Understanding Customers: Social Media Teaches Another Lesson
Dec. 30, 2011
Marketing is the understanding of your customer for the cost-effective process of selling the right product or service at the right time and at the right price.
Inexplicably, Verizon joins the list of big companies failing to understand how poor research and judgment would draw fire from their customers and social media.
You might recall the wireless company announced a controversial $2 fee on their customers for making one-time telephone or Web payments. Less than 24 hours later, Verizon was forced to rescind the scheme.
Why?
Verizon was lacking in discernment, and the fee announcement instantaneously drew the wrath from thousands of jolted customers.
Social media was buzzing. More than 100,000 customers signed a Change.org petition demanding the company change course. A regulatory agency, the Federal Communications Commission, announced it would investigate the issue.
In turn, Verizon was startled into reality. It was a sharp reminder that Verizon misread the situation. To be fair, Verizon isn’t alone.
Just two months ago, Netflix backtracked on its decision to break up a division – morphing its DVD rental service into something called Qwikster. Poor sales caused the CEO to take a cut in his remuneration.
In November, Bank of America incurred the wrath of thousands of customers when it announced a $5 charge for using debit cards. Thousands of customers became credit union members.
What were they thinking? Why aren’t such companies aware of the implications of the Digital Age and the economy?
Apparently, executives need to spend some time in sales with customers. Companies need to think 1930s for business success. Consumer attitudes are changing.
Verizon, Bank of America and Netflx should have enough marketing sophistication to understand the economic elasticity of consumer attitudes and fees. To the businesses, they were only charging a little extra money. To their customers, it was a strong perception of greed and unfairness.
Add social media to the mix and the companies face a firestorm. Not only is it a waste of corporate time and money, such naiveté leads to a dilution of their brands and weakening of sales.
The Internet launched an era of consumer awareness. That was both good news and bad news for business. It gave Web users unprecedented power – power for them to research brands and prices – and power to share critical information with countless other users.
And given this economy, Internet users and all consumers are more concerned than ever about value. So it’s important for companies to use best practices to optimize their brands and manage their Web reputations.
It’s also a good time to review PR-crisis management tips, research their customers and make certain that they’re discerning correctly.
Again, the lesson: Marketing is the understanding of your customer for the cost-effective process of selling the right product or service at the right time and at the right price.
From the Coach’s Corner, before you’re tempted to make a possible catastrophic decision about fees or prices, consider eight simple strategies to give you pricing power.
“The only thing that’s worse than being blind, is having sight but no vision.”
-Helen Keller
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Most Small Businesses Make You Vulnerable to Credit Card Fraud, ID Theft – Study
A study discloses a disturbing trend – nearly four out of five small companies are storing unsecured data about their customers. That’s an indictment of such businesses, and is alarming news for consumers about their vulnerability to credit card fraud and identity theft.
The 2011 study was conducted by the National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA).
“How can this be,” you ask?
Nationally known security expert Dr. Stan Stahl, of Citadel Information Group in Los Angeles, knows why.
“Citadel works with small business leaders every day and – based on our experience – the reason small businesses don’t take cybercrime seriously is that they see it primarily as something their IT people are managing, not yet realizing the critical importance of their own leadership,” says Dr. Stahl.
“This includes establishing clear policies and standards for information use, explicitly assigning cyber security management responsibility to a member of the senior management team, providing cyber security awareness training and education to all information users, and ensuring that IT personnel are effectively managing the security of the IT infrastructure,” he adds.
The alarming results in the study first came to my attention after reading Small Businesses Don’t Take Cybersecurity Seriously, which was mentioned in Dr. Stahl’s security blog.
Hopefully, your business is not one of the businesses cited in the study. Cybercrime has become a global nightmare. My question for companies about Cyber Security: Is Your Business Prepared with Precautions and Response Philosophy?
For NCSA’s tips for small business security, read this post.
“Seventy-nine percent of businesses are storing consumer information when they don’t need it. It’s not protected. It’s not secure,” Verizon spokesperson Andrea Woroch was quoted in a published report.
For consumers, Verizon offers these tips:
Watch the people swiping your credit or debit card.
“You don’t want to blame or suspect everyone’s trying to steal your information, but there are people who will and are trying to copy your credit card information with extra swipes,” says Ms. Woroch.
Take extra care when you buy on the Internet.
“Don’t mark that little check box that says ‘to store for future purchases.’ you don’t want that organization, that business, that Internet website to hold any of that information,” explains Ms. Woroch.
Consider alternatives to using your credit card, such as gift cards.
Carefully study your billing statements.
“Lots of consumers overlook little charges that are being made on their statement and that’s how people are continually able to trick them and deceive them and steal them and take extra money out of their accounts,” adds Ms. Woroch.
Resource link: Dr. Stahl’s Web site.
(Note: Dr. Stahl is a fellow member of Consultants West, www.consultantswest.com, a roundtable of veteran consultants in the Los Angeles area.)
From the Coach’s Corner, here are additional cybersecurity tips:
Security Precautions to Take Following Citibank’s Second Reported Online Breach
Our Mobile-Banking Warnings about Security Prove Prophetic
“Being good is good business.”
-Anita Roddick
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Columnist Terry Corbell is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services (many are available online). For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule Terry Corbell as a speaker, why don’t you contact him today?
Microsoft and Bing: The Hits Just Keep on Comin’
June 7, 2010
At the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote speech introducing the iPhone’s facelift was big news. The buzz leading up to the rollout was deafening. Any time Mr. Jobs makes a presentation, it’s exciting for Apple aficionados.
The big news was supposed to be all about Apple when Mr. Jobs unveiled the new-look iPhone 4. With 16GB and 32GB capacities, it’s priced at $199 and $299, respectively. It’s 25 percent slimmer than its predecessor. It has twice the picture resolution, and has a computing brain with video-chat function. It will be sold in 88 nations.
As expected, Google is the iPhone’s default search engine. But wait, here’s some surprising news – a big secondary angle is that Bing is a search option on the iPhone. Now we know why we’ve heard rumblings in recent weeks about meetings between Apple and Microsoft.
“…Bing will be included as one of the search engine choices within Safari on iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and within the Safari browser on the Mac and PC,” announced Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president at Microsoft, in a blog according to CNET.
“Needless to say, we are excited that Bing will be included as an option in Safari because it will make it easier for you to search and get the benefits of Bing,” he added.
“In addition, we are continuing to improve our existing Bing mobile application for iPhone which makes it easy to search, map, and find commerce and movie times,” Mr. Mehdi said. “We will have a new release with even more great features very soon. For those of you that have not already tried it, you can find it in the App Store today.”
Microsoft’s track record in partnerships is really terrific. Indeed, in its first year, Bing also scored by being the search engine for Facebook and Verizon phones.
And I’m not certain it’s getting full credit for its successes. Depending on the research firm, Bing is credited with a 10 to 11 percent market share. (But based on this Web site’s visitor’s data, Bing’s share appears to be at least 50 percent higher.)
It’s also worth noting Google has been tinkering with it home page appearance, including offering an option to change the background. To use football-announcing vernacular, “Is Google hearing Bing’s footsteps?”
From the start, Bing has been offering colorful, informative schemes. For my SEO taste, Bing has a more objective search process compared to Google’s quirky approach. And I love the Bing mouse-over option on the news videos.
Frankly, I don’t get it when I’ve read bloggers’ posts about Microsoft having a so-so year. The company has had a stellar year in forming partnerships. That’s an excellent lesson for any company.
So regarding Bing’s progress, as I used to say as a young rock ‘n’ roll DJ working my way through college, “The hits just keep on comin’.”
From the Coach’s Corner, here’s more on the new iPhone.
Trends in Human Resources Management – Wharton Study
Some intriguing revelations have to come to light concerning developments in human resources management, according to a Wharton study.
The study considered trends in the human resources management of Fortune 100 firms – in 1999 and again in 2009 – and it provides insights for the future. All the answers led to one conclusion. HR is being accorded higher regard as a profession.
The study: “Who gets the top job? Changes in the attributes of human resource heads and implications for the future.”
It was researched by Dr. Peter Cappelli, a Wharton management professor, and Yang Yang, a Wharton post-doctoral fellow.
As for who gets the top job, 27 percent of the HR managers were women before the decade began. Now, 42 percent of HR managers are women.
The average HR manager is 53 years old. That’s up from 50.
“Why is not completely clear,” said Dr. Cappelli. “It could be a sign that the area has been stagnant as opposed to others.”
Conventional wisdom is that HR managers are required to have a broad business background. That was especially true in 1999 during a period of high employment.
During the Great Recession with dwindling union membership rolls and high unemployment, HR executives tend to have more of a traditional HR background. But Dr. Cappelli indicates it’s expected “top leaders” have general-business acumen to understand the big picture facing their companies.
The data shows they’re hired as HR managers 39 percent of the time from other firms. That’s down from 41 percent in 1999.
However, it also indicates the managers were hired at lower levels and promoted in a short period of time to the top HR spots later.
Preferred Experience
Many had experience working in these companies: Citibank, Dell, Hallmark, Morgan Stanley, Pepsi and Verizon.
“When a new person takes over that top role, the change in his or her attributes is quite likely to say something about the change in the priorities the CEO has for human resources going forward. Looking at how the backgrounds of these top executives have been changing should tell us something very important about trends in how corporate leadership sees the HR function,” according to the researchers.
While HR managers in the Fortune 100 tend to have bachelor’s and master’s degrees, fewer have doctorates.
Nearly 50 percent had international experience – especially in top 60 – a 300 percent increase over 1999 levels.
Twenty percent in 2009 had communications and corporate affairs experience.
Accountability has taken on more importance.
“The adage, ‘You can’t manage what you don’t measure,’ reflects this move to get more serious about control systems, especially where the costs are high,” said Dr. Cappelli.
“While HR lacks the glamour within the business community of fields like strategy, its actions have a profound effect on the lives of employees,” the authors wrote. “Human resources is a crucial point of intersection between the broader society and business,” wrote the researchers.
The study showed just four of the HR managers remained lasted from 1999 to 2009.
The study was funded by PricewaterhouseCoopers.
From the Coach’s Corner, for more on the importance of HR management as a profession, please see this Biz Coach column: If Mergers & Acquisitions Tempt You, Consult HR Pros.
