Marketing Influence & Thought Leadership

Why you need to know your Social Customers: Because they control your brand!

I am a Starwood, Marriot, Hilton member but it gets me almost nothing to be honest, I have been a United Mileage plus member twenty years, and I even have a frequent parking account. But what really frustrates me about a lot of these programs is that they don’t know who I am and many organizations are not leveraging them for competitive advantage. When I arrive at hotels they never upgrade me, and for the most part I never hear from these programs anymore. I remember a time when we got monthly statements about our activity and then they were moved to quarterly and then disappeared completely! Why because they forgot about us, their most loyal customers.

I expect more for my loyalty, don’t you? What many companies don’t understand is that they no longer control their brand, the social customer does. All of us should become social customers; this will enable us to drive up the overall quality of products and services in many companies and industries globally. Most importantly companies need to know who their social customers are; here is a real world example of how social customers are impacting business today. I am a social customer and now hundreds of people are reading my Trip Advisor hotel reviews. Here is my most recent post read by 100 people in less than a week, and so far the poor reaction to my comments about this hotel from its management.

Sheraton NYC Towers Trip Advisor Review

This was my second stay at this hotel in less than a month and I have to say it needs a major overhaul, all the way from the rooms down to the bell desk and into the club lounge. What was most scary about this place was the overall lack of security especially at 1-2am when no security people were at the elevator entry areas. I did really like the club level and the breakfast is fun and coffee nice along with the overall environment. The bar at the club was missing the martini stirrer and didn't have absolute vodka, a woman next to said “it’s always like that here.”

But let’s start at the beginning, we arrive late its 85 degrees and humid as we enter our stuffy room on the floor twenty and the air conditioner doesn't work. I call down to the desk and they say they will send up maintenance, thirty minutes passes no one arrives. We pack up our stuff and head down to the front desk this time pissed off. We ask for another room and I complain about the room assignment, the front desk attendant says "what do you expect me to check out every room to see if the air conditioner works?" I ask for a manager and he is even ruder, and guess what? I am a ten year Starwood member and our company recommends this hotel, I remind him of that, but he doesn’t care. They assign me a room above the club level, make sense? I don't think so, the next day I ask for the day manager, Zoe Cohen and she is nice and gives me 12,000 Starwood points. 

Two days later it is raining and we attempt to go out for dinner, the cab line is long and the bell captain is nowhere to be found, so I jump the line and get my own cab. The next morning we leave at 5:45 am and guess what? There is no bell person to help with anything? What is up with this? Overall a great location and it is unfortunate that all our European visitors are treated to the same level of poor service. I noticed many Italians during my two visits. The good news is our maid service was very good, but I don't think I will stay here again, because as a Starwood member I expected my room to be ready at 1AM. On my previous visit my colleague’s room wasn't ready either and we checked at 6:30PM.

Sheraton’s Response to my TripAdvisor Review

Dear Paul,

Thank you for taking the time to provide the feedback and recap of your visit here in NYC.
The content, although some of it painful is critical to our performance and garnering guest loyalty. I would like to discuss your visit in more detail if you have the time. During this conversation I will also update you on our direction for renovations that are coming soon.

We look forward to hearing back from you on how to connect.
Sincerely
Mark Sanders

Net/Net

 

Identifying and managing your social customers is paramount in the social media landscape of today and it can be a clear differentiator in many industries, in this case especially hotels as they are very vulnerable. I think it is great that Sheraton at least corresponded with me but the same lack of sincerity and thoroughness about their product and services was reflected in their response.  First of all they got my name wrong, they did not address one of my issues and a security lapse in NYC is serious. They did not recognize me as a Starwood member or even say we are making sure that the club bar is stocked an appropriately appointed with martini stirrers. I pulled the latest statistics off TripAdvisor and although the site says that 67% of travelers recommend this hotel, the number is actually closer to 57%.

The general manager was nice enough to offer the opportunity to talk with me, but to be honest; I am not too interested in communicating with you if you can’t even get my name correct. The power of social media today is the power of the community, not the power of one. If I was the manager of a large iconic hotel in the most visited city in the America I would be shocked that only 2/3^rd s of the visitors to my hotel could recommend it. TripAdisor, Yelp and many others are now the voice of the people and their voice travels globally at Internet speed. As a business, know these communities and leverage your customers loyalty in new and exciting ways that can keep them loyal and provide you with the opportunity to find new loyal customers that can enhance your brand.

 

Sheraton NYC Towers Reviews All (1,464)

67% of travelers recommend this hotel

 

·         Excellent                                             331

·         Very good                                            484

·         Average                                               275

·         Poor                                                     222

·         Terrible                                               138

 

 

 

Ratatouille & Why Small Businesses Fail + Sea Mice in Deep Basins

Remy

According to the latest statistics from our Small Business Association two thirds of small businesses survive two years, and only 44% survive at least four years. So that leaves us with more than half of all small businesses failing in the span of four years, ever wonder why?  I think a major reason is simply poor communication with customers and lack of sales engagement and expertise in the product or services area. Brian Head, Economist with the SBA Office of Advocacy, noted that the latest statistics are a much more accurate assessment of new business success rates, and that "as a general rule of thumb, new employer businesses have a 50/50 chance of surviving for five years or more." I found this information at business know how along with a their seven reasons for failure, which I don’t necessarily agree with: http://www.businessknowhow.com/startup/business-failure.htm

The Seven Pitfalls of Business Failure

1. You start your business for the wrong reasons.

2. Poor Management

3. Insufficient Capital

4. Location, Location, Location

5. Lack of Planning

6. Overexpansion

7. No Website

During the course of my career I started, cofounded and/or joined six small businesses and I don’t agree that small business failure can be attributed to these seven pitfalls only. In my experience knowing, understanding and engaging with customers to understand their stated and unstated needs is the key ingredient for success. There is no question that if don’t have the right location for your business, you don’t plan, you over expand and don’t have enough money you probably will fail and deserve to. Aren’t these all key management decisions? There are of course many people that have life style business aspirations and need to limit their businesses growth, and start businesses for all the wrong reasons. But today if you are not selling products over the Internet, my question is do you need a website if you are on Facebook? I would love your comments on this.

Engaging Customers

How many times have you walked into a small business and felt ignored? And how many times have you walked out of a small business without making a purchase because of this? I think this is one of the primary reasons why so many small business fail, lack of marketing and sales engagement by employees and small business owners. I also think that merchandizing of store windows and products within small business is another reason for failure. If the products and store doesn’t look inviting and products aren’t well presented in the signage then why should I go into the store? We are visually oriented beings and our journey begins with our eyes, although the nose can play an amazing role. 

Last weekend I went wine tasting in Sonoma County California with friends and visited a number of new small businesses in Healdsburg, a small quaint but up and coming town. Clustered around its center square are bookstores, wine shops, specialty gourmet stores and art galleries. One business, a new cheese shop in town looked inviting and we I walked in. Upon entry I saw a small figurine of Remy, the famous rat from the movie Ratatouille. There were two people behind the counter and no one greeted us upon our entry, it wasn’t until I picked up Remy and asked if he was for sale that the person who appeared to be the owner spoke to us. Even then she did not seem friendly or engaging, and did not do what would seem obvious to me, tell me where she got Remy and ask me if there was something special I was interested in. Not at any time was there an engaging conversation started and they never asked us if we needed any help, which I think is a stupid pedestrian question in this day and age.

Net/Net

When I walk in your store, don’t make me feel like a stranger, engage me even if I am a visitor to your town. Make me feel like I am welcome and you are not doing me a favor by talking to me. Small business owners need to carefully select employees with engaging personalities that will foster a business personality and environment that drives sales. In any business the customer experience or what modern marketers call “the brand experience” begins before you even enter the door, but in my mind it’s all about communication. All of this sounds like common sense, but it is the biggest challenge in retail today. Communications and engagement are only the first step the second and most valuable is expertise. And if you are a cook and have not seen the movie Ratatouille yet do it!

The Personality of Fish: Sea Mice in Deep Basins of our Oceans

 

Along the Eastern seaboard of the Northwestern Atlantic Ocean there are a series of deep basins often more than 2000 meters deep. Some have been named after early bathymetric scientist/explorers such as Wilkinson, Tilles and Stellwagon. These basins are unique ecosystems that are inhabited by bizarre looking animals and plants that spend their lives living in the dark. The fish and invertebrates have highly evolved chemo and olfactory sensory apparatus that enable them to find food, reproduce and survive. They are part of an ecosystem rarely seen and/or explored even with ROVs, (remotely operated vehicles) and this is where I encountered the sea mouse.

As a marine scientist I volunteered to do ground fish surveys up and down the Atlantic seaboard, where we often encountered, the sea mouse, Aphrodite aculeate. Sea mice are actually segmented worms and slowly cruise along the bottom like vacuum cleaners scoring the surface. I never had the opportunity to dissect one and examine their stomach contents, but I can imagine that is was a strange mixture of detritus, mud and other dead things. We often used Yankee Otter trawls to drag up everything from these basins and what I remember very vividly was the distinctive almost noxious smell of these animals live in the dark.

My favorite flounder species, the grey sole flounder can be found in these basins, along with perhaps the most disgusting of all fish species, the Hagfish . Hagfish are eel like and live inside dead things like some fresh and salt water eels. When the nets are emptied out comes the hagfish and as a defense mechanism it surrounds itself with a thick and absolutely disgustingly thick mucous and slime that reeks of the basin depth. Grey sole was a highly sought after fish because of its delicate and unique flavor. However, its populations have been decimated by overfishing of the basins, and because of our ineffective and dysfunctional government management systems. Until next time I wish you great selling and marketing in the millennium.