Marketers and Communications Pros - Listen and Listen Well

Five Tips for Bringing Back the Lost Art of Listening

As a marketing consultant and writer, I often collaborate on client projects with other marketing and communications consultants retained by the clients.  The purpose is usually to (1) collect information about the client’s business, strategy, products or expertise; (2) obtain the client’s feedback on programs that we have created; or (3) brainstorm with the client.

Collaborating with other professionals is almost always a good thing. It gives me the opportunity to work with other professionals who have complementary skills and who share my interest in making the client successful.

However, in the last few years, I have noticed a disturbing trend.  Many marketing and communications people don’t listen – usually to the detriment of the client and the project.

Here are a few examples of what I mean. 

• In interviewing a CEO, a PR person loses critical time from a tight 30-minute timeslot with his ham-handed attempt at bonding with the CEO.  The false start not only wastes time, but also gets the “speed” interview off to a false start, from which it never truly recovers.
• The head of a PR firm talks on and on about social media 101, without taking a breath. She is apparently unaware of the client’s familiarity with the subject – and his growing irritation in being talked down to.
• In conducting an interview with a customer for a case study, a marketing person deviates on the very first question on the list that was sent to the customer in advance. Instead of asking the short, open-ended question, the marketer twists it into a loaded question that reflects his own biases – and shows how “smart” he is. The customer is so confused that she asks that the question be repeated.  The interview is derailed, and the client’s careful preparation wasted.
  

In all three cases, the problem was lack of listening.  The PR person, agency head and the marketer were all intent on talking about themselves or talking to themselves instead of listening to the client. They were falling short on their jobs as professional communicators: understanding what the other person wants, needs and values – and what knowledge he can contribute to the project or program. 

I’m certainly not immune to this.  Recently, I caught myself blathering on and on about some obscure detail.  The client was polite but annoyed, and I apologized later for not being a better listener.

One challenge:  Technology can often work against us.  Many meetings and interactions today take place over the telephone or via audio-only Web conferences. Without the benefit of body language, we often lose important cues about whether we are talking too much, or whether the listener is confused, irritated or bored.  In addition, even the best communications systems introduce a time delay – even if it is barely perceptible – creating an asynchronous discussion.  As a result, we should all listen harder and be more creative in our approaches to listening.

Here are five tips for being a better professional listener:

Stick to the agenda: If the purpose of your conversation is mainly to elicit information from the client, put your energy and focus on that. When preparing for conducting a telephone interview, I usually send along a short bio in advance with my list of questions. The list of questions also includes a sentence about the goal of the interview. This cuts down the need for extraneous conversation before you get to work listening.

Stop selling:  Don’t waste time selling yourself – you’ve already got the business, or you wouldn’t be on the call, right?  Conversely, if you’re already on shaky ground, you’ll just make things worse.  In arranging the call or conference, send a brief agenda with names and titles in advance. I am amazed at how many meetings or calls waste time with introductions – an open-ended opportunity for people to sell themselves, based on their agendas – when simple business etiquette could have nipped this in the bud.

Slow down:  Speak clearly and more slowly than you do in person. Take a beat at the end of sentences, so people have an opportunity to break in and ask a question or make a comment. This will help prevent the conversation from getting off track.

Don’t assume:  Before delving into a soliloquy about a subject, ask your audience about his level of familiarity; then adjust your explanation accordingly. You’ll win points for empathy and brevity, as well as save some energy.  Everyone wins.

“Watch” for verbal cues:  Train yourself to listen for verbal cues in people’s voices: irritation, satisfaction, confusion and so on.  Some body language does come through the phone line or the web. This is the reason that I always try to smile when I am on telephone calls – and sit up straight so that I don’t compress my diaphragm and “depress” my speech. People can tell.  Hint: practice recognizing body language with your spouse or business partner. Have him or her talk to you with various facial expressions, while you have your eyes closed.

Whenever you’re in doubt about the value of talking, stop and take a breath.  You’ll feel better – and just maybe jog yourself back into creative listening.

Do Your Customers See Dead People?

The Importance of Looking at Your Business with the Customer’s Eye

When your customers interact with your business, do they deal with real people? Or mindless automation? And how do you know?

Automation and the human touch clearly aren’t mutually exclusive in customer interaction. Businesses like Zappos.com have proven this. And many smaller businesses are proving it through the use of social media. Properly used, social media mixes live people with automation to help find customers and make fans.

But a lot of businesses get customer interaction wrong: dead wrong. They make easily avoidable mistakes – in spite of the millions that companies invest in automation and in software for monitoring the customer experience.

Often, it’s the little things. Consider the story of the national debt collection agency that robo-signed a dead employee’s name to thousands of affidavits in debt-collection lawsuits.

Beyond landing the company in the public eye and under regulators’ scrutiny, what sort of message does this practice send about the company? If they make this kind of mistake with legal paperwork, what else might be wrong at the company?

We’ve learned that the financial industry is a bit of a protected species, so perhaps it doesn’t have to play by the same rules as the rest of the business world. However, other companies – including large, publicly held companies in other industries – often suffer from the same disease.

In his book Real-Time Marketing & PR: How to Instantly Engage Your Market, Connect with Customers, and Create Products that Grow Your Business Now, David Meerman Scott recounts his experiment with contacting the Fortune 100. A prominent blogger and contributing editor to publications, David contacted, via email, the media relations people at each company, with an inquiry for an article he was writing; he included his journalism credentials. He heard back from 28 of the 100. The relative response times for the companies ranged from snappy (10 minutes) to never, and a number involved inane and completely irrelevant robo-responses. (His experience in finding whom to contact is a story in itself.)

Why was this so hard? David was a customer: a journalist writing about a public company. All of these companies make a pretense of being reachable. They all have Web sites – often lavish Web sites. Many have automated forms and links on their Web sites. But the system breaks down there for many. So much for the real-time economy.

More recently, I was thwarted in reaching a firm in the information publishing business. I tried every avenue (except the US Postal Service). I navigated a confusing phonemail tree and left a detailed message in their general mailbox. I clicked on their Press Inquiry link on their Web site – and had three emails bounce back (I tried from both my email client and Webmail). I finally identified the human being who might be able to help me. But my personal email to that person was never returned, nor did I receive a response from the handy contact form that they provided on the contact’s bio on their Web site.

My recommendation: Marketers or business owners should regularly test their customers’ experience with the business. Personally. Beyond any automated testing you may do. Or secret shoppers you may employ. What’s it like to buy from your company? Return a product? Get a question answered? What does it feel like?

True, as a marketer or business owner, you can never be 100% objective about your own business. But just spending an hour in the customers’ shoes might be a revelation.

When I was working for an advertising agency many years ago, a retail client hired us to walk through a few of their locations “with the customer’s eye.” Yes, the results were subjective – and perhaps even biased, you may say – but they were very human. And the results added a dimension to the retailer's traditional research.

The good news is that small changes can often make a big difference.

Here are three obvious places to start:

Your Web Site: Test the email addresses, contact forms and links. Do they work? How quickly do you get a response? Is the response relevant? Coherent? Indecipherable? Lawyer-ese for “go away?”

Your Phone System: Make sure that your phonemail is easily navigable. Have a process and schedule for checking the general mailbox and routing or responding to the inquiries.

It’s also helpful if the automated voice on the system matches your brand. It’s disconcerting to a call a bank or brokerage firm and hear what appears to be a five-year-old girl answering. Pick the person on your staff who most represents your brand – a successful broker or financial adviser, in this case – and have that person make the recording. Or outsource this task to a firm that specializes in this type of thing.

Your Social Media Program: Have a protocol for responding to questions to your company on social media. Promptly. Most large companies – particularly those that consciously use social media for customer service (such as Comcast) – have this down pat, often using teams of people with real names and faces. For better or worse, these companies are setting the bar for all companies. Respond to queries promptly, and in the tone of your brand.

Remember that these forms of electronic media are proxies for your brand. They should reflect the personality of your brand, even though they are automation not actual people.

Or, you can continue to let your customers see dead people – and suffer the consequences.

How to be a Good Consultant

Three Important Lessons from 20 Years in the Trenches

This year, I celebrated my 20th year in business as an independent consultant who provides marketing communications strategy, consultation and content to companies. Over the years, I’ve learned a lot about what makes a good consultant, both from “on-the-job” training and from watching other consultants.

Delivering great work – on strategy, on time and on budget – is of course job #1. But I’ve also learned that how you deliver the work – client service – is equally important.

Before I started my own company, I worked for several public relations and advertising agencies, where I had an opportunity to learn about client service from some of the best. These include people like Bink Garrison, Ned Carboni and Ray Welch at Quinn & Johnson/BBDO, and the legendary PR man Bob Strayton. Conversely, in the last 20 years, I’ve also seen some pretty dumb behavior from other consultants. This been equally instructive.

Here are three important lessons that I have learned. (Although I am writing about marketing consulting in this article, these lessons apply to any kind of consulting where the product you are selling is ideas or expertise, such as management consulting or architectural design.)

Always tell the client what he needs to hear, not what he wants to hear – Clients count on me to bring an honest, unemotional outside perspective to their business and to tell them straight – even if it’s “bad” news. In presenting bad news, it’s important to be succinct, well-prepared with backup points for your argument, and ready with a solution. The one time (many years ago) when I broke my own rule (emotion got in the way), the outcome was painful for everyone involved. I have learned to balance passion for the client’s business with a dispassionate perspective. Clients need – and deserve – both.

Don’t talk down to the client – Just as I’m smart about my business (communications consulting and writing), my clients are smart about their businesses. When I am hired, it’s usually because my expertise fills a gap in their expertise. That’s why I consider myself a partner to my clients, not a nanny or a tutor. Other consultants don’t always think this way. They treat clients as if they were children.

For example, when attending a seminar recently, I overheard another consultant tell her client: “To coin a phrase, we need a pain-killer not a vitamin.” This phrase – pain-killer not a vitamin – is so old that it’s a business cliché. To pretend it is original to the speaker both insults the client’s intelligence and undermines the consultant’s credibility.

Then there was the consultant who started his presentation about social media with the statement (spoken very slowly): “You are going to hear me use the word ‘con-ver-sation’ a lot today.” The concept of “con-ver-sation” in social media has been broadly covered in books, business magazines, newspapers and Internet media – only an awakening Rip Van Winkle could have missed it.

Good consultants put information – including clichés and trends – in the right business context for the client and his business. Treat your client as a partner and don’t waste his time. Determine his level of understanding about a topic before assuming he knows nothing about it – and start from there.

Beware of "Not Invented Here" syndrome - My job is to provide clients with the best possible solutions for their problems. Most of those ideas come from my head or my past experience, but not always. Great ideas are everywhere, and many of those ideas are free. Applying ideas from elsewhere in a strategic way can often create a solution that delivers great value for less cost than “100% invented here.” Yes, I may give up some income, but I am in the business of delivering creative solutions, not freight.

If I do adapt others' ideas, I always give the source credit. The fact that an idea has worked successfully elsewhere adds credibility to my recommendations. And citing the source protects my credibility (unlike Mr. “Con-ver-sation” above).

For example: David Meerman Scott’s best-selling book, The New Rules of Marketing and PR, is a great source of ideas for many companies. I have used some of David’s techniques in campaigns for clients, with excellent results. When using his techniques, I always credit David in front of my clients; in fact, I have given his book to many clients as a gift. The smarter I can make my client, the better we can work together to produce great work. And the longer the client stays my client, in my experience.

And now, a special bonus lesson…

Always be on time for meetings - I landed one of my first clients in the agency business because my competitor arrived late to his presentations. The client loved my presentation, and the ideas and recommendations I presented later worked very well for the client. However, one of the first comments the client contact made when we asked why we had won the business was: “Agency XX was late for the meetings.” Often, it’s the little things that make the biggest impressions on clients. And this story made a lifelong impression on me.

Of course, there are dozens of client-service techniques and rules of conduct that I’ve ingrained in my business over the last 20 years – and now use instinctively in my daily work. But these four lessons in particular have been important ones for me.

What have been your most valuable lessons?

Marketing Lessons from the General Store

The Fussy Marketer Gets Four Free Reminders of Marketing Fundamentals – along with Her Morning Coffee

Although I work with clients all over the world, I’ve been fortunate in that I can live anywhere. I choose to live north of Boston, in a small town on the edge of the Western White Mountains.

Practical lessons in great marketing often come from the simplest and most unlikely of places – like my local general store. In their own way, the store’s owners understand marketing fundamentals better than many Fortune 500 companies.

Know Your Customer: The store gets a lot of its business from workers at the local saw mill. When the mill’s business started to pick up, it went back to running two full shifts a day. And that means more workers, who are hungry on a rolling schedule. The store added a small deli and meat counter, where people can buy hot and cold take-out items for their breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as meat and other items to take home. The coffee pot never runs out, and the coffee is fresh all day (unlike many general stores, if you have spent much time in Vermont). To help staff the deli, the store hired away a much-loved cook from another general store.

Business is booming. The store paid attention to changing customer demographics – hungry workers coming back into town, who have money and will pay a premium for choice and convenience. And the store responded quickly.

The lesson: Keep current with your customer. Formal research is great, but so is anecdotal information. Talk to your customers. Ask them what’s happening in their lives. The Internet also offers some great, inexpensive ways to take the pulse of prospects and customers. Look at social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, or business rating sites such as OpenTable and TripAdvisor.

Understand Your Competition: Because they own the only place to shop within a five-mile radius – and the last stop before the 15-mile drive to the Vermont border and the interstate – the store's owners could be tempted to think that they have a monopoly. But they know that they have competition and respond accordingly. Customers always have a choice, and they will take it if motivated strongly enough.

For example, the closest competitor is the general store in the next town, which is larger and carries more items. But my local store is now getting many people who drive the 10-mile roundtrip to shop or even to get morning coffee.

How? The rival store has poor customer service. In particular, there is one clerk, a GenXer who apparently sees his job as a personal platform for his stand-up comedy skills. He thinks it’s funny to ask - loudly - a burly 55-year-old logger “Do you really need those potato chips with all that beer?” This store’s obliviousness to its poor customer service handed our local store a big marketing opportunity. Our local store staffs with middle-aged women, who are polite, efficient and respectful. They are often contemporaries of the loggers’ wives, and they know the latest news about the school, the local weather and so on.

Our local store also competes against a supermarket and a big-box store 12 miles away. To get some of that business, it has expanded to carry more items, including meat and some fresh produce. It also carries items such as farm-fresh eggs and hydroponic tomatoes from my neighbors – things you can’t get at the supermarket and big-box store.

The lesson: Give your customers fewer reasons to go elsewhere. Shop your competitors, stay on top of their strategies, and exploit their weaknesses. Small, thoughtful changes can often communicate volumes to customers.

Make it Easy to do Business with You: Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet: nothing keeps my local general store from opening. The owners understand that the store is an important part of its regular customers’ daily lives. I have often seen the owner herself out on her own tractor clearing snow in the parking lot, if no one else is available. She knows that the parking lot is the front door for the store, and that a messily cleared lot will turn people away. Moreover, it will damage the store’s reputation for reliability.

By comparison, I often see web sites that have the equivalent of an un-cleared parking lot: obtuse language or awkward pieces of navigation. This tells me that the marketing people don’t respect their customers’ time. The marketers may have delegated the design to a web site designer who doesn’t understand the marketing goals. Or to a webmaster who lacks an “owner’s” mentality and views the web site as his own personal artistic playground. But that’s no excuse.

The lesson: Stay on top of your customer experience. “Shop” your own store or your web site personally to see what customers are experiencing – and do it frequently. Don’t rely solely on mystery shoppers or your marketing automation software. Get out there yourself once in a while.

Deliver Value Beyond Your Product or Service: Make your business a destination for people, not just a place to buy things. My local general store innately understands this, even though it has no marketing program or budget per se.

The store has a comfortable bench on the front porch, where people can sit as long as they want (as long as they don’t drink or swear). There are picnic tables for use in sunny weather. There is a clean public restroom (don’t laugh – many general stores don’t have public restrooms or have filthy public restrooms). There’s a nook inside the front door where the kids can stay warm in the winter while waiting for the school bus, or where people can congregate to sip their coffees.

There’s a bulletin board where people can post ads, business cards, or services. There’s a Halloween tradition where kids in costume come by and have their pictures taken for a photo gallery. And, if you’re looking for a good deal on firewood or a contractor to work on your house, the parking lot is the best place to inquire.

These are a lot of small things, but they add up to a big message that says: “Spend more time here.” More time translates into more money spent in the store.

The lesson: Look for creative ways to weave your business location into people’s daily lives. Make your business indispensable to your customers. Do things that encourage them to make it a destination site for their own purposes.

These four lessons are basic, but important for large and small businesses alike. Small, inexpensive changes and ideas can often pay big dividends. The most important investment is your thoughtfulness.

When Offline Service Undermines Your Online Brand

Hysteria, slackerism and other bad habits to watch out for

There are several online brands – including Amazon.com, Zappos and Dan’s Chocolates – from which I would buy practically anything. Their customer experiences are spectacular: efficient, empathetic, and enjoyable.

Office superstore Staples has long been on my list – until recently.

Don’t get me wrong: I love Staples.com’s ease of ordering, special deals, record-keeping, Rewards Program, and free shipping for orders over $50. The site is both wildly convenient and dependable, and it is always the first place I turn when I need supplies.

But lately, Staples’ offline service is undermining all the great work the company has done in building its brand online – at least in this customer’s mind.

I receive too-frequent calls asking me about how my Rewards Program is “working out for ya.” The caller reminds me that I should have received my latest Rewards check (yes, I know this and I always spend them). She is there to help me if I need anything (yes, I know this too). As a small-business owner (who, for better or worse, is the office manager as well as the president of the company), I am not usually thinking about office supplies first thing on Monday mornings. I said this the last time I picked up the phone. (In fact, I usually think about it on the weekends - and love the ability to place orders 24x7.) Worse, the transaction, on the Staples end, has an edge of hysteria, making me wonder about the stability of Staples’ business.

The personal touch is important, but not if it’s intrusive – and only if it delivers real value to me as a customer.

Instead, why not send me a personalized email every Monday morning, with the representative’s contact information? This would enable me to react and respond based on my needs. And spare me the poor diction of the caller. (In the past, Staples employed clear-speaking people who would field service calls – and even call me if my shipment was delayed. Those days appear to be gone.) I still skim all mail from Staples. The vendor would have found this out if it ever surveyed me.

It gets worse.

Last week, I received a call from the IT services group of Staples, Thrive Networks. The caller inquired if “you guys” had anyone taking care of our IT systems and asking if the caller’s company might help “you guys.” First, I am not a guy (obvious by my name and voice on the telephone). Second, I am a PROSPECT with MONEY to spend on office supplies and tech support – not your friend from the bar (otherwise why are you calling me?) This was the all-important first chance to make a good impression – and the caller failed. He also introduced more cognitive dissonance into my decade-long good feelings about the Staples.com brand.

The most troubling thing about these transactions was not the transactions themselves. It was the fact that they demonstrated a startling lack of empathy or understanding of the customer (a small business-owner who by definition is busy and one who is obviously a woman). I no longer feel that Staples knows me at all - even though the company has collected all that information about me. (Much of the information is in fact available to me in my online account).

One might argue that Staples was a bricks-and-mortar company first, and an online company second, making the comparison with Amazon, Zappos, et al., unfair. But other bricks-and-mortars do a great job of delivering a consistent brand experience across offline and online media. (I wrote about one recently, Hafner Vineyard, a small family-owned business.)

My advice to marketers: if you struggle with this problem, go back to the basics. Think about who you are selling to, what their problems are, and how you can best help the customer. That’s a good start.

PS: I am still a Staples customer, and fervently hope that it can fix these problems.