The Social Customer Manifesto

More Human Than Human

the human touch
Originally uploaded by max_thinks_sees.

"I am the jigsaw." - R.Z.

I have to disagree, relatively strongly, with a number of items in Dave Taylor's post "When Is A Blog Too Personal?" Dave writes:

"One of the great ongoing debates in the murky world of blogging is whether your weblog should be personal or professional, whether you should be revealing or private. There are, of course, many different answers and at some level the real answer is "whatever you're comfortable with", but I think it's a topic worth exploration nonetheless.

Business blogging is a different story because your goal is to convey a certain level of expertise, credibility and, yes, professionalism, and that can be counter to the idea of being too personal.

One solution is to use the "water cooler rule". If a topic isn't something you'd talk about with your supervisor hanging around the water cooler or coffee station at your office, it's probably not appropriate for your professional blog either.

That might work pretty well for you, but I don't think it goes far enough, because I can easily imagine chatting about the latest TV show or sporting event with colleagues and supervisors, but that doesn't mean it's a good fit for my business blog."

I actually think the "water cooler rule" is a pretty good one. However, Dave continues:

"I have a friend who is a professional editor and writer who is also in what she calls an "alternative relationship" where she and her husband both date other people. It works for her, but when she blogged about her relationship on her professional blog, I was shocked.

She said that "I'd rather just 'out' myself and if it turns off potential clients, I probably wouldn't have wanted to work with them anyway." I just don't see it that way. When you buy a burger from the local eatery, do you want to know the politics of the owner? When you get your car tuned up at the local garage, do you even care about the religious background of the mechanic?"

Here is where we disagree, strongly. When choosing a service provider, I absolutely want to know his or her context and worldview, biases and motivations, whenever possible.

Exhibit A: I will never get a Domino's pizza, because I disagree strongly with founder Tom Monaghan's politics.

Exhibit B: I really like the Magnolia pub, in the Haight in San Francisco. Not only do they have terrific beer, but their menu tells me this about the philosophy of the owners:

"Magnolia is proud to support sustainable agriculture as well as local farms and businesses in order to serve food that tastes better. We buy as much of our produce as possible from independent, local, organic farms based on seasonal availability. Our meat and poultry is all natural, free range, and raised without the use of hormones or antibiotics. We make sure that our seafood choices are abundant and fished or farmed in sustainable ways. In general, we buy as locally and sustainably as possible and encourage you to do the same."

So I suppose, yes, I do want to know the politics of the owner of the burger joint. (n.b. That said, there are a whole bunch of waypoints from transactions to community.)

We're all jigsaw puzzles of varying interests, history, background and, yes, skills. For some, the Joe Friday, "just the facts" approach may be what they desire from their vendors. On the other hand, many of us spend at least a third (ha, right...more like two-thirds) of our days in our "professional" skins. Do we really want to be denying all of those aspects of "who we are" a majority of our lives? I think not, so Dave, I need to respectfully disagree with your post.

Some other viewpoints on humanity and business blogging:

• Shel Holtz: "Business, Humanity and Blogs"
• Jory DesJardins: "How To Get Naked" (bonus link: Survey - Sex and Money Still Taboo)

From the archives:
The Business Blogging Field Guide (HTML, or PDF)

Signal vs. Noise vs. Customers

There's quite the conversation going on over at 37signals' "Signal vs. Noise" blog today, and I'm still puzzling over why said conversation is even taking place. What's going down: Matt Linderman, from 37s, today put up a post that starts like this:

Useless, absurd, must, need, appalled, just, infuriating, essential, etc.

"What could be more fun than those magnetic words that let you write poems on the fridge? How about a set of magnetic words that let you write support emails. Our kit would include the following: useless, absurd, must, need, appalled, just, infuriating, essential, oversight, pointless, confusing, nutty, and maybe some good phrases too, like 'it can’t be that hard,' 'i’m a programmer, i should know,' and 'even Blogger let’s you do that.' Of course, the whole set should be ALL CAPS too."

He then proceeds to excerpt fifteen customer emails that 37s has received, annotating each one with a snippet of text that certainly could be interpreted as an accusatory finger, highlighting what was wrong with each email that their support line had received.

After reading and re-reading the emails that Linderman posted, I'm even more puzzled. Yes, some of them contained some hyperbole. But what about the others, like this one?

"Please call me regarding my basecamp system — (615) 780-XXXX."

Yeah. Boy, I could see how that would be upsetting...a customer wanted to connect with someone at her service provider. Or how about this one?

"We NEED a web based system like Basecamp, but I cannot tell if it will be any better by reading the information you have available. I’m looking for sort of a web based excel-like program. We need to be able to see at a glance every sponsor’s name, sponsor level, address, contact info, if they’ve been billed/payed, if we need/have artwork, and if they have comments. We need to authorize up to five people for editing and another 60 or so for viewing."

Indeed. A customer clearly spelling out his requirements and needs. That customer must obviously be deluded and prone to hysterics.

The conversation plays out over 120+ comments. And then "JF" (I'm assuming Jason Fried, of 37signals) jumps in with two comments that, frankly, just seem defensive and tinged with the slightest bit of hubris, all at once.

"We’re well aware of that, we’re well aware of our cash flow, we’re well aware of our churn, we’re well aware of our signups, we’re well aware of our growth, we’re well aware of our big-picture customer satisfaction. We’re well aware of what we’re doing, thank you."

and

"120 comments in and I’m surprised we haven’t heard from a progressive thinker who might wonder if all this 'bad' stuff is actually good for business. Could these sorts of discussions actually be good for a non-traditional business like 37signals? Do sales/signups go up on days with these heated debates? Could there be a positive business motive behind all this that more traditional business observers haven’t groked?"

Now, Cerado is a customer of 37signals, in that we use Basecamp. But this last quote from Fried has given me pause, and I'm hoping it's not a canary in the coalmine. The phrase "Do sales/signups go up on days with these heated debates?" is looking at a point in time. It's solely looking at the transaction. Now, couple that with the fact that (I hope!) any rational customer would certainly entertain taking his business elsewhere if he saw his support request pilloried in the public square as an example of what not to do. Put those two data points together, and one begins to wonder if 37signals is truly doing something differently (as they continuously claim), or if it's just another business looking for the quick turn, long-term-relationships be damned.

Others talking:

Zoli Erdos
Jason Kolb
Kandace Nuckolls
Steve Portigal
Marcus Campbell
Joe Taylor Jr.

(thanks to Zoli for the tip)

Yee-hah! Charter Street Launches!

For the second time in as many months, am thrilled to announce that a new business blog is on the scene; this time it's the Charter Street blog ("a blog about entrepreneurship, the internet, and the state of the software industry") from Cerado customer Versai Technology. Charter Street is penned by industry vets Paul McNamara and Greg Olsen, with whom I've been fortunate enough to work closely over the last few months. Paul and Greg are jumping into the business blogosphere with both feet, and will be chronicling their new company through its birth, growth and eventual world domination*.

I'm not yet able to publicly say what Versai is going to be doing, but I can tell you it's very, very cool and very much in line with our belief of where the technology industry is going.

Their first two posts are up as of last weekend, with Paul bringing us up to speed on what he's been doing since leaving Red Hat in 2001 (hint: it's a lot), and Greg laying the groundwork of his vision and explaining why "going bedouin" is the right choice for a startup in 2006.

The money 'graphs from Paul:

As Mark Twain once said, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. As some of you know, I left Red Hat in 2001 to join Hal Covert (another Red Hat alum) at SGI. 2001 was a year that saw lots of the early guys at Red Hat leave.

I have to say that most people think that moving from Red Hat to SGI was a dubious career move. But in truth I found it to be a really rich experience -- there's no better experience than a turn around. There are two really big lessons that I learned from the SGI experience. First, I grew to understand how and why SGI, once an extremely hot company, lost its way in the market. And second, I learned just how hard it is to remake a public company.

My advice to anyone trying to affect a major turn-around of a public company is simple: don't. Take it private first.

...and some insight from the good Dr. Olsen:

Given peoples' experience with telecommuting and distributed team projects from the open source community, a neo-Bedouin approach is not as hard to envision as it once may have been. The requirements for a neo-Bedouin business, however, go further and must include support for all business functions (such as sales, marketing, finance, engineering and customer support). A neo-Bedouin approach can be executed through a wide variety of specific choices. Here is a sample recipe:

Subscribed!

* - Of course, the phase after "world domination" is typically an embarrasing VH-1 retrospective sometime in mid-2025, but hey, that's the price for success.

Is Nvidia Exploring The Dark Side Of Viral Marketing?

Consumerist and BoingBoing are indicating that Nvidia may (note: speculation) be working with firm AEG to create faux online personnas to develop positive reputations in online communities to pitch Nvidia products. Consumerist's unsubstantiated indictment:

"About a week ago, The Consumerist stumbled upon claims made by various gaming websites that graphics chip manufacturer Nvidia, in cooperation with the Arbuthnot Entertainment Group (AEG), had seeded various gaming and PC hardware enthusiast sites with pro-Nvidia shills. That is to say, that AEG would hire employees to create ‘personas’ in various gaming communities, slowly building up the trust of other members by frequent posting unrelated to Nvidia, to later cash in that trust with message board postings talking up the positive qualities of Nvidia’s products."

Now, one of AEG's self-proclaimed skills is in:

"Strategic seeding [of] viral assets to ensure they are spread far and wide"

Ok, fair enough. And this post posits that:

"AEG, on behalf of NVIDIA, monitors a number of public hardware enthusiast communities and forums, seeking out some of the more well-respected members of these communities, those that they feel will hold sway among their peers when it comes to discussing product purchase decisions and the like.

These individuals are then approached regarding their interest in joining NVIDIA's community outreach programme. Those that register said interest are then provided with a free NVIDIA product (graphics cards generally speaking, although as NVIDIA has noted this campaign has been diversified into other product areas) in return for these users providing feedback to NVIDIA for the product they have been given, as well as hopefully evangelising the product to other members of their community. Thus, good word of mouth about the product is spread by a highly valued member of a community among his peers, who then take his sentiments on-board, spread them on to other communities, users, friends etc, and so on - The 'good news' spreads quickly, acting as a perfect form of viral marketing."

If the process above is being followed, and true enthusiasts who happen to be key members of a community are being given samples of product, with no strings or expectations attached, that is good aggressive (and smart) marketing, and is above board. (The recipients do have an obligation, in my opinion, to disclose the freebies, however. One approach is the one that Nokia is following that is covered here, here, here and here.) Now, on the other hand, if shills are being compensated to talk up Nvidia in online forums without disclosing their interests or, even worse, are being compensated to create multiple personalities to astroturf the gaming world, that is an entirely different kettle of fish altogether, and reeks of the issues that have been covered previously in this space and over at Brand Autopsy.

Nvidia, however, horribly flubbed their first attempt to publicly address the situation. After some badgering, Consumerist has received the following email from Nvidia PR Director Derek Perez:

"Hey Joel.

Boy - read your article - you couldn’t have gotten it more wrong.

Do you really not know what AEG does? Did you go to their website? Do you understand their business?

Seems before you write an editorial article on this you would educate yourself.

AEG helps us to manage the online community - we engage with some NV fans to help educate people on the web.

They are NOT hired actors!

They are NOT “shils”!

Happy to answer more questions - but it seems as if you need to do some research first.

Cheers Derek"

This is certainly not the best piece of outreach that's ever occurred. If Nvidia is NOT engaging in below-board practices, Nvidia would be better served by coming out with a flat, unambiguous statement to that effect. The Perez response is weak and defensive, and not at all what one would expect if they were trying to address the situation in a straightforward and truthful manner. Not good.

Neville, Shel, Steve...what would you advise Nvidia to do in this situation?

(Also of note: the AEG blog is silent on this at the current time.)

Update: Email conversation between Derek Perez and Thomas Hawk on the situation. Hawk:

"I just got off the phone with Derek Perez, Director of NVidia PR, according to Perez, while NVidia has in fact hired third party marketing firm Arbuthnot Entertainment Group (AEG) to market on their behalf, Perez has denied any allegations that either NVidia, or AEG on NVidia's behalf, has paid money to individuals for posting positive marketing news about NVidia in forums. While Perez has confirmed that NVidia has in fact given hardware to individuals in the mainstream press as well as enthusiasts in online communities, they deny that any cash has been paid to individuals for promoting their products by them or AEG to the best of their knowledge."

Business Blogging At IBM

Julie Alterio at The Journal News has a decent article up on the scope of blogging initiatives within Big Blue and other organizations. Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM's VP of technical strategy and innovation is quoted as saying:

"We absolutely recognize that blogging, just like the Internet, World Wide Web, Linux and open source, is a major initiative in the marketplace that we should be part of. This best way to be part of it is not to observe it passively but to do it actively."

Sound advice.

And, although the article is primarily about the view on business blogging from within IBM and other large companies, Dave Sifry gets into the act as well. And NAILS his line. Way to go, Dave...

"In the world of the Internet, you don't own your brand. Your customers and your users own your brand. You're lucky if you get to shepherd it."

Best Buy Apologizes For Strongarming Some Xbox Customers

Apparently, some customers looking for the best buy on the new Xbox 360 instead were met with less-than-stellar sales tactics at some Best Buy stores, with sales personnel "requiring" customers to purchase unwanted accessories as part of a bundle in order to get the base Xbox unit. Gamedaily reports:

"Console bundles for new hardware launches certainly aren't unusual—many retailers (especially online) have been selling the Xbox 360 in bundle form only—but this practice is one that doesn't sit well with many consumers and was not supposed to have been adopted by popular retail chain Best Buy.

Despite this, certain Best Buy stores in the U.S. apparently ignored the standalone $299 (core) and $399 (premium) SKUs and either forced consumers to buy Xbox 360 bundles or strongly suggested that they do so."

For example, back on November 23rd, the Northwest Indiana Times reported:

"Glancing down the line Tuesday morning at the Valparaiso store, there was a sea of heads covered with knit caps or hoodies. The crowd consisted mostly of guys in their late teens to early 20s, sprinkled lightly with motivated soccer moms and young women.

It wasn't just the weather that was unpredictable. At 8:15 a.m., after many nighttime hours spent shivering in line, a Best Buy employee announced that the unit would not be sold alone for the $399 advertised in the sales flier. Instead, those in line were told they would have seconds to decide whether to buy a higher-priced bundle, adding a game and other accessories."

In the wake of this, did some looking around and just tripped across the following memo, penned by Brian Dunn, Best Buy's President of Retail for North America (via Mike Antonucci at the Merc):

"TO: Open Letter to Customers

FROM: Brian Dunn, President – Retail, North America

RE: Launch of Xbox 360

CC: Best Buy Store, District and Territory Employees; All Officers and Directors

DATE: December 6, 2005

I’m writing to apologize.

While all of us at Best Buy were thrilled to be part of the recent launch of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 video game system – one of the most anticipated events in the history of electronic gaming – the launch did not go as we had hoped. We sold out of Xbox 360s nationwide in less than two hours, and most of our stores did an outstanding job of serving our gaming customers. I’d like to thank the majority of our employees, who provided a terrific experience for customers at the launch date. However, our promotional activities in certain cases failed to follow company guidelines. As a result, some of our valued gaming customers had an experience in our stores that was inconsistent with what you’ve come to expect from us, as a leader in the consumer electronics industry.

Specifically, customers in some Best Buy stores were told that they were required to buy additional Xbox accessories or services if they wanted one of the sought-after Xbox 360 consoles, even though we advertised the Xbox 360 console alone. I want to be very clear that Best Buy does not condone pressuring customers to purchase items they may not want or that may not fit their lifestyle. In fact, these behaviors are in direct conflict with our desire to serve customers’ needs better than anyone else, and our values of honesty and integrity.

We are currently investigating all leads about promotional practices that may have violated the company’s guidelines, and we will take disciplinary actions as appropriate. We also have reminded all of our stores about our policies with respect to launches of hot products. Meanwhile, on behalf of Best Buy, I’d like to offer a sincere apology to any customers who felt pressured to buy items they did not want.

Customers who are unhappy with Xbox 360-related purchases made in November 2005 may return unwanted items for a full refund at any Best Buy store. In addition, if your Xbox 360 purchasing experience did not meet your expectations for any reason, please email us at [email protected] . (Employees with information pertinent to our investigation are encouraged to call our Ethics Hot Line instead.)

Last, I would like to invite you back to our stores, particularly later this month, when Best Buy will receive more shipments of Xbox 360s. While supplies continue to be very limited, we are truly excited about this new gaming platform, and we’d like to deliver the best of that experience to you. We promise an in-store experience that is focused on your needs and the needs of everyone on your holiday gift list.

Brian Dunn"

(UPDATE: The letter has since been posted here, with a miniscule link to a PDF buried next to the garish page navigation photograph .)

So, from both the communications and customer interaction points-of-view, a well-handled episode for Best Buy. Although a few individuals tried to take advantage of customers, Best Buy corporate is doing the right thing in not only investigating (and, presumably, disciplining) the responsible parties, but also taking an aggressive tack to make whole the customers who were affected by the issue. Of course, it would have been better if this never had happened in the first place, but still an "B+" response based on relative timeliness and assumption of responsibility for the issue. (Would have been an "A" if they had done this in an even more timely manner and made the letter to customers more visible on their web site.)

Ross Sez...

Ross sez..."trust your customers."

Heavens To Marketroid!

Steve Hall asks, what if there was a "Customer Conversations Department?" Hall:

"I'd...suggest the creation of an entirely new discipline headed by a director of customer/consumer conversation/dialog. The sole responsibility if this person/department would be to converse and listen to the consumers with no interest in selling product.

This is not achieved though doing surveys or hosting focus groups or through agency account planning efforts. It is achieved by talking to customers/consumers as one would if they were discussing a product at a cookout or dinner party. This is not stuff that can be rolled up neatly into a spreadsheet of a PowerPoint presentation. This is roll-the-sleeves-up, get-dirty-with-the-customer conversation."

I.love.it. But it shouldn't be a "department." It may need to start that way, but ultimately every person within an organization who comes in contact with a customer:

• Marketing
  
• Sales
  
• Customer Support
  
• Product Marketing
  
• Delivery
  
• Executives
  
• etc.

needs to feel this way. Why? Because, customers don't interact with a silo'd "department." And every customer has the ability to talk about his or her experience with the company via these crazy, newfangled blog thingers...regardless of which department was involved in the interaction.

Tom Hespos runs with this idea. Hespos:

"I think we can agree that comparatively few companies have made any sort of investment in opening and continuing meaningful dialogue with their customers online. We’ve got the broadcast model to thank for that. As you know, when you’re holding a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. When folks are out there praising or panning a product or brand, corporations tend to look at the problem as a mass marketing problem. In reality, most of the panning can be dealt with effectively by empowering somebody to join the conversation, actually listen, and take the feedback to the company for incorporation. Most of the praise can be greatly amplified in the same way."

and Doc pushes it further:

"This is a provocative proposition. What Tom's talking about here is going way beyond the rogue Scoble, or even the hundreds (thousands?) inside companies like Microsoft and Sun. We're talking here about changing marketing's function (or a large part of it) from messaging to conversation."

(Be sure to check out the spot-on comment from Mike Taht, which has a couple of great thoughts on what out-of-work marketers can put on their cardboard signs.)

This is the right direction. There are a few fundamental things that need to occur to keep this snowball rolling, however.

Per the comments from the others above, execs in organizations from the smallest to the largest need to get whupped upside the head with the clue mackerel, and understand what's happening here.

Folks on the front lines need to get out of the "transactional" mindset, and start thinking about conversations, and relationships and communities.

Systems need to change. Existing (so-called) customer relationship management systems don't get us there. Actually, I take that back. CRM systems could get us there, if the individuals using them started thinking about using the systems as tools to track persistent conversations over time (note: link is a PDF), as opposed to being tools that sales management uses to know how soon they need to warn Wall Street that they're going to miss their quarter. (Don't even get me started on the whole "living life one quarter at a time" mindset thing. Grrr.)

And, finally, from the "do-ocracy" side of things, we, as customers, need to be rationally vocal when we are treated poorly (or ignored). As customers, we need to continue to let our service providers know when they are screwing up, through all means available. They can't listen if we don't talk, and write, and start voting with our wallets when they blow it.

So, my question to you...what do we need to do next to keep this going?

Links, all in one tidy place:

• Steve Hall: Brands Need 'Consumer Conversation Department'
  
• Tom Hespos: A Hypothetical "Conversation Department"
  
• Doc Searls: Talking marketing

Related posts from The Social Customer Manifesto:

• March 21, 2005: Customer Conversation Management
  
• March 30, 2005: Holding Up Your End Of The Conversation
  
• April 4, 2005: Persistent Conversations And Relationships

Who's Listens To Blogs? Andreesen, Bradbury, Rhodes, Sifry, Wyman...

Alex Barnett pulls together a definitive Cluetrain / "markets are conversations" post.

Example one from Alex:

"The first of the three events this week is to do with splogs - spam via RSS feeds and blogs. I posted about my experience of the problem and called out:

"Question to the feed search engine folks...(David Sifry, Blake Rhodes, Bill Bob Wyman are you listening?)...how do we stop this? Can we? It can't be good for your business if this kind of thing takes off, can it?"

Within 24 hours David, Blake and Bob each posted a comment on my blog, acknowledging the industry-wide issue and confirming their companies' commitment to solving the problem."

Ok, cool. But all the folks above are in the blog business, so maybe it's not that surprising. Which leads to example 2...Alex wonders...what the heck does "Ning" do?

Alex: "I speculated on a couple of revenue models and wrote, tongue-in-cheek...'Good question...Marc Andreessen might but hasn't share the biz-plan me yet. Are you there Marc?'"

A few hours later, what does he find? A comment from Andreesen.

"Alex -- your description of what we are trying to do is very well said. It's an experiment, but those are the goals.

We are going to see if we can generate enough revenue through a blend of advertising (like Google, Yahoo, etc.) and premium services to be able to support what we are doing, including the free developer accounts."

Brilliant. The third? Alex notes a functional deficiency in FeedDemon, "The file can't be exported (OPML, would be nice Nick?...anything!)" What does he find two days later in his comments from Nick Bradbury?

"Just wanted to let you know that I've added OPML export of the reports to the next build of FeedDemon - expect to see this in RC2."

It's so easy for a company to do this. Set up an RSS feed to listen. Listen to it. If a customer has a question or concern, take the few seconds required to answer it on their turf. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.

Scratch that. It's not easy for a "company" to do this. It's so easy for a person to do this. Companies (despite their legal existence as "entities") really can't do anything on their own. They don't walk. They don't talk. They don't bathe. They can't communicate.

People communicate. That's where relationships happen. Between people.

(hat tip: Kevin Briody)

Ten Things To Do While Waiting For Dell Tech Support

Crushing Jory for this one, big time.

10 Things to Do/Places to Visit while waiting for Dell Technical Support.

Brilliant. A few excerpts:

#2: "Get all of the unpleasantness over in one fell swoop is my philosophy. While you wait for Dell Customer Support, call up Sprint and try to negotiate out of the lifetime contract you inadvertently entered into when you reduced your minutes; return those obligatory calls to relatives."

and

#7: "Have a Dell Customer Support party. Invite over others who are on hold. You don't have to go through this alone!" (here ya go: the DellHell IRC channel - ed.)

By the way, Jory's mom Joy just started a blog as well...The Joy Of Six.