My Favorite Marketing Terms

While marketing may be a single bullet point in your regular leadership team meeting agenda, how much time does your team actually apply to marketing your products or services? With all the buzz surrounding social media, traditional marketing has taken a back seat, and that’s a shame.

All types of business – whether B2B, B2C, or non-profit – should spend the time and effort to understand all elements that fall within the marketing pie, and one important piece of the marketing pie includes the terms that appear again and again.

While marketing dictionaries exist in print and online, here are my five favorite marketing terms:

BRAND PERSONALITY:
With so many brands in the marketplace and so much noise as a result of social media, now marketers treat brands as if they had personality traits. When brands are given human personality traits, such as, creative, friendly, happy, etc., brands quickly stand apart from the crowd.

UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION (USP):
Years ago, people joked that if they had two minutes in an elevator with Bill Gates, they had to be prepared to articulate their company’s competitive advantage or their personal brand in two minutes or less in what became known as an "elevator pitch." The elevator pitch has gone the way of the Ford Edsel, and in its place, we now have the unique selling proposition. What makes a company unique? Why should a company stand apart from the competition? Why should a company be an industry leader? And for personal brands, for example, what makes Taylor Swift different from other singers?

SOCIAL LISTENING:
Sprout Social has a wonderful definition: "Social listening involves analyzing conversations and trends related to your brand. These include conversations relevant to your company, competitors and industry at large. Insights from these conversations are used to make informed marketing decisions. Social listening is about more than tags and @mentions. Sure, listening involves acting on direct feedback from people. But it also involves reading between the lines."

Here's a breakdown of social listening:
(1) Who is your audience?
(2) What does your audience want?
(3) When is your audience engaging with you?
(4) Where is your audience active and engaged?
(5) Why does your audience talk about you?
(6) How can you better serve your audience?

CALL TO ACTION:
Everyone in a marketing capacity should always sing this tune and provide this reminder. For every campaign, initiative, strategy, you must always have a call to action to attract prospective customers. Here are some examples: Subscribe now. Download this case study today. Complete this survey now. Sign up to receive a free gift today.

KEY PERFORMANCE METRICS (KPMs) (also Key Performance Indicators or KPIs):
This term is so important that it should be on the mind of every business person each and every day. All marketing campaigns must be evaluated to determine the return on investment. How many click-thru’s to your main website or campaign-specific landing pages resulted from emails? How many leads came as a result of tradeshow attendance or telemarketing? How many likes appeared on your Facebook page? How many mentions and retweets appeared on Twitter/X? How many of your videos were uploaded on YouTube? How many sales resulted from your social media activities? Don't implement any marketing campaign without first knowing how you're going to measure it's success.

What are your fave marketing terms? Please chime in and share.


Image Credit: Stuart Miles via FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

To read more:
Glossary of Branding Terms:
https://brandsbyovo.com/glossary-of-branding-terms/

Branding Glossary - How Brands Are Built:
https://howbrandsarebuilt.com/branding-glossary/

The Ultimate Marketing Dictionary of Terms and Definitions
https://coschedule.com/marketing-terms-definitions

The Ultimate A-Z Dictionary of Marketing Terms:
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/inbound-marketing-glossary-list

Customer Service, Customer Experience, and Customer Success

Over the last decade, thanks to social media, I have had the privilege to meet a variety of amazing marketing, customer experience, and leadership experts. One of these experts is Tony Bodoh, who I met on Twitter. We recently had a discussion about customer experience marketing and its impact on the overall brand experience, and highlights of our conversation follow Tony’s introduction.

Tony Bodoh is the CEO of Tony Bodoh International (TBI), a customer experience consultancy. TBI focuses on applying the science of human experience to deepen the customer relationships that build brands and grow businesses. Recently, he joined the marketing agency, DiMassimo Goldstein as their Senior Behavior Change Strategist (contract). Tony is a speaker, podcaster, and co-author of three #1 Best Selling books. In 2018, Tony was named one of the “Top Customer Service Movers and Shakers You Should Follow” by the Miller Heiman Group based in the UK. Check out his website at: www.TonyBodoh.com; his LinkedIn profile at https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonybodoh; Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TonyBodohInternational; Instagram @TonyBodoh; and Twitter @TonyBodoh.

QUESTION: How do you differentiate between customer service and customer
experience?
TONY BODOH: Customer service focuses on delivering or fulfilling promises made in a brand’s marketing. It often involves helping the customer onboard, resolve issues, and is usually done in a reactive manner. Self-service is replacing some human-to-human contact but there is a continued desire for human connection, especially where the issue may be somewhat complex.

Customer experience focuses on staging an environment to stimulate a memorable positive emotion. This can include the design of the product, policies, processes, procedures, and training of employees at each customer touchpoint. Technology enables the creation of the environment, but too often becomes the center of customer experience design. Experience is fundamentally human.

I would like to offer an additional consideration: Customer Success. Customer success focuses on transformation of the customer. Here, companies identify the customer’s aspirations for identity and achievement. Then, they proactively work with the customer to help her realize her aspirations. Customer success uses the tools of customer service and customer experience to evoke transformation in the customer, rather than these tools being the end or goal themselves.

TWEET THIS: Customer success uses the tools of customer service and customer experience to evoke transformation in the customer. ~@TonyBodoh #CX #brandexperience

QUESTION: According to Bill Gates, “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” Have you ever had an experience that began horribly and ended by your becoming a happy advocate for the brand?
TONY BODOH: I have had a few. I think what really made the difference in these cases was that I trusted the brand because of the personal referral I was given or because of the overwhelming number of positive reviews I saw online. This helped me pause my emotional reactions long enough to recognize the person on the other end of the phone or desk may just be having a bad day or she might be new to the job, etc. With that in mind, I calmed down and reassured the employee that I was sure that the challenge was not their fault, and then we focused on finding out who could help solve my problem and what my options were.

As consumers, we need to remember that, like us, the employees we talk to are under tremendous pressures at work and at home these days. Often, when the customer displays some empathy for the employee and takes responsibility for their own reactions, it can change the whole situation. Everyone wins.

It is important for leaders to realize that customer satisfaction is not to be sought at the expense of an employee’s mental and emotional well-being. Some customers are just angry, manipulative, and narcissistic. Leaders must protect their employees from these types of customers even if it means that their satisfaction scores take a momentary hit.

QUESTION: What customer experience metric should every brand use, and why?
TONY BODOH: I don’t think there is one standard metric that works for every brand. It really depends on the stage of maturity of the company. I typically recommend to my clients that they focus on capturing an experience rating, a value rating, and gathering open-ended comments from customers about their experience. The metrics can answer “What” questions. The comments explain the “Why” of the metric.

Once we have this data, I encourage my clients to segment it in a three dimensional matrix that involves slices of a third metric that is appropriate to their stage of company growth like retention, profitability, or life-time value. We plot the average experience and value scores and note the most common themes from the comments for each segment on a series of maps. One map might show what the most profitable 10% of customers are saying and their average rating. Another map might show what the least profitable 10% of customers are saying and how they rated the experience and value. While it is more complex than having one metric, it can very quickly give leaders the answers they need to make good decisions and take immediate action.

TWEET THIS: There is not one standard #CX metric that works for every brand. It really depends on the stage of maturity of the company. ~@TonyBodoh #brandexperience

QUESTION: To quote Denise Lee Yohn (@deniseleeyohn on Twitter), author and speaker, “Teach employees to love bringing their brand to life for customers.” Additionally, to quote, Bruce Jones (@Joneseybi), Senior Programming Director of Disney Institute in Florida, “When a service failure occurs, it’s essential to resolve the issue quickly. With tens of thousands of visitors each day to Walt Disney Parks and Resorts around the world, we recognize that issues will occasionally come up. Therefore, it’s essential that employees are equipped with the tools to enable them to quickly resolve as many issues as possible on their own. At Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, customers discover that everyone is the right person when it comes to providing speedy service recovery.” Therefore, how do you train employees to provide excellent customer service?
TONY BODOH: I am going to assume here that the brand’s customer service team has the tools to resolve the problems that arise and that they have been sufficiently trained on how to use these tools. That is the foundation that the brand absolutely needs. If a client does not have these in place, that is where I tell them to start.

After the foundation is set, I then recommend a mental performance training program. In 2014, I partnered with Dave Austin, one of the top mental performance coaches in the world. I have adapted the practices he uses to train Olympians, pro athletes, and even the U.S. Military to focus and perform in a peak mental and emotional state when under intense pressure. The training we provide helps customer service professionals build their emotional resilience and mental focus. As a result, they can diagnose problems faster, provide more effective solutions, and keep the experience a positive one for the customer.

QUESTION: What’s your favorite customer service story?
TONY BODOH: One of my favorite customer service stories goes back to 2008 when I managed customer experience for the Gaylord Hotels brand. I was examining the data from Gaylord Palms and noted that nearly every guest who attended a specific convention filled out the survey and something like 97% of them gave top box ratings. While we had great scores as a brand, this was an outlier. I called Franz Krieger, who was the Director of Operational Excellence at the resort, and I asked him if he knew how they achieved this.

He told me that they conducted an experiment. The night before every guest from the convention was scheduled to leave, they had a STAR (what Gaylord employees were called) telephone the room. If the guest was there the STAR confirmed their departure, asked how their stay was, and then asked if there was anything else they could do to make the last few hours of their stay even better.

This proactive action delighted the guests and they felt compelled to respond to the survey they received after departure in a very positive way. What I loved about this was the creativity of Franz and his team and that they found a way to leverage the science of Peak-End Effect to create a lasting positive memory for these guests. It was easy, relatively inexpensive, and impactful.

QUESTION: If you could be the Chief Customer Officer for any brand, which would it
be, and why?
TONY BODOH: I have not really considered a specific brand, but I do know some of the criteria I would look for. First, it would be a direct to consumer brand so I can have an impact on the lives of the customers. Secondly, the company would be preparing for hyper-growth and ready to create the brand experience that customers will admire and feel compelled to share. Thirdly, the brand would be applying technology in a disruptive way with a focus on transforming the customer’s life through positive behavior change.

I believe a company that meets these three criteria would give me the platform to really change lives and demonstrate how brands can help customers successfully take on new identities and world views that benefit society as a whole. I believe a company like this could have profound ripple effects that not only impact the present moment, but as lives are changed, they will alter the trajectory of human history. That would be a company worth working for.

My thanks to Tony for appearing here on my Blog and for sharing useful take-aways for all brands to improve their customer experiences.

Image Credit: Debbie Laskey.

Customer Service, ROI, and How to Create WOW Moments!

 

One of the many things I enjoy about social media is the amazing people I get to meet. Thanks to technology, I get to travel around the world and meet people with different backgrounds and perspectives. Thanks to Twitter, I recently met Shaun Belding from Ottawa, Canada, since he shares my passions for customer experience marketing, bold leadership, and inspiring workplace culture. We discussed our shared passions, and highlights follow Shaun’s bio.

Shaun Belding is CEO of Belding Training, and a leading global expert on customer experience, leadership, and workplace culture. He is the author of six books, published internationally in 12 languages. His most recent book is The Journey to WOW, the path to outstanding customer experience and loyalty, a highly acclaimed Amazon bestseller. Learn more about Shaun on his website at www.beldingtraining.com; on his Winning at Work blog at www.beldinggroup.com/winning-at-work-blog; on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/shaunbelding; and on Twitter @ShaunBelding.

QUESTION: How has the Covid-19 pandemic affected customer service in Canada?
SHAUN BELDING: The best word I can think of would be “fragmented.” On a macro level, most organizations have pivoted quite well. A lot of companies are still struggling to adapt their customer service channels, though. And many which have successfully adapted their processes haven’t adequately mitigated the emotional exhaustion employees are facing. Having said this, front line customer service in person and on the telephone is, in many ways, far more human than ever. People seem just that little bit more patient and pleasant - and trying just a little harder.

QUESTION: Your blog showcases a myriad of good and bad customer service stories. So out of all you've experienced and heard about, what is your number one best customer service experience and number one worst?
SHAUN BELDING: Tough question! The worst ones, for me, are the ones where people or companies become so focused on their self-interests, processes, or policies that they forget about humanity.

The divide between WOW customer service and face-palming horrendous service is best illustrated for me in a single episode with US Bank in 2019 (link at end of Q&A) on Christmas Eve. The bank was holding a customer’s check. He had no money and found himself at a gas station with not enough to buy gas to get home. The call center agent told her supervisor, who hopped into her car and drove to the gas station to give the man $20 for gas. It was a truly Wow experience and aligned with the bank’s claim that “Our employees are empowered to do the right thing.” HOWEVER, a week later, the bank fired both the supervisor and employee for breaking protocol. Apparently “doing the right thing” wasn’t referring to how customers should be treated.

QUESTION: Too often, corporate leaders downplay marketing because they cannot see immediate results. Similarly, customer service ROI is a difficult metric to track. However, you wrote that "customer service is like vegetables." Can you explain how easy it is to evaluate customer service?

https://shaunbelding.com/customer-service-blog/the-roi-of-customer-service/

SHAUN BELDING: I love this question, because I have heard the ROI debate all my adult life. Back when I had a real job, working in strategic and client management roles in national and international ad agencies, we were constantly faced with ROI questions. That’s when I learned John Wannamaker’s famous quote, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half.” The same might be said with customer service.

The ROI of customer service can’t be measured on a transactional basis, just like the ROI of hiring an accountant can’t be measured on a day-to-day basis. It’s also hard to isolate the specific impact of customer service on revenue or profitability because it is only one of many drivers.

The best way to measure the ROI of customer service is, believe it or not, by focusing on the negatives. It is easier and more accurate to attribute decreases in negative indicators to customer service. Outstanding customer service will reduce customer churn, complaints, escalations, negative social media, etc. Poor customer service increases these things. They make for a good measurable – from which one can calculate tangible changes In revenues and profitability.

TWEET THIS: The best way to measure the ROI of customer service is, believe it or not, by focusing on the negatives. –@ShaunBelding #ROImetrics #brandexperience

QUESTION: You wrote the following on a blog post: "If we aren’t passionate – visibly and demonstrably passionate – we will never be able to instill this in our people. We can never lose sight of the role we ourselves play in the success of our organization." How can a business instill passion for the brand and/or the mission in its employees so that they provide excellent customer service?

https://shaunbelding.com/customer-service-blog/5-principles-for-leading-teams/

SHAUN BELDING: It has to start at the top. Just repeat those 7 words over and over again. Once that’s in place, it’s about the messaging. Here’s an example: About 15 years ago, I got a call from the CEO of one of our clients. I’d known him for a decade, and we had become good friends. He had built the company from scratch, and his charisma and passion fueled a rabidly loyal and proud workplace.  

He began the call with, “Shaun, I need your help.” He went on to describe how the “fire” had gone out in his workplace, and try as he might, he couldn’t rekindle it. He wanted us to identify the problem and help create a roadmap back to where they had been. Identifying the problem didn’t take us long. I had been there when he created the company, and the changes were palpable.

When the company started, my friend would spend a huge amount of his time roaming the halls, sticking his nose into things, bringing people coffee, chatting, laughing – and celebrating small successes. The memos he and his executive team would send out were all about doing the right thing – like treating customers and colleagues well – and giving shoutouts to individuals.  

Fast-forward ten years, and this was gone. Emails were all about business, and profit, and processes, and best practices and (ironically) ROI. Silos had sprouted, with precious little cross-communication in the company. Discussions around doing the right thing were quaint, distant memories.

It took him two years, but he turned it around. He single-handedly took ownership of doing the right thing and was absolutely relentless in ensuring that the message cascaded through the company. A couple of senior leadership team members who weren’t onboard with the changes were off-boarded in a hurry. The message that the CEO was serious was loud and clear.

The three lessons I learned from this transformation were:
a) Passion has to start at the top.
b) Customer service culture requires absolute relentlessness.
c) You need to focus on people more than stuff.

My friend has never given me permission to formally identify him, but I can tell you that he was my inspiration for the character of Avi Vincente in the leadership section of my book, The Journey to WOW.

QUESTION: Everyone in marketing and customer service circles has heard the Morton's Steakhouse story by Peter Shankman. What can brands learn from that story and apply toward their customer experience marketing strategies?

https://www.shankman.com/the-greatest-customer-service-story-ever-told-starring-mortons-steakhouse/  

SHAUN BELDING: The definition of a “Wow” experience is one that people will think of first when in a discussion about a customer experience, and one that they feel will be interesting to others. Peter Shankman’s Morton’s Steakhouse story is a textbook example. There are three big lessons that brands can take away from it:

1. When a customer reaches out to you – regardless of the reason – don’t ever ignore them.
2. Give your people the permission and the courage to seize WOW opportunities.
3. Don’t be seduced by big data. It’s the one-on-one interactions that create loyalty.

TWEET THIS: Don’t be seduced by big data. It’s the one-on-one interactions that create loyalty. –@ShaunBelding #CX #brandexperience

QUESTION: What's your favorite customer service book, and why should everyone read it?
SHAUN BELDING: Okay…I would be disingenuous if I didn’t say my book, The Journey to WOW – but I’m probably not really objective there.
 
My second most favorite book on customer service, isn’t technically a customer service book – but it’s one that everyone in customer service should read:  Dale Carnegie’s iconic How to Win Friends and Influence People. It was written 85 years ago and is as relevant and powerful today as it was then. There is no-one who has better or more succinctly captured the human condition – and the mechanisms for creating long-lasting positive relationships. The skill-sets he introduces speak to the very core of customer service, and his one quote, “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you,” are words that can change people’s lives.

My gratitude and appreciation to Shaun for sharing his inspiring perspectives.


LINK to incident referenced in second question regarding US BANK and fired employees: https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/02/supervisor-fired-from-us-bank-made-an-emotional-decision-to-ok-act-of-christmas-eve-charity.html

Image Credit: Pace Branding and Marketing (@paceadv on Twitter).