Smart ecommerce retailers enjoy healthier profits by employing conversion rate optimisation techniques on their websites. Smart recruiters could do well by following suit.

If you’re new to the term ‘conversion rate optimisation’, its essentially getting more people to do the thing you want them to do. In retail terms, getting more people who land on a product page to place the item in their basket and pay for it.

If you flip the retail scenario over to recruitment, browsing shoppers are your candidates, buyers are your applicants and product pages are your job ads. From all the jobs on the display, you want the jobseeker to select yours. The transaction, in this instance, is made with the CV.

Of course, it’s clearly not just about the volume of applications, relevancy is crucial too. So you also need to ensure an accuracy match between the ‘buyer’ and ‘product’.

So how do you get more relevant applicants to apply for your jobs?

The Ad Content

The most important element for aiding conversion is the content of your advert. It makes the ‘sale’.

Focus on the information important to jobseekers – the three most important criteria for job seekers are 1) the job title 2) the location and 3) the salary. It’s essential you consider all three; without them you’ll struggle to get the conversion.

So this means no in-house job titles – use standard, recognisable titles. Not only will they turn up in searches, it’ll give the jobseeker a clear idea of the responsibility level and position within the company.

With locations, nothing frustrates a candidate more than to see multiple locations on an advert. You may think you’re increasing your chances of applications by having your ad show up in a variety of candidate searches, but in reality you’re just introducing doubt into the jobseeker’s mind. Where exactly is this job? Do I need to travel to all these locations? Every instance of doubt reduces your conversion rate.

When it comes to salary numbers are always best, not ‘negotiable’ or ‘competitive’. People want to know how much they’re going to earn. Are you going to go to the effort of applying and interviewing only to find the job pays less than your current role? No.

Benefit not feature-led text – anyone that’s ever written successful sales copy knows this rule – its about them not you. Tell them what the job will do for them. What can they get from working at your company? Opportunities, renumeration, culture, progression, empowerment. Start your job ad copy by addressing their needs. Using your opening couple of paragraphs to talk about what your company does is a wasted opportunity to make a quick, positive impression.

The Ad Design

Whilst the content makes the sale, the design of your ad creates the first impression and promotes movement through to the next stage.

What does the appearance of your ad say about your company? If your ad is designed and branded, rather than just text, what impression is it conveying? Professional? exciting? innovative? cheap?

Include a strong headline – not always used on job ads, but common place on high converting commerce sites, a headline can be used to tell the visitor exactly what you can do for them. You have a fraction of a second to grab their attention – the headline will stand out on the page and if written well will entice them to read on rather than hit the Back button.

On retail sites and online banks, Trust Marks (e.g.padlock security symbols, Association membership logos) are used to reassure the visitor the site is safe and trustworthy to use. Does the same work for recruitment? Its worth a test. Try adding your Investor in People logo, membership badges for industry bodies, and any awards you have won. Giving a little insight into your company’s heritage could demonstrate your stability and pedigree to a potential recruit.

Use a strong, clear Call to Action – I can’t possibly overstate the importance of the call to action element in any page design. You’d be surprised how often this is overlooked. If you want the visitor to do something after viewing the page, then make it blatantly obvious what to do next and how to do it. Invariably this involves a button, so make sure it really stands out on the page. The wording is crucial. Don’t use dull text like ‘Next’ or ‘Application Form’, tell them what to do – ‘Apply Now’.

There is a whole load of science behind the use of imagery to aid conversion, but let me distill it down to this: people respond well to images of real people.

If you’re using photos in your company’s job advert, don’t use stock library images. Nothing says impersonal like cheesy grins on besuited models. If you want to use visuals in your ads, use photos of your real staff. Show me the people I’ll be working alongside.

Test it

I’m confident that applying the advice above will help increase both the volume and the relevancy of your applications. But don’t just take my word for it, test it. If the job ad is up on your site and gets a decent volume of traffic, try using an A/B testing tool like Google Website Optimizer to measure it.

If your advert is on a job board, try running two versions of your ad at the same time and see which performs better. It’s not quite as scientific, but will give you a good idea of whether it’s worked.

Conversion rate optimisation is not just for the likes of retailers like Amazon. It can be applied to any industry or business model that involves an exchange of information or a transaction. The smart ones are doing it already. Be the smart recruiter.

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Whilst I do have quieter times, I just can’t help coming back. I blame my iPhone for that.

Thankfully, I’m not alone. Take a look at the infographic below from OnlineSchools.org

Whilst some of the numbers are incredible, I can’t help but feel an affinity for my fellow obsessed social souls.

How bad is it for you?

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photo credit: x-ray delta one

“Oh no. Have you seen what this guy said about us on Twitter?”

Words to strike dread into any Marketer.

“Stop what you’re doing, we need to fix this. Now”

If you monitor social media mentions of your brand, you’ve probably experienced a variation of this scenario yourself. It’s not fun and depending on what’s happened it can be a small inconvenience or a major headache. Like any good social media-aware marketer this is why you monitor and you know how you need to respond.

You have a strategy for dealing with negative comments and feedback – that’s great, you definitely need one.

But what about your strategy for dealing with positive feedback?

Huh? Come again?

Silence is not golden

It’s very easy to focus on the negative but what are you doing with your positive feedback?

• Are you acknowledging it?
• How are you using it?

Let me tell you a story.

Earlier this year my wife and I took our first overseas holiday with our toddler. We wanted to simplify the journey by removing any hassles – such as the shuttle bus journey from Long Stay parking to Departures at the airport.

We researched online for chauffeur services to collect our car at Departures and return it to the door on our return. There wasn’t much info around and no notable brand names in the market, so we had no pre-established ‘trust’. It was difficult to choose, especially when pricing was similar. So we went with the cheapest one and thankfully we had a great experience.

At both ends of the journey, we had waiting for us friendly, helpful chauffeurs – polite, reassuring and ready to answer any questions we had. These two guys, probably amongst the lowest paid in the company, convinced us through their manner and actions to use the service again. They cared about our experience and it showed.

So impressed, my wife felt compelled to write to the company to thank them for the great service. And their response?

Nothing.

“What a wasted opportunity” said my wife.

Sharing the love

So what could they have done? Or more to the point, what could you do in your business to ensure you don’t miss a similar opportunity?

1. Acknowledge it

• Firstly, ask yourself this: who in your organisation will receive the feedback initially? Do they know what to do with it or who to pass it to? You have your onsite feedback form or email address which sends customer comments to a designated person in your business, but what happens if they write you a letter like my wife did? Who opens the mail? Do they know who to pass it to?

• You need to acknowledge the feedback. People tend not to bother to pass on positive feedback, so if anyone goes to the effort of doing so, make sure you respond. At the very least thank them. It’ll cement the good feeling they have just associated with your brand.

• How about doing something a little special and give them something? Along with your note, it could be a discount on their next purchase or an invite to an exclusive event.

2. Use it

If you’re in a crowded, price sensitive market with little brand loyalty, how can you stand out? Your margins probably don’t allow for another price cut, so why not be known for a great customer experience?

Firstly, you really do have to have a great customer experience if that is going to be your USP. You can’t blag that one. You have to examine your whole customer-facing service to see what works and what doesn’t, including speaking with your customers, and then make positive changes. Yes, it may mean spending a little money now, but it is an investment in repeat business in the future.

Okay, so you offer a great service and your customers love you for it. In fact, they love you so much they can’t help but talk about you. So how can you harness that?

• Testimonials – stick them on your site. It’s Social Proof. People hitting your site from a Google search may have no idea who you are or whether they should trust you with their personal information or credit card details. So show them what other customers – people just like them – think of you. When in doubt, people will follow the crowd when making decisions. Make it easier to see the crowd.

• Video testimonials – talking of which, actually SHOW them the crowd. Ask your happy customers to give genuine, unscripted endorsements for your service, using short video clips. Retail sites using video on product pages often experience an uplift in conversions because of it. Try it with testimonials on your landing pages.

• The great thing about videos on your site is that they’ll show up in Google results for searches on your brand name (assuming you optimise them correctly). A nice proof point for anyone checking out your reputability

• Use them in your email newsletter or reactivation emails. If you’re trying to get previous customers back to purchase, add in recent customer comments into your email comms. It may have been some time since they’ve used your service and they may need reminding of how great you are (or you might want to repair your reputation if you weren’t so great in the distant past).

• Testimonials don’t just need to go on your own site. There is a lot of value – both social proof and SEO – in gaining positive reviews on sites such as Google Places, Yelp and foursquare. Customers won’t always come to your site to form an opinion, they’ll check out what their peers say on review sites too. Why not add a link on your site to Google Places (Google incorporate review data into their search listings, great if you have a good score) or include a link in your reply to their Thank You email, saying how much you appreciate the positive words and would they mind helping out by posting a similar review on Google Places (or whichever is appropriate to your business).

• If customers are saying nice things about you in Social spaces, such as Twitter and Facebook, share them with your own Followers. Just don’t overdo it –a stream of ‘look how great we are tweets’ can be annoying. Do it subtly and occasionally, just enough to remind people that their peers appreciate your service/product.Harness the positivity of your new advocates – invite them to participate in shaping your brand and offering. Create a group that can either meeting in person or online to discuss ideas, issues and new creative. Make them part of the process and it’ll strengthen their advocacy. Remember, don’t blindly follow their requests, but understand their needs and incorporate those ideas that make sense for your business and your customers (win-win).

•  Share the good new inside your business. Chances are your colleagues don’t get to see much of the feedback from customers – though they might hear about the problems. Let them know about the good stuff and show them how they’re contributing to the positive experiences of your customers.

It’s very easy to be held hostage by negativity; afraid a criticism may damage your business. But focusing only on the negative is just fire-fighting. By addressing the problems AND harnessing the positives you’ll enable your business to both improve and grow.

How have you used positive feedback? I’d love to know. Please feel free to share your experiences in the Comment section below.

Related posts:

1. Social Media Innovation
2. Unfollow the anti-social media policy
3. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Customer Service via Twitter

In his post ‘Social Media requires a different perspective on talent – developing a social workforce’, Felix Wetzel referenced a comment from Brian Halligan’s (Hubspot) presentation at Dreamforce:

‘No traditional marketing skills and background are required, instead “hire people who speak digital without an accent. Hire people that blog, have twitter followers and are on G+”’

I’m sure it’s a bold and contentious statement for many, but from where I’m sitting it has merit.

For me, Social and Digital are about attitude. The skills can be learned, but it’s more about whether you ‘get it’. We’ve long since passed the point where we should be discussing the potential of the internet as commerce and communication channels, yet to some the thought of discussing – let alone doing – social media, ecommerce or digital is worse than a trip to the dentist. The words ‘tweeting’, ‘klout’ and ‘conversion optimisation’ don’t even appear in their vocabulary.

No, to be a success in the digital age you need to freely and readily embrace change.

The attitude I mentioned, includes the ability to question and experiment. Any of those pioneers at the dawn of the commercial internet had that ability in spades. They looked at the web and saw a way to challenge the norm, the traditional, and do something in a new and better way.

And because they needed staff to make their venture work, they hired people with the right attitude and skills – but not necessarily internet experience – who figured out a way to make it happen.

When I joined Jobsite in 1999, I was an unemployed photographer; our Marketing Executive was a part time doorman and our SEO expert was hired out of the kitchens of the local army barracks. None of us had any marketing experience, let alone any internet history.

Over the subsequent years, as the internet community and talent pool has grown, new hires into the team came with valuable web experience. Regardless of background, the ones who truly made a mark are those that continued the tradition of curiosity.

Today, as I welcome two new recruits to the team I now lead 12 years later, I urge them to question the way things are done, bring alive their ideas and not to be wary of experimentation. Standing still is no longer an option. Neither is being afraid of change.

And change is coming. Like the internet was a catalyst for change in traditional commerce, now social and mobile are changing the web. As traditional marketers were afraid of digital, now their counterparts must in turn face their own challenge. You cannot be a marketer today and not embrace social media. You cannot be a marketer if you can’t see how Mobile is totally changing how your customers are going to be using your product. Stand up and face the oncoming storm, throw open your arms and embrace it.

As Felix concludes:

‘Depending on where you stand, it’s either beautiful or scary.’

From where I’m standing, it’s a bit of both. And that’s why it’s so exciting, right?

Related posts:

1. Top 10 It’s Digital Marketing Posts of 2009

It was raining so I decided to take my son to watch a movie.

So we did a search online for our local cinemas, viewed the listings, checked the reviews and BBFC rating (for child friendly suitability), booked the tickets and checked Google Maps for the best place to park to avoid getting too wet.

Hang on, did I mention I hadn’t yet sat up in bed?

Nary a desktop or laptop in site, I did it all on my phone (I also later used my phone to check-in on Foursquare just to maximise the pain and embarrassment of watching Mr Popper’s Penguins).

My point: the smartphone has seriously changed my behaviour (and yes both my online and offline behaviour – I do many things differently in the ‘real’ world now due to my mobile access).

You’re obsessed with your phone, so what?

That’s great, so we’re all doing a lot more on our phones, but their use is still small fry compared to PCs, right?

Not so fast. The tide is turning, rapidly.

Ponder these 3 stats:

• Over 2bn mobile phones have been sold globally to date. It took 14 years to sell the first 1bn and just 12 months  to sell the 2^nd billion (Google Think Mobile, 2010)
• Smartphone manufacturers shipped 100.9 million devices in Q4 2010, while PC manufacturers shipped 92.1m units worldwide. It’s the first quarter in which smartphones outsold PCs
• According to the Wall Street Journal, PC manufacturers are struggling. Hewlett Packard, the worldwide market leader is apparently considering offloading its PC business. The only other leader thriving is Apple, due to their shift into the smartphone and tablet market. iPad pulled in $9bn in the first half of 2011 – 30% more than all of Dell’s consumer PC business.

So how much have they become part of our lives? When asked what they would prefer to give up for a week, 70% of smartphone owners admitted that they would rather give up alcohol rather than their phone. 1/3 said they were prepared to give up sex instead of their smartphone.

So what’s that got to do with recruitment?

Okay, we’ve established that mobile is big business and its changing people’s behaviour. So what happens when jobseekers start using it to job hunt?

Well, they actually already are.

In the 2.5 years we’ve been tracking mobile data at Jobsite we’ve seen traffic from mobile devices increase by over 1500% (think of a really dramatic looking hockey stick).

In Jan. 2009, mobile contributed less than 1% of total site traffic. Today it accounts for 10%, having doubled in just the past 12 months. That’s some serious traffic.

Those are impressive top line stats, but it gets really interesting when you dive deeper into the data to reveal behaviour changes.

A typical day for a UK job board sees a quiet start to the day before a surge in traffic throughout the morning with a peak between 11am and lunchtime (so I guess it takes people roughly two hours to realise just how much they hate their jobs). The afternoon is busy but drops off as the day goes on before an early evening plateau precedes low levels of night time traffic.

If you overlay that activity with the mobile traffic you see a very different pattern to the day. The typical commuting times of the day are very busy, particularly the morning commute to work – by far the most popular time of the day to job hunt via mobile. This supports the stat from Google that 65% of people use mobile to kill time on a commute. Except these people aren’t playing Angry Birds, they’re searching, shortlisting – and yes – applying for jobs on their phone.

Interestingly, the two other noticeable activity periods are:

1. Throughout the working day – so those of you with restrictive web access policies…good luck with that
2. Late evening – the early evening activity has extended into the later slot traditionally reserved for TV and bed

Begs the question, is Mobile enabling existing customers to extend their activity over a longer time period via multiple platforms or is Mobile attracting a whole new audience? (or most likely, a bit of both)

This isn’t just traffic either. These people are applying for jobs. 9% of all visits result in an application. Mobile applications now account for 5% of all Jobsite applications (and that’s a lot).

Why do jobseekers like mobile?

A mobile roundtable we conducted with representatives from companies such as Google, Microsoft and the IAB in May 2010, revealed 4 key reasons why jobseekers love mobile.

1. Accessibility – you’re no longer chained to a desk to job hunt
2. Convenience – you can use your phone whenever, wherever you are (subject to a signal!)
3. Privacy – no-one snooping over your shoulder at your PC monitor
4. Freedom – you can avoid corporate firewalls and access restrictions

Four very compelling reasons – all backed up by the Jobsite mobile traffic statistics – and key drivers for mobile job hunting growth.

Are recruiters using mobile?

Some, but not enough of them. Forward thinking businesses, and especially tech companies, are already there – using both mobile sites and apps. In the job board market in the UK, there are quite a number of iPhone apps in the app store and some have mobile friendly sites too, but it’s a slow migration.

Having spoken with people in the business of building mobile recruiting solutions, I get the impression that for many companies, it’s less of a case of ‘must have’ and more of a ‘hmmm, I think it might be too early for us’.

But is it really?

What does the data say?

Check your analytics reports for traffic from mobile devices. You might just be surprised. Is it more than you thought it would be? Check the bounce rate too. If your site isn’t mobile friendly, then chances are it will be high and your visitors quickly leave frustrated.

What do your customers say?

Have you spoken to your customers about mobile? You may find they are using it on a regular basis for other activities and would receive an enhanced experience from your company if they could incorporate your service into their mobile lives.

How you answer those two questions could determine a whole new direction for your business.

One final thought for you. If jobseekers are already showing an appreciation for mobile jobhunting in 2011, how will the recruitment landscape look when mobile usage overtakes desktop in 2014, as predicted by Google? And what role is your business going to take in that new world?

Are you ready for it?

Related posts:

1. Mobile statistics: Building a case for your mobile site & app
2. MOBILE: iPhone or Android – which is more App for your business?
3. Make your site mobile-friendly in 2 minutes

photo credit: garryknight

Which do you trust more – a brand and its advertising or the opinion of your friends?

Unless you hang round particularly unsavoury types then I’m guessing you answered your friends.

When you buy a product on Amazon do you check the reviews before you buy?

If you’re like me, you do. Why? Social proof. When in doubt, you’re not going to blindly believe in the spiel from the company trying to part you from your cash, you want to see what other people – like you – have to say about their purchase.

So you trust your immediate peers the most but you’d trust a stranger ‘like you’ before you trust a company. That says a lot. People are sceptical of the promises and intentions of companies. Of course businesses are going to say their product is the best in its class. You’ll rarely see a company admit their competitor does it better.

So if your potential customers don’t really trust you and would rather listen to other people like themselves, shouldn’t you be spending a little more time, effort and budget developing advocates amongst your existing customers so they can do the selling for you?

Or to put it another way, which do you think is the strongest lead – the cold call between two faceless strangers or an existing customer raving about your product to a friend or colleague?

Creating advocates

There are two approaches to creating advocates and they’re not mutually exclusive from one another.

Voluntary

A great customer experience will create more advocates for your brand than you can shake a stick at. If they love your product or service you won’t have to persuade or incentivise them, they’ll talk freely about your brand.

How do you do that? Listen to them. Discover where the friction comes when buying from you and your competitors. Take a long hard look at what you’re selling. Dissect it, make it better.

Want an easy win? Speak to your Customer Service team and ask for a list of the Top 10 most frequent complaints from customers. You’d be surprised how small and trivial some of them will seem to you. To your customer though, it could be the difference between a poor, average or great experience. Fix them.

Incentivised

You don’t have to just rely on people recommending you out of the goodness of their own heart, you can give them an encouraging nudge through incentives.

It’s important to get the incentive right for it to be effective. A few years ago you couldn’t traverse the Retail district of the Web without being swamped with money-off vouchers for cases of Virgin Wines. From my perspective, the incentive failed on three fronts:

1. lack of relevance – none of my activity was at all related to wine (and therefore my interests)
2. lack of exclusivity – the offer was everywhere, I didn’t feel special
3. lack of an actual incentive – I had to spend more money before I even got my incentive (a discount)

Give them something they actually need. Invariably that means more of the product they’re already buying from you or a taste of the one that is just out of their price range or budget. For instance, if you’ve a service based product, with a customer on a 12 month contract, give them a free month if they refer a company that signs a contract of specific minimum value.

You need to do the maths obviously. What is the cost you’re giving up versus your cost to acquire a new customer?

As we’re talking peer-to-peer recommendation, you might want to give some thought to rewarding both sides of the transaction. The Referrer gets a Thank You, the Prospect gets an introductory offer. You get two customers with smiles on their faces.

An example of this done well is LOVEFiLM, the (now Amazon-owned) film rental company. As an existing customer I can earn prizes ranging from a £20 credit on my account through to a Sony Blu-Ray Player for recommending new customers to the service. As the new customer you’ll get a free trial of the service for a specified period (ranging from 2 weeks to 3 months depending on the promotion).

It’s worth considering however, that a customer is still unlikely to recommend a shoddy product to a peer just to get an incentive. It would damage the trust within the relationship. So don’t focus only on this area at the expense of providing a great product and customer service.

Trust can take a long time to develop, especially for a brand. You can earn that by consistently delivering on your promise to answer your customers need. The good news is that you don’t have to do it alone. The time invested with your existing customers will pay off as they become an extension of your salesforce. If you can get it to snowball, customers delivering customers delivering customers, you’re going to look pretty smart making the change. Trust me.

Related posts:

1. 8 Steps to Fixing your Customer Experience
2. Cut your advertising budget by 10% and invest in customer service

photo credit: Joelk75

It irritates me when I hear Twitter, Facebook et al, blamed for loss of productivity and foot in mouth faux pas by employees. That inevitably leads to the discussion regarding banning the networks from the workplace or the introduction of a lengthy social media policy within the business.

Stop blaming the tools – it’s the people using them.

Extra Thick Crust, Hold the Common Sense

As Scott Stratton (@unmarketing) put it at Jobsite’s FreshThinking seminar, “Stop hiring morons”.

That may seem a little harsh, but let’s look at an example.

Dominos staff filmed themselves doing disgusting things to food in the kitchen before serving up to customers. They posted it on Youtube and were promptly fired and arrested for their endeavours. That wasn’t Youtube’s fault, it was the morons messing with the pizza.

Every time something like this happens, I just shake my head. Didn’t it occur to them that sharing this publicly meant it wasn’t going to end well for them? It’s common sense. Well, for most of us.

The Unpleasant Aftertaste

So what happens? Businesses panic, and before you know it, access to social sites are restricted or banned from the workplace and/or stringent social media policies are introduced in an effort to control employee activity (which ironically, is the opposite of being social).

This backfires on multiple levels:

• Your staff will hate you. That won’t look good on your employee satisfaction report.
• It won’t stop them. You know those shiny smartphones everyone has now? Makes your restricted access network at little redundant, doesn’t it?
• You’ll lose their trust. You’re effectively saying they’ll only say something stupid so best shut up and let you do the talking.
• You’re hurting your business by restricting your employees’ development. Get over the whole ‘it’s just people talking about what they had for breakfast’ nonsense. If you’re hiring the right people, they’re using it to learn from others through article sharing and discussion, they’re monitoring your competitors and the industry, and they’re making connections and forming relationships with potential new customers or employees. And if they mention what they did at the weekend, well, it makes them – and your brand – more human. And when was that such a bad thing?
• And the biggest blow to your business? You’re oppressing the best source of ambassadors of your brand.  You could have people freely talking about the great stuff you’re doing, but if you’d rather be in control of the message that’s fine. Oh wait, did I mention you can’t control the message? People are saying whatever they want about your brand, whether you like it or not. You could perhaps influence that conversation by participating…oh wait, you can’t, you’ve cut off access to those that care about your brand the most. This social stuff is difficult, isn’t it?

Actually, no it’s not. We just make it that way.

The Ultimate Topping

Stop hiring morons and give your employees access to social media and forget about the rigid social media policy. Policies tend to be lengthy and focused on what you should not do. Instead, educate your staff. Show them how to use the tools – for their own benefit, not just for the business (it’ll pay off in the long run, as socially aware, responsible staff who enjoy their work, will just love talking about the great things you do).

Most importantly emphasise common sense when tweeting, posting, updating.  Take a leaf out of the Royal Navy’s book – their social media ‘policy’ consists of just two questions:

1. What would your mother think?
2. What would your commanding officer think?

If that doesn’t stop you from posting photos from the Stag/Hen weekend nothing will.

If you feel you need a little more reassurance than those two questions bring, consider writing a brief employee guide to social media use, rather than an epic, riling social media policy.

The guide should be short, focused on the positive and emphasise common sense. It should not be about restrictions, it should encourage use, authenticity and pride in the work you and your colleagues have achieved, whilst raising awareness of the individual’s responsibilities. Ultimately, it should encourage the exercising of good judgment.

Whatever your eventual approach, remember don’t blame the tools. Hire talented, responsible people and encourage them to get involved. If they believe in your product and actions, then you’ll have a strong advocate to help develop and grow your business.

And you’ll never have to look suspiciously at your slice of pizza.

Related posts:

1. Social Media Innovation
2. Social Media: Are you listening to the good stuff too?
3. Social Sports: the ball is in your court

What do you think would happen if you took 10% of your advertising budget and invested it in customer service?

Your immediate reaction might be to think that whilst it’s a nice idea, it’s too risky to cut an advertising budget that doesn’t quite go far enough already. No Marketer in their right mind would willingly give up some of their budget anyway, right?

I’ll be honest, I’d be a little nervous making that suggestion to my Finance Director too. But let’s just play out the thought process here:

• It’s often cheaper to retain an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. This makes sense, as you already have the customer, you’ve just got to keep them happy. Yet, so many companies focus more on finding new business and playing the tricky – and costly – game of trying to convert prospects

• Look at your current promotions. They’re aimed at new customers right? Sign up and get 5000 free minutes of phone calls. Transfer your account and receive a £100 bonus. When you’ve been a customer of a business for several years, how do you feel when you see a better deal being offered to new – and sometimes brand-hopping – customers? Shouldn’t you be rewarding loyalty in your customers instead?

• One way to ensure a happy customer is to give them a fanatastic product or service at a reasonable price. And to keep on giving it to them. How much time and effort do you put into improving your product – changes both  big and small? Do you listen to customers or just use your own ideas? Do you monitor conversion data to identify the problems in your products or rely on gut feeling?

• Look at the output of your customer service team. What is the average response time to customers who contact you via email or a website form? How long does the average customer wait in the queue on the phone? Now put yourself in their shoes. When something goes wrong with your order on a website or you need to arrange an insurance quote, how do you feel having to wait so long for an answer?

• Look at the average salary of employees in each department within your business. Where does your Customer Service Rep fall within that scale? If they’re not at the bottom, I’d guarantee they’re not outside the bottom quarter. Maybe that’s fine – I’m not trying to devalue the skills and contributions of those in other areas of the business – but what is the gap between those salaries?

• If the average customer service rep salary is one of the lowest in the business, how does that reflect on the company’s opinion of customer service? Does that perception and the renumeration motivate those that do the role or those that are considering joining your organisation?

• Whether your company structure diagram acknowledges it or not, your Customer Service department is an extension of your Marketing Dept. – these Reps are your Marketers. They are the face and voice of your brand at the coal face and experience more interaction with customers in a week than most of your ‘official’ Marketers and Executive Management do in a year (or more). You want these people to be motivated, to be enthusiastic about your brand and product.

• Don’t think it stops there either. Whilst your customer service people have the most contact with your customers, EVERY employee who speaks to a customer is a representation of your brand, be they in Accounts, Sales, IT, Procurement, Legal or wherever else. The experience an individual has with these employees IS the brand.

So when you say your customers are important to you, that you’re a customer-centric business, what does that actually mean? That you care about their experience, or that you care about their wallet? Put your wallet where you marketing message is, by investing in your customer experience.

Scott Stratten (@unmarketing) said at Jobsite’s FreshThinking event recently “People don’t talk about average, they talk about awesome”.  Consider how you can you can apply this to your customer service. How you can get your customers talking about the awesome service they receive from you?

So that 10%, what could you do with it?

• To riff on Scott’s quote, awesomeness starts at home. Do something special for your customer-facing staff (and others too). Give them a thank you gift to show how much you appreciate their work. Don’t make it a one-off.

• Give them £1000 to leave. I take no credit for this idea, it is all Zappos. For Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, great customer service is the cornerstone of a successful business. So following 4 weeks of training and immersion in Zappos culture he meets with each new staff member and offers them $1000 to resign. His thinking – if they take the cash they don’t have the commitment that it will take to do the job. What would be the equivalent in your company?

• Give them the tools they need. Don’t make do with the tools and systems you provide your customer service team. Needs change, new products emerge – let your staff service your customers as quickly and efficiently as possible, using the right tools.

• Look at your headcount. You’re in business to make a profit. That’s fine, but consider whether you’re scrimping on customer service headcount. Earlier when I mentioned the average response time, what was your answer? Happy with that? If you add extra headcount, what impact will that have your customers? Providing better service can lower costs by 1) retaining existing customers who were considering leaving due to an issue and 2) win new customers who were impressed with your business when they made enquires.

• Consider time. Do your customers buy your products 24 hours a day? If you’re an internet business, then there is a good chance they do. So why do you only offer service between the hours of 9am and 5.30pm? Can you automate your product by providing a self-service option? What happens when a customer has a question at 1am – how will you deal with it? Can you earn new custom – and repeat business – by providing a product and support that reflects your customers’ buying behaviour?

• Hire or assign a Marketing Manager to the Customer Service department. Or incorporate the team into the Marketing Dept. If your service reps are truly the ambassadors of your brand, shouldn’t they have a greater understanding of your business’ goals, marketing message and company ethos? It’d give them a greater voice in discussions about new product ideas, things to fix, and timings of launches – the opposite of the current situation in many businesses.

• Continuing the thought on the awesomeness theme – what could you do for your more loyal customers? How can you say “thank you. I appreciate you sticking with us. I value your loyalty and custom. Here is _________ as a thank you”. The _________ is up to you. It could be a discount on their order or an additional product. Or it could be some other ‘value add’ or perk – like client activity days or free seminars. You’ll need to do the math. What is the activity cost versus the cost to acquire new business should you lose their custom?

• Of course, you wouldn’t need to offer so much customer service if you had a great product. Or at least one with minimal flaws. Draw up a list of everything that is ‘broken’ and fix it. Listen to your customers and staff and ask them what needs to be done to make your offering better. Scott at FreshThinking put it best – “Think Stop. Start. Continue. Ask your customers: What should we stop doing? What should we start doing? What should we continue doing? If you can deliver on those answers then you’ll have happier, more loyal customers. Don’t use the excuse of lack of resource to make these changes. If you can’t divert your existing resources, invest in contractors to speed up the development and delivery.

The list could go on. You need to stop and look closely at your own business. Where can you make it better for your customers?

Find out the churn rate of your customers. Is the number acceptable? How much could you improve it with a greater investment in customer service? And would the value of that improvement be greater than the revenue generated by spending 10% of your budget on new customer attraction.

It’s a bold idea. Are you brave enough to try it?

photo credit: Lemsipmatt

Related posts:

1. 8 Steps to Fixing your Customer Experience
2. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of Customer Service via Twitter
3. Salesperson of the Month: your Customer

Sport is big business. The competition on the field is nothing compared to the competition off it for fandom, viewership and in this economic climate, the fan’s dollar / pound. Recognising its potential, Sports businesses are looking to social media to help them reinforce and develop their relationships with fans – and of course to broadcast their product in as many different channels as possible.

Global brands such as New Jersey Nets, Manchester City (image above) and multi-billion dollar entities such as the NFL (3.1 million Facebook fans and counting) are already forging ahead with engagement via social media, including foursquare check-in competitions, Commissioner Q & As and team and player fan pages.

Whilst the Big Boys of sport are already finding success, would this work for other, smaller sports? What would this approach bring to leagues and clubs that are fighting to raise awareness and put bums on seats?

In his blog post ‘How football clubs can use mobile and social media to their advantage’, Felix Wetzel suggests “Opening up these channels would give live events a completely new dimension. It would bring even more energy and most importantly whet the appetite of all the people that are not in the stadium and consequently drive attendance for live matches in general”.

If this is indeed correct, are smaller leagues and clubs taking notice?

To put this to the test, I took a look at a minority sport here in the UK – Basketball – and looked to see how the top flight, the British Basketball League (BBL) utilise social media. I have a very limited familiarity with British Basketball having only seen a few games back in the ‘90s when there was a team nearby. So I was viewing this with fresh eyes.

There are two parts to my review – how the League uses social media on an ongoing basis and how it’s used for an event – in the latter’s case – the 2011 Playoffs Final in Birmingham, the showcase event of the season.

The Social Day-to-Day

Facebook Updates from the League

The BBL is clearly aware of the importance of having a social media presence. They have both a Facebook and Twitter account, and actively promote them in a prominent position on their website. They actually have both a Facebook Group (929 fans) and a newer Fan Page (611 fans), which is a little confusing , plus 633 followers on Twitter. I was a little surprised the Facebook figure was not higher given the 12 teams of the BBL have a combined 6,300 facebook fans.

Both channels are used to broadcast news stories from the league (all links point back into the article on the league website) and score updates during and after games. To a much lighter degree, Facebook has some conversational status updates (i.e. “Who do you think will win between X and Y tonight?”), whilst there are number of retweets of BBL Club accounts’ tweets on Twitter.

As such the league do a very good job of keeping fans up to date with news and events via two of the most popular social networks. Rather than rely on fans visiting the league website, they take the news to the places where their fans are hanging out. This is a good starting point.

Where they don’t do so well, is engagement. Their approach is broadcast, not conversation. I suspect a fair amount of automation in their social activity – likely due to resource, like many organisations. It looks like they use the RSS feed of articles posted on the league website to distribute to the social hubs (using Twitterfeed).

Whilst there is nothing wrong with streamlining activity to make it more efficient, the downside of this approach is that you can be unaware of what is happening in your online community if you’re not present. So you see a lot of news articles, some fan comments and questions, but no response from the league. Ignoring your fans is not a great way of developing a loyal customer base.

As an example, as a paying attendee to the Finals, I enquired via Facebook as to the schedule of events on the day. Attending with a small child, this information was important to me and not available on their website. Sadly the question went unanswered, probably due to an unmanned account.

The Finals Day

Let me just say the BBL Playoff Finals were one of the best, value for money sporting events I have attended. For £21 per ticket, you could see the Final, the All-Star game, a Schools Final, a French acrobatic Basketball Display Team and several other events. The day was very well organised and a great showcase for the BBL.

In terms of social media activity on the day, I had low expectations – and that is not anything to do with the BBL per se. Social media use as an event enhancement is still in its infancy. The NBA and Premier League examples mentioned above are more the exception than the rule, and I wouldn’t expect anything significant in a smaller league, particularly as geo-location adoption is still in an early (but rapid) growth phrase.

What I was pleasantly surprised to see leading up to the day was a fan photo tagging competition on Facebook, with a prize of tickets to the Final. It was encouraging to see them experimenting with this approach. Hopefully it proved successful, enabling more innovation in the future.

Upon arrival at the venue – the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham – I checked in on Foursquare. I was the only one, but it was early. Perhaps that would change nearer tip-off… It did, but sadly it peaked at 4 people. My chance at the ‘Swarm’ badge will have to wait a little longer. Maybe next year. It would be unfair to put this on the BBL. It’s a reflection of geo-location uptake generally.

A scan of Twitter around related terms revealed very little in the way of conversation from fans during and after the game, the majority being score and news article updates from the League or clubs.

Recommendations

The great thing about all the new social platforms, apps and technology is that there is so much to play with. It’s a great opportunity for an organisation to experiment and strengthen its customers’ loyalty towards it product or service. With the BBL, for starters, I would suggest:

• Monitor and participate in the conversion around the BBL brand (Radian6 is great for this). At very least, respond to direct questions via Twitter and Facebook. Preferably, start and encourage conversation.

• Merge the two Facebook accounts. You’re doubling your efforts and reducing your impact. Go with the newer Fan page (has benefit on being able to message all your fans) and don’t forget to switch the link on your website homepage

The NBA on Youtube

• Consider other social networks. A Youtube channel would be a great way to share what is a very exciting and visual sport. Check the NBA page on Youtube as an example. Put game footage up there. Let fans add their own videos. Perhaps run a fan video competition. The same approach could be taken with a Flickr photo account. In both instances, let the fans add content – make it theirs, not a corporate place – and you’ll strengthen their interest and connection

• Make it easy to share the website articles by adding social share buttons. Given the popularity of their networks, I’d certainly recommend a Twitter Tweet button (from either Twitter itself or Tweetmeme) and a selection of the Facebook suite of buttons (Like, Share, Send, etc.). This gives fans an avenue to share content of interest with their friends, removing the reliance on the league to be the only source of distribution.

• On game day during the season and at events, encourage the use of a hashtag, such as #bbluk or #bbl2011, so fans on Twitter can follow and join in the conversation (just don’t use #bbl as it means “Be back later” in Twitter parlance).

• Make use of geo-location technology by running a game day check-in competition. Using Facebook Places or Foursquare (or both), any fan who checks into the venue will be eligible for the competition – be it to win merchandise or perhaps a prize draw for entry into a half-time free throw competition.

Overall, I think the BBL are taking very positive steps into the social arena and it could pay dividends. Their approach going forward will be crucial. Social media use is growing at an astronomical rate and other sports are already staking their claim to space within it. If basketball in the UK is to thrive, the League should embrace social with a passion and view it as a central pillar of their acquisition and retention strategy.

How else could the BBL use social media to engage with its fans? What have you seen from other sports or clubs that has worked successfully? I love to hear your thoughts so please fill free to chip in via the comment section below.

If you liked this article, please stroke my fragile ego by clicking the ‘Like’  and/or Tweet button. It makes me smile.

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Is technology reducing the need to learn new skills? Do you think it undermines talent?

Recently I downloaded Instagram. Yeah, a bit late to that party, I know. It quickly became one of my favourite apps. If you haven’t seen it, it’s a simple app that enables you to take a photo on your iPhone and apply filters to produce images like the one above.

Not too long ago this kind of manipulation of images used to be limited to a talented, minority group of people who had worked to attain technical and creative skills, usually photographers and designers.

Today, I bypassed any study and produced the same results by clicking a button.

The pace of change

In my distant past I studied photography. We learned the technical process of developing film in darkrooms and experimented with manipulation of chemicals to produce effects not too far from those replicated by Instagram.

Shortly after I learned those skills, they became redundant, as digital technology overtook the photography market and enabled the process and manipulation of images to take place in the camera, PC and products such as Photoshop.

Today, I need no training, no time investment. It happens in an instant.

Instagram is not unique in providing this ‘leg up’. There is a proliferation of tools and products available today that enable you to take a short cut to results – the WordPress content management system springs to mind, and even Rock Band or Guitar Hero!

The role of talent

So, does this simplification of the process by technology make us all artists or is talent still the differentiator?

Clearly, the quality is not always there (my one and only attempt at Guitar Hero, a case in point). However, is it good enough for people’? If so, isn’t there a danger that the need for trained professionals will diminish in the face of commoditised skills?

There will be an impact. As with most things there are winners and losers. Specialists suffer as their skills are diminished by technology, but the masses have the means to become creators and producers themselves. New businesses and outlets (e.g. blogs, music, video) have appeared and creativity has been unleashed as individuals are no longer shackled by their technical skill set.

What technology doesn’t do, however, is remove the need for talented people. Talent is still the differentiator. Anyone who has ever worked with a good web designer and then built their own website using WordPress, will know the difference talent makes. The template of this blog you’re reading looks good because of the talent of its designer. When I first installed it, I was impressed with how it looked – I was even able to modify parts with some basic code editing – but there are still parts that I’d like to change – if only I had the skill set to do so.

Ultimately, Instagram and WordPress are just tools – very clever creations that have distilled something very complex down to a simple process. They have reduced the skill gap, but are no substitute for talent.

What do you think?

I’ll leave you with Baby Nico playing Rock Band…

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