Linda's Marketing Leverage Blog

Insanity: Knowing Customers Are Unhappy and Waiting for Them to Defect

I recently terminated the relationship with the man who's serviced our pool for a number of years.

For quite awhile now, I haven't been happy with the service we've gotten, including the fact that the hot tub never seems to really be clean. But it was always good enough and in the overall scheme of things, it was not bad enough warrant the time and effort to go out and find someone else.

Finally I decided enough was enough. I found another company that offers a pool service that's more complete than what I'm paying for now (and not always getting) and less costly, too. The next step was to call the current guy and go through the inevitable dance of telling him we're canceling service, then have him try to convince us why we should stay.

Except that's not what happened. When I told him we'd decided to use someone else, he said, "Well you must be unhappy because the hot tub isn't getting cleaned, but it's too much effort for me to do this regularly."

Huh? You know your service isn't up to snuff, but you're telling the customer it's too much work to do what you've agreed on a regular basis?  Even worse, you wait until the customer leaves to have this discussion. Instead of telling me that you can't deliver the level of service requested and perhaps lowering the rate, you just keep on keeping on at a lower level of quality and hope no one notices or says anything.

In this day and age, one would think businesses with customers would do everything they can to try and hang on to them. To do otherwise, is just insane.

If you've got a customer that isn't getting the top quality service they expect, what are you doing to change that? Will you wait till they go to a competitor?  Or will you do something to fix the problem and the relationship while you still can?

My pool guy's last words, on the bottom of the final bill, "We've enjoyed providing service all these years and are sorry to lose your pool." Hmm. Too bad he didn't understand it's better to be safe than sorry.

The College Dorm Registry: Bed and Bath Goes Beyond

We're in the final days of preparing to send our daughter off to her freshman year at college. She's going to CU Boulder and we're in the San Francisco Bay Area, so it's not exactly around the corner. That means we have to figure out how to get all of the acoutrements of dorm life from here to Colorado. It'd be easier to buy them here, but who wants to schlep all that stuff? And with everything going on when we get to campus, do we really want to do all that shopping then (and perhaps risk some things being sold out)?

A lot of retailers have focused on the college market with back to school/college dorm special sales--Target, Staples, OfficeMax, Macy's, and more. But one store has really gotten this thing down to a science.

Bed, Bath & Beyond has created the college dorm registry. You go to your local BB&B, tell them what school you will be attending, they hand you a scanner, and you go through the store identifying those items you want to buy. These items will then be prepackaged and waiting for you at the local BB&B store closest to your college campus.

Not sure what your school will/won't be providing, or what you are/aren't allowed to have in your dorm room (no open flames, no open coils, etc.)? Never fear: BB&B has thought about that, too. They printed out a two page handout from CU with everything you needed to know to outfit a dorm room. They gave us a printout of all the items we'd selected, which will all be ready for us at the local store on the date we've chosen. They also provided a map from the campus to the store, complete with driving directions. And, we haven't even paid in advance! We'll pay for the items when we pick them up next month in Boulder.

What a great concept and probably not a lot of work, considering that BB&B has been offering registry services for bridal showers and weddings for years. The equipment and systems were in place--just a litle bit of work to coordinate with the schools and make this college kid-friendly and there they are. With just a little bit of work and creativity, BB&B has created a service that differentiates them from all the other retailers. Not only that but experienced parents tell newbees like us, "Don't forget you can do the BB&B registry service--it's great!"

Kudos to Bed and Bath for going beyond. Now if they could only find a way to get college kids to keep those dorm rooms reasonably clean...

Now the Fur REALLY flies

Stranger than fiction: It's now possible for both your luggage and your pets to have a much better flying experience than you do.

You've probably seen airlines like United promoting the use of Fedex to deliver your luggage (pushing the cost of this service from them to you). As of this week, there's a new airline devoted strictly to transporting your pets safely and comfortably through the air.

Pet Airways started operating this week with 5 daily flights, soon to be serving as many as 25 cities, and prices that are quite competitive to what you'd pay a regular airline transport your pet.

The difference is that w/Pet Airways your furry companion flies in the main cabin, with specially trained flight attendants who check on his well-being every 15 minutes or so, and make sure Fido gets to his destination in one piece. To start, some destinations may require a stop-over, but Pet Airwayws will include food, water, exercise and bathroom breaks for the pet.

What a great idea...another innovative service being launched in spite of the current economic conditions. Which just goes to show that if you are creative, you can find and exploit market niches that are currently not being served--in any economic situation.

There's no word yet on how they'll figure out who gets to sit in the exit rows or how exactly to handle the safety briefings (chew on your own mask before chewing on the ones of the passengers around you?), or even how to handle those Great Danes who want to stretch their legs. But security should be quite streamlined--no shoes to remove!

How are Consultants Weathering the Recession?

Women in Consulting (WIC) recently conducted its 8th annual compensation survey, with nearly 300 respondents completing the questionnaire.

To learn more about how consultants are weathering the recession, their outlook for the coming year, and best practices of top grossing consultants, join us for a webinar on Wed. July 22nd at 11am PDT.

Jennifer Berkley of the Insight Advantage and I will be sharing the highlights of the survey as well as discussing the trends we see from this year's responses.

Register now.

The Sound of Silence: Knowing When to Stop Talking

It's now been a full week since Michael Jackson's demise and more than that since Mark Sanford's exploits were first revealed.

In the time since then, parties associated with both camps have filled much more than their reasonable share of airwaves (and bandwidth as well), giving us much more information about the details of these situations than we ever needed to know.

I don't need to know how many times Sanford met w/his mistress or how many other women he flirted with before, during and after. I also don't need to know every detail of Michael Jackson's will (somehow I doubt he left me anything), or whether or not his children were biologically his or someone else's (they're legally his and that's all that matters right now).

Just once it would be nice for someone involved in one of these situations to make a simple concise statement, say that's it, I'm done, and walk away. Too much detail doesn't do anyone any good. Hitchcock was the master of suspense, but how much gore and blood did he show on camera? What was captivating about his movies was that the important details were left to the imagination, rather than spelled out in high definition in excruciating detail.

This is true for all of us in business settings as well: Say what you have to say, then stop and wait. Listen to the silence. Give the other person a chance to absorb what you've said. Don't try to overcompensate by telling all the gory details. Let the other person use their imagination. Let them think for themselves. Appreciate the sound, and the power,  of silence.

What You Don't Know About Your Online Reputation CAN Hurt You

Learn about the importance of online reputation management, including how to monitor your current reputation, what you need to do to repair damage, and how to stay ahead of the curve in the future.

Listen to expert Celeste Bishop discuss this in the latest episode of Marketing Thought Leadership.