Thank Ten Customers Today

About a month ago, some of my customers got upset that they were ineligible (US sweeps rules being what they are) for a promotion I designed around an event they planned to attend.  They complained on Facebook, and I thought they had a good point.

I looked them up in our database and sent them a handwritten note and some brand swag, just thanking them for being a Facebook fans and customers.

The couple hours I spent on that was 100% worth it. One of them even posted an Instagram photo of my note on our brand page.

Every marketing manager, VP, or exec should try this.  But don't wait for a reason to apologize.

Sit down and thank 10 customers.  They'll love it.  Reflect on why you do your job, whether you really value their business,  and keep that moment close to you.  

Relatisonhips matter, and having a great relationship with every customer should be your goal.

Jon Sculley: Being Steve Jobs Boss

Interesting article in Bloomberg Business week about John Sculley's new book in which he discusses his tenure after leaving Pepsi and becoming CEO of Apple.

This bit confirms what I have long said about Steve Jobs: that he's really good at saying NO, but that is OK because he is a genius.  If he were also wrong, it would be disaster. As culley putrs it:

Q:That drives some people a little bit crazy. Did it drive you crazy?

A: It's O.K. to be driven a little crazy by someone who is so consistently right. 

Operational Transparency

In his Buzzmachine blog, Jeff Jarvis writes about a Continental Airlines choice of transparency over secrecy after flights were cancelled:

Continental is practicing operational transparency. It opened up information is already has to us, the customers, so we can be informed and empowered. This way, I’m not cursing the airline and its employees. I’m well aware that our flight might be canceled and that’s entirely out of Continental’s control, so I wouldn’t blame them. But every time this has happened in the past, I hated being in the dark; I hated being lied to by airlines; I simply want more information. And now an airline is giving it to me. Bravo for Continental.

Operational transparency is only possible when someone has sat down and calculated the benefit of the true information vs. the costs of its absence. Good on Continental in this case, and we should all look to say more when there is no serious competitive disadvantage to secrecy- hiding behind “approved messaging” will just keep your customers from taking your side.

Heartfelt Marketing scores - Griffin and Dave Delaney

This is the kind of multi-media experience I believe any brand can undertake with the right people approaching a high-profile event.  While you would do lots of things differently to reflect your brand, the skeleton is here.  Chris Brogan's post on Griffin is excellent, here are excerpts:

Summary:
Dave Delaney and his company, Griffin, put on quite a great little project with CESBound. They took an old VW bus, after hours, and restored it, and then drove it from Nashville all the way to Las Vegas for CES. Along the way, they made media, met friends, told stories, shot photos, froze a bit, played music, and had a blast.

Key takeways (from the bottom of the post):

• Tell a story and tell it well.
• Capture the story in multiple types of media.
• Involve people by communicating and relationship-building.
• Tie it to your core theme and beliefs (Griffin is a lot about art, design, expression).
• Build a meaningful online presence around the experience. Don’t call CESBound a microsite.
• Do it inhouse. Near as I can tell, they had no external agency help with the project.
• Share the spotlight. Griffin also partnered with Threadless to create a special CES iPhone case, with BrightKite for location services, and more.
• Bring it all home. The team did a great job of telling a story that also strengthened the brand.

Kudos to Dave Delaney and thanks as always to Chris Brogan for calling out a rockstar story.