them. Below I’ll outline a few (you won’t be able to do all of them in every single post).