Bok choy and the whole shabang…three lessons in customer service.

May 23, 2011
Filed under: Customer Service, Observations From the Field, Effective Communication — @ 8:39 am

So…is this “A Lot” of bok choy?

Recently, when faced with a choice between Chicken with Mixed Vegetables and Chicken with Your Favorite Vegetables on the menu of a Chinese restaurant, my dad planned to go with his Favorite to ensure the presence of “a lot” of bok choy.  But just in case the Mixed version was already loaded with bok choy (why pay the extra five bucks unnecessarily?), he asked the waiter what the difference was between the two dishes.

I then spent the next few minutes giggling behind my menu as my dad and the waiter enjoyed a fantastically nonsensical “Who’s on First” dialogue about Mixed vs. Favorite, and just how much bok choy is “a lot.”  Apparently, there is NO difference between the dishes, as long as you order the Mixed version and just specify your vegetables.  How intriguing.  I’ll take the less expensive dish, please.

The very next week, my brother and sister-in-law went to a restaurant called Vero with a group of friends, where they ordered The Whole Shabang.  They had told me about this concept earlier, and as a marketer, I thought it was brilliant.  The restaurant serves “little plates” of Italian food, and when you order The Whole Shabang, you get one of every single item on the menu – meats, cheeses, olives, bruschette, pasta, fish, chicken…the works.  Priced at $500, it’s a neat idea, and a fabulous marketing hook.

They promote it right on the dinner menu in its own special promotional box, so that when you go with just a few people, you see it and think… “Cool!  I’m going to come back with a bunch of friends and do this.” …which is exactly what my bro and sis-in-law did.

Imagine my disappointment when I got the post-Shabang recap and it missed the mark.  There was resistance to giving the preferred time when making the reservation, not enough servers to accommodate the size of the group (12), drink delivery was exceptionally slow, they missed serving the entire cheese course (what’s this?…The Partial Shabang?), and a host of other small issues.  They thought the food itself was delicious, but when you commit to ordering every single item on the menu, you sort of expect to be treated better, not worse, than the “regular” patrons.

These two back-to-back restaurant issues brought three major customer service lessons to light:

1 – Marketing ploys not embraced by the staff cause confusion and disappointment among your guests.  Your staff members are the ones delivering on your promises every day on the front lines.  If they don’t get it, don’t like it, or don’t want to do it…you could have the coolest-sounding marketing tactic in the world and it won’t work.  Training on these points is essential to success.

2 – Anything that is operationally challenging to deliver puts your guest satisfaction at risk.  What was intended to inspire positive word of mouth is likely to have exactly the opposite effect.  Why take the risk?  Either don’t do it, or wait to promote it until you’ve got the kinks worked out.

3 – Consumers are very literal.  You write something down in black-and-white, and they expect exactly that.  YOU might know what you mean, but if you’re expecting any forgiveness when they discover it’s a loose interpretation…give up that dream.  Be very thoughtful in how you position things…on your menus, your websites, your brochures, and more.  Over-promising can come back to haunt you.

I’ll let the bok choy incident go…that “Who’s On First” dialogue is actually part of what makes a visit to a Chinese-American restaurant so affectionately memorable.  But I’m not willing to throw in the towel yet on The Whole Shabang.  Come on – ordering one of every item on the menu?  That’s as fun as the Instant Gourmet Kitchen that Redpoint created to market the Masters Collection from the Culinary Institute of America a few years ago (80 items, 5,000 bucks, 3 clicks on the website to purchase).

Stay tuned.  I may just visit Vero (with 9 of my closest friends) and test out The Whole Shabang myself, maybe give them a few pointers along the way.

Or, I could just send in My Coffee Guys to host a training session.  Lal and Abdul never let me down.  Now THAT’S customer service.

Your mom was right…mind your OWN business.

May 5, 2011
Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, Spending Budgets Wisely — @ 9:16 am

Remember when you were a little kid and your litany of excuses to get what you wanted included things like…”but Jenny has one” or “but John’s mom lets him do it” or – classic – “every single kid in school owns one but me”…?  Your mom’s response was likely some variation of:  Don’t worry so much about what Jenny is doing…worry about what YOU’RE doing.  Sage advice, mom, and after you repeated it a zillion times during our childhood, most of us embraced at least some part of this philosophy.

But apparently, not the folks who handle the advertising for Tasti D-Lite. 

Pinkberry should send Tasti D-Lite a thank-you note for this ad.

I’ve walked past this ad on Varick Street at least a dozen times now, and damn if I didn’t think it was an ad for Pinkberry, the yummy frozen yogurt company.  But while waiting to cross the street this morning, I actually read it, and was startled to realize it’s really an ad for Tasti D-Lite, one of Pinkberry’s competitors.

Click on the image to enlarge it and you’ll see what I mean.  Let’s ignore for the moment the fact that this ad is obscured by the pole from a street sign.  What’s more damaging is that the very first, and biggest, word in the ad is “Pinkberry.”   And the logo for Tasti D-Lite is a teeny-tiny thing on the lower right hand corner (right behind the pole, actually…brilliant).

Tasti D-Lite is trying to show why they’re better than Pinkberry, but they forgot that we humans are a bit lazy and hard to engage.  So, when glancing at this ad – even every day for 30 days –  what will stick in our minds will be the picture of the frozen treat and the word “Pinkberry.”  (And why they also decided to make the ad’s background pink will remain a mystery to me forever.)

The lesson here is simple.  Don’t spend your money advertising your competitor’s brand.  Even including a small mention of them helps raise their brand awareness…and in fact, you could actually be introducing them to consumers who had previously never heard of them.

So the next time you’re tempted to call out one of your competitors in your marketing efforts, just pick up the phone and call your mom for the “don’t worry about what THEY’RE doing…worry about what YOU’RE doing” lecture.  Even when it comes to advertising…on this point, Mother Really Does Know Best.

And to all the moms out there…especially our own… the gang here at Redpoint wishes you a very happy mother’s day and a grateful THANKS for all you’ve taught us over the years!

PR 101: “Spin” is free…6,000 red capes are not.

April 27, 2011
Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Media Relations, Spending Budgets Wisely — @ 8:31 am

And did we mention the graphic design fees?

I would love to have been in the room (with a gong) when Workforce Central Florida decided that creating the cartoon character “Dr. Evil Unemployment” — and spending $14,000 on red satin superhero capes to hand out to the unemployed — was a fabulous idea.  True, hindsight is always 20/20, but how on earth could they have not forseen the misery this PR stunt was going to unleash upon them?

Unemployment is a serious issue that does not lend itself well to frivolity.   Sure, some people who collect unemployment are just lazy slackers abusing the system.  But for those people truly desperate to get a job…you’re looking at folks who are stressed out, struggling to feed their families, plagued by feeling unworthy, and seeking avenues to earn back their self respect.  Are these people likely to don a red cape in the hopes of “vanquishing” Dr. Evil Unemployment and take a picture thusly attired for the website photo gallery?  I think not.

Other elements of this $75,000 program include a Facebook contest and quiz (no joke:  “What Superhero Are You?”), photo opps for the unemployed with life size foam cutouts of Dr. Evil himself, billboards, and more.  Is it any wonder the campaign faced such criticism that they had to cancel it after the first week?  (For more details, here’s the original Orlando Sentinel story from April 15, and the Orlando Sentinel blog post from April 20th announcing the cancellation.)

The PR lesson to be learned here?  Do not use goofy, comical PR stunts to draw attention to grave issues…even when you’re the good guy who’s trying to solve them.  Now…if you’re a hotel company trying to showcase your fun side, and want to offer programs like, say…dogs cutting a record at a famous music studio in Nashville or learning to surf in San Diego…well, THAT’S ok.  Even the Today Show would approve of that (click here to see the clip…and yes, Redpoint masterminded this crazy – but successful – program).

But this doesn’t mean that serious issues like unemployment are off limits to PR people.   They just need to be treated with respect.  Take McDonald’s, for instance.  They made headlines in early April by announcing their intention to hire 50,000 people in the U.S. on April 19th.  Sounds amazing right?  Well, guess what?  They hire that many people every April anyway.  But some enterprising PR person in the McD’s food chain looked at that statistic and said, “Hey!  If we link this annual hiring spree to a specific day in April, we could probably get some positive press out of doing our part to reduce the unemployment rate!”  And voila:  they did.

Brilliant.  No cost, confessing to a little spin in their campaign (preventing the media from “exposing” it), and repackaging something they’re already doing to make it sound fresh and unique.  I love it.  Way to go, Mickey D’s.  You’ve done my profession proud.

Want a laugh?  Check out more examples of crazy but successful PR campaigns – including the Instant Gourmet Kitchen, the launch of the Department of Romance, and Playing Dirty During Mud Season – at redpointspeaks.com/results/case-studies/.

Writing tips…but not donuts.

April 13, 2011
Filed under: Writing Tips — @ 1:14 pm

So, after handing out donuts to all 300 people at the Vermont Travel Industry Conference during my keynote address yesterday, I feel as if I showed up to lead today’s writing workshop empty handed.

Happily, I had a handful of Redpoint signature chocolate mice and five copies of my favorite pocket Thesaurus to hand out to all people who actively participated in the dialogue…but it still didn’t feel like enough.

So…I promised the attendees I’d post some essential writing tips and tools here this afternoon.  (And if you weren’t there with us today, you can enjoy these with my compliments.)

Here are two PDFs to download:

Self-Editing Tips

Life Cycle of Drafting a Document

You can also check out some of my favorite writing tips that have been posted on our blog by clicking here.

These may not be as tasty and exciting as donuts, but they’ll be significantly more helpful when you are trying to craft a strategic document.

Though, I admit that a chocolate frosted donut (or 2…or 3) has helped me tackle a difficult writing project in the wee hours of the morning more than once.  So if these tips aren’t doing the trick, put them aside in favor of donuts and watch the creativity flow like frosting.

Lesson learned: no more boots at boot camp.

March 28, 2011
Filed under: Observations From the Field, Social Media — @ 12:34 pm

Here they are…the culprits:

The boots that launched a blog post.

I wore these suckers while leading a presentation at a recent Redpoint Marketing Boot Camp, and they caused some hilarity.  While pausing momentarily in my front-of-room pacing to answer a question, I crossed one leg in front of the other…and that’s when my boots worked their mischief.  The metal hooks of one locked into the finger loop of the other, and voila:  I was stuck.  (enlarge the photo if you’re curious about the mechanics)

In a split second, I realized that there would be no graceful resolution to this situation.  They were hooked tightly, and jiggling them unobtrusively only seemed to make it worse.  So, there was nothing for it but to confess to the group, bend dramatically from the waist (thank you, Miss Marianne, for the years of dance training in my youth), and perform the intricate surgery required.

The audience’s laughter was ringing in my ears while I was down there, but I took comfort that they weren’t laughing at ME…they were laughing at what I said:

Guys, can you believe this?  My boots just got hooked together and y’all need to give me a minute to get untangled.  Note to self:  no more boots at boot camp.

Here’s what I learned from this hilarious situation.

1 – If you want to hear God laugh…make a plan.  I had this day orchestrated down to the most well-thought-out detail.  Boots hooking together did not even make the list of “things to prevent from going wrong.”  So, just be ready to take things as they come.

2 – If you are giving a presentation – no matter how “exalted” your authority or expertise is – you’re still just a person.  And your boots can get hooked together just like anyone else.  Displaying practical humility at all times will enable you to maintain your dignity and authority…even through a dramatic “waist bending moment.”

3 – Social media has changed our culture forever.  After getting unhooked, I said to the group…”do me a favor…if that happens again and I go flying while trying to move, please don’t all whip out your video phones and immortalize it on YouTube.”  And then someone shouted out “Why?  It would get millions of views and you’d be famous!”

And you know what?  Damn.  She was right.  Why didn’t I think of that?

Note to self:  wear boots at next boot camp.

You too can be clever and intelligent six times a day on Facebook.

March 22, 2011
Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Social Media — @ 1:04 pm

Last week at Redpoint’s Marketing Boot Camp in Maine, a participant asked me how many times a day a hotel should be posting and interacting with its Facebook community.

My response?  “A lot depends on how large and active your fan base is, but certainly everyone in this room should strive to post interesting and engaging stuff at least six times a day.”

Audience response?  (Insert dramatic collective gasping sound here)

Then one brave participant raised her hand from the waaaaay back and voiced what was on everyone’s mind…

“With everything else I have to do at work, I’m just not sure I have it in me to be clever and intelligent six times a day on Facebook.”

After they all stopped laughing, everyone just looked at me expectantly…perhaps willing me to back down from that (to them) lofty goal with a fabulous display of group peer pressure.

But I’m a tough old marketer, and I held my ground.  After giving everyone a verbal valium about how and why this is important, I shared a few tips on how to make it easy to be cool, interesting, fun, timely, and engaging on Facebook…without struggling to create ideas from scratch all day long.  Sure, that’s easy to do when it’s your full time job, but most of us who manage our brands’ Facebook communities already have other full time jobs.  So we need a little help to keep us cool and groovy.

If you need this kind of help too, check out our Tip Sheet here.  Got a tip of your own to share with the redpointspeaks.com community?  Post a comment here!

Oh…and, footnote:  I’ve been traveling extensively lately…weeks at a time.  So, when I got back to the office on Friday for the first time in what seemed ages, My Coffee Guys said “Miss!  Where you been?  We worry you are sick!”  Oh, it’s good to be loved.

Stop using this phrase…ASAP!

February 24, 2011
Filed under: Writing Tips, The Power of Persuasion, Effective Communication — @ 10:01 am

Did you ever ask someone to do something “ASAP” and then not get what you want, when you wanted it?  Here’s why that happened:

The phrase ASAP lets people choose their own deadline.  It means “as soon as possible,” which – in their world – might be now, tomorrow, next Wednesday, or never.  Everyone has their own to-do list and method of prioritization, so the vague direction of ASAP puts the power in the recipient’s hands to judge the level of urgency.

And this is a no-no for getting people to do what we want.

YOU keep the power, or else your own to-do list will always be at the mercy of other people’s timelines.  This doesn’t mean you can’t be flexible in your deadline…but if you don’t give one as a starting point, how will the person know where it fits in their to-do list?

There was a time when ASAP implied “immediately,” but those days are over.  We’ve abused the phrase too much for it to have any real meaning (see how we’ve also done this with the phrase “thanks”).

So, if you want to greatly increase the chance that your deadline will be met, be clear in your request and state the specific day/time you would like to see results.

Want to comment on this post?  Do it…right now, immediately, without delay, before doing anything else, this instant.

The best marketing strategy…EVER.

February 17, 2011
Filed under: Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field — @ 8:20 am

The coffee cart vendor “guys” on the northwest corner of Spring Street and Avenue of the Americas in NYC might just be the smartest marketers I’ve ever met.  But they have never sent me a single email.  Nor given me a coupon.  Nor “caught” me with a pay-per-click strategy.

They don’t have a website.  Or business cards.  Or a Facebook page.  Heck, I don’t even think they have a brand name (but based on the haphazard, grammatically incorrect signage plastered around the cart…I’d have to guess their brand name is “Coffe and Donut”).

And yet…my recent expression of consumer behavior just proved my loyalty to them beyond a shadow of a doubt.

After nine years of emerging from the same subway exit every morning to grab a coffee from “The Guys” at the very convenient coffee cart right at the top of the stairs…I moved.  And on Monday this week, I started taking a DIFFERENT subway line to work, and my path from subway exit to office door takes me past 6 other coffee cart vendors, and NOT past “The Guys.”

But damn if I didn’t walk right past all of them without a single glance, continue past my building’s front door, and head to the corner to “My Guys” (note transformation from general “The” to possessive “My”).  And what’s the first thing they said to me?…

“Good morning miss!  Why you come from that way today?”

And then I realized why I adore them so much:  they are so very aware of me.  And not just me, but ALL of their regular customers…and you become a “regular” with these guys by your third purchase.  When there’s no line and they can see me coming over from the subway stairs, they have my coffee ready by the time I get to the cart.  And when the line is 8 deep and I appear to be antsy, a wink and a nod from them signals me around to the back of the cart for an under-the-radar exchange of coffee-for-money.  And when it’s pouring rain in the predawn hours, and I’m fumbling around in my bag to find my wallet, they tell me “No worry, miss.  Tomorrow you give.”

What’s the marketing lesson here?  Without spending a single dollar on “marketing,” you can inspire loyalty in your customers – and make them ambassadors for your brand – just by doing three simple things:  genuinely caring about their needs, serving those needs efficiently, and exceeding their expectations. 

I have been to five-star luxury resorts that don’t treat me as well as My Guys do, and yet they make less money off me in one year than those resorts do in one night.  This proves that a “brand” can provide exceptional service without fancy training programs, Brand Standards, Mission Statements, marketing tactics, or any of the other hundred “we don’t have the budget for that” excuses that big brands often use as a crutch to justify subpar service.

So…Lal (left) and Abdul (right)…hats off to you.  You may have proper names (really?…you mean you’re not actually named Doll, Sweetie, Love, or My Dear, as I’ve been calling you all these years?)…but to me, you’ll always be “My Guys.”

Why publicists don’t feel the love on Valentine’s Day…

February 4, 2011
Filed under: Observations From the Field, Media Relations — @ 8:02 am

Being a publicist on Valentine’s Day is a decidedly unromantic job.

Every year, we have to dissect and exploit the theme of love in new ways that garner media attention for our clients.  And while chatting over coffee last week, my Redpoint partner Vickie and I walked down memory lane on all the crazy Valentine’s Day promotions we’ve orchestrated for clients over the years, and…damn, if we didn’t end up feeling like romance mercenaries.  Some highlights…

  • Couples jumping over fire in Armenia for Tufenkian Heritage Hotels.
  • Wife-carrying contests in Finland (the man wins the wife’s weight in beer…how romantic).
  • “Sex at Sea” Survey for Royal Caribbean International, proving why “it’s better on the water.”
  • Do Not Disturb packages at Hyatt Resorts, based on our survey that found that intimacy is the number one reason couples put that sign on their door.
  • Search for the Greatest Romantic for Princess Cruises, a contest to award a free cruise to a person who could prove worthy (with a potentially viral video, of course) of this lofty title
  • “Puppy Love” packages at Loews Hotels:  who needs a man?…spend the holiday with your dog (cue cuddly visual below).  See related post about dogs surfing at Loews…we publicists seem to do an equally good job of “exploiting” pets too.

The lesson we learned here?  Publicists – and marketers – simply don’t get to be seduced by the magic of this “Hallmark holiday” like normal people.  We’ve peeked behind the curtain far too many times to swoon when romance knocks at our own door on Feb 14.

I mean, really…what can the poor guy do?  We see a bouquet of flowers and we think:  Couples’ flower arranging classes at The Crillion…intricate rose petal patterns on the bed that spell out Will You Marry Me at La Casa Que Canta…exotic flowers arranged in bento boxes for sushi lovers…etc.  We see a box of chocolates and we think:  sensual chocolate wrap spa treatments in Maui…a diamond ring hidden in a Godiva gift box…48 hours of chocolate in New England…etc.

You get the idea.  Please don’t judge us for it…it’s an occupational hazard.  And truthfully, we’re all highly romantic and affectionate people here at Redpoint.  Just not on Valentine’s Day.

So this year, we’re going to declare February 15th “Love Your Publicist Day.”  Feel free to send us flowers, chocolate, jewelry, mushy cards…any traditional Valentine’s Day gift you wish.  Our romance-mercenary brains shut down for a while starting that day, so we’ll be quite receptive to anything you send.  But don’t wait too long past that date…magazines have long lead times, so we’ll be flipping that mercenary switch back on around July, already thinking of the newest outlandish idea to exploit love for next year.

It’s a tough job, but we do it because we ♥♥♥♥ our clients.

Yikes. This ad completely backfired.

January 11, 2011
Filed under: Marketing Strategies, The Power of Persuasion, Observations From the Field — @ 7:47 am

Yikes. This ad completely backfired.

Saw this ad (click on the image to enlarge) for the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority on the subway last week and thought…really?  This copy was created by an ad agency and likely had to go through multiple client approvals…and no one realized how silly it makes them sound?

The wording implies…

  • All those subway issues you’ve experienced in the past due to maintenance problems…we knew about them, but we were just sitting around waiting for other things to break in that station
  • After being in existence for more than a century, we’ve finally figured out how to manage repairs
  • And now that we’ve had this long overdue epiphany, we want you to admire us for it

I was itching to get out my Sharpie and scribble on this ad:  “Dude…reality check:  that’s your job.  Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back for it.”

There’s a lesson to be learned here about phrasing and positioning.  When you’re touting a long overdue change to your operation that you know will please your customers, don’t sabotage the message by first reminding them that you’re late to the party.  Look forward, underscore the benefits, and do not seek glory for your efforts to finally come up to scratch.

In contrast…want to see a brilliant example of advertising?  Check out the July 31, 2010 post on redpointspeaks.com, “Less Words…More Meaning.”