Archive for Engage
Clienteling Not “Client Telling” !
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The latest buzz word in retail is “Clienteling“. This is where stores are getting their sales associates to proactively communicate with previous customers to inform them of news. From a customer’s perspective, this means that you will soon be getting “cold calls” from MANY stores in the very near future !! I’m sure that some stores will do clienteling correctly, but most stores will do client telling.
Here is my definition of the two terms:
Clienteling: The act of contacting a customer for the purpose of mutual benefit. (two way)
Client Telling: The act of contacting customers to TELL them about irrelevant and trivial info. (one way)
So how should REAL retail clienteling be done correctly ?
1) An honest introduction to the concept – Sales associates need to be honest and inform the customer that their role is being expanded so that they can contact customers directly (if the customer agrees).
2) An introduction to the sales associate - The sales associate needs to communicate exactly who they are and why they are worthy of being a “point of contact”. A picture, a short career bio, and some insight into the sales associate’s expertise and personality will make a huge difference when building a relationship.
3) A written statement of benefits – Give the customer an itemized list of the benefits that they would get by participating. If they are NOT convinced of these benefits in the early stages of communications, they will always view these contacts as annoying.
4) A formal opt-in process – The customer should fill in a form with their preferred method of contact (email, text, phone), and their personal interests (sales, new product introductions, events, etc), and any other requests regarding the associate-customer relationship.
In conclusion, I recommend that EVERY sales associate needs to have their own personal flyer that contains the four elements above. This is how one starts a professional two-way relationship.
GEOHELP: Private “follow” of Local Brick-and-Mortar Businesses
Posted by: | CommentsThe GeoHelp web site is where customers can safely follow local brick & mortar businesses. Unlike ALL traditional social / advertising platforms, GeoHelp lets you control your communications, and we do not share your private information.
1) RELEVANT NEWS: What if you could get information about a new product delivery, or an upcoming sale, or an event discount ? Or become familiar with the REAL PEOPLE behind the brands that you enjoy.
2) QUESTIONS & ANSWERS: The GeoHelp app lets you get answers to your questions using your mobile phone. Businesses can answer questions such as “Do you carry Gucci sunglasses?” or “Are Goodyear tires better than Firestone?”. These real-time questions (and more) from ALL of their customers are visible for you to read. So a type of business specific “chat session” gives you much more information about that business.
For example: When you are hungry, you can look at the business’s GeoHelp Community as see questions and answers from many customers. To ask your own question, just write a text message (or use our voice entry).
To follow a favorite business, just use the Business FOLLOW checkbox !
The GeoHelp by 2du® platform lets you choose EXACTLY what companies you are interested in communicating with (or receiving info and specials from). The directory is international and can be sorted by name, distance, city, and more.
Will Your Next Tweet Be a WSJ Headline ? (There Are Alternatives!)
Posted by: | CommentsBrowsing through the RSS feeds today and I see an article about a “press court” ruling in UK… it seems that an employee of the Department of Transport made some comments about “not liking her job” and she was “nursing a hangover” at work… well… it is not unusual to hear these things in face-to-face conversations but when they are on twitter it just might be tomorrow’s headline !
“Worker Confession – Trains are unsafe !” could have been the headline from those “minor comments” in a public social medium. Well, that doesn’t sound fair, isn’t there some way to stop journalists from using your tweets in their stories ? “I was just tweeting to my followers” sounds like a good defense in court, but this “press court” in UK made the following ruling:
“In reaching its decision on the case, the Commission judged that the publicly accessible nature of the information was a “key consideration”. It was quite clear that the potential audience for the information was actually much larger than the 700 people who followed the complainant directly, not least because any message could easily be retweeted to a wider audience.”
To her credit, she had included a clear disclaimer on her Twitter feed that the views expressed there were personal, and were not representative of her employer but the court still ruled that one can reasonably assume that this information will become public ! Ahhh… reminds me of the wiki-leaks case as well !
So in conclusion, if you are in a PUBLIC FORUM then you are speaking PUBLICLY. Your only alternative is to participate in a forum that both implements technical security measures and states that the purpose of your account is to conduct PRIVATE CONVERSATIONS with followers. These exist !
Click here to read the entire PCC ruling article.
Business Microblogging = “Most Effective With Least Effort”
Posted by: | CommentsI was reading a study by “Marketing Sherpa“ which gives a lot of details about how Businesses are using new media technologies such as blogs, social networks, multimedia, and more. Since GeoHelp uses a Real-time Business/Customer microblog, it jumped out at me that they found that microblogging was judged as “most effective for the least effort” new media technology for businesses… very interesting !
Benefits of Business Engagement
Posted by: | CommentsWhat are the Benefits of Social Engagement for Customer Service ?
- BRANDING – establish expertise and build awareness of what your business does.
- EXPOSURE – communicate with existing customers and expand your customer base
- SPREAD NEWS - Tell about new product deliveries, new sales initiatives, etc using less time and less money than traditional media.
- PROMOTE ALL TOUCH POINTS – drive traffic to all media initiatives (newspaper ads, blogs, web site, flyers, etc).
- PROVIDE FAST SUPPORT – answer customers questions instantly
- MARKET RESEARCH – get instant feedback from your customers.
- EMPLOYEE or TEAM COMMUNICATIONS – enable communications between employees or between project teams.
- BUILD LOCAL PARTNERSHIPS – both learn from and teach your fellow business owners. Identify co-op opportunities.
2du’s GeoHelp Platform lets you use leverage these benefits, and these apply to ALL TYPES of businesses including manufacturers, retailers, non-profits, religious organizations, and many more !
Please click here to see an example.
Click here to read more about our GeoHelp Platform.
A “Next-gen” Loyalty Platform Combines REAL-TIME ENGAGEMENT and MOBILE REWARDS
Posted by: | CommentsBy adding a GeoHelp Community to your website, you can have FULL CONTROL of your brand, the ability to capture leads, promote customer loyalty, offer superior service and capture valuable customer data to a hosted SQL database. Here is an example of a customized GeoHelp by 2du® Help Community that is added to an existing website:
LOYALTY features include:
- POINTS for participating in the conversation !
- CUSTOMERS get their own PORTAL
- REWARDS can be given INSTANTLY to conversation participants
- DELIVERY method is chosen by the consumer (Mobile, Email, Portal)
- Customer inquiries can be initiated via MOBILE SMS
- Individualized or group promotion targeting
- REDEMPTION tracking using linear & QR Mobile barcodes
- LOCATION, mobile position statistics
This combination of features is bundled in a very easy to understand consumer and admin interface that makes it FUN for everyone involved ! Social engagement + loyalty rewards is a WIN-WIN !
Click here to see the example above.
Click here to see the GeoHelp Portal
Click here to see the GeoHelp ADMIN portal.
GeoHelp – Advancing the State-of-the-Art in Customer Service
Posted by: | CommentsWe will soon be launching our GeoHelp platform which has many state-of-the-art features. Customers can use our iphone app to ask “How late are you guys open today?”, or “Do you carry Gucci sunglasses?”, or “I bought some paint from your store last year… how can I match the color when I buy more?” Businesses answer these questions using their own iphone app or via a simple SaaS support screen. This IMMEDIATE gratification makes for happy customers !
Now that a “conversation” has been started, why not send something special to that customer so they come to your store ? GeoHelp lets you instantly select from premade messages and send these to one or many customers in less than 30 seconds ! We call these messages “Super Messages” because they contain over 25 pieces of information including a YouTube video, QR code for redemption, links to all social media, and much more.
GeoHelp includes the following features which a business accesses on the GeoHelpAdmin web site:
- GeoRewards - automatically send incentives to customers when they are close
- Mobile Chat - offer VIP service and be “top of mind” when customers have questions
- Instant Mobile Messages – send a mobile video message to any customer in 30 seconds
- GeoMaps - make your business stand out on our location-based business map
- Instant Promotion campaigns - send mass mailing with powerful targeting filters
- Build your database – easily add notes and details to customer files
- No POS redeem system - the GeoHelp redemption system does not require POS integration
- Verify your ROI – track customer behavior from initial contact to in-store purchasing
So, hopefully, you agree that… location-based customer service has arrived !
Business Engagement – You Have to “Answer the phone” !
Posted by: | CommentsThe 2du team has concluded that we need to not just offer online new media tools, but we should also offer a FULL-SERVICE option to our GeoHelp Platform (i.e. REAL people who help you !). The challenge here is that when Microblogging is used as a Sales & Support tool, it is similar to the telephone from the standpoint of immediacy… if a customer asks a question on your microblog and no one answers… then that is a BAD THING for your business !
So who is going to be answering these messages ? Some companies will have “new media savvy” employees, but most will not… so 2du has decided to offer a relatively inexpensive service where people with customer relationship skills act as your “Social Help Specialists”. Now, typically… your Help Community will not be getting a huge number of posts all of the time, so this specialist will be “on call” to answer your microblog in the same way a 3rd party “answering service” helps with your phone calls. This Microblog Answering Service will be offered at a price level where it is less expensive than hiring your own employee AND we will be training your specialist to be a DISCUSSION person and not just an ANSWER person !
Discussions about your products and services adds interest and value to your business, and brings customers to your store or venue ! So here are some of the skills or characteristics that a Social Help Specialist should have:
- Answer in a timely manner
- Welcoming and friendly
- Conversational personality (here to “help” and not “sell”)
- Honesty about their role and knowledge level
- Ability to broaden topics which initiate discussion
- Respect customers as important neighbors
- Communicate the WIN-WIN relationship
- Clearly define any issues and the path to a solution
- Identify and contact appropriate colleagues when necessary
- Manage and follow up on the status of longer term issues
- Accurately report new media status to upper management
If you are interested in more info, please go to our web site ( GeoHelp Admin ). NOTE: contact us at specialist@2du.com if you are an independant contractor who would like to be one of our microblogging specialists.
Engagement Will Change American Businesses
Posted by: | CommentsTIME magazine featured Twitter on the cover of their magazine and used 3800 words to describe how “Twitter” will change American Business. Yes, the Twitter company offers the most popular microblogging system for “What are you doing?” usage, but will they be the ones to dominate when it comes to offering a professional ENGAGEMENT System for business applications? For example, if someone “tweets” your business asking “When do you guys close today?” and you don’t respond, then that is just as damaging to your brand as not answering phone calls !
Business engagement really needs a more flexible and complete set of features before it is ready to take on the tasks mentioned in the Times article. But… when twitter-like services are “ready for prime time”, then I believe their predictions are accurate. So, it is my opinion that Time’s article REALLY should be titled; Ten Ways that Social Tools Will Change American Business.
Here are 4 of the important trends that were identified:
- Hyper-Local Marketing - Opt-in demographic data will allow zip code targeted messaging. When mobile phones with GPS becomes more commonplace, geo-targetted marketing will be extremely accurate and dynamic.
- Making Old-World Advertising Work - business microblogging couples messages with mobile 2D barcode responses so that tracking when and where traditional advertising is seen, and when and where it is redeemed.
- New Ways to Get Consumer Data - having the ability to get immediate feedback about products and services is extremely valuable to businesses. This feedback can also be associated with opt-in demographics information such as location, gender, age, purchasing history, etc.
- Expanding the Power of Micropayments - Many companies are beta testing a type of “alternative currency” using microblog messages that can be used to pay for purchases less that $25. These would be encrypted messages or secure 2D barcodes which are scanned by a soda machine or a retailer to deduct money from a prepaid account. This system might be of interest to the 20 to 30 million people in USA (over the age of 15) who do not have a credit card or bank account. And… listen to this… a formal bank study estimates that there are 20 to 30 million people without credit cards or bank accounts who earn more than 500 billion dollars annually and put it under their mattresses ! Now that sounds like an opportunity to give them a simple and secure way to carry and use cash ! mmm….
Click here to read the full TIME article.
GeoHelp for Sales, Support and Branding
Posted by: | CommentsThe GeoHelp platform is undergoing final testing ! This system features a Help community for ALL participating BUSINESSES so they have their own “Mobile Support” page. Here is an example:
Anyone can view and READ this interactive dialogue happening between each business and interested followers. When you join GeoHelp (http://GeoHelp.com), then you can participate in the discussions online or using your mobile phone. Use this medium to 1) ask sales or support questions, or 2) find out about the latest news, or 3) to discuss relevant topics around this company’s products or services !
GeoHelp is a completely unique social networking concept: A verified user environment where participants (customers) are anonymous, yet businesses get maximum non-identifiable demographic information about customers who specifically REQUEST a dialogue with them. This concept allows businesses to customize their sales and support efforts to be more relevant to individual customers interests. This system enables businesses and consumers to have a much more personal dialogue !
Customer preferences are the TOP priority - The GeoHelp platform (http://GeoHelp.com ) puts the customer in charge of the business/customer relationship. Who to contact, when to contact, and how much contact one desires are all issues that THE CUSTOMER controls. Click here to see: Business selector or Mobile settings.
Privacy & Security are a priority – GeoHelp consumers are anonymous to businesses, (but “known” to 2du) because everyone’s contact information is VERIFIED to protect against fraud and enable the ability to blacklist a troublemaker, an optional PIN code can be used in SMS text messages to protect against identity theft, no 3rd party URL shortening is used to protect against links to malware, and much more !
Real-time Messaging- Imagine a restaurant that is having a slow night so the owner takes out his mobile phone and creates the following message on their microblog; “2 for 1 on all entrees for the next 3 hours” . This message is automatically sent to ALL opt-in members who “follow” this restaurants microblog (via web, email, RSS, or mobile texting). I think this example says it all… the power of real-time messaging will revolutionize many business sectors !!
Microblog admin tools are a priority – Businesses get multiple support tools which send notificationswhen new microblog posts are received, demographic data for each participating member is easily viewed, posts can be labelled with priority levels and issue status(answered/being investigated/unanswered), your microblog integrates easily to Google Analytics, customer historical data and sales/support notes are available together with each post, and much more !
BRANDING is a priority - GeoHelp communities let businesses have a “personality“, participating tells customers that your business brand is CUSTOMER-DRIVEN, GeoHelp has security features that keep your brand away from spam and malware, GeoHelp has features which encourage honesty and accountability, GeoHelp compliments all of your other marketing vehicles (web sites,blogs,social networking sites, etc), and GeoHelp lets you communicate ONE-ON-ONE in REAL-TIME so you can “WOW” them every day !
