Will the number of followers on twitter, or your page rank turn you into a consumer protection force in the near future?

Will companies start being extra nice to those who have social media mojo?

We think it’s happening already- and wonder if ad budgets shouldn’t be slashed and diverted to “customer satisfaction” funds instead.

Peter Shankman is a micro-brand on his own. His Twitter account (skydiver) has 19,093 followers. He publishes the “Help a reporter out” e-mail blast which reaches pr pros across the country. He has a book on PR stunts, he has a blog. He’s web 2.0 connected and plugged in.

So when he tweets about a bad customer service experience from TiVo it gets 35 comments in a few hours.

What actually happened re:@tivo this morning thatI can’t fit into a tweet: http://tinyurl.com/8houvz – S O very displeased. Feel cheated.

It may have been seen by 15,000 people. If others have also had bad experiences, they would start piling up. Back in 2006, I watched this happen on a friends site- for a bad hard disk drive. I also watched Advertising Age’s Bob Garfield launch his rant “Comcast Must Die” after a horrible customer service experience.

No matter how big or small your ad budget is, refunding $29 makes more sense than feeding a web 2.0 PR bonfire.

Bottom line, TiVo can’t afford these kinds of mistakes to normal people, never mind someone with a posse.

Here are some pieces of Web 2.0 customer service advice:

• Always have a customer service ombudsman contact for your site that is monitored 24/7 to respond immediately to potential complaints.
• Have Google Alerts set up on your product and brand name.
• Respond on the “offending” site- within the comments asap- even if it’s a “We’re looking into this”
• Admit your own mistakes on your company blog- and make sure you give credit to the customer for pointing out where you screwed up so you won’t do it again. This was Dell’s solution to the Dell Hell scenario.
• Have a company twitter account- where your fans can follow your brand.
• Make sure you have support forums on your site that are moderated and useful. There is nothing worse than having customers going to other experts to solve problems with your products or service and having the competition recommended.

It wasn’t more than 8 hours before Peter had a response from TiVo. I don’t know if my e-mail to their Investor Relations department was part of the solution, but, in it- I said I didn’t think they really wanted to make a million dollar PR blunder over a $29 refund to a previously happy customer.

While many companies used to say “the customer is always right” we believe the new adage should be “the community is always right.” Offend one, and risk offending many.

Will having a huge network make you a one person consumer rights team? We’ll see soon enough.

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Posted in: Marketing & the Web, Public Relations in the Web 2.0 world, Web strategy

Conventional traditional paid media is dying a quick death. The old discussion of targeting consumers and buying their attention in :30 second increments is over. Twitter may be the ultimate media for the attention deficit consumer who has suffered media overload for the last 30 years. When used correctly, you can make a million with 140 characters. You just have to follow the lead of the Dell Outlet:

Out next week, but wanna welcome all the new followers based on news Dell sold $1M thru Twitter. Happy Holidays to all!

Twitter / Dell Outlet: Out next week, but wanna w ….

Releasing deals, one at a time to opt-in followers created a new way of connecting intimately with people who want to buy their products. It’s that connection that is the secret sauce of new media marketing in a web 2.0 world.

Traditional conventional media depended on repetition with a twist to keep it interesting. How many versions of “Hi, I’m a Mac, Hi, I’m a PC” have there been? If we tweeted the same message over and over, we’d have no followers in no time.

Social media requires an opt-in relationship, meaning it’s only going to last as long as you keep providing value. Many companies talk about their “commitment to the customer” but- what they need to be evolving to is a “commitment to the community.” Defining and nurturing that relationship isn’t a part-time job to hand to the intern either- just see what happens when a relationship is done right: Robert Scoble (who started at Microsoft and grew a community that would stay with him instead of M$)

Obvious communities are Apple users, Harley riders and Oprah followers. But when you look at how Nike took the solitary sport of running and turned it into a global community with their Nike+ technology, you start to see that opportunities to build community abound.

Twitter is a way to tie your company into a community in real time. Not having to wait weeks to produce an ad and get it out into the marketplace can be a powerful tool to out-maneuver your competition.

There are a couple of posts about Twitter from Rohit Bhargava of the Influential Marketing Blog:

The 5 Stages Of Twitter Acceptance

Five Stages of Twitter Acceptance by Rohit Bhargava

Influential Marketing Blog: The 5 Stages Of Twitter Acceptance.

(I’ve copied the image text into the alt text so that this searches properly and is accessible- click on the image to get his 5 stages in computer readable format.

His other post:

9 Ways To Make Twitter More Useful For You

Influential Marketing Blog: 9 Ways To Make Twitter More Useful For You.

Is well worth reading as well. The 9 ways- without their full descriptions to tease you to click on the link:

Listen to conversations in real time.

Track emotion moments.

Get link love.

Reach unreachable people.

See what’s popular/important

Introduce more people to your personal brand

Get quick answers.

Optimize your event attendance.

Read instant feedback.

There are more ways in the comments, including: build relationships with leaders in your field, track customers and competitors, but, most importantly- connect with a community.

Here is the final word on why Twitter is neither a marketing shotgun or rifle- those analogies are just as dead as the idea of conquering customers in a war for market share. You don’t buy market share, you don’t win it- you earn it, by building relationships with real people, one-on-one, in real time.

If you want to follow my thoughts on marketing- long and short, you can follow me at http://twitter.com/thenextwave.

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Posted in: 1 to 1 marketing, Apple Advertising, Marketing & the Web, Public Relations in the Web 2.0 world, Web strategy

More than ever, the idea of keeping existing customers should be at the top of every marketers critical tasks list. Not only are new customers harder to acquire, but, they now have the power to tell all their friends when you fail to please.

If you doubt me, take a look at Amazon reviews in any consumer products category. You’ll find the most powerful reviews come from either:

1. loyal customers who have had great customer service and warranty experiences
2. customers who’ve owned your product and a competitors and have an opinion.

It’s time to pay more attention to keeping existing customers happy.

The other night I was talking over a dinner table with several happy TomTom customers. One of them had just had his TomTom die, and it was just outside of warranty. He contacted TomTom and they said they don’t repair non-warranty units.

Big mistake. The customer service person just released a previously happy customer out to the big wide world of GPS units and suggested he reevaluate the market. All of a sudden, he may think a Garmin or a Magellan is a better choice. It doesn’t take much to come across a comparison site.

For a better example of how to handle this same situation- I had a Sonicare toothbrush die on me after 5 years. I contacted Sonicare, and inquired about a new battery for my first generation model. They offered a sizable discount on a new model toothbrush- in a brown box that kept me a Sonicare user.

Yes, personal electronics may be made for replacement, but wouldn’t you rather customers replaced your product with your brand- instead of a competitors. Good marketers will take this lesson to heart and make sure their policies fall in line with what is best for their company.

It’s said that word of mouth marketing is the best of all- and yes, you can buy good word of mouth, with good warranty policies.

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Posted in: 1 to 1 marketing, Marketing & the Web, Public Relations in the Web 2.0 world

At what lengths will an agency go to spend a clients hard earned money. If you are Crispin Porter + Bogusky, to Greenland, Thailand and other far away places to make a spot called “Whopper Virgins.” The concept is brilliant- do the ultimate blind taste test, find people who’ve never eaten a hamburger, and may not even know the difference between McDonalds and Burger King.

So far so good. But then after a very expensive shoot, and a brilliant, entertaining short documentary, you fail to let the world find the site online as discussed in Ad Age:

…Whopper Virgins, its latest endeavor, may be the best yet… if you can find it.

The Whopper Virgins experience begins with a TV commercial with a brief teaser that directs you to WhopperVirgins.com. … it’s running heavily during weekend football games. Go to the site and you’re treated to a video of Burger King running a Whopper vs. Big Mac taste test with people in Romania, Thailand and Greenland who have never eaten a hamburger before. It’s poignant and amusing, if you can tolerate the implicit ethnocentrism.

What if you don’t remember the exact Web address and Google it? You still better remember the domain name. While whopperVirgins.com ranks first in Google for “whopper virgins,” it’s invisible when you omit the plural.

There are three areas of neglect here:

* The domain: WhopperVirgin.com is a parked domain filled with ads for Burger King store listings, Virgin Mobile gifts, Virgin Atlantic flights, Virgin Islands vacations and Virgin Mary checks.

* Search engine optimization: The microsite doesn’t appear on the first three pages of Google results for “whopper virgin” searches.

* Paid search: While reviewing Google’s listings over several days, there hasn’t been a search ad running on “whopper virgin” queries.

This is a major missed opportunity. Google Trends shows that recently, the volume of searches for the singular and plural versions have been nearly equal. “Whopper virgin” searchers must either go to an intermediary site or refine their search. Why can’t consumers ‘have it their way’ and get to Burger King’s site even if they’re off by a letter? This multimillion-dollar branding campaign could have covered all its bases with a $10,000 search marketing investment. As it stands now, Burger King risks frustrating consumers instead of serving up one whopper of a video.

Burger King’s Whopper of a Virginal Search Slip-up – Advertising Age – DigitalNext.

We’ve been preaching the same thing, ever since Crispin did the expensive “Manthem” spot. In fact, most ad agency sites are just as oblivious to both search and accessibilty. Both of which should be critical to any client and their budget.

Before you approve a large web budget, you should first, try to google your agency. Go to www.google.com and type in: site:youragencyurl.tld like site:thenextwave.biz

If they don’t have more total results than we do, start wondering (especially if there are more than 2 commas in your budget). We’re happy to evaluate digital strategy for any one who is about to spend a gazillion dollars on an online based campaign like Whopper Virgins.

In case you want to see it- try it right here, instead of going to the site that does nothing for search.

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Posted in: Crispin Porter + Bogusky, Marketing & the Web, Search and Business, Web strategy

If you are wondering how to build brand loyalty, increase market share, improve customer satisfaction, don’t do it the HP way.

Besides having an utterly useless, overly complex website, an arcane product naming system, and a penchant for dividing up products into categories that make no sense (what is the real difference between a desktop computer for home or business?)- they absolutely don’t get customer service and support.

I’m writing this while listening to an endless loop that is about 6 minutes long- this is after I paid $39 for “support.”

Frankly, no amount of advertising can make up for a horrible support experience. Instead of paying your CEO big bucks, shareholders should demand that HP hire enough support people to handle a call in less than 2 hours (yep, that’s how long I’ve been waiting).

If you’re wondering how much HP is paying current wunderCEOkind – here is an article about his original salary package:

Incoming Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd will get a $2 million signing bonus and a $1.4 million salary for taking the helm at HP, but he stands to make far more if he can successfully boost the company’s flagging share price.

According to documents filed late Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, HP’s new CEO will receive 700,000 HP stock options and stand to earn tens of millions of dollars more as part of short-term and long-term bonus programs. The options will vest over a four-year period.

The 48-year-old executive will be given an additional 400,000 stock options and 450,000 shares of restricted stock to make up for the equity compensation he gave up when leaving NCR. The stock will vest over three years. The restricted shares alone have a value of more than $8 million.

Hurd, who became NCR’s top executive in March 2003, took home roughly $2 million in salary and bonuses last year at NCR, up from about $1.5 million the prior year, according to NCR’s most recent proxy statement.

Hurd will also be given a $2.75 million “relocation allowance” in moving from NCR’s Dayton, Ohio, headquarters.

Hefty pay package for HP’s new CEO – CNET News.

Note, when calling Apple for enterprise support for an XServe, the longest hold time was 5 minutes. They offered a call back service, and the hold music- it was contemporary, great music- further showing that the brand is hip, cool and someone I’d prefer to do business with.

What’s even worse is I’ve already identified my problem as a bad HP jetdirect card, model 615n, that has an extended warranty. It would have been cheaper for HP to immediately look up the issue on their own site, admit, they’ve failed, and send the card than put me through this hell. The $10,000 printer that I bought is just over three years old. HP has been sending me marketing materials to try to get me to trade in and up to their new model. After this experience, I’d be hard pressed to buy HP ever again, even though I’d been generally happy with this product previously.

If Mark Hurd wants to boost the share price, he needs to make sure people have good reason to buy HP products. No sales, mean no profits. Investments in technical and customer support help stop people from writing their horror stories online for all to see. Mark, consider taking a pay cut- or try answering your phones for an hour a day.

[UPDATE] 9:35 am next day- STILL ON HOLD- but, they are still sorry I’ve been waiting and will be with me as soon as possible.

[UPDATE] 19.5 hours – same loop- have used the contact form for Mark Hurd, CEO at HP. Of course, after filling out my details- they still call me a “valued customer” instead of simply personalizing using my name. Still on hold. Their products must really suck if the call volumes are that large.
[UPDATE] 10:40 called on another line- have been assured I’ll be connected to a support technician. Hung up the other call- losing my place in the queue, but, we need to actually take calls in the office. At least this is music only on the hold loop.

[UPDATE] 11:38- after another hour on the phone, they determined what I already knew- the Jetdirect 615n was at fault. However, the “extension” of 5 years for the warranty ended on Oct. 31, 2008 (even though I’d only had the printer 3 years)- and that they would be happy to sell me a new card at the discounted price of $209 if I return the defective 615n. A quick google search found it at http://www.memorysuppliers.com/ for less than $139 with overnight shipping. Of course, I could have taken this route yesterday if HP had answered their phones.

If buying an HP product, consider the horrible customer service and really worthless website that comes with their products. Apple shines in comparison.

Maybe my next large format printer will be an Epson.

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Posted in: Public Relations in the Web 2.0 world