Third Idea Consulting

(Classic film note: When considering the title of this post, please try to hear it in your head as, “D’ye folla?”, in the voice of the late Robert Shaw as his character from The Sting, Doyle Lonnegan, would say it. It has nothing much to do with this post, but I love that movie, and there’s something about using a simple phrase like that to mean, “Agree with me or I will have you killed” that resonates with me.)

The latest blog from ZDNet’s David Gewirtz informs us of yet another failure of Twitter recordkeeping. It seems that Gewirtz’s following list vanished, as has happened to most of us at one time or another. Sometimes it’s because of a direct hack against an individual account or group of accounts, a Twitter-wide attack, or just a database error. Sometimes the service collapses altogether. Every other month or so, something bad wrong happens with our precious Twitter, and the Internets go crazy.

Chaos! Horror! It’s the end of social media as we know it! Those were my initial snarky thoughts when I read the article. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how true those thoughts were. I would absolutely freak out if all the people and organizations I followed became lost to me. If it happened to somebody who followed me, I’d be concerned as well—especially if it happened to several of them at once.

Twitter, for good or ill, has become our lifeline to what’s happening in the world beyond our immediate perception. It’s instant insight into Now, faster than the news and cheaper than a long-distance phone call. (No, I don’t use Skype.) It’s also a combination of soapbox and open-mic night for those of us who think our opinions matter. Businesses (at least the smart ones that know good advice when I offer it to them) use it as a free listening post for trends, brand crises, and potential new customers. Twitter is officially a Big Deal™.

We can live without Twitter quite easily. Someday we will live without it, because the technology or the format will be supplanted by something newer and probably better. But to have it suddenly cut off or limited it like losing one of the five senses.

I’m glad Gewirtz wrote about losing the list of people he follows. I probably would have gone in a much different direction if I’d just read an article about somebody’s followers all disappearing. Number of followers is a useful thing to know, but there are still people using the number in a “mine is bigger,” locker room braggart way, and that irks me. Having their follower number lopped off is something that should happen to a lot more people, to make them realize what’s important—communication, not collection.

I was thinking today about the similarities between bad CRM practices and owning cats. I realize that telling you this and then writing about it may hurt my credibility, but (1) it’s true that I was thinking this and (2) I am really tapped for better ideas today, so here goes.

The dialogue, if you can call it that, between cats and their owners is mostly in one direction. I buy a new toy or type of food for the cats, and then try to interpret their interest—marketing. We don’t speak the same language, just as businesses often don’t think of a successful product in the same way a customer would.

Once I’ve started the marketing campaign, the next step in KRM (Kitty Relationship Management) is trying to close the deal, turning up the pressure in order to sell the cats (their names are Cookie and Dr. Harbl, in case you were wondering) on the wonders of these new rawhide mice, or frozen raw venison burgers, or whatever. Again, the success or failure of my efforts is dependent on factors I can neither predict nor understand. In time I might develop some insight to what these particular cats prefer, but I can’t necessarily communicate that information to somebody else, nor can I apply it to other cats.

Kitty customer service? Again, failure to communicate is the order of the day. I am prepared to respond to certain requests from my cats, so every time they provide input I try to interpret it in light of those expected requests: feed me, pet me, or clean the litter box. It took a while to learn that last request, mainly because my own data told me I was doing an adequate job. If I’m not doing what the cats want, they have limited means for setting me on the right track, and if they don’t lodge some kind of protest, I continue with what I’ve been doing.

Good CRM, especially the social kind, is like speaking cat language. Maybe that doesn’t sound like a ringing endorsement, but trust me—it’s huge. If you’ve ever had a cat deposit its “customer feedback” on your laundry bag, you’ll agree.

My latest guest post for Sage SalesLogix is up at their community site. You can see all the glory there (Sage deserves the traffic), or you can read it here, after the jump and some comments I’m about to make which are not related to that.

At this moment I am busily finishing up the chapter I’m writing for a joint-effort book about so-called Digital Natives, those people who never knew a world without cellphones, Internet, and other technological marvels of the modern age. (I don’t know what the title is yet, or I’d point you to a preorder link.) It’s been more difficult than I expected, because I’ve had to do a lot of relearning about how things are different with that mindset.

I’m not technically a digital native, but I was naturalized at a fairly young age (hey, that’s a good line; I think I’ll use it) because of my nerdy youth and the degree to which the school system and my parents catered to it. Still, I remember when every phone was attached to a wall or sitting on a table, except for pay phones on the street (which people actually used). I remember when high-tech home electronics included the Atari 2600 and the microwave oven, and cable TV remote controls were switch boxes hardwired to the cable box.

More importantly, I remember what customer experience was like before the data revolution, and even for some time afterward. Having this perspective is good for my work, but it also makes it a challenge.

The lesson was reinforced this afternoon at a visit with my doctor. I needed to renew a fistful of prescriptions, and she offhandedly suggested I could save some copay money and get a little extra convenience by using my insurance’s mail service. I know plenty of people who use such a program, but it had just never occurred to me. It’s so natural for me to take my paper scripts to the local pharmacy, wait (or leave and come back), and interact with the pharmacist directly, that I don’t think to do it any other way. I still haven’t decided which way to go this time. It’s not an issue of the digital age, at least not directly, but it reminded me of just how much we’re conditioned by what has become habit.

Anyway, enough of that. Here’s the Sage guest blog I promised:

I hope you’ve all had a good couple of weeks since Sage Summit. This was the first week back in my home and office since starting my guest blog for Sage just beforehand, and already it’s after Thanksgiving. That means we’ve just been through Black Friday and you’re likely reading this on its younger sibling Cyber Monday.

I’ve always been confused by Black Friday; so much importance is placed on one day that it could be its own holiday. Apparently, Black Friday is the Groundhog Day of retail, as one can predict the success or failure of the holiday shopping season by looking at the results. Retailers sweeten the pot by launching progressively larger discounts and special promotions that day, after teasing us with Christmas advertising starting sometime in mid-September.

I don’t see how it works. Sane individuals should avoid Black Friday like the Black Plague. Named after the chaos surrounding the U.S. stock market crash in 1929, Black Friday references the current shopping day’s murderously hectic pace and impossible crowds. Between that and the post-Thanksgiving food hangover, I don’t want to be within three miles of a shopping mall. Most years, I don’t even leave my home.

In terms of customer experience, Black Friday should be the disaster it sounds like, but shoppers keep on showing up and the lines grow ever longer. Maybe there’s something about walking into a retail war zone that stimulates our primitive hunter-gatherer instincts (hunting for deals and gathering merchandise). Or maybe it’s that the experience of fighting through crowds is what we’ve come to expect—it’s not a bad experience if it’s the one you’re planning on. An easy shopping day might be unsatisfying for such people.

Which brings us to Cyber Monday, the e-commerce equivalent to Black Friday. Unlike Black Friday, though, Cyber Monday is mostly fictional. (Economists will disagree with me, but I can handle that.) There are reasons to shop early if you’re doing it in person, because it’s hard to predict how and when shops will restock. (There might also be some gamesmanship in betting more shoppers will be like me and stay home.) There is no similar incentive to shopping online on any particular day. As long as you place your orders 10 days before Christmas, the items are pretty much guaranteed to arrive in time. No fuss, no muss, no risk of car accidents or brawls over the last Malibu Stacy Beach Bungalow in the store.

Some of you are retailers, but just about all of you work for a business that sells something, complete with sales incentives and projections. How are you managing your customers’ expectations of dealing with you? Are you subjecting them to a stressful Black Friday experience when you engage with them? Do they feel no urgency to close the deal, a la Cyber Monday? Or are you providing them with an easy, pleasant sales process that keeps them coming back no matter the time of year?

I’m about to start a guest blogging project for Sage Software, the company that brings you ACT!, Sage CRM, and SalesLogix. With their partner summit starting Monday, we figured it was a good time for me to introduce myself to the Sage user community, and here’s how I did it:

“Hi, I’m Marshall Lager, and if you read the ACT! by Sage blogs you’ll be seeing a fair bit more of that name in the coming weeks. That’s because Sage has invited me in as a guest blogger to provide my own perspective on CRM, Sage products, and customer experience. I’ll be kicking it off at Sage Summit, the annual partner conference, but I wanted to introduce myself and give you an idea of what you’ll be in for.

“You may be wondering, “Who is this guy, and why should I care?” Fair questions. I’m the founder and managing principal of Third Idea Consulting LLC, a consultancy focusing on CRM, especially social CRM and the increased power social media have given to customers. Those of you who read CRM magazine may also know me from there, where I was senior editor for four and a half excellent years. I’m the guy who wrote (and still writes) the back page column, Pint of View.

“That tells you a bit about who and what I am, but it might be just as useful to tell you who and what I am not.

• I am not a Sage implementer, employee, or partner. I am being paid formy writing, and I respect Sage’s products and am familiar enough with them to not make a fool of myself or the company. If you have specific technical questions about integration, business processes, or software capabilities, though, you’ll be better off talking to a Sage exec or ACT! Certified Consultant (ACC). I’m more of an ideas guy.
• I am not a spokesperson for anybody’s brand but my own. But maybe I can help you with yours. One of my chief contentions is that businesses don’t have the monodirectional control of their communications or their brands that they once did, and I think it’s a good thing. I’m all about customer empowerment, and how it can ultimately make businesses better. As such, I don’t really care what CRM system or techniques you use, as long as you are doing whatever it takes to keep your customers coming back with smiles on their faces, cash in their hands, and referrals in their mouths.
• I am not always serious. Writing is a pleasure for me. Thinking about CRM is also a pleasure. Combining them makes me do a little happy dance in my brain. At the same time, I realize that serious business shouldn’t always be serious, and we all need a change of perspective from time to time in order to prevent tunnel vision. Again, readers of Pint of View already know what I’m talking about. You might not always agree with me, or laugh with me, or find my comments in good taste, but they should make you think. If that’s happening, I’m doing my job.

“So, what can you expect from me? Over the next couple of months, I’ll be providing you with my perspective on the CRM industry, Sage news, and the state of customer/company dialogue in general. I’m starting with Sage Summit because it’s a big event, so you will see me all over the conference, talking to people like you about what matters to you. There will probably be some video podcasts or Q&A sessions along the way, so you can interact more directly with me.

“I’m also available for phone consultations, on-site visits, white papers, weddings, and bar mitzvahs. But you’ll have to pay me. The guest blog is entirely at your disposal. I hope you find it useful.”

There it is. If anybody’s going to be in the Atlanta area this week, look for me with notebook and Flip video in hand, trying to provide my perspective on what’s going on with Sage. I’ll be continuing the guest blog for a couple of months, and will mirror it here. I’m looking forward to the access to Sage that this will give me, as well as the chance to affect its users and partners in a (hopefully) positive way.

Okay, there are far more reasons to pay close attention to customer opinions than what I’m about to present, but this one’s as good a reason as any. According to a joint study (PDF) by LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Interactive, there’s a pretty wide gap between what marketing professionals and customers think are effective advertisements. (See coverage by AdWeek here.)

The Harris poll explores two main questions: general effectiveness of advertising type, and ads addressing the economic crisis. It’s never explicitly stated, but the poll appears to be focused on TV advertising. Whether or not that’s true, the results can likely be extrapolated to other advertising media.

In terms of general effectiveness, the three biggest gaps are for ads that make the viewer stop and think, that provide new information, and that are integrated into the look and feel of the show they appear with.

• More than half of marketers (53 percent) think ads that make the viewer stop and think are very effective, but just 30 percent of viewers feel that way. That’s a 23 percent margin, for those of you scoring at home.
• Ads that provide new information are only slightly close to the mark: 51 percent of marketers versus 29 percent of viewers feel they’re very effective, a 22 percent gap.
• Ads that are integrated into the feel of a program (The MythBusters build team and their Diesel Diaries commercials for Volkswagen are the best example I can think of) fare particularly poorly, in my opinion. While the gap is “only” 19 percent (26 percent of marketers vs. 7 percent of viewers), it’s a ratio of 3.7:1 which tells me money and effort is being wasted. Informative ads, according to Harris, have 37 percent of marketers and 30 percent of viewers saying they’re very effective, so for every $37 spent you could say that $30 is going to the right place. With integrated-feel ads, every $37 spent equates to $10 spent well. This is not the mathematics of success.

I must say I am shocked—shocked—to discover that marketers don’t have their fingers firmly on the pulse of the people they’re trying to attract.

No, actually I’m not shocked at all.

Let’s be fair to marketers, though. They (as a profession) have had to adjust in recent years to a demand from the C-level for measurability and accountability. (Excellent article from 2007 here; fresher commentary here.) It’s not an easy thing to have to make wholesale changes to the way you ply your craft, but the marketing department has done so. Now they’re being asked to adjust again, using not only new techniques but new media as well.

“Tough,” you say. “Change is part of growth, so why should anybody get to make excuses?” (I hope somebody said that, otherwise I look like a jerk.) When you’re learning new things while still expected to deliver something useful, you tend to fall back on old habits, good or otherwise. For too long, marketing’s job was to create markets for products—conjuring demand for new products, rather than answering existing demand. This led members of the profession to sometimes value their own opinions over those of the public. This happens when ANY group of insiders/experts becomes too insulated, but marketers have been singled out in recent years as the prime example.

The disconnect between marketers and the marketed-to is just one more reason why social media needs to be integrated into any smart CRM practice. Rather than spending advertising and marketing money on extended campaigns only to find out months later that they’re a failure, the CMO and her team can find out within hours or days whether their efforts have gone awry. Sure, you don’t pull a campaign because of negative initial reactions alone—sometimes a spot needs to grow on people—but in the long run companies will save precious budget and deliver what customers want to see far more effectively.

OK, first a disclaimer and personal note: I don’t intend to minimize, ensnarkify, or otherwise make bones on the death of Michael Jackson. It will probably happen anyway, because I have the self control of a cracked-out hummingbird. Let me just say that, while I’d never have described myself as a fan, and Michael’s public image drifted past mockable and into pitiable a long time ago, he was a powerful force in music and entertainment. Starting with the Jackson 5, he brought some great music to the world. Thriller is still the top-selling album of all time. Oh, and could he dance—Sammy Davis Jr. and Fred Astaire (among a great many others) seriously admired Michael’s moves. Admit it, you used to try to Moonwalk because Michael did it. There’s more to Michael Jackson than I’ll ever know, and while parts of his life were unfortunate, ugly, and even self-destructive, I respect a great entertainer when I see one, and Michael qualifies.

The Internet nearly broke on June 25, 2009. It wasn’t hackers, EMP, sunspots, or an earthquake at a critical server farm. No, it was far, far worse.

A celebrity had died.

The first I heard of the situation was from good friend and former office-mate Josh Weinberger (or @kitson to you Twitter addicts), who linked me celebrity gossip site TMZ’s report that Michael Jackson had died suddenly. The journalist in me expressed doubt, and I looked for confirmation; early reports from sources I considered more trustworthy said the 50-year-old pop icon had collapsed, been revived, and taken to a hospital, but the granular truth never became clear to me. Whatever the specifics, the King of Pop was dead, and bloggers and tweeters beat the major news sources to the story.

I’m not going to get into a fight over why a famous person’s death should become world news, especially when there’s so much else going on that could have a material effect on our lives. I’ll let Datamonitor analyst Ryan Joe’s Facebook status update sing that song.

There had already been two other celeb passings that week, but they didn’t make as big an impact. EdMcMahon was 86 and clearly slowing down (is it too soon to resume calling him Old McMan?), and Farrah Fawcett had terminal cancer, so to be blunt their passings were a matter of time.

Michael was a true surprise, and he seems to have had a much bigger and more vocal fan base. The sudden traffic spike brought browsers to a screeching halt; sources at Google said the surge in queries seemed like an attack.

Not Jacko's EKG, Google's.

As with any news of this sort, it gets worse. On the heels of the news of Michael’s death, rumors began to spread that Jeff Goldblum had fallen to his death while on a location shoot in New Zealand. Similar stories concerning Harrison Ford started circulating, then a number of other stars got the R.I.P. treatment.

Goldblum answered back with the only force more powerful than a twitterstorm: the Colbert Report.

Whenever a famous person of any magnitude is reported dead and there’s no reason to expect it, one will always be well-served to check the rumor to make sure it isn’t complete bullshit. The fact that the (confirmed) deaths of pitchman Billy Mays and impressionist-comic Fred Travalena barely made a ripple can be attributed as much to the sudden skepticism caused by the hoaxes as to the relative dimness of their stars. (Sorry guys, but anybody who thinks either of these fellows is on the same tier as those I’ve just mentioned has been watching way too many infomercials and ’70s reruns.)

Twitter is a powerful force because of its immediacy, but also because the 140-character limit means that details are lost or ignored—only the headline gets picked up, and lies can spread as fast as truth. On the one hand, I’m glad that somebody (an asshole, but somebody) decided to inject a little perspective into the rumor mill, and remind us that crowdsourced =/= accurate. On the other hand, such a demonstration could weaken or slow the adoption of social media, and that would be something else to mourn.